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Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.6 KB | 114 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 27

THE POLITICAL INTEREST

Clinton's Foreign Policy Jujitsu


By Michael Kramer


    Even before Paul Tsongas quit the show last week, an aide
to Bill Clinton described the front runner's new focus in three
words: "Bush, Bush, Bush." Clinton believes that a successful
presidential candidate must view the primary- and
general-election campaigns as a single play in two acts rather
than as two one-act dramas; the sooner one can articulate the
general campaign's themes the better. So if the schedule holds
-- and perhaps as early as this week -- the nominee-presumptive
will deliver a major foreign policy address.

    Why foreign affairs and why now? With the anemic economy
showing signs of recovery, Clinton knows that in the fall Bush
will be playing his strongest card and that even in a world of
reduced threats Clinton must pass the threshold test: Can
Americans trust him as Commander in Chief? Better, then, to lay
some markers down early, especially when his critique and
prescriptions are essentially centrist. There is also the
possibility for an elegant piece of what Mario Cuomo calls
"political jujitsu" -- stealing your opponent's thunder in an
area he is perceived as owning.

    To accomplish this trick, the probable centerpiece of
Clinton's speech will involve how and to what extent the U.S.
should aid the former Soviet Union. Stung by Pat Buchanan's
isolationist attacks and the common criticism that he has spent
too much time on foreign affairs, Bush has virtually ignored the
issue. In pleading poverty ("There isn't a lot of money around
. . . I don't have a blank check") and refusing to heed Richard
Nixon's warnings about chaos and a return to dictatorship in the
Commonwealth of Independent States, Bush has offered Clinton a
window of opportunity. (If it closes, if Bush jumps out with his
own ideas for C.I.S. assistance before Clinton can, the
candidate will shift his emphasis.)

    Clinton is already on record as favoring a sizable C.I.S.
aid program, so his upcoming remarks will represent an
elaboration rather than an expedient first-time treatment of the
issue. "We should spend a couple of billion dollars for food and
medical shipments and to help the C.I.S. dismantle its nuclear
weapons and to help the republics convert to a marketable
currency and a market economy," Clinton said several months ago.
"Spending now will save us billions in lower defense costs
forever and will within five or so years increase trade
opportunities dramatically."

    According to deputy campaign manager George Steph
anopoulos, Clinton will flesh out those sentences and go a bit
beyond. A potential highlight will be Clinton's embrace of the
"Democracy Corps" bill introduced by Representative Dave McCurdy
earlier this month. With the bipartisan support of Republicans
such as Representative Henry Hyde and Senator John McCain,
McCurdy wants to replicate a feature of the Marshall Plan.
Called "America Houses," the program dispatched U.S. civilians
to live in Germany, where they helped coordinate public and
private assistance from abroad and reintroduced a war-ravaged
people to the culture of freedom. In the C.I.S., American
experts in business, labor, public administration, human rights
and judicial processes would do much the same during two-year
stints. "Unless steps are taken to stabilize the social and
political situation," says McCurdy, financial "assistance could
amount to pouring water into a sieve." A particular charm of
McCurdy's notion is its meager cost, $160 million over three
years. It seems a small idea, but it isn't, and it's different
-- and Clinton needs to do more than "me too" whatever the
Administration offers in the coming months.

    The other, major feature of Clinton's speech will probably
involve collective security. Rejecting the Pentagon's apparent
desire to be the world's policeman, Clinton will describe ways
to deal with the minor but important crises that will
characterize the post-cold war era. In an address last year,
Clinton spoke of "a United Nations rapid-deployment force that
could be used for purposes beyond traditional peacekeeping, such
as standing guard at the borders of countries threatened by
aggression, preventing attacks on civilians, providing
humanitarian relief, and combatting terrorism and drug
trafficking." Building on the work of Columbia University law
professor Richard Gardner, Clinton will preserve America's right
of unilateral action as he urges multilateralism wherever
possible.

    The rub concerns "preventing attacks on civilians," four
words that signal a vast departure from U.S. policy -- the
possibility that Washington will encourage military operations
designed to assist maltreated citizens within their own borders.
Such intervention is still a no-no, Gardner concedes, "but
protecting the Kurds inside Iraq shows that the parameters are
moving." If Clinton pushes the current constraints, he will
serve his and the Democratic Party's traditional concern for
human rights, but he will also assume a new and potentially
dangerous mission for both the U.N. and the U.S. If Bush demurs,
the debate will be worth watching.

    While intervening in another nation's internal affairs may
be something Clinton refrains from sanctioning at this point,
his proposals for aiding the former Soviet Union could yield an
unexpected benefit. If Clinton delivers, Richard Nixon says he
is prepared to bless the Democrat's ideas publicly as "great" --
a jujitsu coup even Mario Cuomo would notice.