SPEAKING FRANKLY. Raymond Seitz, the first career diplomat ever to serve as America's ambassador to Great Britain, retired last week at 53 after three years in the job. In a London interview with U.S. News's Robin Knight, he questioned Bill Clinton's handling of global issues and called for a new approach to foreign affairs.
Taking charge. There are certain things only a president can do. You really can't subcontract foreign policy. You just can't. To approach it by saying, "You take care of this, Warren, I'm busy over here," just doesn't work. It's the nature of the presidency. It's all going to end up on his desk.
Priorities. There is no substitute for conceptual, analytical thinking, the serious identification of American foreign policy interests and some sense of their priorities and interrelationships. We haven't gotten very far on that score. ... We really need to involve ourselves [in the world], to be active and to be seen to be actively engaged, understanding, attentive, responsive rather than fitful. Because we come across now as fitful.
Balkans. Bosnia is the cruelest test. We are still trying to figure out what our foreign policy ought to be, and suddenly along comes this horrible, ugly thing. Europeans look at us and are disturbed that we seem incapable of establishing what our interest is.
Changes. There's no confidence in Europe that the administration, or the United States, has adapted to the big changes in the world, identified what is important and what is not important and what the priorities are, and can come up not with positions but with policies. ... We will be condemned to use our power clumsily until we have a much clearer sense of what we want.
