In the days before The Speech, an internal debate raged over the rationale for a Haiti invasion: Should the president make the case that America's credibility is at stake? After all, he had already been saying that for weeks. And National Security Adviser Tony Lake had spoken publicly about the "essential reliability" of the United States as the first justification on the administration's list -- above human rights, above the refugee problem, above promoting democracy in this hemisphere. State Department honchos David Gergen and Tom Donilon, two men with considerable accumulated political expertise, were horrified at the idea, and with good reason. "Lake wanted to paint a target on Bill Clinton's chest and say, `Send the arrow here,'" says one top administration official. "This could not be seen as being about Bill Clinton."
So they were very careful. When Clinton listed his reasons for invasion on prime-time television, credibility was at the bottom of the list, where it was carefully rephrased as "reliability." But semantic tricks could not shake the unstated truth: that the conflict in Haiti has more to do with President Clinton's credibility than with the nation's. In its decision to deliver daily threats to the Haitian military, the administration became a victim of the expectations it worked so tirelessly to raise. In the real world (as opposed to a political campaign), the threat of force implies a willingness to use it; if the last- ditch efforts by Jimmy Carter's delegation fail to budge Raoul Cedras & Co., Clinton & Co. will have no choice but to go in. "We stuck out our nose," says one White House staffer. "Now we must follow through." Clinton's plea for support from the Oval Office oddly recalled a ghost from the past -- Lyndon Johnson, sadly confusing his personal credibility with the national interest, calling for a war with little public support.
Yet grant Clinton this: He is keeping his word. And no one, save Dan Quayle and other rabid Republicans, would argue that the president is pandering to domestic politics. (Unpopular military invasions are not a preferred midterm election topic.) The irony, of course, is that Clinton gets no credit for such uncharacteristic behavior, dubbed "courageous" by one top White House adviser. To the public and Congress, invading Haiti just seems like an act of desperation. "This comes totally at the end of the trail at which they wring their hands and say, `Come to the rescue,'" says Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, usually a GOP voice of moderation. "People in high places don't get into this situation unless they're incompetent." Even half of the Congressional Black Caucus -- whom Republicans wrongly paint as Clinton's key foreign-policy advisers -- is against this action. "By ratcheting up the stakes and staring across the table, someone has to blink," says the caucus chairman, Kweisei Mfume, who opposes invasion.
One operational copter. Credibility is, in fact, a critical diplomatic concept. Lugar worries we may be losing it in North Korea; in Bosnia, says Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, it is already gone. But when the argument is used to justify a Haitian invasion, it seems disingenuous: Why would the United States gain any international credibility by invading a country in which, as Moynihan puts it, "there is one operational helicopter"? And why would the American public be outraged by General Cedras's violation of last year's Governors Island accord, brokered by the United Nations, in which he promised to leave? "A lot of Americans forgot about [it]," Clinton told reporters in a session last week. If they did, it may be because the White House dropped the ball. Now, if the country does not rally round the flag, it will be because this whole debate has always seemed to be more about the commander who is waving it.
So now Clinton is hanging out there, his credibility hitched to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a man whose past personal politics ranges from mildly to rabidly anti-American. There is clearly much discomfort in this, but there is also no alternative. The plan is to bring Father Aristide back about 10 days after the troops hit the shore and let him begin to govern. Aristide promises to serve out his term and then hold elections, an admirable plan demanded by the administration. But if he changes his mind and doesn't keep his end of the bargain, Aristide's broken promise would become yet another test of Clinton's resolve.
If Clinton has a credibility problem with the voters, it is not because of Haiti. They are cynical -- about the president himself, about his unfinished congressional agenda and about his unkept campaign promises. An invasion of Haiti cannot silence the doubts about Clinton, and it may only make them worse. When next there is a crisis and a presidential request -- say, for 25,000 peacekeepers in Bosnia or some military action in North Korea -- the public and its Congress may well decide to hold Clinton to a higher burden of proof. So far, Clinton may be content to work without a safety net. But the public is growing increasingly nervous watching.
