“Our objectives are clear, our forces are strong and our cause is right.”
President Bill Clinton
Whether divined by fate or simply an accident of good fortune, President Clinton has recently stumbled into and apparently emerge from two extremely dangerous international minefields a stronger and more decisive world leader. And, while he and his White House staffers should be basking in the glow of his first, legitimate foreign policy successes, they remain frustrated by the President’s inability to make any headway in public approval ratings, which remain stuck at roughly the same forty-three percent which propelled him into the Oval Office.
Three weeks ago, in the face of overwhelming public opposition and a Congress deeply divided over his Haitian policies, Bill Clinton ordered his long-threatened invasion of that island nation. Valid concerns over whether the U.S. had the legitimate right to invade another sovereign nation, the potential costs, in both dollars and human lives, of such military adventurism and the lack of a clearly defined exit strategy rather than his goals of promoting hemispheric democracy fermented this national schism.
However, preliminary fears of resistance from pro-coup supporters evaporated when former President Carter, retired General Powell and Senator Nunn struck a deal with the thugs who’d ousted President Aristide three years earlier. As a result, when American troops finally arrived in Haiti, they did so with no opposition and little more trouble than had they been trying to drive through New York City at rush hour.
With last Monday’s resignation and departure of General Cedras and his brutal cohort, General Biamby, the stage was set for yesterday’s return of Jean-Betrand Aristide. With continued luck, and assuming Aristide has shed his anti-American stripes for the mantle of a born-again democrat, thereby living up to the commitments he has promised U.S. officials, President Clinton may find himself able to begin the return of American troops without having to explain to any American parents why their son or daughter died to save a nation which has never known either political stability or democratic institutions
Meantime, Saddam Hussein, the mindless tyrant of the Middle East, perhaps sensing the American President was either as incompetent as Rush Limbaugh and his “ditto-head” apostles had painted him or was too distracted with Haiti, Korea Rwanda and the Middle East peace process to react … began massing his Republican Guard troops along the Kuwaiti border. As it’s hard to imagine that even Saddam would be crazy enough to try crushing Kuwait a second time, he actually might have orchestrated the latest Gulf crisis to leverage the lifting of sanctions which have sent his economy plunging toward the level of a backward third-world nation.
Without missing a step, Bill Clinton met Saddam’s challenge with an immediate and massive build-up of air, sea and ground forces ready to repel, and perhaps crush once and for all, the Iraqi military machine. After thirty-six hours of posturing, the Iraqi leader began a slow withdrawal of his troops from proximity to the Kuwait border, an eventuality he’d likely been prepared to undertake from the start.
Saddam, like many other two-bit despots around the globe, underestimated American political resolve to coalesce against threats of force. To even his most virulent detractors, Bill Clinton is our president. Moreover, once dispatched, Americans will never again abandon support for their troops going in harm’s way as they did in Vietnam. Further, the megalomaniac of Baghdad may have awakened a sleeping tiger, as President Clinton has warned Saddam America will not be held hostage by Iraqi intimidation or fear of future Iraqi military threats.
President Clinton’s first two years in office have been marked by a series of international blunders. From armed conflicts Somalia and Bosnia to trade relations with Japan and resolving systemic global economic problems, the White House has been generally ineffective. To listen to some of his most severe critics, about the only thing he hasn’t done is throw-up on his foreign counterparts as did his predecessor.
However, with the events of the past several weeks and his firm, unwavering reactions to them, Bill Clinton has demonstrated a new sense of leadership and commitment to a consistent foreign policy agenda. While the future will inevitably hold unforeseen surprises and setbacks, the president’s critics need to confer credit where credit is due … or will sacrifice their own credibility in pursuit of personal vendettas.
