Could the
Visit This Week to Washington
of German Green Foreign Minister
Rub Off on Clinton?
By JONATHAN POWER
LONDON--Joschka Fischer, the Green foreign minister of
Germany, visited Washington this week for talks with the
U.S. government. It raises the interesting question of how
the world might look if President Bill Clinton could be
persuaded to adopt a foreign policy that would satisfy the
rank and file members of Germany's Green Party.
The cynics and hard realpoliticians would say, we
already have pretty well got that with Clinton. What they
want is a policy, talking of Germany, more like the Kaiser
and his court. Using that extra margin of power the defeat
and vanquishing of the enemy has brought to impose America's
will far and wide--establishing a "benevolent global
hegemony" as argue William Kristol and Robert Kagan, editors
of the conservative Weekly Standard.
But Clinton's foreign policy has not been what these
gentlemen infer, a "green" policy of military disengagement.
It has been a mishmash of hot and cold. And it has been, at
its worst, hard line enough to do the world some serious
damage.
Clinton has expanded NATO right up to Russia's doorstep
and failed it financially in the critical early liberal
years of the Yeltsin democracy. Nuclear disarmament, which
needed a powerful unilateral ingredient by the victor power,
has been relegated to the back burner. The land of Tolstoy,
Tchaikovsky, Pasternak and Sakharov, has been judged not to
be an integral member of western society--a viewpoint which
is rapidly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Clinton undermined the UN at a critical juncture, more
effectively than Senator Jesse Helms has since. When 18 U.S.
Rangers were killed in Somalia in a military attack that
went dramatically wrong, Clinton unashamedly used the UN as
a scapegoat, although he well knew that the soldiers were
fighting under the direct authority of Special Operations
Command in Florida.
Clinton's policy towards Iraq has been all over the
place. One month threatening military punishment, the next
lobbying for the UN inspectors to cool their ardour. With
China he has confused detente, after his early years of
rather fruitless confrontation, with abrogating a consistent
line on the fundamental importance of human rights.
What then would a "greener" policy be? First and
foremost, it would be sober in analysing the content of the
supposed threats against modern day America.
There's no need, since the demise of the Soviet Union, to
balance some opposing power. But what about China? China is
probably going to be Asia's Brazil--big on promise, but a
nest of political and economic problems that will clip its
wings just as democratic, relatively stable, India soars.
Despite its achievements so far China, even on the best
scenario, cannot ever hope to match America militarily.
Besides, China has no ambition to rule the world, only
perhaps Taiwan. That can be handled in a civilized manner as
long as the independence urge is reined in as it is right
now.
Neither does America need to build up its reach to deal
with the new nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. A nuclear
war between them, dreadful though it would be, doesn't call
for America to enter the quarrel.
What about the "rogues"--Libya, Cuba, Iran, North Korea
and Iraq? All are diplomatically isolated. All are basket
economies. All are bordered by states with great military
potential. These states, mistaken and misgoverned though
they are, are neither crazy nor suicidal. Rightly or
wrongly, they feel cornered and paranoid about American
power. More productive for the U.S. with all of them, would
be to try and engage them to draw them into reasonable
behavior--as the U.S. has with North Korea, though not
without continuous attempts from Congress to sabotage
it.
But what about Saddam Hussein in particular, who has now
thrown the UN inspectors out? Saddam Hussein is not
confrontational because he is strong, as he was eight years
ago. He is being difficult and provocative because he is
weak. His armed forces are a pale shadow of what they were.
He cannot think of invading Kuwait, much less Saudi Arabia.
His nuclear bomb program is effectively dismantled (and the
inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have
not yet been thrown out). His chemical and biological
weapons programs are hard to monitor even with the most
intrusive inspections but the evidence suggests they remain
relatively primitive, particularly in terms of delivery.
Unity in the Security Council in fact is America's best
countervailing weapon--and waiting Saddam out. Yes, Iraq
could possibly within a decade develop recombinant DNA and
eventually manufacture a deliverable superbiological weapon.
But 10 years gives the diplomats--and the subversives--a lot
of time. Meanwhile, some carrot to go with the stick of
sanctions might be useful. America, unfortunately, has just
repeated its old mantra--even a clean sheet on weapons of
mass destruction would not be enough to lift sanctions.
With the current elections out of the way Clinton is as
free a president as he is ever going to be, pace the
remnants of the Lewinsky business. Perhaps it is the time
for the greening of American foreign policy?
November 4,
1998, LONDON
Copyright © 1998 By JONATHAN POWER
Note: I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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