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Publications of the Center for Security Policy
No. 00-D 55
DECISION BRIEF
8 June 2000
Whose Foreign Policy, Mr. President?
(Washington, D.C.): As part of its "local color" reporting on the recently
concluded summit in Moscow, yesterday's New York Times reports an anecdote that
offers extraordinary confirmation of the contempt President Clinton (and many
others in his Administration) feel for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
According to the Times:
[On the margins of one of the few meetings with Putin she was permitted to
attend,] Dr. Albright used a fashion statement to make her own policy point
with the Russians. As Mr. Putin shook Dr. Albright's hand before a meeting on
Sunday, Mr. Clinton tried to explain the meaning of the three brown pins
depicting monkeys on the lapel of her jacket. They represent, "see no evil,
hear no evil, speak no evil," Mr. Clinton said. "That's Madeleine's entire
foreign policy."
While a press flak later tried to explain that the President's remark was "only
a joke," it is hard to imagine that it failed to have a serious effect:
underscoring an impression most of America's interlocutors already have reached
-- the Secretary of State does not "pack the gear" with Mr. Clinton, any more
than she does with most of the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, Mr. Clinton's "joke" is even less funny since, the last time we
checked, the Secretary of State is supposed to help formulate and execute U.S.
foreign policy, but the proverbial buck stops with the President. If the shoe
labeled "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" fits anybody's foreign
policy, it is that of the President, not simply his senior subordinates.
A Bill of Particulars
The tenor and thrust of the Clinton foreign policy has spawned altogether too
many examples of his Administration's reluctance to recognize, let alone
confront evil, in the world. The following are illustrative:
See No Evil: A New York Times article in November 1998 disclosed that in 1995
Vice President Al Gore chose not to be "bothered with the facts" -- even though
they called into question the premises of a foreign policy initiative in which
he and the rest of the Clinton Administration had hugely over-invested.
Specifically, he wanted to remain untroubled by evidence of the failure of
unqualified U.S. "support" for so-called Russian "reformers" led by then-
President Yeltsin and then-Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.(1) As the Times
reported:
When the CIA uncovered what its analysts considered to be conclusive evidence
of the personal corruption of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin of Russia in
1995, they sent it to the White House, expecting Clinton administration
officials to be impressed with their work. Instead, when the secret CIA report
on Chernomyrdin arrived in the office of Vice President Al Gore, it was
rejected and sent back to the CIA with a barnyard epithet scrawled across its
cover, according to several intelligence officials familiar with the incident.
At CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia., the message seemed clear: The Vice
President did not want to hear allegations that Chernomyrdin was corrupt and
was not interested in further intelligence reports on the matter. As a result,
CIA analysts say they are now censoring themselves.
Hear No Evil: The Administration has continually turned a deaf ear towards the
hateful and violent speeches and other propaganda routinely served up by
officials of the Palestinian Authority (PA).(2) This is not because such
information is not readily available. The Middle East Media and Research
Institute (MEMRI) does an extraordinary public service by identifying,
translating and promptly disseminating statements by the senior leadership of
the PA that show its true purpose: A continuing commitment to the liberation of
all of "Palestine" -- an outcome that can only be achieved through "holy war"
or jihad leading to the ultimate destruction of the State of Israel.
Worse yet, the Clinton-Gore Administration is not just ignoring the words; it
refuses to acknowledge the PA's deeds, either, including: the recruiting of a
far larger and far more heavily armed "police force" than is permitted under
Oslo; refusing actually to rid the PLO Charter of any of the 30 out of 33
provisions that call for Israel's elimination or violence against Jews; rapidly
releasing terrorists after they have engaged in deadly attacks against Israel;
and relentlessly using maps -- including in Palestinian children's textbooks --
conveying the powerful symbolic message of a "Palestine" comprising Gaza, the
entire West Bank and all of Israel.
Speak No Evil: In April 1998, the New York Times reported that President
Clinton made an extraordinary admission in the course of a "drop-by" -- an
unscheduled appearance at a White House meeting convened by National Security
Advisor Samuel Berger with leading supporters of legislation that would apply
U.S. sanctions to protecting religious freedom overseas. According to the
Times, Mr. Clinton told the group:
"What always happens if you have automatic sanctions legislation is it puts
enormous pressure on whoever is in the executive branch to fudge an evaluation
of the facts of what is going on. And that's not what you want. What you want
is to leave the president some flexibility, including the ability to impose
sanctions, some flexibility with a range of appropriate reactions." (Emphasis
added.) Then today, a senior Administration official -- the State Department's
Associate Legal Advisor for Arms Control and Nonproliferation Mary Elizabeth
Hoinkes -- declined at the last moment to participate in a long-scheduled
Capitol Hill symposium on the legal status of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
(AMB) Treaty. This impressive symposium was chaired by Ambassador Max Kampelman
and sponsored by the National Institute for Public Policy.
It offered the first opportunity for an authoritative debate between the
Clinton-Gore Administration, which insists the ABM Treaty remains legally
binding, and its critics, like former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Douglas Feith, whose legal analysis persuasively argues that, under
international law, the treaty had to have lapsed when the other party, the
USSR, became extinct. The real evil arising from such a failure to speak is
that the Administration is not being fully challenged, or opposed, as it seeks -
- in the words of the Joint Declaration of Principles issued at last weekend's
summit -- to "enhance the viability" of the ABM Treaty.
The Bottom Line
Like President Clinton's hurtful quip/slight to Mrs. Albright, the full import
of his "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" foreign policy is no joke.
The Nation will be reaping the consequences of his cognitive dissonance,
superciliousness and dishonesty in this arena for years to come.
- 30 -
1. See the Center's Decision Briefs entitled Clinton Legacy Watch # 19: Will
Gore-Chernomyrdin At Last Put a Halt to Russia's Dangerous Nuclear Sales to
Cuba, Iran? (No. 98-D 40, 6 March 1998) and A Scorecard for Gore-Chernomyrdin
(No. 97-D 20, 5 February 1997).
2. Arafat's organization is hardly alone among Israel's putative "partners for
peace" in producing venomous propaganda utterly at odds with the ostensible
purpose of "peaceful coexistence." Of particular concern is Egypt, where the
vitriol is combined with the amassing of American military technology capable
of largely neutralizing the Israel Defense Force's vital qualitative edge. See
Are U.S. 'Investments' in the Mideast 'Peace Process' Giving the Arabs a New
War Option? (No. 99-D 126, 28 October 1999).
NOTE: The Center's publications are intended to invigorate and enrich the
debate on foreign policy and defense issues. The views expressed do not
necessarily reflect those of all members of the Center's Board of Advisors.
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