I think that President Clinton is one the greatest Presidents of the U.S.A. History will tell... In one or two years from now, I believe most of the U.S. citizens will aknowledge the Clinton legacy at its true value. Remember that President R. Reagan was responsible for your massive budget deficit: when he sat in the White House, the U.S. deficit was in the $billion bracket and he pulled it up into the $trillion range! And what about the Savings & Loan fiasco? How many billions of $ did it cost the US taxpayer?
Clinton's currently reshaping --I should say reinventing-- the US foreign agenda/policy for the next century.
Regarding the Kosovo crisis, I think that right now, the issue is twofold:
# The Russian attitude;
# The strategy of NATO's European members.
The US administration could mistakenly think that everything's up for sale in Russia --even Russia's pride. What if one day, IMF Chairman Michel Camdessus is welcomed in the Kremlin by Gen. A. Lebed instead of Yeltsin?
Yet, I think that the important issue for the coming days will be to maintain NATO's unity in operation Allied Force. The first cracks show us that a second round of negociations is imminent. Italy, France and even Germany (pressured by its Green electorate) are pushing for some sort of humanitarian ceasefire.
As I said in my previous messages, by attacking Serbia's extreme jingoism (Bosnia, Kosovo), the US are touching a sensitive nerve that runs throughout the European fabric. In a sense the US are challenging the European mindset as a whole: Serbs, Croats, Albanians, Flemish, Basques, Northern Italians, Bavarians, Scots, Czechs,... all these European tribes have lived with each other in an ''ethnic cold war'' for several centuries. Sometimes, as it happens today in the Balkans, this ethnic cold war changes in an open, hot war. And, on two occasions in this century, the US have been called to the rescue of the European fabric.
Yet, this time, the US seem to behave as in a preemptive manoeuver: bombing a jingoist, ethnic-minded regime before it starts to spread around in the region... From a historical perspective, it's even more mind-challenging: up to the early XXth century, the world was Europe-centered, meaning that European colons were teaching remote African tribes or Amazonian Indians how to ''deal'' with each other, forcing them to comply with the division of labor as required by the European metropole. This was the age of colonialism.
Today, by one of History's ironies, this cultural boomerang is hitting back Old Europe: the so-called Old Continent finds itself in the very same dependency as the one it enforced upon its colonies two centuries ago... A remote metropole, Washington DC, intervenes in the heart of Europe in order to ''manage'' the locals --by any manner of means.
The US should also take into account this cultural shock in their current military endeavours. Europe can deal with an economical/financial globalization but, as soon as such a globalization becomes (geo)political then it resents being in the back seat...
My 2 cents,
Gustave. |
