Spot The Difference
Bush and Clinton on Iraq
Here's a simple pop-quiz. Who said the following: "What if [Saddam] fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? ... Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."
Full marks if you guessed Bill Clinton. It was 1998. But I wonder how many of you did. The political amnesia of so many in Europe with regard to the Iraq crisis is one of the most striking aspects of the whole current trans-Atlantic divide. To read the papers, to watch the "anti-war" protestors, to listen to the BBC, you'd easily imagine that out of the blue a belligerent and brand new American administration had just torn up the old rule book and started a new foreign policy utterly unconnected to the old one.
The truth, however, is that the current Bush policy toward Iraq is indistinguishable from Bill Clinton's. After the U.N. inspectors found that they could no longer do their job effectively in 1998, the U.S. shifted its policy in Iraq toward regime change in Baghdad - exactly the policy now being pursued. The difference between Bush and Clinton, of course, lies in the sense of urgency and importance applied to the same policy. September 11 made the White House acutely aware of the ruthlessness of the new Islamist terror-masters: suddenly, the American homeland was also in play. The possibility of a chemical or biological 9/11 made Washington realize that its continued Iraq policy needed actual enforcement. It made Washington realize that regime change needed to mean what it said.
Are there deeper differences between Bush and Clinton on this? There is, of course, the matter of style. Clinton was a master of the European dialogue. He meant very few things he said but he said them very well. He was a great schmoozer. When he compared the Serbian genocide to the Jewish Holocaust, it sounded earnest but no-one, least of all the massacred Bosnians, actually believed he meant it. And he didn't. If he had meant it, he wouldn't have allowed a quarter of a million to be murdered in Europe, while he delegated American foreign policy to the morally feckless and militarily useless European Union. Ditto with Iraq and al Qaeda. A few missiles here and there; some sanctions that starved millions of Iraqis but kept Saddam in power; and a big rhetorical game kept the pretense of seriousness up. But there was no actual attempt to match words with actions. In this, the French were completely - preternaturally - comfortable. No wonder Clinton was popular.
Bush's style couldn't be more different. He's blunt, straightforward, folksy, direct. Although his formal speeches have been as eloquent as any president's in modern times, his informal discourse is of the kind to make a European wince. And his early distancing from many of Clinton's policies, his assertion of American sovereignty in critical matters, undoubtedly ruffled some Euro-lapels. In retrospect, he could have been more politic.
But the point is: the foreign policy of Bush is not so drastically different from Clinton. On Iraq, in particular, there isn't a smidgen of principled difference between this administration and the last one. In fact, Bush came into office far less interventionist than Clinton and far more modest than Gore. His campaign platform budgeted less for defense than Al Gore's did. And his instincts were more firmly multilateral. That, of course, changed a year and a half ago. 9/11 made him realize that American withdrawal from the world was no longer an option. But even then, the notion of Bush's unilateralism is greatly exaggerated. To be sure, last spring, the Bush White House argued that taking out Saddam's weapons was non-negotiable, implying that it would be done with or without U.N. support (a position, by the way, that Bush had announced in the 2000 primaries). But by last September, as the world knows, Bush decided to pursue the policy of disarmament through the United Nations, despite the risk of falling into the inspections trap that has proved so intractable. And now, even after a unanimous resolution supporting serious consequences if Saddam refused to disarm immediately and completely, he's still going back to the U.N. for further permission to enforce the resolution by military means. His reward for this multilateralism? Contempt and derision.
Now compare that policy to Clinton's similar dilemma with how to deal with the Balkan crisis throughout the 1990s, culminating in the Kosovo intervention. Did Clinton go through the United Nations to justify his eventual NATO bombardment of Serbia? No he didn't. He didn't go through the U.N. because the Russians pledged to veto such a military engagement. So where were the peace protestors back then? In terms of international law, those American bombs in Belgrade - even hitting the Chinese embassy - were far less defensible than any that will rain down on Baghdad. Serbia had never attacked the U.S. No U.N. mandate provided cover. But Clinton ordered bombing anyway. And the same people who now viciously attack Bush as the president of a rogue state - Susan Sontag anyone? - actually cheered Clinton on......
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