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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (10089)	5/27/1999 12:09:00 PM
From: JBL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

Making Foreign Policy while in a State of Shock www.stratfor.com 05/27/99 Stratfor 1145 GMT, 990527 - Making Foreign Policy while in a State of Shock One of the critical dimensions of the Kosovo conflict is the state of mind of U.S. policy makers. Their view of Kosovo is, quite naturally, part of their general perception both of the world and of their place in it. It is, therefore, important to understand that Bill Clinton and his foreign policy team are experiencing a crisis of confidence of monumental proportions. Actually, saying they are in a state of shock is probably a better way to put it. They have gone in less than 90 days from being a fairly credible foreign policy team to a group in total, and probably unrecoverable, disarray. Obviously it started with Kosovo. They did not expect Milosevic to resist as he has. One result has been the near disappearance of the administration's expert on Yugoslavia and Milosevic, Richard Holbrooke. His nomination for UN Representative stalled, Holbrooke's bad advice led the administration into a war for which it was unprepared. However, it has been their China policy that has truly shaken the administration. Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor, was particularly close to the Chinese and a strong relationship with China has been one of the foundations of Clinton's foreign policy. China's crackdown on dissidents struck the administration as a betrayal of their tacit understanding with the Chinese, and the administration struck back with bitter rhetoric. The Chinese merely hardened their position. The Chinese response to the bombing of their Embassy further stunned the administration. The release of the Cox report has left their China policy in a shambles and the speed of the collapse has left Clinton's staff stunned. Add to that the near collapse of relations with Russia at the beginning of the war, German and Italian mistrust of U.S. competence and motives, and we are seeing the near collapse not only of foreign policy, but also of the leadership of the foreign policy apparatus. With the departure of Robert Rubin, the loss of credibility for Clinton's foreign policy team is breath taking. Berger is being held by many as personally responsible (along with Janet Reno) for not stanching Chinese espionage. Albright is being treated with increasing contempt in Washington and foreign capitals. George Tenet, head of CIA, was forced to take responsibility for the China bombing incident. After his humiliation over Monica Lewinsky, Clinton was going to use foreign policy to redeem himself. That search for redemption has turned into a nightmare. Clinton cannot fire his top foreign policy advisors in the middle of a war and a foreign policy scandal. Clinton's natural inclination, judging from past performance, is to become inflexible in the face of reversal, counting on his ability to out wait and out maneuver his critics. His problem now is that he is not dealing with a crisis of image but a crisis of substance. The war cannot simply be "spun." It requires difficult decisions. Under the current circumstances it is difficult to imagine his senior foreign policy staff having the stamina to think through the situation. They are on the defensive and barely hanging on. That is one of the reasons for the current immobility in the peace process. These guys still can't figure out what hit them