Clinton Faces Horrendous Obstacles

By George Thompson

When you say Clinton "loves to schmooze ... but hates to lead," Nate, you must have missed the interview with Larry King in which an obviously chastened Bill Clinton freely admitted his transformation from sultry-swan governor to ugly duckling president.

It happened, he said, because he "had forgotten how difficult it was to get anything done in Washington." Amen!

I voted for him—as presumably did millions of other thinking citizens—precisely because he was NOT a duplicitous wheeler-dealer.

We had hoped—and, God help us, still do—that his backwoods charismatic charm and much needed intelligence would bring some semblance of order to the myriad changes happening both here and abroad.

You, and many other obviously disappointed voters, expect too much too soon. Consider that, other than FDR and JFK, few modern presidents have promised to do so much in so short a time.

Consider the truly horrendous obstacles at home that continue to make a mockery of his promises: slumping economic conditions and the truly dangerous state of the national psyche, including the constantly shifting socio-psychological factors that govern what citizens believe or don't believe and like or—increasingly—don't like.

Consider such very-close-to home things as rising crime, youth violence, breakup of the traditional family model and loss of its attendant values, the heated controversy over what to do with gays in the military, unwanted babies in the womb and the stupidity of most members of Congress.

That's what's facing Bill Clinton at home. Consider the devastating effect on every human being on this planet of the end of the Cold War: of nations big and small whose coffers no longer bulge with economic and military gratuities for having taken one side or the other; of no longer having an external enemy to unify citizen/subject within; of being forced to find another to fill the need. That's what's facing Clinton abroad.

Consider that what he needs now more than anything else is congressional backing for his policies—both here and abroad. Without their votes, he will fail. Nate, the terrible truth is that too many senators and representatives back him at their peril.

Consider the Middle East peace initiative. Do you honestly believe that the massive Israeli lobby in the U.S. would permit any elected official to side with the Palestinians?

Ergo, enter Martin Indyk, an obvious sop for votes, and an open door for Israel to take advantage of Clinton's dilemma.

Feeling itself secure from intervention by a U.S. president preoccupied with ensuring his survival at home, Israel feels free to accelerate its brutal practice of gobbling up homes and land in the occupied territories and evicting or expelling its residents.

That's why this Arabist holds little hope for peace any time soon in the Middle East, much less establishment of a home for the Palestinians.

Consider also what is happening in other countries where tribal leaders, whose fetters fell at Cold War's end, now feel free to pursue ancient enemies in resurrecting long-dormant religious and ethnic differences.

As I said in my op-ed piece in USA Today on May 25:

"Saber-rattlers beware! Those who believe 'just a little more of this or a little more of that' will end the Bosnian conflict forget that war is like pregnancy: easy to start, hard to stop.

"Many casually cite Vietnam as an analogy; some protest that it is not an apt comparison; but who remembers how, when or even why we slid down THAT slippery slope. "

Few modern presidents have promised to do so much so soon.

I'll skip the chronology, presumably well-known to readers of this magazine, but:

"There's more, of course: Massive protests in the streets of U.S. cities and on college campuses, violent confrontations between opponents and supporters of U.S. involvement in the war, pardons for thousands of draft evaders, 16,000 veterans poisoned by Agent Orange, thousands of GI-fathered Asian children, the still-missing POWs and 58,000 names on a black marble wall in Washington.

"Balance that against potential intervention in Bosnia. Consider 1) The conflict is 500 years old. 2) It is based on religious and ethnic differences among fiercely independent Serbs, Croats and Muslims. 3) Each is battling bitterly for land each considers its heritage. 4) The end of the Cold War removed behavioral restraints in their quest—including being allied against a common enemy.

"Consider also a proverb known well in that part of the world. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'

"Four questions remain: 1) Whose side do we take? 2) Why? 3) Crude, but necessary, what's in it for us? 4) And like a mother-to-be with second thoughts, what happens if something goes wrong? Will we try just a little more?"

Nate, you have to understand what faces Bill Clinton at home to be fair or realistic about what policies he may or may not be able to pursue abroad.

George Thompson is a nationally syndicated columnist and television talk show host.