Jeffrey Gedmin finds two great faults with the Clinton administration’s foreign policy (“Clintoh’s Touchy-Feely Foreign Policy,” May 13). First, it feverishly seeks to export “politically correct multiculturalism, feminism, relativism, and globalism.” Second, its USIA director, Joe Duffey, believes that the United States has “no business telling others how to behave.” These two propositions are contradictory.
But incoherence does not diminish this article’s value as an illustration of an election-year challenge taking shape to this administration’s foreign policy. To the contrary, this challenge first invokes heroic memories of America’s role in World War II and the Cold War, then belittles what the Clinton administration has done from every conceivable point of view.
But what is meticulously avoided is any acknowledgment of what has been happening on Capitol Hill to America’s capacities to influence international affairs. Even as nostalgic publicists recount the glories of olden times, our foreign-affairs budgets are being hacked up and “consolidation” measures are being advanced that throw the agencies that serve as our instruments of international influence into turmoil. The voice is that of Jacob, but the hands are those of Esau.
Joe Duffey has defended USIA, international broadcasting, and public diplomacy against determined efforts to eliminate them. He justifiably has warned that post-Cold War religious and nationalist awakenings sometimes require appropriate tone in the American argument. Duffey has argued that, even though we won the contest with communism, there are still some limits to what we can accomplish in the world — and that we can fail at what is important if we strive to do too much.
Penn Kemble, Deputy Director, USIA, Washington, DC
