PRESIDENT CLINTON OUGHT TO BE deliriously happy about the Republican response to his plan for deploying as many as 25,000 soldiers in Bosnia as peacekeepers.
True, three (Steve Forbes, Bob Dornan, Morry Taylor) of the 10 GOP presidential candidates declared their opposition on the WMUR-TV debate in New Hampshire on October 11. And at least two more (Phil Gramre, Pat Buchanan) are sure to be opposed.
But the president’s first meeting with Republican congressional leaders- Democratic leaders were there, too — on September 26 went swimmingly. “This is the first time we’d been consulted in a real way,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole said later. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said at the end of the two- hour session across the street from the White House that it was the best meeting he’d ever had with Clinton. (George Stephanopoulos, the president’s aide, immediately leaked Gingrich’s accolade to the Washington Post.) Unless the administration embarrasses itself at congressional hearings in mid- October, it’s not likely enough Republican opposition will develop to block the deployment.
Both Dole and Gingrich are inclined to back the president, though they’re not on board yet. It’s not because they have bought the current White House line, vigorously pitched to the media, that the president has matured into a deft foreign policy leader. Rather, they are internationalists who have often endorsed the president’s prerogatives in foreign affairs. So when Clinton argued at the September meeting that he has the right to deploy troops without seeking congressional approval, neither Dole nor Gingrich (or anyone else) challenged him.
Of the two, Gingrich will be the easier for Clinton to enlist. “Newt’s inclination was to commit on the spot,” a GOP colleague said. But he held off until after House hearings. Tony Blankley, Gingrich’s press secretary, said they will be “friendly hearings.” Dole gave Clinton a harder time at the meeting. He noted waspishly that while Clinton wants bipartisan support now, Democratic leaders had refused to give that to President Bush in 1991 when he sought congressional approval for Desert Storm against Iraq.
“Many Democrats voted for it,” interjected Vice President A1 Gore. (Gore was one of 10 Democratic senators to back Bush.) Dole was especially irritated to see Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts jump on Clinton’s bandwagon, since Kerry had rarely backed George Bush or Ronald Reagan. “I hope [Republican Governor] Bill Weld runs” against Kerry for the Senate next year, Dole commented later.
“I don’t want to be like the Democratic leaders in the Gulf crisis,” Dole told Clinton. “But I don’t think you’ve made your case to the American people. There are three basic questions we have to answer. How many? How long? How much? How many troops are you going to send? How long are they going to be there? And how much is it going to cost?” Clinton didn’t offer answers at the meeting.
Dole expressed concern when administration offscials described American soldiers as “peace enforcers” instead of “peacekeepers.”
“That means you’re going over there knowing you’re probably going to do something that endangers somebody’s life,” he said afterwards. “That’s a ratchet up.” Dole also told Clinton that if he lifted the arms embargo, “you wouldn’t have to send any American troops. The Bosnians could defend themselves.” Again, Clinton was silent.
The Senate hearings may not be friendly. When Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Defense Secretary William Perry, and Gen. John Shalikashvili, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, they’ll be confronted by a committed, vociferous opponent of dispatching American forces to Bosnia, Chairman Jesse Helms of North Carolina.
And when they appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee, they’ll face another, John McCain of Arizona, a Bob Dole strong voice in Republican policymaking on foreign affairs.Helms’s problem is with the peace settlement itself. He’s opposed to partitioning Bosnia into Muslim, Serb and Croat sections, which the American-negotiated peace plan would, in effect, do. ” Bosnia becomes Lebanon writ large,” a Helms aide said.
The senator is also skeptical of the Clinton plan to bring Russian troops into the NATO force that polices the peace agreement. McCain is dubious whether the Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats are truly set on peace or whether they’re just taking a break for the winter. Next spring, he said, American troops may be “caught in a crossfire.”
Should the administration make its case effectively at the hearings, McCain insists, opponents of the troop deployment will be thwarted. Republicans won’t want to risk being blamed for causing the peace accord in Bosnia to crumble in the absence of American troops. “Fear of taking responsibility has always been a very big factor around here,” McCain says. Even Bob Dole isn’t immune.
by Fred Barnes
