The Clinton Tirade : An internationalist responds - Brief Article

President Bill Clinton and his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, reacted to the Senate defeat of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty with shock, pain, outrage, exaggeration, name calling, and something closely resembling a temper tantrum. Bill Clinton considers it His Treaty: He was the first to sign it. He assures us he will never abandon it. Never. Never.

Doubtless that was why he seized on the defeat of the treaty to launch a sweeping broadside against Republican policies on everything from the environment to economic security, education to Medicare. He charged Republicans with irresponsible budgeting and with abandoning "forty years of commitment to non-proliferation"-when no one has done any such thing.

He accused Republicans of "forcing" a vote on the treaty and of "rebuking" our allies. "We say, okay, you guys are with us every time we need you, the Gulf War, the Balkans, always in NATO, you're there, but you ask us to do something for your common safety, go take a hike." (I thought they needed us in the Balkans and in NATO, at least as much as we needed them.)

Above all, he charged Republicans with being purveyors of a "new isolationism" that is more dangerous than the old, and with seeking "to go it alone" at a time when we have never been so involved with the world.

Proofs of the "new isolationism" are: 1) refusing to pay our U.N. dues (though the blame for this can as easily and as cogently be attributed to the president himself); 2) refusing to fund "our obligations" to the Middle East peace process, which is to say, refusing to provide as much money as the Clinton team requests to fund the "Wye" accords; and 3) refusing to "do our part to stem the tide of global warming," although-to the best of my knowledge-no decision has been made that the United States should participate in this project, nor has the Kyoto Treaty from which such a policy might be derived even been sent to the Senate for ratification.

Nonetheless, despite the havoc they have wreaked, the "new isolationists in the Republican party," the president assures the world, will not have the final word: "We will not-we will not-abandon the commitments inherent in the treaty, and resume testing ourselves." He calls on Russia, China, Britain, France, and other countries to continue to refrain from testing, and on Russia, China, and those that have not ratified, to ratify. It is possible that Russia and China may prove more obliging than the Senate Republicans-but don't count on it.

Sandy Berger makes parallel claims-equally sweeping, equally exaggerated. Given our military might, economic prosperity, and global influence, why are Americans so worried? he asks. Why did the Senate decline to ratify the test-ban treaty when "nearly every other country in the world" supported it?

Of course, "nearly every other country in the world" has not ratified the treaty. Russia has not. China has not. Approximately half the 44 countries listed as having nuclear-power reactors have not. Never mind. Why are Americans so powerful and yet so fearful? It is because, Berger insists, of the new isolationism.

New isolationists, he claims, support a "survivalist" foreign policy, one that is suspicious, stingy, defensive, and, wherever possible, uninvolved, isolated. It is the opposite of an enlightened attitude of engaged leadership. It will, argues Berger, squander U.S. leadership, and alienate our allies and the world.

Isolationists see treaties, he explains-pretty much all treaties-as a threat to U.S. sovereignty and superiority, whereas the Clinton administration sees treaties as a useful tool for mobilizing "the whole world" against threatening behavior. Oh? Have agreements negotiated by this administration mobilized the whole world against, for example, North Korea, with its repeated violations of the agreements and promises it has made? Is that what Berger could mean?

Of course, treaties are not all alike.

During the week before the vote on ratification of the test-ban treaty, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a very serious lawmaker and internationalist, stated his opposition to it, observing, "I do not believe that [the treaty] is of the same caliber as the arms-control treaties that have come before the Senate in recent decades. Its usefulness to the goal of non-proliferation is highly questionable. Its likely ineffectuality will risk undermining support and confidence in the concept of multilateral arms control. Even as a symbolic statement of our desire for a safer world, it is problematic because it would exacerbate risks and uncertainties related to the safety of our nuclear stockpile."

At which point Madeleine Albright joined the chorus of Clinton officials, claiming that rejection of the treaty by the Senate was not binding on the administration. According to the Washington Times, she notified a number of governments around the world that the U.S. government continued "to support strongly the treaty and the associated international regime." "Despite the delay in U.S. ratification," her letter stated, "let me reaffirm America's commitment to reducing the dangers posed by nuclear weapons." Albright's spokesman, James Rubin, explained, "We believe that so long as the president, in this case President Clinton, expresses his intention to seek advice and consent pending whatever time frame he chooses, customary international law applies." Thus, as the Clinton administration sees it, its preferences trump the Constitution.