Solarz a Forceful Voice on Foreign Policy : Politics: Brooklyn congressman aims to alter the perception that Democrats are reluctant to use force abroad. His influence is being felt.

When Wisconsin Democrats began planning their annual state convention here last month, they envisioned it as the first “cattle show” of the slow-starting 1992 Democratic presidential campaign. All the potential candidates were asked to speak.

But, perhaps the most significant invitation was extended to a politician who isn’t considered a likely presidential contender--not just yet, anyhow. He is Brooklyn Rep. Stephen J. Solarz, who, driven by a sometimes abrasive ambition and a compelling vision of the U.S. role in the world, is fast gaining recognition as his party’s most forceful voice on foreign policy issues.

Solarz’s immediate claim to fame and influence is as the chief Democratic sponsor of the congressional resolution last January that authorized President Bush to go to war against Iraq.

Building on that celebrity, and on direct experience that he gained in confronting crises in a range of trouble spots, Solarz is in the process of laying out what he believes should be his own party’s concept of “a new world order,” with the United States operating “not as a solitary sheriff, but rather as head of an international posse bringing international bandits to justice.”

Solarz’s primary objective is to shape debate among Democrats, as they select a presidential nominee, so as to alter the public’s perception of Democrats as reluctant to use force abroad.

“We are witnessing a struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party,” Solarz says.

Many top Democrats agree with Solarz that the outcome of this debate will have a crucial impact on Democratic chances of regaining the White House in 1992.

“The American people overwhelmingly know that we have to turn our attention to problems here at home,” Arkansas governor and Democratic presidential prospect Bill Clinton said here after Solarz’s speech. “But they will only trust a Democrat to do it if they believe we can also be trusted with the national security.”

Solarz hammers home this point tirelessly.

“Force should be a last resort,” Solarz said reassuringly here. But he added pointedly, “Last is not the same as never.”

This admonition, along with some other hard-line Solarz zingers, provoked some vigorous booing from a segment of dovish convention delegates here.

“He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth,” complained one of those who booed, Milwaukee delegate Anne Marie Sullivan, a veteran of George S. McGovern’s 1972 campaign to win the presidency and end the Vietnam War. “Force should be avoided at all costs,” she said. But, despite such noisy dissenters, party leaders here felt that a silent majority of the 800 delegates was at least willing to reflect on Solarz’s message.

“Solarz’s speech was probably the least popular but the most important,” said Jeff Neubauer, chairman of the state party and the person who suggested inviting Solarz here. “It made us all challenge some of our assumptions and rethink our beliefs.”

Ron Domini, political director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and an opponent of the Gulf War, shared those sentiments. “I didn’t agree with everything you said,” he told the congressman, “but I thought it was the best speech I’ve heard in all my 15 conventions.”

The recognition of the need for a party foreign policy reappraisal extends well beyond the Wisconsin state convention. “I think Democrats are aware that we’ve got a real problem with appearing to be stale,” said former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, who arranged for Solarz to be showcased as main speaker at a recent foreign policy forum at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey Institute.

Solarz is well qualified to spark the drive for fresh ideas, Mondale believes. “I think, if you went around Capitol Hill and asked people to name the three top creative thinkers in the Democratic Party, he’d be on everyone’s list,” Mondale said.

Already, Solarz’s influence is being felt. He was one of the chief architects of the foreign policy resolution adopted by the centrist Democratic Leadership Council at its May meeting. The resolution, disavowing the notion that America should “retreat from the world,” asserted that “some things are worth fighting for--like liberty, justice and human decency.”

In an era dominated by telegenic politicians, Solarz does not cut a particularly striking figure. He is of medium height and build. Yet, his intensity makes his presence compelling. At 50, his face is still unlined, with a prominent nose. His brown eyes are cool and appraising. His manner at the podium combines professorial gravity with the self-assurance of a baccarat dealer.

In the House, where he has risen to power and influence during nine terms--and is a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee--respect for his intelligence and ability is tinged with resentment at his ambition and hard-driving manner.

Solarz’s triumph as leader of the pro-war forces has not helped to endear him to his Democratic colleagues, most of whom voted the other way. “Someone was telling me apropos of the debate on the Gulf that the only thing worse than being wrong is being right,” Solarz said.

Solarz’s political instincts have enabled him to translate his command of issues into influence and power, abroad as well as at home. He roams the world, not only in his Asian sphere of influence but also in Central America, Africa and in the Middle East, from which he just returned after a seven-day swing.

“No one has used his position in Congress better to articulate a panoply of foreign policy issues that span the globe,” said Iowa Rep. Jim Leach, the ranking Republican member of the Asian Affairs subcommittee.

But it is far easier to recite Solarz’s achievements than it is to define the forces that motivate and energize him. Amateur psychologists speculate that his drive stems in part from reaction to the insecurities of an unusually troubled childhood. His natural mother abandoned him shortly after he was born. And the stepmother who raised him until he was 10 left suddenly when she divorced his father.

Solarz himself is skeptical of such theories. “I think to attribute my positions to those experiences is a classic example of psychobabble,” he said. “Obviously, my childhood had an impact on me, like anyone’s would, and these obviously were significant developments. But I think there were many other factors that had a far greater influence on me.”

One such factor was his father, a Tammany Hall precinct leader, who introduced his son to the rough-and-tumble of New York politics at an early age.

A more profound influence, Solarz believes, is his Jewish heritage, with its strong emphasis on social justice.

“Certainly one of the major philosophical influences on my life has been the Holocaust,” Solarz said. “That demonstrated the depths of depravity to which human spirit can sink.” The tragedy, he believes, also established “the moral imperative to prevent anything like that from ever happening again, not only to Jews but to any people.”

On the night of his most difficult political step--the congressional vote last January to go to war to liberate Kuwait--Solarz recalled the 6 million who perished in Hitler’s death camps. “If Saddam Hussein could get away with this,” he told an aide, “those deaths will have lost their meaning.”

But for all his concern with social justice and human rights, Solarz is a practitioner of Realpolitik, who believes that sometimes such lofty principles need to be balanced against other considerations, such as national security. His reasoning process takes on extra significance now because it undergirds the world view he is trying to promote for his party.

Solarz agrees with those who say that the simplest way to reshape Democratic Party foreign policy doctrines would be to run for President himself. But he said he has no plans to do that now, citing the problems he would face as a relatively little-known congressman. For the time being, at least, he intends instead to settle for influencing others the hard way--by direct persuasion.