NEWS ANALYSIS : Clinton’s Views on U.S. Global Role Creating Confusion : Foreign policy: New team hasn’t fully explained its positions. Criticism comes from Congress, elsewhere.

What is America’s role in the world, now that the Cold War is over and there are pressing needs at home?

“We are, and we must continue to be, the world’s leader,” one view says.

“We cannot be the world’s policeman,” says another.

“We (will work) with others where possible and by ourselves where necessary; but increasingly in this new era, we will need to work with an array of multinational partners, often in new arrangements,” says a third.

All three views--America as leader, as stay-at-home and as just one member of a multilateral concert of powers--are the words of Bill Clinton in a single speech three weeks ago.

The three views aren’t necessarily contradictory. Indeed, the main intellectual task facing Clinton’s foreign policy advisers may be to combine them neatly in a way the American public can understand.

But they haven’t managed that just yet--and that has led to confusion and criticism in Congress, among foreign policy experts and within the Administration itself.

The most recent case came this week, when a senior State Department official told reporters that the Administration was developing “new rules of engagement” that would rely more heavily on the agreement of U.S. allies.

The official, one of the State Department’s top policy-makers, said Clinton’s refusal to act unilaterally in Bosnia-Herzegovina was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern that is likely to recur.

And, in a distant echo of the Jimmy Carter Administration, he warned that domestic economic problems will limit the nation’s international commitments in a way that may “fall short of what some Americans would like.”

Some reports portrayed the official’s comments--which he later described as “musings, not policy”--as a signal of wholesale U.S. retreat.

The White House, already stung by charges of disarray, issued a furious disavowal. “That person does not speak for the President, the secretary of state or the Administration,” spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers said.

The State Department, protecting one of its own, was more measured. “To the extent that these remarks are understood to convey a diminished U.S. leadership role, they’re not U.S. policy,” spokesman Richard Boucher said. “I don’t think that’s what the official intended.”

Part of the confusion comes because the Administration hasn’t gotten around to explaining its foreign policy in comprehensive terms. “This is still a new team,” one official said. “It hasn’t fully articulated its policies yet.”

The George Bush Administration had the same problem in its first year, noted an official who served then. “It takes time to work these things out,” he said.

But Clinton’s team has been at a disadvantage on several counts.

One is Clinton’s own agenda. The President wants to focus on domestic affairs, so he spends time on foreign policy only when it forces its way onto his schedule. He has given only one foreign policy speech, on Russia, during his four months in office.

A second factor is the long list of crises that has demanded immediate attention. “We have had to deal with Iraq, the Middle East, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, the former Soviet Union,” one aide said.

But worst of all has been the diabolical nature of Bosnia--”the issue from hell,” in the words of Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who is rarely so salty.

The Administration has been divided, with Vice President Al Gore and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake initially favoring U.S. intervention while Christopher counseled caution. “It’s an issue that can warp views because people feel so strongly about it,” one official said.

As a result, Clinton’s policy has traveled a tortuous and confusing path. The President has shifted from an early enthusiasm for U.S. air strikes to an abortive drive to lift an international arms embargo--and finally to acceptance of a plan he once rejected, a Russian-French proposal to set up safe areas for Bosnia’s Muslims.

In that context, when a senior official suggested that the U.S. approach to Bosnia was not the exception but the rule, some members of Congress and foreign diplomats were puzzled. “You would have been better off claiming the last few months as accidents,” jibed Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), one of the Administration’s most enthusiastic critics.

Administration officials argue, with some justice, that they have been more activist than it looks, exercising U.S. leadership in pushing for Western aid to Russia and reviving Arab-Israeli peace talks.

And Christopher insisted that getting U.S. allies to agree on a plan for Bosnia--even if it wasn’t the plan Clinton preferred--should count as leadership too.