NEWS ANALYSIS : For President, a Chance to Act Presidential

For beleaguered President Clinton, the punitive air strike against Iraq represents a small but potentially important step down the long road toward gaining the public’s confidence in him as a decisive and sure-handed leader.

The most immediate and direct benefits from Sunday’s thrust against the Iraqi intelligence nerve center are likely to come in the areas of the presidency where Clinton is seen to be weakest--as commander in chief and global strategist.

The President’s admirers say the blow against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein demonstrates Clinton’s recognition of post-Cold War power politics. “He has shown that even though the (Russian) bear is dead, he knows that there are wolves out there,” said Sam Popkin, a Democratic polling consultant and adviser to the 1992 Clinton campaign who is now at UC San Diego.

“This is a signal to any nation that would contemplate the kind of activity that was initiated by Iraq in this case--that the United States will respond,” Vice President Al Gore said Sunday on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation,” underlining the point Clinton wanted to make by ordering the strike.

“We will protect our people, as President Clinton said to the nation and the world last night,” Gore said.

But the effect of such tough talk and tough actions on public opinion is usually a “very fleeting thing,” said the University of Rochester’s John Mueller, author of “War, Presidents and Public Opinion,” generally considered the definitive work on that subject. “Bush had a very high rating on things like that, and he lost the election.”

So, what could be most important in the long run for Clinton’s struggling presidency is the opportunity that this episode has given him to exercise general qualities of leadership--provided that he can demonstrate them in dealing with domestic problems too.

Temporizing has often seemed to be the hallmark of Clinton’s first months in office. He zigged and zagged over the controversial nomination of C. Lani Guinier to be civil rights chief at the Justice Department, dragged out the process of filling a Supreme Court nomination and agonized at length and in public over whether to intervene in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

“If everybody were keyed up about foreign policy, his various fiascoes with Bosnia would have been devastating,” Mueller said. “He talked big and just flailed around.”

Polling consultant Popkin contends that the Iraq decision was more politically consequential than Bosnia because the United States is more directly threatened by Iraq.

“Bosnia is about ‘them’ doing it to ‘them,’ ” he said. “Iraq is about ‘them’ doing it to ‘us.’ ”

Whatever the other differences were when it came to dealing with Iraq, the President’s decision-making process was not exposed to public scrutiny and debate. And when the time came for action, Clinton “acted decisively,” according to no less an authority than Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“He gave us clear instructions and he let us carry out those instructions,” Powell said Sunday on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.”

As some see it, this performance gives Clinton a chance to start afresh in dealing with domestic as well as foreign affairs.

“There could be kind of a residual effect from this in the sense of seeming presidential,” said Vanderbilt University presidential scholar Erwin Hargrove. “The nation’s honor and prestige were at stake, and he made a measured response. He looked like he was in charge.”

Of course, as friend and foe both agree, Clinton is a long way from being out of the woods on either domestic or foreign policy.

“I don’t think he can use this as a means of restoring all that credibility and experience that he needs to demonstrate to the world in terms of his grasp of foreign affairs,” said Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“I think his response in this situation was the appropriate response,” Coats added in remarks on “Face the Nation.” “But there’ll be more tests. There are some existing out there now. And I think there will probably even be some response from Iraq.”

That sort of skepticism illustrated Clinton’s continuing vulnerability among Washington insiders, as Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, pointed out on the same program.

“It’s really become a capital city with an attitude, hasn’t it, about the President?” she said. “No matter what he does, (the attitude is), ‘This may be OK but we hope he goofs up later.’ ” Loyally, she added, “I don’t think he will.”

But polls show that skepticism abounds outside the Beltway, not only about the President but toward other politicians, as Clinton’s chief pollster, Stanley Greenberg, noted in a talk to Democratic party leaders in Albuquerque, N.M., last weekend.

When John F. Kennedy was inaugurated more than 30 years ago, surveys showed that 70% of the electorate believed that public officials could be trusted, Greenberg said; by the time Clinton was sworn in, the figure had dropped to 20%.

“These voters now believe the country is governed mainly by liars and cheats,” Greenberg said.

“This opportunity fell into his (Clinton’s) lap, and he was smart enough to take advantage of it,” said Vanderbilt’s Hargrove. “But he has a lot of other issues that need to be resolved.”