AMERICA’S WORLD ROLE: DIVIDED WE STAND : Talking Back: Elite React to Survey

BRENT SCOWCROFT, Former National Security Advisor

“Americans are always anti-interventionist in general but not specificially; unless there is a problem, (they say) ‘To hell with it. If there obviously isn’t a threat to U.S. national security, the hell with it.’

“The elite is not in a disastrous mood (today). It’s not isolationist. It’s kind of passive internationalist.”

*SAMUEL POPKIN, Professor of Political Science, University of California at San Diego.

“What this elite disenchantment says is that the president cant call on them to back him. There’s no Lee Iacocca for Somalia among the elite. Every single case has to be argued from the beginning. There’s going to be no delegation. The American people are not going to give the president a proxy for action. The lack of overall consensus means each case begins afresh in Congress. When you don’t have agreed-on principles, you have to establish new prinicples in each case.”

*LESLIE H. GELB, President, Council on Foreign Relations.

“There’s no new foreign policy agenda. There’s going to be a tremendous amount of floundering. You take your life into your hands going to work for the government under these circumstances. . .

“The duty of leadership is to explain why in heavens name we should send someone to fight battles. That doesnt mean that people demanding proof are isolationists.”

*JAMES A. BAKER III, Former U.S. Secretary of State “The United States, Japan and Europe are all looking inward. . .In our own country, the voices of isolationsim can be heard again. They opposed Desert Storm. They now oppose NAFTA. They reach from the far right of the Republican party to the far left of the Democratic and have found, in Ross Perot, a powerful voice of the center. This turn inward, here and abroad, is understandable--but dangerous ... Common western action depends, as it has for over forty years, on American leadership.”

*WARREN CHRISTOPHER, Secretary of state

“The results underscore the importance of the priorities that President Clinton has put at the top of his agenda: first, the commitment to domestic economic renewal, which reflects the President’s understanding that America can only be strong abroad if we are strong at home; and second, the committment to stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, a goal that can only be achieved through strong American leadership of the world community.” *I. M. “MAC” DESTLER, Senior Fellow and former Director, Institute for International Economics.

“This looks like the Vietnam syndrome compunded by the lack of a larger rationale to justify people getting killed. It suggests that it will not be an easy job for leaders to sell a rationale. The kind of world we’re in doesn’t dictate a clear set of American interests, and that leads to an unwillingness to bear costs.”

*ANTHONY LAKE, National Security Adviser

“With the end of the Cold War, there is no longer a consensus among the American people around why--and even whether--our nation should remain actively engaged in the world. Geography and history have always made Americans wary of foreign entanglements. Now economic anxiety fans that wariness. Calls from the left and right ro stay at home rather than engage abroad are reinforced by the rhetoric of neo-Know-Nothings. Those of us who believe in the imperative of our international engagement must push back.”

*WILLIAM HYLAND, Former editor, Foreign Affairs Quarterly.

“There are a lot of issues floating around, important to some people but not to others. There’s no unifying theme. You have an administration that does not have a strong central message. That makes a cacaphony ...

“In this atmosphere, it’s very difficult to shape opinion--whether you’re the president or the Los Angeles Times. When kids are getting shot in schools, its hard to tell parents they ought to be concerned about Iraq or Somalia. I think the wrong lessons were drawn from the end of the Cold War. There was too much euphoria about internationalism.”

*LAWRENCE S. EAGLEBURAGER, Former acting secreatary of state

“What we have discovered now-the American people as well as the elite-is that with the end of the Cold War, foreign policy is much more complicated; global life is much more complicated...(and) bringing our superpower status to bear is, if not impossible, damned difficult....

“As a nation, we don’t know how to handle the world we’re going into, and I don’t apologize for that; the rest of the world doesn’t know how to do it either.

“What is absolutely the most important lesson of all? Understand your limitations-but don’t exaggerate them.”