Dole Finds Peril in Europe Policy

Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole attacked President Clinton with harsh rhetoric on policy toward Europe on Tuesday but coupled his denunciations with an agenda that resembled administration policy on some major issues.

Clinton’s “indecision, vacillation and weakness is making the world a more dangerous place,” Dole declared in a speech to Philadelphia’s World Affairs Council. And he accused Clinton of allowing his policy toward Russia to be based on a “dreamy pursuit of an international order that cherishes romantic illusions about the soul of a former adversary.”

But while Dole insisted that “there is a difference, there are distinctions” between Clinton’s policies and those he would pursue, his objections mostly seemed to focus on the tone and pace of the administration’s actions, rather than on their substance--a line similar to that which he took earlier this spring in a speech about policy toward Asia.

On the question of expanding NATO, for example, Dole said he would convene a 1998 summit in Prague to usher Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the alliance. Clinton advocates bringing the same three countries into NATO but has avoided setting a firm date, in part to avoid inflaming nationalist sentiments in Russia.

A more hotly debated question has been whether NATO should accept the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as members--something the Russians bitterly oppose. On that, both Dole and the administration have sought to remain ambiguous.

The administration lost no time in reacting to Dole’s speech, summoning reporters to the White House to hear Vice President Al Gore lambaste Dole for “harkening [sic] back to Cold War rhetoric” and for being “not conversant with the facts.”

Gore also questioned whether it was “wise” for Dole to have called for speeding up the expansion of NATO “on the eve of the election” in Russia next week.

Indeed, Dole’s speech was notable for its anti-Russia statements, in which he raised the specter of Russian nuclear weapons once again directed at the United States.

“My policy toward Russia will be to employ effective measures to defend against weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles,” Dole said.

“Post-Soviet Russia has proved all too willing to repeat old patterns, challenging the interests of America and the West. And many of those challenges were excused, ignored and even encouraged by the Clinton administration,” Dole said, criticizing, in particular, Clinton’s likening of the brutal fighting in Chechnya to the carnage of America’s Civil War.

Clinton’s rhetoric, he said, by seeming to excuse Russian excesses, had “given a green light to the most dangerous tendencies in the new Russia.”

Instead, Dole said, policymakers must “deal with the Russia that exists today--not the Russia we all hope to see.”

On Bosnia, Dole accused Clinton of “haphazardly” getting the U.S. involved and now having “no idea how to get Americans out or how to accomplish the mission they went to fulfill.” He repeated his criticism of the administration’s slowness in arming the Bosnian government.

“Not a single bullet has been delivered, and Bosnia remains outgunned,” he said, adding that as president, he would immediately arm Bosnia.

All week, Dole has sought to portray himself as a staunch defender of the independent states of the former Soviet Union, against whom Russia has “waged a campaign of subversion, intimidation and economic blackmail,” he said.

“I will make clear that Russian economic blackmail or military meddling in their former empire will carry costs in relations with the United States.”

Dole also accused Moscow of violating arms-control treaties and criticized Clinton for being “silent” in the face of such conduct.

After the speech, Dole flew to Cleveland, where he attended a banquet for the fifth anniversary of the independence of Slovenia--one of the countries that split off from the former Yugoslavia. The trip, much like Dole’s private meetings Monday with the presidents of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, are, in part, a campaign effort aimed at winning support among Americans of Eastern European origin--a substantial bloc of votes in several battleground states, particularly Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Times staff writer Art Pine in Washington contributed to this story.