Kosovo Crisis Proves Presidency Isn’t Over

One of the few blessings of the Kosovo crisis is that it has exposed once again the silliness and self-absorption of Washington’s press corps and political elite. They often don’t seem to understand what matters about the American presidency and what doesn’t.

Less than three weeks ago, Washington was looking ahead to the next presidential race and the next U.S. Senate election in New York. With the impeachment trial over, it was said, President Clinton didn’t matter any more.

“Clinton Playing Out Presidency,” declared one of the nation’s leading newspapers on its front page, departing from its usual good sense. Clinton, asserted the accompanying article, “soon will be one of the nation’s youngest ex-presidents.”

Soon? Playing out his presidency? This particular article appeared at a time when Clinton had nearly two years to go in his second term. Consider for a minute how much happened in the comparable periods of other recent two-term presidents.

Ronald Reagan concluded far-reaching agreements with the Soviet Union; in this respect at least, the first six years of his presidency were merely the preliminaries. During Dwight D. Eisenhower’s final two years, he confronted the U2 crisis and ordered the CIA to begin planning for an invasion of Cuba.

Why does so much happen overseas during the final two years of a presidency? “There’s the serendipity of what’s going on in the world,” says Richard Solomon, president of the U.S. Institute of Peace. “And then a president may feel he can’t get much from domestic politics.”

The newspaper article accurately reflected the mood of Washington during the weeks between the end of Clinton’s impeachment trial and the beginning of the airstrikes on Yugoslavia.

The fallacious assumption was that what matters about the American presidency is a blend of politics and royal family. Since Clinton did not face reelection again, and since the Monica S. Lewinsky soap opera had ended, there was nothing more to cover.

So Washington was already moving on to Vice President Al Gore’s campaign for the presidency (politics), People magazine’s story about Chelsea Clinton (royal family) and, above all, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s interest in becoming the junior senator from New York (both).

What this flawed logic overlooks is that any president--even a lame duck--is still in charge of U.S. foreign policy. At his command are American warplanes, cruise missiles, aircraft carriers and the other accouterments of a $250-billion defense budget.

This power is what makes the presidency important. And that’s where the focus of critical scrutiny should be too. Of all the countless articles about Clinton by the White House press corps over the past year, how many have looked at his increasing penchant for cruise-missile diplomacy or questioned his questionable belief in the efficacy of air power?

Hollywood and a cynical public have contributed to the prevailing belief that politics counts above all and that foreign policy isn’t really all that important. In the movie “Wag the Dog,” an American president wages war mostly to divert attention from domestic scandal.

Well, there may be disagreements about American policy toward Kosovo, but no one seems to be claiming that the whole crisis is a “Wag the Dog” diversion. Indeed, since Clinton’s impeachment trial ended, his foreign policies are being judged--as they should be--on their merits, not their connection to a running soap opera.

The military conflict in Yugoslavia might drag on for months or widen. And even if it doesn’t, there may well be another two or three foreign policy crises before Clinton leaves office. North Korea and Iraq loom as potential flash points.

Over the last week, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen took a series of little-noticed actions that underscored the Pentagon’s worries about having to wage war in two or more places at the same time.

The Pentagon first ordered one aircraft carrier, the Theodore Roosevelt, and its battle group to move into the Adriatic Sea instead of its planned deployment in the Persian Gulf. To make sure America preserved its military presence in the waters near Iraq, the Pentagon then ordered another aircraft carrier, the Kitty Hawk, to move from its home base in Japan to the Persian Gulf.

But that action in turn took an American aircraft carrier away from East Asia. Would North Korea be tempted to provoke a crisis now, when America’s attention and resources were diverted elsewhere? Cohen quickly ordered a U.S.-based fighter squadron, B-52 warplanes and an aircraft carrier to be ready for deployment in Asia on short notice.

History did not stop with the end of the Cold War. And Clinton did not become irrelevant with the end of his impeachment trial. Whatever you think of Clinton, his presidency is not over. Not by a long shot.