A-Infos (en) Brit op-ed; US public not convinced

[MichaelP <papadop@PEAK.ORG>]

________________________________________________
     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
           http://www.ainfos.ca/
________________________________________________

London Times   February 23 1998 OPINION
   
   Bronwen Maddox on a deeply sceptical American public
   
   Clinton is losing on the home front
   
   In the old joke about Cable News Network, a New Yorker goes into a bar
   in the American heartland and berates the occupants for their
   provincialism, above all for their failure to subscribe to the 24-hour
   news channel. Then he switches on the bar's television to find CNN's
   familiar bland voices crotcheting together videotaped segments from
   the world's flashpoints, and protests: "I thought you said you didn't
   get it." "Oh, we receive it," the bartender says, "we just don't get
   it."
   
   Except now the joke is on the Clinton Administration. It has spent one
   of the most politically inept weeks in its history, attempting to
   educate the heartland about the merits of waging war on Iraq. The
   message that Middle America is sending back is that it has thought
   plenty about the prospect - and doesn't much like it. A Newsweek poll
   yesterday recorded 18 per cent in favour of military strikes, and 39
   per cent against. More than a third - 36 per cent - are in favour only
   if strikes eliminated President Saddam Hussein, a goal the
   Administration acknowledges as unrealistic.
   
   As well as popular scepticism, the Administration faces congressional
   ambivalence. Abroad, with the exception of President Clinton's
   self-described "friend and colleague" Tony Blair, it is isolated. In
   the breathing space apparently seured yesterday by Kofi Annan, the
   United Nations Secretary-General, the Administration is now asking how
   it put itself into such political peril.
   
   It misjudged the public mood partly because it underestimated the
   public's sophistication - its ability to make up its own mind without
   spin from Washington. A public prepared to forgive Mr Clinton what it
   says it believes - that he had some kind of sex with Monica Lewinsky
   in his office - is also worldly enough to weigh up the odds in the
   Gulf and find them wanting.
   
   That misjudgment showed at its rawest in Wednesday's now-notorious
   "Town Hall" meeting in Columbus, Ohio, when Madeleine Albright, the
   Secretary of State, William Cohen, the Defence Secretary and Sandy
   Berger, the National Security Adviser, fielded questions from a
   sceptical audience. Perched on flimsy chairs in a basketball arena,
   the trio fumbled question after question, stalling with patronising
   dismissals. Asked why the US was not tougher on other rogue states, Ms
   Albright directed the questioner, a history teacher, to "study
   carefully what American foreign policy is".
   
   Of course, Mr Clinton should have done the job instead. But the
   Lewinsky saga has made him a prisoner of Pennsylvania Avenue, too
   fearful to expose himself to public questioning. His set-piece speech
   at the Pentagon last week extolled US military might - but the weapon
   the Administration most needs, and cannot currently deploy, is the
   President's popular touch.
   
   Given the public's ambivalence, it is not surprising that
   congressional backing for action is still in doubt, although Senator
   John McCain has rallied an important minority behind his call for
   bombing until Iraq capitulates.
   
   The Administration appears more startled at the lack of support from
   foreign governments, and at the way the consensus between the US,
   Europe and Arab states achieved after the 1991 war has dissolved. It
   should not be; that second misjudgment stems from at least two
   profound muddles in American foreign policy.
   
   As Ohio questioners vigorously told the embattled trio, America has
   neglected the growing anti-US mood in the Arab world. Ms Albright
   maintains indignantly that the Iraq stand-off is entirely "separate"
   from the unravelling of the Middle East peace process since the
   election of Binyamin Netanyahu as Israeli Prime Minister.
   
   But it is no secret that Arab nations blame America for failing or
   refusing to hold Israel to its UN commitments. The White House thought
   it snubbed Mr Netanyahu last month when it sent him to lunch with
   Vice-President Al Gore in the cafeteria; to others, it still looked
   like hospitality. In provoking a confrontation, Saddam appears to have
   sensed that shift of the region's mood.
   
   The US has also deluded itself for seven years about the likely
   success of sanctions in weakening Iraq, and about the willingness of
   all European countries and Russia to back a policy so much at odds
   with their trading interests. Ironically, the State Department has
   just begun a long-overdue review of its fondness for sanctions, now in
   force against some 70 countries, acknowledging that they are often
   futile, or even counter-productive.
   
   Mr Blair's rush to pledge his support for Mr Clinton earlier this
   month in Washington looks even riskier now than it did then. Political
   contamination from the Lewinsky affair was the threat on which he
   focused - and which he brushed away, calling for voters to focus on
   the issues that really matter.
   
   But the real risk is that, in both Britain and America, they may do
   just that - hold their political leaders to task for losing lives in a
   war for which they have a shaky mandate and which arguably stems from
   long-standing misjudgments in US foreign policy. If, despite
   yesterday's apparent agreement, the bombs do start dropping, Mr
   Clinton will owe Mr Blair more than the walkabout in Belfast which
   seemed fair payment for overlooking Ms Lewinsky.
   
   Having put itself in this pickle, the Administration must now be
   deeply grateful for Mr Annan's breakthrough. It must know now that its
   campaign to convert the heartland to the cause of war was probably
   doomed. The problem is not that favourite political lament, of a
   "failure to communicate". The real obstacle was that the public heard
   the message, and rejected it.
   
   Next page: The Times Diary 
   
   Arts (Mon - Fri) | Books (Sat) (Thu) | British News | Business | Court
   page | Features (Mon - Fri) | Go (Sat) | Metro (Sat) | Obituaries |
   Opinion | Sport | Travel (Sat) (Thu) | Vision (Sat) | Weather |
   Weekend (Sat) | Weekend Money (Sat) | World News
   
   
   [LINK]Down[LINK]
   Subscribe to the paper
   Contact Us
   
   Next page: The Times Diary 
   
   Line
   Copyright 1998 Times Newspapers Limited. To inquire about rights to
   reproduce material from The Times, please visit the Syndication
   website [LINK]Up[LINK]


     ****** A-Infos News Service *****
  News about and of interest to anarchists

Subscribe -> email MAJORDOMO@TAO.CA
             with the message SUBSCRIBE A-INFOS
Info      -> http://www.ainfos.ca/
Reproduce -> please include this section