Clinton’s Troubleshooter

PRESIDENT Bill Clinton began his second tenure with some politically correct moves: first, he nominated United Nations Ambassador Madeleine Albright to be the United States’ first female secretary of state and chose Republican senator William Cohen of Maine as defence secretary. He also moved National Security Adviser Anthony Lake to head the CIA and promoted Lake’s deputy, Samuel ‘Sandy’ Berger, to Lake’s job in the White House.

By tapping Sen. Cohen, 56, to head the Pentagon, Clinton fulfilled a campaign pledge to appoint a Republican to a top cabinet post. Lake, 57, who has been coordinating Clinton’s security policies since 1993, has a reputation for sticking to principles. Berger, 51, has been a friend of the president for 25 years and Clinton is said to respect his organisational abilities.

Albright, 59, an outspoken advocate of human rights, came to America as a young refugee when her family fled Czechoslovakia after World War II. She has served as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill, a professor of international relations at Georgetown University, and as UN ambassador. While her appointment is being hailed as a triumph for a first generation American citizen, her East European connection is expected to define her policy interests.

As the first woman appointed to this most august of cabinet offices, her nomination helps Clinton with feminists who might otherwise sniff at a hard-line choice for secretary of state.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (Republican-North Carolina) rejoiced at Albright’s nomination and called her a "tough and courageous lady". Indeed, Albright can look forward to a relatively smooth working relationship with the conservative Republican majority in the Senate. With abrasive political battles ahead over foreign policy—cutbacks in aid, extension of troop presence in Bosnia, state department restructuring, NATO expansion, trade and human rights issues with China—analysts say Clinton had no choice but to appoint a tough-talking, politically savvy diplomat who could protect the administration’s right flank.

While known for her rhetorical and political skills, Albright will inherit many problems. Her identification with unpopular US stands in the UN helps her with American conservatives, but widens the gap between the US and its allies. Her role in casting the veto against a second term for UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and her public identification with the US embargo against Cuba endeared her to people like Helms—but left her isolated at the UN.

Her credentials as a long-time friend of Israel are also a double-edged sword. In 1992, she urged then president-in-waiting Clinton to attack President Bush’s decision to suspend US loan guarantees for Israeli settlements on the West Bank. At the UN, she has been a tireless opponent of Iraqi efforts to escape sanctions imposed after the Gulf War. Stands like this may help her with Israel’s Likud government, but an Albright-led state department will have a harder time convincing Arabs and Palestinians that the US can be an honest broker.

Albright will also face challenges in areas like China, West Asia, the emerging markets of Latin America and South Asia where she has no experience. Says Stanley Roth, former director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council and now at the US Institute of Peace: "She’s no Asia expert, that’s obvious, but virtually no secretary of state candidate knows everything. " Albright has shown little interest in South Asia. In reality, US policy on South Asia is little affected by changing faces in Washington. What does change is the emphasis the US gives to various facets of that policy. Indian governments may find it an irritant when Washington is critical of human rights violations in Kashmir or New Delhi’s nuclear intentions, but US public opinion on such issues is non-existent, except for a small body of South Asia experts on Capitol Hill and in academia.

If Clinton instructs her to give high priority to South Asia, and if she tackles the problems with her usual ferocious energy, New Delhi may find the emphatic reiteration of some US policies more than a little discomfiting. However, India can draw comfort from the fact that the rickety democratic structure of Islamabad may also attract her uncompromising gaze.

Responding to rumours that Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel might be leaving her post for some other appointment, a spokesperson said, "There is no saying what will happen. She has spent nearly three-and-a-half years as assistant secretary. By next summer she will have completed four years. While there is no set length to these assignments, it is quite possible that she may move on to something else." There was no reason to think that she would be moving to a South Asian capital as ambassador, he added. Several people are in the running for Raphel’s job in the South Asia bureau of the state department—Peter Galbraith, ambassador to Croatia and former aide at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Teresita Schaeffer, former ambassador to Sri Lanka and deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian Affairs, Rufus Smith, ambassador to Tajikistan and a former deputy chief of mission in New Delhi, and Ed Abington, consul in Jerusalem.

Regarding Ambassador Frank Wisner’s continued stay in New Delhi, the spokesperson said: "It is likely that he may be leaving Delhi. But we don’t know when or where he is going or whether he is going to Moscow." The spokesperson refused to speculate about Wisner’s successor in Delhi but the ambassadorship is likely to go to a political appointee. Wisner is believed to be keen to be in New York and join the private sector.

Jeffrey Garten, formerly undersecretary of commerce for international trade and now dean of the Yale School of Management, said he believes Albright’s real challenge will be to "break the mind-set of traditional military and security issues" and think harder about big emerging markets like Brazil, India and China. "Economic growth there is three times that in the US, Europe and Japan, and that is where many new American jobs will be produced. We haven’t made the shift from the end of the Cold War with the decisiveness necessary, to draw a closer link between the resources we spend abroad and the way most Americans view their lives." As Clinton prepares America for the next century, the question that is being asked in diplomatic circles is whether the new foreign policy team will make incremental changes to the status quo?바카라 웹사이트