[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H8101]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             FOREIGN POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, the editorialists of the Omaha World 
Herald have prepared, I think, a thorough and telling critique of the 
Clinton administration foreign policy. I would like to share with my 
colleagues that editorial.
  The document referred to is as follows:

                     [From the Omaha World Herald]

   Nation Has Been Lucky To Avoid Serious Test of U.S. Foreign Policy

       Americans have been lucky. The president they elected in 
     1992 displayed little expertise or interest in foreign 
     policy. Still, he has held office during a time of relative 
     stability. His administration has had to deal with few 
     international crises.
       However, the relative stability that came with the end of 
     the Cold War may not continue. President Clinton's foreign 
     policy is an important basis for judging his qualifications 
     for re-election in November.
       Events of the past few days have demonstrated why concerns 
     about the president's judgment continue.
       In Saudi Arabia, the monarchy has withheld evidence from 
     U.S. investigators about a terrorist bombing in which 19 
     American servicemen died. The Saudis have also dismissed the 
     suggestion that U.S. forces in that country ought to be moved 
     into safer quarters. Saudi Arabia has been called America's 
     closest ally in the Arab world. This is not the way a 
     resolute United States government would allow itself to be 
     treated by its friends.
       In Israel, the voters repudiated Clinton's preferred 
     candidate, Shimon Peres. They elected as their prime minister 
     Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised to pursue a more 
     confrontational policy toward the Palestinians and 
     neighboring Arab nations.
       In the former Yugoslavia, the administration has quietly 
     distanced itself further from its promise to remove U.S. 
     troops by the end of the year. A pullout anytime soon would 
     cause the region to erupt once again in civil war.
       The administration's bumbling efforts to eliminate the 
     influence of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic have been 
     painful to watch. Moreover, it has been disclosed, the White 
     House looked the other way as Iran's Revolutionary Guards 
     established a strong presence, with guerrilla troops and a 
     supply pipeline, in Bosnia. The administration informed 
     Congress two weeks ago that the Iranians were gone, but 
     indications are that some of them remained behind.
       Riots in Northern Ireland call attention to the seemingly 
     irreconcilable divisions that exist there. By swinging U.S. 
     prestige to the side of the Irish Republican Army, Clinton 
     injected the United States into a dispute in which America 
     had no vital interests. In the process, he offended the 
     British government. Then he made the administration look 
     inept when the IRA broke its own cease-fire.
       A contributing editor at Reason magazine, Michael 
     McMenamin, has written that the IRA's strategy, which Clinton 
     has aided by pressuring the British government to grant 
     concessions, is to force the British to unilaterally withdraw 
     from Northern Ireland, leading to sectarian war in the north.
       ``Any American government that doesn't understand this 
     doesn't know Ireland, doesn't know the IRA, doesn't know the 
     Ulster Protestants, and is helping to bring an Irish Bosnia 
     closer,'' he wrote.
       Clinton has presided over an unprecedented reduction in 
     America's ability to use force as a foreign policy tool. More 
     shrinkage lies ahead. George Melloan wrote in The Wall Street 
     Journal that projected military spending in the next five 
     years will be $50 billion to $100 billion short of what will 
     be needed to achieve even the reduced force and procurement 
     levels that Clinton military strategy envisions. Melloan 
     noted that Bob Dole would arrest the slide in preparedness, 
     as well as pushing promptly for a missile defense and 
     expanding NATO.
       China now has the ability to hit the U.S. mainland with 
     intercontinental ballistic missiles. Yet Secretary of State 
     Warren Christopher has been to Damascus 17 times and Beijing 
     only once, Georgetown University diplomatic scholar Casimir 
     Yost pointed out.
       Concerns exist about how careful and competent this 
     administration would be in a dangerous situation such as 
     Presidents John Kennedy and George Bush had to face in the 
     Cuban missile crisis and Gulf War, respectively. It's 
     difficult to observe the Clinton approach without becoming 
     seriously concerned about how effectively this administration 
     would handle a major and sudden threat to vital U.S. 
     interests.

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