[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 152 (Tuesday, November 2, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13717-S13718]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                THE PHONY BATTLE AGAINST `ISOLATIONISM'

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, Friday's Washington Post contained an 
excellent op-ed piece by columnist Charles Krathammer arguing that, 
contrary to claims now being made by senior Clinton Administration 
officials, the recent defeat of the Comprehensive Test Bank Treaty is 
not evidence of an emerging isolationist trend in the Republican party. 
I ask that the column be printed in the Record.
  The material follows:

                The Phony Battle Against `Isolationism'

       After seven years, the big foreign policy thinkers in the 
     Clinton administration are convinced they have come up with a 
     big idea. Having spent the better part of a decade meandering 
     through the world without a hint of strategy--wading 
     compassless in and out of swamps from Somalia to Haiti to 
     Yugoslavia--they have finally found their theme.
       National Security Adviser Sandy Berger unveiled it in a 
     speech to the Council on Foreign Relations last week. In true 
     Clintonian fashion, Berger turned personal pique over the 
     rejection of the test ban treaty into a grand idea: The 
     Democrats are internationalists, their opponents are 
     isolationists.
       First of all, it ill behooves Democrats to call anybody 
     isolationists. This is the party that in 1972 committed 
     itself to ``Come home, America.'' That cut off funds to South 
     Vietnam. That fought bitterly to cut off aid to the 
     Nicaraguan contras and the pro-America government of El 
     Salvador. That mindlessly called for a nuclear freeze. That 
     voted against the Gulf War.
       They prevailed in Vietnam but thankfully were defeated on 
     everything else. The contras were kept alive, forcing the 
     Sandinistas to agree to free elections. Nicaragua is now a 
     democracy.
       El Salvador was supported against communist guerrillas. It, 
     too, is now a democracy.
       President Reagan faced down the freeze and succeeded in 
     getting Soviet withdrawal of their SS-20 nukes from Europe, 
     the abolition of multiwarhead missiles, and the first nuclear 
     arms reduction in history.
       And the Gulf War was fought, preventing Saddam from 
     becoming the nuclear-armed hegemon of the Persian Gulf.
       ``The internationalist consensus that prevailed in this 
     country for more than 50 years,'' claimed Berger, 
     ``increasingly is being challenged by a new isolationism, 
     heard and felt particularly in the Congress.''
       Internationalist consensus? For the last 20 years of the 
     Cold War, after the Democrats lost their nerve over Vietnam, 
     there was no internationalist consensus. Internationalism was 
     the property of the Republican Party and of a few brave 
     Democratic dissidents led by Sen. Henry Jackson--who were 
     utterly shut out of power when the Democrats won the White 
     House.
       Berger's revisionism is not restricted to the Reagan and 
     Bush years. He can't seem to remember the Clinton years 
     either. He says of the Republicans, that ``since the Cold War 
     ended, the proponents of this [isolationist] vision have been 
     nostalgic for the good old days when friends were friends and 
     enemies were enemies.''
       Cold War nostalgia? It was Bill Clinton who early in his 
     presidency said laughingly, ``Gosh, I miss the Cold War.'' 
     Then seriously, ``We had an intellectually coherent thing.

[[Page S13718]]

     The American people knew what the rules were.''
       What exactly is the vision that Berger has to offer? What 
     does the Clinton foreign policy stand for?
       Engagement. Hence the speech's title, ``American Power--
     Hegemony, Isolation or Engagement.'' Or as he spelled it out: 
     ``To keep America engaged in a way that will benefit our 
     people and all people.''
       Has there ever been a more mushy, meaningless choice of 
     strategy? Engagement can mean anything. It can mean 
     engagement as a supplicant, as a competitor, as an ally, as 
     an adversary, as a neutral arbiter. Wake up on a Wednesday 
     and pick your meaning.
       The very emptiness of the term captures perfectly the 
     essence of Clinton foreign policy. It is glorified ad hocism.
       It lurches from one civil war to another with no coherent 
     logic and with little regard for American national interest--
     finally proclaiming, while doing a victory jig over Kosovo, a 
     Clinton Doctrine pledging America to stop ethnic cleansing 
     anywhere.
       It lurches from one multilateral treaty to another--from 
     the Chemical Warfare Convention that even its proponents 
     admit is unverifiable to a test ban treaty that is not just 
     unverifiable but disarming--in the belief that American 
     security can be founded on promises and paper.
       If there is a thread connecting these meanderings, it is a 
     woolly utopianism that turns a genuinely felt humanitarianism 
     and a near-mystical belief in the power of parchment into the 
     foreign policy of a superpower.
       The choice of engagement as the motif of Clinton foreign 
     policy is a self-confession of confusion. Of course we are 
     engaged in the world. The question is: What kind of 
     engagement?
       Engagement that relies on the fictional ``international 
     community,'' the powerless United Nations or the recalcitrant 
     Security Council (where governments hostile to our interests 
     can veto us at will) to legitimatize American action? Or 
     engagement guided by American national interests and security 
     needs?
       Engagement that squanders American power and treasure on 
     peacekeeping? Or engagement that concentrates our finite 
     resources on potential warfighting in vital areas such as the 
     Persian Gulf, the Korean peninsula and the Taiwan Strait?
       Berger cannot seem to tell the difference between 
     isolationism and realism. Which is the fundamental reason for 
     the rudderless mess that is Clinton foreign policy.

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