Red, White & Liberal by Alan Colmes

Author:Alan Colmes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2003-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Clinton’s Successful Affairs—Foreign, That Is

George Mitchell says he feels more frightened sitting between Sean and me than he does when he’s in tense negotiating sessions. But the former Senate majority leader from Maine chaired talks that resulted in the Good Friday Accords, bringing peace to Northern Ireland on April 10, 1998, for the first time in twenty-nine years. On September 26, 1995, the Clinton administration achieved another huge foreign policy victory when the foreign ministers of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia (including the Bosnian Serbs) agreed in principle to a pact that was codified in Dayton, Ohio, on November 21 and signed in Paris in December 14, 1995. When the Serbs began “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians in 1999, Clinton, with the cooperation of NATO, initiated a bombing campaign, and the despot responsible, Slobodan Milosevic, wound up in a world court. And unlike our policy toward Iraq, there was no plan for American takeover of a foreign government and possession of its natural resources.

In Haiti, Clinton was able to peacefully achieve the removal of General Raoul Cedras, who had overthrown a democratically elected president. As the president prepared to send troops in if necessary, Colin Powell and Jimmy Carter and Georgia senator Sam Nunn convinced Cedras to step aside so Jean-Bertrand Aristide could resume his presidency. Great leadership was also shown in brokering a relationship between Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat, which resulted in the Wye Agreements that called for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip. A good relationship with Boris Yeltsin and an agreement to help the former Soviet Union financially helped secure Russia’s nuclear arsenal and made it possible for Russia to agree to help us dismantle their nuclear weapons.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, which opponents predicted would steal jobs from Americans, resulted in one-and-a-half times more gains than losses, according to the Library of Congress. But NAFTA’s biggest success was its impact on the politics and the economy of Mexico. It helped to stabilize our neighbors to the south without the “giant sucking sound” of jobs leaving America, as Ross Perot predicted. Taking a political risk by going against the protectionist grain of his own party, Bill Clinton’s NAFTA vision has proven to be correct over time. And when the Senate opposed bailing out Mexico by 81-15, Clinton did it by executive order. His prescience proved correct, as Mexico repaid the loan three years ahead of schedule.

A policy of free trade, international alliances for peacekeeping, and protection of basic human and civil rights was the basis for Clinton’s “Doctrine of Enlargement,” which resulted in the expansion of NATO to include Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The Clinton era provided not only enhanced prosperity but also enhanced global peace, which, in turn, fed that prosperity.

Of course, I did not always agree with Bill Clinton. Just as I was against the war in Iraq, I opposed sending forces into Kosovo. But at least my opposition has been consistent. Republicans, who have a tendency to knock the patriotism of

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