Los Angeles Times
July 26, 2004
Even after completing 957 pages of memoir, Bill Clinton still has a lot to get
off his chest.
About, for instance, George W. Bush's decision to invade
Iraq. "The American people can decide who they think is right and wrong, but
the Bush administration believed Iraq was far and away the biggest security
problem of the country, despite the fact that there was more support for Al
Qaeda within Pakistan and now we know more contacts with Iran," the former
president said in an interview as he prepared for his prime-time address to the
Democratic National Convention tonight.
"There were," he added dryly,
"other responsible people who had different views."
He's just as
exercised about Bush's doctrine of military preemption. "I think it's a very
tricky, slippery slope," he said. "I think you have to be under an imminent
threat to justify any kind of preemptive attack. First of all, it was never
realistic because we are not going to go to war with Iran or North Korea. I
think it's hard to even t hink of another case."
Since leaving office in
2001, Clinton has seemed torn between the tradition of avoiding public conflict
with his successor and his unhappiness with many of Bush's choices. At points
he's jabbed Bush, especially on his domestic priorities. But mostly Clinton has
avoided confrontations.
As Bush drove toward war in Iraq, Clinton was
more supportive than not (although just before the invasion he urged Bush to
give inspections more time, reasoning that it would encourage more nations to
join if war still proved necessary).
In his memoir, Clinton also was
restrained in expressing his disagreements with Bush.
But the
restraints, apparently, are loosening.
Clinton still isn't prepared to
become another Al Gore, channeling the Democratic id in podium-pounding speeches
that seem designed to end with the distribution of pitchforks.
But
four years after Gore mostly kept him on the shelf in the 2000 campaign, Clinton
also has made it clear that he's r eady to help Massachusetts Sen. John F.
Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, define the choice for
voters this year. And it's equally clear he sees that choice in stark
terms.
"On balance," Clinton said, "Bush domestic policy is to cut taxes
no matter what it does to the deficit and to concentrate wealth and power in the
hands of people who share his values and economic interests. Abroad, his policy
is to act alone whenever we can and cooperate whenever we have to.
"Kerry's policy at home," Clinton continued, "is to say that we ought to have a
government that has more fiscal responsibility and takes more initiative in
education and healthcare, changes the energy and environment policy of the
country to generate jobs and improve the environment and combat global warming.
Abroad, he thinks we should cooperate whenever we can and act alone whenever we
need to."
Republicans would dispute almost every word in that
formulation — especially whether Kerry, given his long list of new
spending initiatives, is truly committed to fiscal responsibility. But it is a
much more concise summary of the Democratic case than Kerry manages on most
days.
Clinton seems especially exasperated by Bush's foreign policy
decisions. He doesn't quarrel too much with the judgment of the independent
commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that his
administration, like Bush's, did not do enough to counter the threat from Al
Qaeda. "We got a lot more done than had ever been done before," Clinton said.
"[But] the 9/11 commission may be right that notwithstanding our best
efforts, the whole government was not as sharply focused before 9/11 as it was
after."
But he believes Bush has taken significantly wrong turns in the
war on terrorism, partly by downplaying the U.S. role in brokering an
Israeli-Palestinian peace, mostly by shifting resources and energy from Al Qaeda
to the invasion of Iraq, especially given the global divisions over the war.
"We have an overstressed military, and we have committed far more
resources to Iraq than to Al Qaeda," Clinton said pointedly. "I don't think
every American president would have made that decision."
Would Clinton
have invaded? As president, he portrayed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
as a threat in vivid language conservatives often quote today. And apart from
asking whether Bush was moving too fast, he didn't publicly challenge his
successor's decision at the time. Now, without answering definitively, Clinton
strongly implies he would not have launched the war.
"I would have let
[U.N. inspectors] finish their work, and then I would have decided," he
said. "But the factors in my thinking would have been how well we were doing in
Afghanistan stabilizing the entire country, and what our reasonable prospects of
getting [Al Qaeda leader Osama] bin Laden were. I still think he was
the biggest threat to the country."
In their fundamental approaches to
the presidency, Clinton and B ush are opposites. Clinton believed he exerted
his greatest leverage by trying to bridge differences, at home and abroad. Bush
appears to believe he can best advance his goals by clarifying differences and
polarizing choices.
Not surprisingly, Clinton believes that strategy
explains why Bush finds himself in such a difficult race less than three years
after enjoying near-unified public support following the Sept. 11
attacks.
"The president may still be reelected, because he's a great
politician, but if he's not, it will be because of the response that he decided
to undertake after 9/11," Clinton said. "We all wanted to follow the leader and
be united as a country. The Republican right … which dominates the policy
of this White House, took our patriotism to be weakness and tried to push the
country to the right and push the world around, and there was a predictable
reaction."
How does Clinton, who lovingly analyzes electoral trends in
his memoir, handicap November? "A slight major ity seem to have decided they
would like a new president," he said. "Kerry just has to close the
deal."
That may be. But Democrats would probably feel better about that
prediction if Kerry had just a little more of Clinton's spark on the campaign
trail.
Ronald Brownstein's column appears every Monday. See past
columns at latimes.com/brownstein.