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WORLD VIEW
APRIL 22, 1996
TRANSCRIPT
Jim Lehrer is joined by a panel of foreign correspondents to discuss Secretary of State Warren Christopher's shuttle diplomacy in the Middle-East and President Clinton's trips to Russia and South Korea.
JIM LEHRER: Now, President Clinton's just-completed trip around the world. He started it a week ago in South Korea and then went on to Japan and Russia before returning last night. The diplomatic agenda included security and nuclear proliferation issues, but the fighting in Lebanon was the lead item by the time he arrived in Russia on Thursday. The President called for a cease-fire and sent Sec. of State Christopher off on a new round of Middle East shuttle diplomacy. We get three perspectives now on the President's trip. They are those of Tom Friedman, columnist for the "New York Times," Jim Hoagland, columnist for the "Washington Post," and Karen Elliot House, president of the international group of the Dow Jones Company, Incorporated, publishers of the "Wall Street Journal." Tom Friedman, first on the Middle East, does the President through Sec. Christopher have a viable way to stop the fighting, a plan, a way to get it done?
THOMAS FRIEDMAN, New York Times: Well, I think their dilemma, Jim, is that they're trying to work through President Assad of Syria, and I think the problem there is that if Assad's the answer to the problem, he's also the problem, and that's their dilemma. He--they've got a deal with him. On the one hand, he's been encouraging, I believe, this fighting in South Lebanon. On the other hand, he's the only one who can really put a hand and control on this Hezbollah faction. So their strategy is to deal with him. What they want to seize is a comprehensive deal that will end the fighting in South Lebanon, maybe even produce an Israeli withdrawal. The problem with that is that that means a solution to the Israel-Lebanon problem, and Hafez Assad is never going to allow the Lebanon problem to be solved before the Israel-Syria problem. So he only wants half a solution. He's the only one who has got the solution, and he's also the source of the problem.
JIM LEHRER: You said in a column, in fact, yesterday, that the U.S. approach, which was to be sweet with Assad, is working. You think it's time to be tough with Assad. What does that mean?
THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Well, I think it's time--this guy basically has been getting away with murder, our Secretary of State, at last check, has been there I think not twenty times, if you count two trips today, in the last three years. He has absolutely nothing, zero, to show for those twenty trips, not in terms of Israeli-Syrian peace, not in terms now of peace in Lebanon, not in terms of peace even in the environment, so at some point I think you have to snap the notebook shut, say thank you very much, Mr. Assad, we will leave you to the tender mercies of the Israeli air force, give us a call, 202-647-4000, ask for Chris, see you later.
JIM LEHRER: What do you think about that, Karen?
KAREN ELLIOT HOUSE, Dow Jones, Inc.: I think Tom is right, that this is typical of the--in my view--the Clinton administration foreign policy. They don't seek to make things better. They seek to keep them from getting worse, and so it's, it's in the Middle East with Russia, with China, with North Korea, a kind of incremental appeasement, because we don't have a strategy to make things better. We simply seek to paper over problems.
JIM LEHRER: Do you think what Tom Friedman just outlined would work?
KAREN HOUSE ELLIOT: I think it would get Assad's attention, and right now, Assad is the one who's entertaining foreign ministers from all over the world while he lets Warren Christopher sit there, and with nothing to do, talk to the French and the Italians, who we probably should be talking to about how do we all put some pressure on Assad, but, instead, while Christopher cools his heels, he talks to them and then says, I'm going to solve this problem by myself, and I don't--I doubt that we can.
JIM LEHRER: Jim Hoagland, how does it look to you?
JIM HOAGLAND, Washington Post: Well, I think it's pretty hard to imagine a situation, Jim, in which Israelis are being wounded and lots of people are dying in Lebanon. And the United States simply says, not our business, doesn't send Sec. Christopher out there to try to do something. So I guess I disagree with my colleagues on this. I think in contrast to most of his trips to the Middle East this is one he should have taken, and I think what, what matters really is not how many times you go to see Assad but what you say to him and how you support the Israelis, which I think this is administration is extremely supportive of Israel, how you support the Israelis in trying to bring an end to the fighting on the border and support Shimon Peres in trying to get a deal with Syria that will end this ground fighting and perhaps lead to peace talks that bring something after the Israeli elections on May 29th.
JIM LEHRER: So you're more optimistic. You think it's possible that Christopher can make a deal here of some kind that might work.
MR. HOAGLAND: I think there's just a tiny, tiny small chance. I don't think it's likely, but I think that Assad, it's absolutely correct to say that Assad uses these terror attacks as a tactic, which indicates that he's interested in bargaining for something. He's interested in bargaining for the dominant role in Lebanon, as well as the return of the Golan Heights. Christopher from the beginning has been supporting an Israeli effort to negotiate with the Syrians. After all, the Clinton administration has taken a supportive role, facilitating role, a reactive role, which I think in this case is probably the right role in the Middle East today.
JIM LEHRER: So let's say for discussion purposes that Sec. Christopher is not successful in making the big deal. Is it possible that we have a small deal, at least the killing stops and, and then things just go right back the way they were?
THOMAS FRIEDMAN: I think it's certainly possible, and that would be all to the good if Assad will agree to a small deal and if Peres can sell a small deal at home. I would just say in terms of what Assad is angling for, it's hard to figure out. If he's angling for a deal on the Golan or if he's angling for the reelection of Shimon--if he's angling for a deal on the Golan, one presumes he wants the reelection of Shimon Peres.
JIM LEHRER: He's even going to get it.
THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Right. He's not going to get it from the Likud, I believe. But that--what that begs the question of, Jim, is that for the last four years he's had Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin there. He could have done a deal any time over the last four years, and he hasn't done it. So I find his behavior here a little bit inscrutinable. If there is a silver lining in any of this right now, I believe in terms of Shimon Peres's future it's the fact that the fighting in Lebanon, I think, has underscored for Israelis, it has reminded them how unlivable the Middle East is without a peace process, how bad that the--the old Middle East was as bad as we remember it.
JIM LEHRER: It was just the other day.
THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Exactly. And ultimately that's good for Shimon Peres because what Likud represents I think in the minds of a lot of Israelis is a return to that Middle East; when Israelis see Netanyahu there with Ariel Sharon and Rafael Etonne, they say, whoa!
JIM LEHRER: The right leader.
THOMAS FRIEDMAN: The right wing leaders in Israel. We've been to that play before, so I think that explains an interesting phenomena that so far Peres for all the analyses that he's losing, he's lost, he's been out- foxed by Assad, has not actually seen a major erosion in his poll standing, and I think it's because a lot of people say, jeez, you know, if that's the future, I don't want that.
JIM LEHRER: Yeah. Yeah. You see it the same way?
KAREN HOUSE ELLIOT: I guess I would question whether Assad may not, because, as you say, he's had four years to do a deal with labor, and he hasn't chosen to. Is it possible that he thinks he is better off with an obstinate, difficult Israel because then he won't have to make a compromise? It'll be clear that he can, you know, sit there, or if he gets a deal, you know, a la Begin, it will hopefully be one that the Israelis can really make stick, as opposed to have the right wing in Israel oppose it.
JIM LEHRER: Let's, let's go back a step on the President's trip to Russia. Karen, is it your belief now that the United States or the President and thus the United States is committed to Boris Yeltsin's reelection? Is that where our stakes are now?
KAREN HOUSE ELLIOT: That's where Bill Clinton's stakes are. I'm not sure that's where America's area.
JIM LEHRER: But I mean as President of the United States has he committed the United States to that?
KAREN HOUSE ELLIOT: Yeah, he's clearly committed our prestige and his to the reelection of Yeltsin, and I think we should be focused on the country, not on the personality. I think, you know, it's probably better for this country, for America's interest, if Yeltsin is elected, instead of Zyuganov, but--because Yeltsin can't--
JIM LEHRER: Who is the Communist candidate, yeah, old-line Communist Party.
KAREN HOUSE ELLIOT: Yes. Yeltsin can't govern. I think that's been demonstrated in the last several years, and that will be the future of Russia, I think. He can't govern. He's not going to win by enough of a margin to be able to govern. So it will continue to consume itself, whereas, under Zyuganov, the Communist, he may be able to move in the wrong direction, but my prognosis is paralysis either way.
JIM LEHRER: Either way? Jim, how would you--what kind of marks would you give the President for the way he dealt with Russia and the Yeltsin situation while he was there the last two days, three days?
MR. HOAGLAND: I think he came out of it without any damage, which in an election year is very important to him. He did indicate that things would be better if Yeltsin were reelected without getting involved in the campaign, itself, inside Russia. He saw Zyuganov and other opposition leaders while he was there. I think he conducted himself as an American leader trying to deal with a difficult and unpleasant situation.
JIM LEHRER: How do you feel about it, Tom?
THOMAS FRIEDMAN: I would--I don't think that he has a lot of great choices there, frankly, between, you know, Zyuganov, Yeltsin, and some of the others. You go there, you support election, you support reform. I think in their hearts what they hope is that Yeltsin will get close enough that he can steal the rest, that that's basically what they're hoping for at this stage in the game. But, you know, I think he handled it pretty well.
JIM LEHRER: All right. Before he went to Russia, Japan, South Korea, for once there was no talk about trade. It was all about security. That's a new development, is it not?
THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Yeah. It's a new development. I'm not sure I, for one, welcome entirely. I think that it plays into the hands of some of our Asian trading partners who love to tell us, well, finally we got that off the agenda. Now you're back to the real, the issues with hair on them, you know, get away from this trade stuff, but at the same time there obviously are real security issues there. Now with the rise of China, it is that much more important that the United States and Japan, I believe, find a way to work together in Asia, not to begin a Cold War, they're not to contain China, but to let China know that there are balancing forces out there, and that it cannot throw its weight around in Asia indiscriminately.
JIM LEHRER: What did you think about the Asian part of the trip?
KAREN HOUSE ELLIOT: Well, he skipped the most important country in Asia, namely China, because there's no political gain in visiting China, but the-- China is, in my view, the single most important issue to American security, economics, you name it, because it is the country that will be a superpower, and if it continues to believe that it can rewrite the rules, then it's going to be very bad for all of us, but he won't talk to the Chinese because very bad odor politically in this country and we don't understand the succession. They don't have elections but they certainly have succession struggles, so theirs is as acute as--more so than our political election here, at least thus far, or Russia's, but we don't talk to China. It's been six years since there was anything other than a photo opportunity really.
JIM LEHRER: Asia.
MR. HOAGLAND: There was no basis for the President to go to China. He should not have gone to China. I think this trip in some ways is an admission of the failure of his China policy. He did not create conditions that would have justified a presidential visit. Chinese--it's not simply that China is in bad odor in this country. It is that China is committing a number of acts that are against American interests, such as staging missile tests near Taiwan. I can go down a long list of things. There's a good reason for him not to visit China. On Japan, I think he did reestablish a good working security relationship with the Japanese. I think he has realized he cannot have things go wrong both with Japan and China at the same time, and that's perhaps the beginning of wisdom and an Asia policy.
KAREN HOUSE ELLIOT: I don't mean to say he should have dropped out of the air in China unprepared, but he should have prepared to go to China.
JIM LEHRER: We're out of time and countries. All right. Thank you all three very much.
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