Word: scowcroft
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While Clinton's performance may look better than it did at first, many experts doubt that much has changed. "I don't see any systemic improvement in the Administration," says Brent Scowcroft, who served as George Bush's National Security Adviser. "The notion that they've been through their shakedown and now have a smoothly running machine just isn't true. Even when they do things right they don't manage it well...
...with the State Department's efforts to curb arms proliferation and human-rights abuses. Individual results may be impressive, but foreign policy by franchise loses the force and coherence of a guiding intelligence. "Every once in a while someone wanders into the engine room and pulls the throttle," says Scowcroft, "but it's hard to see that anyone is in charge of the train." The result is that "officials from other countries I talk to say we're fundamentally unreliable, which is the worst thing you can say about U.S. foreign policy...
...declared. These points were well taken (and have been made for years by advocates of a stronger U.S. role in Bosnia). Even those who oppose the policy concede that it would be disastrous to back out now. For Washington to send troops "is a terrible idea," said Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Adviser--but reneging on that pledge "could immediately destroy NATO." (As if to underscore NATO's need for leadership, the alliance was left rudderless last week when corruption charges forced Secretary-General Willy Claes to resign...
Cheney and Eagleburger agreed. Scowcroft had taken this position within hours of the invasion. "We're committed to Saudi Arabia,'' the President said. We could start alerting units to be prepared to defend the country...
Later that day, President Bush and Scowcroft spoke with Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and an old racquetball partner of mine. They wanted Bandar to understand the threat his country faced and to know that we were prepared to come to its aid. Afterward, Scowcroft called Cheney. Bandar was coming over, he said, and we were to give him another dose of reality. On his arrival at Cheney's office, Bandar played his usual Americanized, jaunty fighter-pilot role, drinking coffee from a foam cup and stirring it with a gold pen. Ordinarily, we addressed...