Term Paper on "Impact of Bill Clinton His Accomplishments Policies and Presidency on Global Politics"

Term Paper 4 pages (1550 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Clinton's International Legacy of Global Diplomacy and Future as a Statesman

The forty-second president of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, leaves a mixed global legacy to the world. His two terms in office were marked by efforts resolve several major crises overseas, including long-standing ethnic conflicts in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and the Middle East. However, the great deal of the international clout and political capital Clinton was able to amass over the latter course of his first term and early in his second terms, partly because of the relative strength of the American economy and partly due to his new vitality as a leader of substance, was undone by a series of "various scandals of both a political and personal kind that resulted in Clinton's becoming the first president since Andrew Johnson to be impeached and tried." (Rozell, 2005)

When the former Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton came to power, world opinion as to his foreign policy competency was fairly negative. This was only to be expected, perhaps, given that the recently deposed first President Bush was not only a vice president before he assumed the presidency, but was a former director of the CIA and an ambassador to China under Richard Nixon. Clinton had campaigned with the homespun, America-focused slogan 'it's the economy, stupid,' and his domestically oriented past career made him appear like anything but a statesman. "(BBC, 2001) Clinton was keenly aware of the recession, and his first campaign offered change and focused on the economy and the high unemployment rate. He promised health-care reform, tax cuts for the middle class and tax increases for the wealthy, and reductions in defense spending." (Rozell, 2005) However, Clinton seemed to offer little coherent vision for the post Cold War's increasingly fractious and divisive world.

How quickly things change. Now ex-President Clinton, health permitting, is touring the world with the former first President Bush, attempting to use his international clout to gain support for the embattled East Asian nations decimated by the tsunami's impact. But this new clout did not come easily. "In the first years of his administration, Clinton experienced many of his greatest difficulties in the foreign policy realm. Indeed, issues involving Bosnia, Haiti, the former Soviet Union, Somalia, Cuba, North Korea, and Iraq seemed intractable." (Rozell, 2005) Many observers felt that the new President's inexperience in foreign affairs showed "when he appeared unable to establish a consistent U.S. position on these daunting problems." (Rozell, 2005)

However, what Clinton lacked in experience he was occasionally able to make up in bravo diplomacy and sheer force of personality in his statesmanship. In observing his latter administration peacekeeping efforts, BBC correspondent Bernard Mason noted, "It was another exercise in what he does brilliantly: making people feel good about themselves. "(Mason, 2001) Clinton had been doing this all along during his presidency, abroad and at home. For instance, in response to a wave of Cuban refugees seeking entry into the United States in 1994, "Clinton reversed the U.S. policy of giving asylum to those seeking to escape Fidel Castro's regime but worked out an agreement with the Cuban government to allow more refugees into the country." (Rozell, 2005)

Clinton avoided a potential crisis in Haiti through a skillful combination of force and diplomacy. "Under threat of an imminent invasion, Haiti's military junta agreed to relinquish power in favor of the democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. American troops entered Haiti to keep the peace." (Rozell, 2005)

Clinton also showed great tact with communist powers besides Cuba. North Korea agreed, in exchange for aid, to give up plutonium-producing nuclear reactors. Finally, U.S. recognition was given to Vietnam. These were some of Clinton's most aggressive actions as a foreign policy architect. But without a doubt, his earliest sign of determination came when Mexico received a much-needed $40 billion loan guarantee in 1995. Clinton bypassed Congress to help the Mexican economy, knowing the impact on American jobs and to U.S. banks if Mexico collapsed. (BBC, 2001) This was an unpopular stance, but proved profitable. This act of authoritarian fiat and generosity, characteristic of Clinton's maturing leadership style (as opposed to his earlier, much-maligned pleasing and waffling) lead in Clinton's second term to the ratification of NAFTA and GATT, two key economic successes for the new global economy. (Brookings Institute, 2001)

In the Middle East, Clinton's legacy is shakier. Given the fact that Arafat still lived and lead the PLO while Clinton was in office, and given all of that leader's intransigency, Don Schor of NPR, at a 2001 forum given by the Brookings Institute noted that Clinton had made significant strides "in the field of peacemaking and peacekeeping" in the Middle East. "If you take a look at eight years of a president and say, has he left this world safer or less safe than he found it...[of course] he will get blamed for things which were going to happen anyway." (the Brookings Institute, 2001) However, not all of Clinton's interventions in the Middle East were peacemaking. In Iraq, in 1994 Clinton deployed troops to Kuwait and in 1998 he ordered air strikes against Iraq for violating the terms of peace agreed to at the end of the Persian Gulf War.

Clinton and his foreign policy team, led by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, achieved considerable successes in Northern Ireland and Israel. (Rozell, 2004) Even English and the ever-critical British press noted Clinton's European peacekeeping efforts. "His efforts in Northern Ireland, where he helped bring Sinn Fein into the peace process and appointed former Maine Senator George Mitchell to chair the talks, which produced the Good Friday Agreement," were amongst the most successful of the Clinton administration's efforts. (BBC, 2001)

The Clinton administration also supplied the bulk of the aircraft and weaponry for NATO's 1999 military campaign against the Serbian president's troops in the predominantly Albanian province of Kosovo. Clinton is credited with ultimately bringing peace to the Yugoslavian region, although many still believe that much of the Bosnian carnage and war crimes could have been mitigated, had the United States intervened sooner, and with greater diplomatic and military force.

One of the most ironic aspects of Clinton's presidency is that while his impeachment scandal may have stymied his political agenda during his second term, it drew increased personal support for him abroad and may be one reason why he is so beloved as an embattled statesman today. For instance, the "French newspaper Le Monde dubbed the impeachment proceedings the "new McCarthyism, in which the panicked fear of Communism is replaced by the fear of sexuality...In Russia, which has a collapsing economy and a crippled government and where members of the State Duma are said to have brought prostitutes into the legislative building, newspapers have all but ignored Clinton's problems." (Moore, 1998) Even the threat of impeachment proceedings "was allotted only a short, straightforward account in Izvestia, the main newspaper." (Moore, 1998)

Today, Clinton has attempted to turn around some of his administrations less notable failures, such as his impact upon the environment. One environmentalist fumed, "he wasn't known as the eco-warrior president. Nor was he a visionary on energy independence." (Little, 2004) Only now is Bill Clinton "using his legendary charisma and silver tongue to help mobilize the shift away from fossil fuels." (Little, 2004) However, while in office, fearing to upset global economic expansion, Clinton refused to even strive to make "incremental progress" in limiting the use of fossil fuels, noted the critic, "and where was Clinton on greenhouse-gas caps [while in office]? The environmental community tried to move them along, but their efforts didn't go far."(Little, 2004)

Environmentalists may criticize his current stance, however, but it is also possible to see such efforts as a way to amend and continue the Clinton legacy, and to do some of the things Clinton… READ MORE

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