America Abroad

By Strobe Talbott

In November 1990, during the buildup to Operation Desert Storm, James Baker tried to shore up support on the home front for the dispatch of U.S. troops half a world away. "To bring it down to the level of the average American citizen," he said, standing up to Saddam Hussein "means jobs." Then, to make sure everyone understood, he said it again, "If you want to sum it up in one word, it's jobs."

In one sense, Baker was merely stating the obvious. Of course the U.S. had an economic stake in the Persian Gulf. He would have been just as correct to say the magic word was oil. Trouble in far-off lands can raise prices and cause long lines at gas stations in the U.S., and high energy costs can force companies to lay off workers and close plants. That is part of what global interdependence is all about.

Yet Baker's attempt to make the showdown with Saddam into a pocketbook issue backfired. He was widely clobbered for being patronizing; most Americans like to think their country's role in the world is more than just a matter of looking out for No. 1.

So George Bush realized. When he offered his own justification of the gulf war in the State of the Union message last January, the President said nothing about jobs or oil. Instead he invoked a loftier theme: "We are Americans, part of something larger than ourselves." The U.S., he continued, was fighting for "the universal aspirations of mankind -- peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law."

There may be more than a touch of arrogance in such rhetoric, whether its source is Bush in 1991 or Franklin Roosevelt in 1941 or Woodrow Wilson in 1917. But there is also nobility and immense political force in the claim that American power is an instrument of universal values as well as national interests. Throughout this century that idea has helped rally other countries when U.S. Presidents have called. It enabled Bush to mobilize a mighty international coalition that cut across the traditional divides of East and West, North and South, and gave meaning to the phrase new world order.

From the day Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 until it was evicted nearly seven months later, Bush operated on the conceit that he was the leader not only of the U.S. but of the world. No one had elected him to the latter post, but almost no one except Saddam objected. Quite the contrary, the world was eager for someone to follow, and Bush obliged. For a long, proud moment, he conquered the vision thing. It was the high point of his presidency.

This week marks the low point. When Bush set off for Australia and the Far East last Monday, he virtually apologized to his constituents for leaving the country. He promised he'd make it up to them by devoting the tour to one goal: creating "jobs, jobs and jobs" in America.

Like Baker in November 1990, Bush is right that there is a connection between a vigorous foreign policy and a healthy economy. He is right that , world commerce in general and U.S.-Japan trade in particular must be fair as well as free; indeed, it must be fair in order to be free. Those are legitimate points for Bush to impress on Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa. But then the two leaders should turn the matter over to their aides and move on to other business.

Together, the U.S. and Japan account for 40% of the world's economic output. The interconnectedness of their economies makes a broader strategic partnership between Washington and Tokyo essential, especially since Japan's neighbors include a Russia that is in deepening crisis, a North Korea that has the most militaristic and totalitarian regime on earth and a China that could, in the next few years, undergo a power struggle of epic proportions.

Yet Bush has consigned geopolitics to second place so that he can concentrate on a detailed discussion of auto parts, semiconductors and rice. By bringing along an entourage of 21 corporate executives, a number of whom are outspoken protectionists and Japan bashers, the President has turned the trip into a trade mission and himself into his own Secretary of Commerce. To such a visitor, the Japanese will find it all the easier to say no. So even in terms of his own obsessively repeated objective, the J word, Bush is likely to fail.

By pandering to domestic politics, Bush diminishes his nation, his office and himself. He betrays a weakness of character -- a lack of grace, and guts, under pressure. His campaign for re-election hasn't even got tough. So far he faces opposition from a conservative pundit and TV talking head who has never run for dogcatcher, a former Nazi and Ku Klux Klan Pooh-Bah who was recently rejected by the good people of Louisiana, and a Democratic field that has yet to close ranks behind a compelling candidate or a coherent platform. Yet already Bush is running scared. Even when he is more than 5,000 miles from the nearest primary state, he is on the hustings, pleading for another term from the folks back home.

It is not a pretty sight, and it raises disturbing questions. Was the leadership Bush showed during the gulf crisis an aberration? What if some similar challenge arises in the months ahead? It's hard to have confidence in a President who so blatantly and abjectly puts his country and the world on notice that the job he is most concerned about is his own.