One hit, 0 runs, 3 errors:
Hehir, J Bryan
WORLD WATCH J. Bryan Hehir 1 HIT, 0 RUNS, 3 ERRORS REAGAN ABROAD The political news of the summer is dominated by conventions, campaigns, and candidates. Inevitably, a close second are the early...
...Unlike South Africa and Central America, the Reagan administration, in the person of Secretary Shultz, has made a new initiative in the Middle East...
...but the difficult diplomatic question is how to keep the Khmer Rouge out of power...
...The success is Afghanistan-at least the withdrawal of Soviet forces from the country...
...The only sign of hope for peace which has surfaced in Central America in this decade has been President Alias's peace process for a regional settlement-within nations and among nations...
...The Angolan talks are particularly complicated, requiring both Cuban and South African troop withdrawals, further progress toward a solution for Namibia, and an address to the internal conflict within Angola...
...The geopolitical or East-West definition of the regional conflicts is driven by a conviction that Soviet probes can be found behind most regional turmoil, and by a reluctance to take seriously the indigenous causes of conflict...
...In South Africa a decade of' 'construc-tive engagement" has left the United States on the sidelines of the political process...
...The persona of the president and his ability to strike a responsive chord in large sectors of the public generate simultaneously both positive evaluations and dissent from Reagan policies and programs...
...In each case the United States has forgone or forfeited opportunities in the last eight years to move conflict toward diplomatic resolution...
...A new start will require disowning "constructive engagement" and moving aggressively to regain some standing for the United States with representative black leaders in South Africa...
...The geopolitical view, in turn, is predisposed to address regional conflict with military means (primarily the support of resistance or insurgent groups), and to suspect diplomatic solutions which don't signal Western victories...
...Even if Afghanistan is matched by positive outcomes in Cambodia and Angola, there is little chance that the Reagan legacy will leave the next president with anything but major problems in South Africa, Central America, and the Middle East...
...Here again, the administration and the Congress have been locked in a multi-year struggle over one piece of the Central American policy-aid to the con-tras-but the problem facing a new administration is much larger than this controverted tactic...
...Inevitably, a close second are the early assessments of the Reagan presidency and its policies...
...The price of the engagement has been a conviction among South Africa's black political leaders that U.S...
...An example in foreign policy is the argument that the administration has constantly misinterpreted regional conflict by reading it through the lens of superpower competition...
...In sum, the Reagan administration's foreign policy record may yet claim more than one success, but future successes will require a quite different policy on at least three fronts...
...While continuity with the Shultz plan can be one dimension of the next U.S...
...The United States has given-at best-grudging support to his initiative...
...Since 1986 the policy stand-off within the United States has produced a policy vacuum regarding South Africa...
...In every case the East-West grid constrained and distorted U.S...
...A principal factor in the withdrawal is the Gorbachev' 'new thinking'' on Soviet commitments, but there is a broad consensus of opinion that U.S...
...The Afghanistan policy was also one of the few for-eigh initiatives which have strong congressional support...
...There are other obstacles to the Arias plan-not least the Sandinista government's refusal to recognize that democratization means that groups will use the democratic "space" which the agreement requires...
...In each case the results of the Reagan years point to the need for major policy changes...
...Reagan is judged apart from the policies of his administration...
...The open cases-it is not yet clear how they may work out-are Cambodia and Angola...
...clarity on Palestinian self-determination and probably recognition of some Soviet role in any approach to a regional settlement...
...In each area the basic critique of the Reagan regional policy seems quite on target...
...policy was not "constructive," but rather collusion with the regime of apartheid...
...security interests...
...At this writing, the balance sheet, in my view, shows one significant success, two open cases, and three substantial failures...
...approach to Central America must be regional in scope, diplomatic in nature, and understood in terms which do not see internal change in the region as an inevitable threat to U.S...
...The engagement has never been enough to pressure the South African government toward even political realism much less enlightened change...
...This assessment has been applied to Reagan policies from Southern Africa to Central America...
...At this writing multilateral diplomatic talks are being conducted which promise political solutions in both countries...
...A new U.S...
...Even as he presses his proposal, the secretary seems reconciled to a role of preparing the ground for the next administration...
...policy choices...
...Vietnamese troops have begun to leave Cambodia (more Gorbachev...
...Policy change toward Central America needs to be equally drastic and deep...
...The persistence of this critique calls for an evaluation of the results of regional policies in the Reagan era...
...More than any president in recent memory, Mr...
...support for a tough, determined, Afghan resistance made the Soviets pay too high a price for their occupation...
...When the policies are examined, certain criticisms, expressed since the early days of Reagan's presidency, persist...
...While several elements of the Shultz plan are sound and necessary, the judgment on it in the region seems to be too little, too late...
...In the United States the executive branch lost control of South Africa policy in 1986 when Congress overrode a veto to press sanctions against South Africa...
...After a long period of ignoring the region, the United States has put forward a proposal to restart the peace process...
...One does not need to have been a supporter of the Reagan Doctrine or to believe that the havoc it has wreaked in some of its applications has been justified in order to hope that both of these open cases will find diplomatic resolution...
...This leaves three major failures: South Africa, Central America, and the Middle East...
...But the concept of the Arias plan points toward the only viable method of ending a decade of war and suffering in Central America...
...The United States is a significant player in all of these negotiations...
...initiative in the Middle East, events in the West Bank and the region as a whole require both greater U.S...
Vol. 115 • August 1988 • No. 14
