MR. WOBBLY
MR. WOBBLY In 1990 a British prime minister sought to stiffen the spine of an American president trying to decide whether to reverse Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Margaret Thatcher's famous...
...Daschle gambled that even if Democrats looked exploitative, Republicans would be forced to defy anti-gun sentiment in the country and look even worse...
...Right now, it's by no means clear...
...But Democrats, sensing Republican weakness, now demanded more...
...For the past few weeks, Tony Blair has been trying to convince Bill Clinton that the air campaign in Yugoslavia cannot succeed and that preparations must be made to send ground troops into Kosovo to drive the Serbs out...
...They pointed to more "loopholes," the press dutifully played these up, the debate on guns dragged on, and Republicans suffered...
...Can NATO allies be brought around to support a ground war in Kosovo if necessary...
...Daschle's role was cynical in the extreme...
...He won the gamble...
...So far, Clinton has essentially told his good friend Blair to shut up...
...When they list cures for what ails America, they get to gun control last...
...William Kristol and Robert Kagan, for the Editors GUN SHY It's really not about guns...
...There's a message for Republicans in their missteps over the gun issue...
...And it's not only Gary Bauer and Dan Quayle who say so...
...True enough...
...In spite of Lott's capitulation, Republicans still might have disposed of gun control in one day and averted embarrassment...
...Sorry, Mr...
...Margaret Thatcher's famous injunction— "George, this is no time to go wobbly"—helped give President Bush the moral courage to take Americans to war against Saddam Hussein...
...But having already slated the juvenile justice bill for the Senate floor, Lott was wary of postponing it past Memorial Day, when cooler heads might prevail...
...Clinton's declaration last week that no options had been taken "off the table" seems to have been aimed chiefly at getting Blair off his back...
...Then, only days later, he insisted Democrats would disrupt the Senate and block all legislation until there was action on gun control...
...But these were the same Democratic senators who, for cynical and partisan reasons, had rushed to Clinton's defense in the impeachment struggle...
...In other words, unless the president starts to prepare for a ground war in the very near future, there is a real chance that we will fail to achieve our basic objectives...
...Some Republicans, Lott included, acted surprised that Democrats would be so cynical and partisan...
...Schröder himself, after beating back a challenge from the Green party—which also wants a bombing pause—sounds as if he is desperate for a diplomatic solution...
...Fred Barnes, for the Editors...
...Such failure should be unacceptable...
...Right now the British and French want to win this war, no matter what it takes...
...Lott could have explained the Senate had more urgent business...
...Blair's Thatcherite gutsiness is proving an annoying embarrassment to the president, who so far lacks the stomach to match it...
...Senator McCain embarrassed Clinton when he offered a resolution two weeks ago authorizing the president to use "all necessary force" to win the war in Kosovo...
...After Littleton, he declared that no new gun laws were needed...
...Other Republicans, like McCain and Smith, were shocked the media would strongly take the side of Democratic gun control advocates...
...He wanted McCain to shut up, too...
...So even while exulting last week over his tie-breaking Senate vote to crack down on gun shows, Gore was careful to cite— and cite first—more urgent needs such as "better parenting" and "more discipline in schools" and "more self-restraint in the media...
...The president, with an ever-watchful eye on the polls, clings desperately to the hope that Milosevic will buckle under the air attack...
...But Clinton officials rebuffed him, again...
...No doubt White House pollsters have cautioned them to be restrained in promoting anti-gun legislation now...
...The next day, the Senate reversed itself and adopted this position—the Democratic position all along...
...In order of culpability, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, majority leader Trent Lott, and Republican senators John McCain and Gordon Smith...
...It's Bill Clinton...
...This would cause more private gun sales to go underground, denying authorities some of what they know now about gun trafficking...
...German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is publicly sniping at Blair, and allied political leaders are quarreling over military and diplomatic strategy...
...Background checks stretching over three days at gun shows...
...But this shouldn't have startled anyone...
...All this disarray is a consequence of the badly planned and badly implemented air campaign...
...And it is the obvious inadequacy of the air campaign that has created the recent disunity in the alliance...
...They'd have to be purchased along with a gun, but actually attaching them to the gun is voluntary...
...After being in the majority for nearly five years, they still haven't figured out the politics of running Congress...
...Clinton said no...
...Nine years later we see history repeating itself, but unfortunately only on the British side...
...With British, French, and American forces available, NATO doesn't need German forces on the ground in Kosovo...
...The war should be won...
...Last week Clinton officials grumbled to reporters that Blair's constant pressure for ground troops was making Clinton look weak by comparison with John McCain...
...The disastrous consequences of the president's wobbliness become more apparent with each passing day...
...It isn't our allies...
...And on the key vote, they lost, with Al Gore casting the deciding vote and gloating about it on national TV afterwards...
...So for the past two months, we have had this situation: A U.S...
...president who has been a lot friendlier to those who want us to lose this war, like the Russians and the Chinese, than he has been to allies and members of Congress who want to win...
...That evident desperation, along with all the international-alliance squabbling, has probably emboldened Milosevic to hold out for a diplomatic settlement on his terms, not NATO's...
...So who's to blame for allowing the No...
...In their post-Littleton speeches, President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have made the same point, indirectly but unmistakably...
...This allowed the juvenile justice bill to be the vehicle for gun control—and for GOP humiliation...
...The Italian government has called for a bombing pause...
...Blair, your American friend has indeed gone "wobbly...
...The day after the Senate voted for the Republican position of voluntary background checks at gun shows, and when the legislative battle seemed resolved, at least for the time being, the two senators pointed alarmingly to newspaper headlines about GOP connivance in keeping "loopholes" in the gun laws...
...The Washington press corps has been credulous about the merits of gun control forever...
...But it is also, more importantly, the result of Clinton's unwillingness to rally an alliance that depends on clear and vigorous American leadership...
...Late last week, General Wesley Clark bluntly told his superiors that unless the United States began to move ahead with the deployment of ground troops soon, the possibility of having a ground force ready before winter in the Balkans would be foreclosed...
...We suspect that the German government's chief objection is to the use of German troops in a ground action...
...And yet Washington pretends the solution to Littleton and to the shooting last week at a Conyers, Georgia, high school can be reduced to one thing: more gun control...
...If President Clinton ever summoned the will to lead, it is highly unlikely that a ground option favored by the three most important allies in NATO would be blocked by the likes of the Italians, the Greeks, or even the Germans...
...Before the NATO summit in Washington on April 23, Blair and his foreign secretary, Robin Cook, sought Clinton's support for taking up the ground war issue with the rest of the alliance...
...And any teenager, particularly determined ones like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, would be able to saw through such locks in minutes...
...In fact, the measures passed by the Senate, if the House goes along, would have almost no effect...
...Child locks on guns...
...Calling this a disaster for Republicans, they said background checks should be made mandatory...
...And the main obstacle to winning it isn't Slobodan Milosevic...
...1 lesson of Littleton to be defined in Washington as gun control...
...Lott should have called Daschle's bluff...
...He's obsessive about sticking to the schedule, and so he did...
...A tantrum by McCain and Smith prevented this...
...But Clinton officials, cynical to the core, use the disunity as an excuse for not pressing ahead for a ground attack...
...The war can be won...
...The answer is yes...
...Last week, Robin Cook visited Washington again to make the case that NATO at least needs to prepare for the possibility of ground forces...
...Fine...
...Indeed, a number of Republican senators urged him to do exactly that...
...Clinton's own military commanders and his own closest allies in NATO have become convinced that only a ground attack can drive Milosevic from Kosovo and secure a victory on NATO's terms...
...Clinton lobbied furiously to defeat McCain's resolution...
...Nine weeks into the air war, the NATO alliance is showing signs of weariness...
...They should take a break, study the George Mitchell years during the Bush presidency, and learn how to play hardball...
...Whatever punishment NATO is inflicting on Milosevic's forces—and that punishment does not seem to stop Serb forces in Kosovo from doing just about whatever they please—the big question is who will give in first: Milosevic or NATO...
...It isn't the weather in the Balkans...
Vol. 4 • May 1999 • No. 35
