Nancy Soderberg, a senior foreign policy adviser to Bill Clinton from 1992 to end of his second term in 2001, discusses her new book, The Superpower Myth: The Use and Misuse of American Might.
What is the myth of the superpower?
It's the belief that the lone superpower can bend the world to its will, primarily through military might and primarily on its own. The book argues that the costly experiment of [President George W.] Bush's first term has made America less safe and that there needs to be a second-term conversion to a policy I call “tough engagement,” where the U.S. is once again the persuader, not just the enforcer, and leads a world coalition against terrorism and proliferations while, obviously, at times having to act alone -- but as a last resort, not a first.
You've said elsewhere that you see hopeful signs, in the early days of Bush's second term, that he may be steering the nation in that direction.
If you look at the new rhetoric coming out of the Bush administration -- the talk about trans-Atlantic alliances and partnerships, the need to put the past behind him -- if he translates that into a real policy, I think he can have a very historic second term. They've already shifted on Iran to a more realistic policy where they're willing to talk about sticks and carrots. I think that will bring Europe on board and probably get a deal on that. They need to do that same type of deal on North Korea, which has been churning out two types of nuclear weapons for the last four years virtually unchecked, because we will not engage them. If they can shift into that new policy and reverse this anti-Americanism that's occurred over the last four years, they could get much stronger coalitions against terrorism and proliferators.
I think, actually, on the Middle East peace process, they're likely to have historic progress with the new Arab leadership and their close relationship with [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon. Arab reform, I think is the toughest one, because it's going to be a generational issue, but you might as well start now. I think President Bush is focused on the need to end incitement, the hatred in the media. All of this needs to convince the world that we are acting in our interest, of course, but also in their interests in ways that benefit them.
The Clinton administration foreign policy team, of which you were a part, had some notable successes -- Haiti and Kosovo come to mind -- but there were a number of failings, too: Somalia, the failure to do more about the genocide in Rwanda, perhaps not doing enough to slow the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. What are the great lessons, then, of Clinton-era foreign policy?
This book is really the first book to look at the broad brush of foreign policy and what we were trying to do in the eight years that Clinton was in office. The book takes the reader into the situation room and tries to explain why these decisions come out of the sausage process in Washington. What I argue in the book is that, after the Cold War, Clinton had to redefine the role of the superpower and, particularly, the use of force for a superpower. The early lessons of Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia were all a very painful learning process. Somalia was a very wonderful effort by the first President Bush to try and save lives, but they told us they'd have the troops out by January 20 [1993]. They didn't consult with us before they did it. And then we made the mistake of trying to increase the military operations against one [Somali] faction with no political strategy to back that up, and there were disastrous consequences, with U.S. soldiers who died in that tragic incident made famous in Black Hawk Down. With Haiti and Bosnia, we didn't realize that we'd need force to back up diplomacy. We always thought, through this whole thing, that negotiations would ultimately succeed; and it took us two-and-a-half years in Bosnia, a year-and-a-half in Haiti to back up diplomacy with force. Once we did that, they were successful policies.
Not too long ago you were on Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor, and he tried to portray you as an example of a Democrat who wants the United States to lose in Iraq. Do you know any Democrats who actually want this to happen?
No, of course not. The right wing has a habit of making stuff up about what Democrats believe as a way of driving their ratings up. America is in Iraq until it succeeds. I personally think it will succeed. I think the fact that 8.5 million Iraqis came out to vote, despite serious threats from insurgents, the fact that they voted for a secular government, not an Iranian-style government -- it will work. It'll be an enormous cost to America; we've already lost 1,500 soldiers, hundreds of billions of dollars, and our 150,000 troops are there for the foreseeable future. But it will work.
You've said that you think the Democrats could actually benefit from more obvious successes by this administration.
One of the reasons that Bush won in 2004 was the very deliberate scare campaign by the president and the vice president, in particular. Remember, Bush said: If you elect John Kerry, you'll have another 9-11. To this day, a majority of Americans think that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11, when he didn't. The American people rightly are traumatized after 9-11, but the White House made a deliberate campaign to scare Americans. The campaign in 2004 was not on the facts; it was about American emotions and fears. If there is great progress in the next four years, the public will feel secure enough to actually be able to step back and look at the facts. Any time the Democrats can talk about the facts, they tend to win.
Wouldn't this book have been more useful if it had come out before the election?
We talked about that. It was originally scheduled to come out last summer, but there were so many hate books on both sides, and the publisher felt that mine was a more thoughtful book that would get drowned out by the hate books. In the heat of the campaign, I think they were right. The book was timed to come out with the first 100 days of the Bush administration to get people thinking about the issues.
Didn't you think that it could be the first 100 days of Kerry, though?
Some people did; I actually always thought it was going to be very hard for a Democrat, whoever it was, to beat an incumbent president in the midst of, really, three wars: Afghanistan, Iraq, and the war on terrorism.
Couldn't we potentially be in a similar situation three-and-a-half years from now -- fighting terrorism, American troops mired somewhere far from home?
I think Bush is a patriot; I think he wants to make progress; I think he deeply believes in his duty to make America safer over the next four years; and I think he'll do everything he can to do so. If he can reject the myth and move to reality, he's well positioned to make historic progress on terrorism, getting a coalition to follow us, and really getting serious about ending the (weapons) programs of North Korea and Iran.
Kevin Canfield is a writer in New York.
