Impending Clash With Iraq Begets a Clash of Administrations

Al Gore turned heads the other day with his campaign-style denunciation of President Bush’s strategy toward Iraq. But Gore was only part of a larger trend that’s attracted much less notice.

In speeches and congressional testimony, almost all of the Clinton administration’s leading architects of national security and foreign policy have come out against Bush’s approach to Iraq. The clash of nations is generating a clash of administrations.

Most of the Clintonites, especially former President Clinton himself, have framed their disagreements less belligerently than Gore. But all have reached the same bottom line, arguing that Bush is moving too quickly toward war.

While all say they eventually could support an invasion to destroy Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction, the Clintonites insist that war, if it comes at all, should come only after another attempt at disarming Iraq through U.N. inspections. Only then, they maintain, can the United States mobilize broad international support for an invasion--and reduce the risk of what Clinton last week called the “unwelcome consequences” of an attack.

In raising these arguments, the Clinton administration alumni never have seemed so much like a government in exile. Though insiders say they aren’t coordinating these remarks, in the last few weeks virtually identical objections to Bush’s course have come from Clinton, Gore, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former national security advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, retired Gen. John M. Shalikashvili (Clinton’s choice as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who directed the NATO war in Kosovo. They probably didn’t agree this much when they were in office.

Intriguingly, the Clintonites’ dissents are dividing them not only from the Bush team but also from the Democrats closest to them during their tenure: the congressional “New Democrats” associated with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

When Bush last week unveiled the compromise congressional resolution that would authorize him to use force almost immediately against Iraq, he was flanked by Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the current and prior chairmen of the DLC. Almost all of the congressional New Democrats--including New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton--are likely to vote for the resolution.

The Clinton alumni haven’t specifically opposed the resolution. But their arguments challenge its underlying grant of power to Bush to invade Iraq virtually as soon as he wants.

At the core of the conflict between the Bush and Clinton teams is a very different conception of how America can best pursue its aims in the world.

The Bush administration generally believes that if the United States demonstrates enough resolve, the rest of the world will follow our lead; the Clintonites are much more concerned about maintaining international legitimacy and support for American actions.

That’s not only because they believe it will be easier to both invade and rebuild Iraq if other countries are on board; they also maintain that as the world’s dominant power, the United States benefits from strong international institutions that establish expected rules of behavior. As Shalikashvili put it: “Every time we undermine the credibility of the United Nations, we are probably hurting ourselves more than anybody else.” No Bushie outside the State Department would ever say that.

To maximize international unity against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the Clintonites want to launch a new round of tougher, unfettered arms inspections and invade Iraq only if those inspections fail. The Clintonites see that approach as a win-win: either Hussein disarms or he resists, providing the evidence that will rally a broad international coalition to depose him.

If the United States acts sooner, and virtually alone, the Clintonites see a long list of potential dangers. They worry that other nations would cooperate less in the war against terror if we invade Iraq over their objections. They fear that Hussein would be more likely to use chemical and biological weapons, or funnel them to terrorists, if he believes he’s doomed anyway. They’re concerned that a war without broad international support could destabilize friendly governments in the region (like Pakistan and Jordan)--or create a radicalized post-Hussein Iraq that becomes a source of anti-American recruits for Al Qaeda.

Above all, Clinton, Gore, Albright, Berger, Shalikashvili and Clark all have argued that Bush’s doctrine of preemptive attack may establish a precedent that haunts America. While Clinton has said that any president would act against an imminent security risk, he’s suggested that attacking Iraq now would give license for other nations to invade antagonists they consider potential threats. Think India and Pakistan, or China and Taiwan.

It’s not too surprising that the Clinton and Bush teams would divide so sharply. In effect, the Clintonites are arguing for a bulked-up version of their containment policy toward Iraq, which the Bushies always considered inadequate. And if the Clintonites think Bush is moving too quickly toward war, the Bushies feel Clinton was too slow to use force as the threat from Al Qaeda or Iraq metastasized.

More revealing is the split between the Clintonites and the New Democrats in Congress. Part of the difference is politics: Opposing Bush is easier for former administration officials who aren’t running for anything this year. But something more substantive is at work too.

The former Clinton officials base their arguments on the belief that Iraq doesn’t pose an unacceptable threat in the near-term. Intellectually, most elected Democrats probably agree. But as officeholders still accountable to voters, they are less willing to take the risk that they are wrong. “Sure, there are risks to preemption,” says Bayh. “But after Sept. 11, we’ve learned there are real risks to not acting.” In other words, if in doubt, take him out.

That conclusion will swell the vote for Bush’s resolution, even among Democrats who agree with almost everything Clinton and his colleagues have said. While the Clintonites have persuasively cataloged the dangers of acting too quickly in Iraq, it’s the dangers of inaction that are likely to carry the most weight as Congress moves toward authorizing a second Persian Gulf War.

Ronald Brownstein’s column appears every Monday. See current and past Brownstein columns on The Times’ Web site: www.latimes.com/brownstein.