Clinton, Blair and Bush

duran duran

Interesting piece in todays Guardian. Just the sort of long range thinking that sends Niall O'Dowd into freefall:

They once ruled the world like two masters of the universe. During the closing years of the 20th century, they were comrades on a shared, global mission: Bill and Tony's excellent adventure. Today Bill Clinton and Tony Blair - the men who transformed their parties and won election and re-election as a result - are still political soulmates.

Scan the text of the former president's Dimbleby lecture shown on BBC TV, or any of the variations on that theme Clinton delivered at venues around Britain last week, and they read like translations into American of Blair's October speech to the Labour party conference in Brighton. Like Blair, Clinton calls for a war on global poverty, with the rich countries facing up to their responsibilities to the poor. Like Blair, he wants the benefits of globalisation shared around. Like Blair, he believes the world's problems can be solved, as long as we have the will.

The two even use the same phrase to describe us: we are all the children of Abraham. And the pair have one final thing in common: no one is listening to either of them. Clinton is the more remarkable bearer of the message. He is the only American of stature who has dared stray into such ultra-sensitive territory - seeking to identify the underlying causes of the terror that struck his country on September 11.

For many in the US this is dangerous ground, with any attempt at explanation risking condemnation as justification. Most have steered clear. But, always the master politician, Clinton knows how to navigate such difficult terrain. First in his lectures he sets out his support for his successor's fight against al-Qaida, wishing it well and assuming its eventual success. Then he swiftly moves on to what will have to be done next: "We're gonna win this fight - then what?"

And it's here that Clinton unveils his deceptively progressive message. Packaged in hoarse-throated, folksy homilies and plain, colloquial language, it can easily float past the British ear: we tend to expect harder nouns and more "-isms" in our radical politics. But progressive it is. Clinton is calling for a collective offensive by the rich world on poverty, Aids and the environment. He wants nations like his own to pay up for schools, healthcare and, as he told the Jewish National Fund in London last week, "the little, biddy kids who never get to drink a clean glass of water".

For him, as it was for Blair, this is not just do-gooding for do-gooding's sake: it is a matter of international security. Global warming is worth defeating because, if we don't defeat it, we will lose land to flooding, "there will be millions of food refugees created... more terror".

Being Clinton, he finds fresh, accessible ways to make the case. So Aids should be conquered because, if it isn't, the future will look like a Mad Max movie: "A whole lot of young people around the world will say, 'Well, I'm HIV positive, I've got a year or two to live, why shouldn't I go out and shoot up a bunch of other people?' " (Can't quite hear Blair saying that.) But the core argument is that used by left liberals since September 11: "We in the wealthy countries have to spread the benefits of the 21st century, and reduce the risks, so we can make more partners and fewer terrorists in the future."

But Clinton does not leave it there. He pushes his audiences further, asking them to look beyond the "little boxes" of their own identity or ethnicity, and to appreciate the variety and difference that makes the human race such a joy. "Think about how we all organise our lives in little boxes - man, woman; British, American; Muslim, Christian, Jew; Tory, Labour; New Labour, Old Labour; but somewhere along the way, we finally come to understand that our life is more than all these boxes we're in. And that if we can't reach beyond that, we'll never have a fuller life."

It is a powerful idea, simply expressed - and it takes Bill Clinton into a new, unfamiliar realm. These are less the words of a politician than a would-be moral leader: that's how high he is reaching. This elevated quality gives the current Clinton speech its stirring strength. But it also points to his greatest weakness. He holds no office and therefore has no immediate power. That is the brute truth of politics and Clinton knows it. He can give a great speech, but there is no force behind his words: no army to despatch, no vast bureaucracy to deploy. And so there is a wistful cast to the former president's eye. He misses his job. As one ex-aide sighs, "He's lost." But perhaps the big man also regrets all the big, global moves that he didn't make when he had the chance.

Still, Clinton's problem is more than a classic case of ex-president syndrome. Even if he were not the messenger, his message would find no mainstream constituency in America right now. Tune in to the US conservative punditocracy and you'll hear people high on military victory in Afghanistan and in no mood for pinko talk about underlying causes. For the hawks, terrorism has a simple cause - evil people - and an even simpler solution: annihilation by force. Why would anyone want to listen to Clinton on Aids when 15,000-pound daisycutters have done the trick instead?

Tony Blair is in the same hole. Yes, he was awarded garlands in America for acting as evangelist-in-chief in the war against terror; yes, even loyal Republicans ranked his rhetorical gifts above George W's. But that was all they wanted to hear from Britain's prime minister. He was allowed to be America's cheerleader in its hour of need; we were allowed to play the Star Spangled Banner at Buckingham Palace. But the rest of Blair's message - the Brighton speech calling for a reordering of the world, spreading hope from the camps of Gaza to the mountains of Afghanistan - all that was dismissed as hand-wringing nonsense. The Bush administration is no more willing to hear it from Blair than it is from Clinton; when al-Qaida's complete surrender is within the US's grasp, why fret about clean water for Africa or the need for a democratic breeze to blow through the cobwebs of the Muslim world?

One last factor hampers Blair. His attempts to graduate from spokesman to statesman have not gone well. His Middle East tour at the end of October brought consecutive humiliations from Syria's President Assad and Israel's Ariel Sharon, while British pride was dented when the US and Northern Alliance jointly denied our troops entry into Kabul. The result is a fall in Blair's stock, with even Britain's military brass muttering that the PM needs to stop and think before committing our troops to serve as a glorified aid agency.

The harsh fact is that the hawks are in the ascendant just now, utterly vindicated in their own eyes by the Afghan triumph. At present they see no reason to heed the long-range warnings of Blair and Clinton: only another atrocity might make them do that. So the PM and the former president will just have to keep on making speeches, and growing hoarse in the task.

bonkey

Originally posted by duran duran
But it also points to his greatest weakness. He holds no office and therefore has no immediate power. That is the brute truth of politics and Clinton knows it

<snip>

But perhaps the big man also regrets all the big, global moves that he didn't make when he had the chance.

I find this a bit optimistic. Clinton was aware of all these problems during his "reign" and chose not to deal with them. Its far easier now to imply that there are imperatives to be dealt with when it is someone else who has the reality of facing up to those imperatives.

I'm not at all suggestion that this is a democratic vs. republican thing. I think Clinton would probably be making the same speech had Gore won. I just think that he chose to ignore these issues during his term, and now wishes to cast a moral imperative at his successor to deal with said issues.

jc

duran duran

True enough.

What's depressing is how well people like Bin Laden have exploit the economic despair and political marginalization of the Muslin world.

People like this will emerge accross every culture and country who are daily forced to observe their lack of economic or political muscle.

Clinton failed to rise above his rhetoric. But he did at least have a grasp of the consequences of having a fortress mentality.

If we are to have a collective future, then we will have to address the hopeless inequalities of unchecked global capitalism.

(Nothing excuses the actions of the pyschopathic madman Bin Laden - but we should certainly pay attention to the level of support his actions have received in the Muslim world)

Typedef

Originally posted by duran duran

(Nothing excuses the actions of the pyschopathic madman Bin Laden - but we should certainly pay attention to the level of support his actions have received in the Muslim world)

For sure. No matter how much people seek to deny the fact that not just foreign policies but also the inequalities created by the darwanian, hirearchical system humans live within and construct the fact remains that as long as the issues which motivate the "terrorist" exist so will the "terrorist".

The issues for the al-Queda people apparently are
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and US military support of Israel
Iraq and the millions of people dying as a result of US imposed sanctions.
US support of the Saudi Royal family and the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, apparently having non-Muslims on the holy land is an affront to many Islamic people.

Sand

The same people who argue against intervention-due to previous mistakes, now argue for it?

And at the same time the message is sent out- "If your terrorists, its okay heres loads of financial aid".

He makes a point about terrorism being based on inequalities etc etc - most people would have taken those inequalities as a basis for political action, not the murder of innocents. How and ever, most of those inequalities are based on misrule by the corrupt elite of the states involved. The western world can intervene only in a limited fashion- i.e the US and the developed world is not going to mess with OPEC nations. Just isnt going to happen. As long as oil is the basis of the developed nations economy theyre not going to do the 1970s inflationary crisis all over again. Sad but true.

Bonkeys right when he says that this is Clinton marching to the high moral ground now that he isnt responsible for anyone but himself anymore. He was in power for 8 years, controlling the worlds largest economy and milatary and he did what? Sept 11th happened after 8 years of his administration and a few months into Bushs. The attacks on the US destroyer and the US embassies happened during his administration. Werent the danger signals sent to him then?

Clinton recognises that what he proposes is unrealistic , but he gets a lot of kudos from saying it now that no one expects him to do it.
And Blair has always ridden on the coat tails of whatever US president is currently in power. But at least he keeps the conservitives out of office.

Gargoyle

Originally posted by Sand

Clinton recognises that what he proposes is unrealistic , but he gets a lot of kudos from saying it now that no one expects him to do it.
And Blair has always ridden on the coat tails of whatever US president is currently in power. But at least he keeps the conservitives out of office.

Spot on, Sand. He's quite good at that actually.

If all the midnight executive orders he passed when he left were so important, why didn't he implement them straight away. This is not to say I disagree with all of them, only the timing of his putting them in place.