By Ibrahim Nafie * The US is embroiled in an unprecedented social and political crisis. The significance of the Monica Lewinsky scandal extends beyond its impact inside the US, where there is a likelihood that it might force President Clinton out of the White House. It will certainly impact on US foreign policy and, inevitably, on America's international standing. Just as significant, the scandal has exposed new characteristics of the American political system. Perhaps the most important of these is that the absence of any significant foreign threat has given rein to the most rabid domestic political rivalry. Antagonists now avail themselves of any and every means to defame their adversaries, regardless of how this might undermine America's international standing. The actions of the US administration since the Lewinsky crisis erupted testifies to its profound impact on US domestic and foreign policy. Clinton has repeatedly sought to deflect attention from this crisis towards important political issues. His recent speech before the UN General Assembly represents such an attempt, as well as a bid to enhance the US's international role. Vowing that the US would not renege on its international responsibilties, Clinton focused on two vital issues: international terrorism and the international financial crisis. Terrorism, he said, was the most dangerous threat to international security and he called upon the international community to form a global alliance to fight terrorism, an alliance, he stressed, in which there would be no difference between Muslims, Christians, Jews and members of all other religions. With regard to the international financial crisis, he appealed for an international effort to aid the victims of the crisis, particularly Russia and the countries of Southeast Asia. However, Clinton's attempt to divert international attention away from the Lewinsky scandal failed. The media paid little attention to his UN speech. Dominating the news was the televised tape of his testimony to the jury concerning his misconduct in the White House, and in the midst of this clamour his message to the world from the podium of the UN General Assembly was lost. US policy has been debilitated by the on-going scandal. One of the clearest manifestations of this is diminished US interest in vital international issues. The US administration has shown itself more ineffectual than ever in reactivating the Arab-Israeli peace process. It has been unable to move Binyamin Netanyahu towards accepting its initiative regarding the redeployment of Israeli forces in the West Bank and the recent visit of special envoy Dennis Ross to the region was an utter failure. Israeli officials have said that the Monica Lewinsky scandal has provided Israel with a heaven sent opportunity to escape the US initiative. Netanyahu even compared Monica to Queen Esther, who rescued the ancient Hebrew people from massacre. Such statements have given rise to the conjecture that the US Jewish lobby was instrumental in the eruption of the crisis. And although there is no evidence that this is the case, equally there can be no doubt that Netanyahu has benefited from the confusion in US policy. And certainly the scandal has strengthened the hand of the extremist wing of the US Jewish lobby in prevailing upon the US administration to refrain from exerting pressure on Israel to accept the US initiative or, indeed, to publish the contents of the initiative itself. The peace process was not the only victim of the Lewinsky scandal. The scandal is partly responsible for Clinton's failure, during his visit to Russia several weeks ago, to strengthen the hand of Boris Yeltsin in the midst of the economic and political crisis that has rocked the country. Nor has the US been able to devote sufficient attention to other important international issues such as the conflicts in Kosovo and in the Congo. "Monicagate", in short, has semi-paralysed US foreign policy. In order to compensate for the debilitating effects of the scandal, the US administration has also sought to fabricate or fuel crises elsewhere, as was the case with the recent US missile attacks against Sudan and Afghanistan. There is a growing consensus that the US planned these strikes even before it had any evidence of the involvement of these two countries in the embassy bombings and, significantly, the US has yet to produce compelling evidence implicating them. The attacks illustrate the dangers inherent in the willingness to escalate tensions abroad in order to divert domestic attention away from the Oval Office. "Monicagate" has also rendered the US incapable of exerting the political drive commensurate with its status as the sole great power in the post-Cold War era. Several analysts have remarked that the scandal has so undermined the US's international status as to render it unqualified to lead the world order. Such analysts, unfortunately, fail to draw a distinction between two major issues: the totality of US economic and military power, on the one hand, and the degree of cohesiveness, or its lack, in US foreign policy on the other. Economically and militarily the US has never been in a stronger position. Clinton's terms as president have seen an unprecedented economic boom, much of which can be attributed to the policies of the current administration which has transferred enormous resources from the military to the civilian sector. As a result America's current economic revival has become the cornerstone of the stability of the global economy. The US also leads the field in technological and military development. It the world's largest, most advanced and best equipped military power. Nor are there any indications that its economic and military standing is likely to be challenged in the near future by other regional groupings. But if the US has uncontested military and economic advantages, the efficacy of the US decision-making system has fallen into steady decline. The resulting irony is that, despite its enormous capacities the US lacks an effective strategy for handling important international issues. At the root of this problem is the absence of a comprehensive strategic vision of the post-Cold War world. As a result, US policy-making is inconsistent and extremely vulnerable to domestic political exigencies. One result of this is that the Islamic world has been nominated to take the place of the former Soviet Union as the major threat to US security, a trend that emanates from the cunning attempts of some extremist right-wing and Jewish groups in the US to undermine relations between the Christian and Islamic worlds. The Monica Lewinsky scandal has brought to the fore the crisis in US policy which has been described as "big in economic and military body and small in mind and conscience." The successive moral scandals surrounding the US president have exacerbated the weaknesses in the US political system and compounded the inconsistency afflicting its foreign policy. It is unfortunate that Arab concerns must always be the victim of such crises. While Israel evades its commitments to peace, Sudan gets bombed and the periodic review of the sanctions against Iraq is cancelled. In the face of these realities, the major guarantee for Arab interests is for the Arabs to unify their positions and to coordinate their capacities. * The writer is Chairman of the Board of Al-Ahram Organization and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram.
