Bill Clinton: “Well, I think that there are, if you will, three parts of it, and one part of it has been criticized. No one has…”

“Well, I think that there are, if you will, three parts of it, and one part of it has been criticized. No one has criticized what we have done to protect the security of Americans, that is, working with the Russians to make Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus nonnuclear states, reducing our nuclear arsenals. We don't point our nuclear weapons at each other any more. We are working in partnership. That's been very successful. The second thing we have done is to try to advance international trade and to promote freedom and openness through that in our own hemisphere with the North American Free Trade Agreement, with our leadership to get the GATT agreement worldwide, with our continuing efforts to engage China and Japan and other Asian countries. We are working in ways that--in our country, we have seen more progress than in a generation in reaching out to the world economically. The third area is the most difficult: To what extent can America influence adverse events in other parts of the world? And particularly, they mention Bosnia and, in our backyard here, Haiti. The real issue there, it seems to me, is that there is a lot of confusion about exactly how much our country should do. We have interests and values at stake in Bosnia. Should we be on the ground there with troops? I don't think so. Should we lift the arms embargo, as maybe a majority of my Congress wants to do? I don't think so. I don't agree with the arms embargo. I think it was a mistake in the first place. But we are now involved in a cooperative venture in Bosnia with our allies in NATO and the United Nations and principally with Europe to try to help to bring that awful conflict to an end and, in the meanwhile, to make sure it does not spread. In that environment where we are working to push toward a solution, we cannot impose our will, and we have to be flexible and listening. That is the frustration people have. People say, ``Well, President Clinton doesn't favor the arms embargo, but he won't lift it.'' That's right. Because if I lift the arms embargo all by myself, then why should Italy observe the embargo on Saddam Hussein, or any other country? We have done the following things constantly. I have always said I would not send troops into Bosnia while the war was going on because that would complicate the U.N. mission and because I did not think that was the right thing to do. I would, however, support the troops there with air support, with the airplanes for the humanitarian airlift, and then I'll work to get NATO to agree to an out-of-area mission to use air power there to keep the Bosnian war from spreading into the air and to try to protect Sarajevo and these other areas. That is my policy. If we can reach an agreement on clear dividing lines for peace, then I would be prepared to have the United States participate in that peace effort. I think that shows leadership, I think it shows a respect for the European powers, and I don't think it shows vacillation. But it is frustrating because people say, ``Well, the U.S. is the only superpower in the world, and Europe is very strong and rich. Why can't we just fix this?'' We forget the history of Bosnia. It can't be fixed easily. Ms. Kramar. Mr. President, on a more personal level, you are an idealist. You always wanted to be President of the United States, ever since you were a child. Now you are in the position of being probably the most powerful man in the world, and yet you wake up in the morning, you read the papers, and you see that there is violence in Rwanda, there is violence in Bosnia, there is violence in Haiti and in the streets of America. How does it feel to be not able to change this?”