Bill Clinton: “No, the answer is no. Let me--wait--if you want to say that this administration has not waved a magic wand and solved…”

“No, the answer is no. Let me--wait--if you want to say that this administration has not waved a magic wand and solved all the problems that I dealt with, that I was given when I came to office, that's one thing. But to say that we don't have a clear policy which says our first priority is the safety and security of the American people; in that context we need to continue the work that we are doing with Russia to denuclearize the other former republics, the republics of the former Soviet Union, and to reduce the nuclear threat--and we are doing that; that we then have a serious issue in terms of maintaining our security commitments in the Asian-Pacific region and dealing with the Korean issue--we are doing that--and we have done it, I think, with remarkable consistency in the face of attempts, rhetorical attempts by others to try to tilt the balance one way or the other; that we have a new national security interest, or a renewed national security interest in promoting economic growth and democracy and partnerships which we have manifested with NAFTA, with GATT, with the APEC meeting, with the Summit of the Americas; that from the beginning of my campaign for President, I said that we should not introduce ground troops into Bosnia but that we should try to do what we can to stop ethnic cleansing and to increase the multinational efforts, led by the Europeans who have primary interests there, to bring an end to the fighting on honorable and decent terms--we have certainly done that. And the initiative taken by the Americans and by my administration led to the actions that NATO has taken, has funded and carried out the longest humanitarian airlift ever in our history, and is in large measure responsible for the progress that has been made there. Now, the fighting in Bosnia continues; the fighting in Haiti continues. I continue to try to look for new solutions. If we look for new solutions when old solutions don't work, does that mean we don't have a coherent foreign policy? I don't think so. So I dispute that. I think we have made remarkable progress in the Middle East, another place where our national interests are plainly at stake, where the Secretary of State has plainly done a very good job and has the dialog between Syria and Israel further along than it has ever been, as far as I know. And we have played a very constructive role in the progress that has been made in the agreement between the PLO and Israel with regard to Jericho and Gaza. So I feel good about those things. Do we still have some problems that we had the day I showed up? Yes, we do, and I guess the day I leave office we'll still have some problems. And if we last another 218 years, we'll still have some problems. But I think we are moving aggressively to address these. So that's still--no is as good an answer as that. Kashmir”