"CLINTON, PANETTA WEIGH FISCAL AND FOREIGN POLICY CHALLENGES"
(WASHINGTON) August 16, 2011 - Less than one month from the decade marking the September 11 attacks, and amid a wavering global economy, the United States remains committed to securing its interests from crises of fiscal or military import. Such was the sentiment in an hour-long discussion today at National Defense University, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton marking the inaugural lecture of its Distinguished Leadership Program. The event was moderated by Frank Sesno, professor of media and international affairs at George Washington University.
Seated before the flags of their departments, the secretaries opened with analyses on political dynamics abroad and what Mr. Sesno termed “budgetary gyrations” at home. Secretary Panetta began with his interpretation of the proposed cuts in the Pentagon budget and their influence on military operations as well as those tasked with executing them. “I think this is about the national security of the country,” he noted. “Our national security is our military power, our Defense Department, but it’s also our diplomatic power and the State Department.” He recounted the cuts that had been tabled by his successor, Robert Gates, and highlighted various items to be considered resulting from recent congressional legislation that lifted the U.S. debt-ceiling, joined by the possibility of $350 billion additional cuts tabled by an advisory group convened by Mr. Gates. “Well, I made the point that with the numbers we’re dealing with now, that the president and Bob Gates before me basically decided pretty much the parameters that we would have to be looking at,” Mr. Panetta allowed, “and we’re within that ballpark with what Congress just did.”
Mrs. Clinton matched his views, hewing fiscal prudence to the need for ongoing diplomatic, military strength. “So one of the goals that Secretary Gates and now Secretary Panetta and I have is to make the case as to what national security in the 21st century actually is,” she underlined. “It is of course, the strongest military in the world that has to be given the tools to do the jobs we send it out to do. It is our diplomatic corps, which is out there on the front lines all the time, trying to deal with very difficult situations to the betterment of America’s interest and security.” The secretary agreed when Mr. Sesno suggested the need for increased taxes. “Yes,” she added. “Absolutely.” Mr. Panetta cited his three decades of success as a veteran of bipartisan budget battles, first as a congressman from California, then, more recently, as director of the Office of Management and Budget during the 1990s. “If you want to deal with the deficit, you’ve got to deal with mandatory spending programs, you’ve got to deal with revenues,” he emphasized. “Every budget that I’ve been part of, going back to—Ronald Reagan was the first budget summit I participated in. It was a balanced package that dealt with cuts and revenues. It was true for Ronald Reagan, it was true for George Bush, it was true for Bill Clinton, and it has to be true today if you’re serious about dealing with this.”
Mr. Sesno widened the discussion to include Afghanistan, noting the several dozen coalition forces killed last week, including Afghan military operators, and Navy SEALs from the unit that took down Osama Bin Laden. "We have weakened the Taliban significantly, and we're continuing to work on that," Mr. Panetta observed. He added that overt U.S. support for Afghan president Hamid Karzai and the transition to its military leadership there are difficult, but that U.S. efforts to build up that army and police are on schedule. "We've got to make sure that the Afghan Government is prepared to not only govern but to help secure that country in the long run." Mr. Sesno put matching queries to the State Department chief, capping them with an invitation that she frankly assess the Afghan leader: "Do you trust Karzai?" "Yes," Mrs. Clinton assented. "I mean, look, I deal with leaders all over the world who have their own political dynamics that they're trying to cope with, which are not always the ones that we experience or that we think are necessarily important. But they get to call the shots." She underscored Afghanistan's commitment to the transition, and how Karzai’s assurances to forego a third presidential run represents "an active dynamic political process."
A question from the audience shifted the focus to Pakistan. The moderator joined in, probing the secretaries’ views on its own fight against the Taliban and the state of relations with the U.S. since the death of Bin Laden. Mrs. Clinton reviewed the history, importance, and long-term interests of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, as well as its strategic value during and after the Cold War. “Are they partner or adversary?” Mr. Sesno inquired. “Well, they are partners,” she admitted, “but they don’t always see the world the way we see the world, and they don’t always cooperate with us on what we think—and I’ll be very blunt about this—is their interests.”
Mr. Sesno asked the Pentagon boss about reports that Pakistan government officials had seized pieces of a U.S. military helicopter that crash-landed during the raid on Bin Laden, and allowed it to be inspected. “I mean,” Mr. Sesno pressed, “there was a story that the Pakistanis, our adversary – our allies here, handed over parts of the helicopter that went down in bin Laden’s compound or gave access to it to the Chinese. Is that true and is that what an ally does?” Mr. Panetta’s candor brought waves of laughter. “As the Secretary has said, it’s a—this is a very complicated relationship with Pakistan,” he acknowledged. Mr. Sesno continued as the defense secretary demurred. “We’re concerned with the relationships that Pakistan has,” Mr. Panetta conceded. “And yet there is no choice but to maintain a relationship with Pakistan. Why? Because we’re fighting a war there. Because we are fighting al-Qaida there and they do give us some cooperation in that effort, because they represent an important force in that region, because they do happen to be a nuclear power that has nuclear weapons and we have to be concerned about what happened with those nuclear weapons.”
Pushing both secretaries for continued candor regarding Pakistan, Mr. Sesno wondered, “Isn’t your best asset your worst nightmare?” Mrs. Clinton obliged. “Shortly after I became Secretary of State,” she began, “we were quite concerned to see the Pakistani Taliban...try to create some kind of peace agreement with the Pakistani Taliban and to, in effect, say to them, look, you stay in Swat, which is one of the territories, you stay there and don’t bother us, we won’t bother you.” “And I was very blunt,” she continued, “both publicly and privately, ...in saying you can’t make deals with terrorists. I mean, the very people that you think you can either predict or control are, at the end of the day, neither predictable nor controllable.” [Speaker's emphasis]
Mr. Sesno next noted the bombings that had rippled across Iraq twenty-four hours earlier, claiming dozens of lives and underscoring the need for tighter military infrastructure. “If asked to stay militarily,” he inquired, “we’d stay?” Mr. Panetta noted the loss of Iraqi and U.S. personnel toward establishing a stable democracy there; Mrs. Clinton admitted he possibility of an extended U.S. support and training mission, should the need arise. “[T]heir main goal right now is to get the kind of training that will allow them to improve their defensive capability,” the Pentagon boss added.
An audience member from the Rand Corporation, a firm tasked with military research, wondered about U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq despite its need for further training. “The discussions now are what kind of assistance we can continue to provide with regards to training,” Mr. Panetta stressed. “We do this with other countries. We’ve done it with other countries in that region. And I think this would be what I would call a normal relationship with Iraq if we could establish that kind of approach in the future.” The secretary of state buttressed his remarks. “If a country comes to us within what we would view as a normal diplomatic relationship and says, ‘My troops need training. They’re not yet what they need to be. I’m not going to not going to need continuing help on collecting intelligence, learning how to do it for counterterrorism purposes,’ I think it would be irresponsible of us not to listen to what they’re requesting. …We do that in Kuwait, we do that in Bahrain, we do that in Qatar, we do that in the UAE, we do that in Saudi Arabia.”
The moderator then addressed the widening violence in Syria, critiquing the deadly responses by President Bashar al-Asad toward peaceful anti-government protesters. “[I]s it time for the United States to clearly, emphatically, unequivocally state that President Asad has to go, should step down?” Mr. Sesno posed. “Well, Frank,” Secretary Clinton began, “I’m not a big fan of arbitrary deadlines when you’re trying to manage different situations.” She admitted that calls for Asad’s ouster were likely to be more resonant when made by regional players, citing the Arab League, Turkey, and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. In his query to Mr. Panetta, the moderator substituted Syria with Libya and considered the tenure of its leader, Muammar Qadhafi. “[T]he fact is the opposition is moving,” the defense chief confirmed. “They’re moving in that direction. …Qadhafi’s forces are weakened, and his latest defection is another example of how weak they’ve gotten. …I think the sense is that Qadhafi’s days are numbered.”
A staffer with the Defense Intelligence Agency delivered the final audience question, a capstone on American intervention abroad: “Are the messages we’re sending in Libya and Syria really sending a message that the U.S. isn’t prepared to underwrite stability in the world anymore and that we just simply can’t afford it?” Mrs. Clinton rejected the view, pointing to the chits and challenges of American foreign policy. “I think it’s a message that the United States stands for our values, our interests, and our security,” she listed, “but that we have a very clear view that others need to be taking the same steps to enforce a universal set of values and interests.” “And similarly,” she continued, “as I told Frank in Syria, it’s not going to be any news if the United States says Asad needs to go. Okay. Fine. What’s next? If Turkey says it, if King Abdullah says it, if other people say it, there is no way the Asad regime can ignore it. So I think this is smart power.”
(SML)
