European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 27, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday july 27, 1993 commentary the stars and stripes Page 15 courts will mop up after Walters Mears once the Campaign Promise was uttered there was no Way to Avert a political Price for president Clin ton s pledge to lift the ban on Gays in the military. Now he s paying for it on an instalment plan. He stirred the Issue in the first place let it become an Early White House distraction arranged to make an unpopular decision twice and is not through with it yet. Congress is going to vote on a Compromise that satisfied neither the Gays who want the ban eliminated nor the opponents who want it to stand unaltered. With the influential sen. Sam Nunn apparently on Board for the Clinton plan chances Are it will be approved but not without a fight. The courts Are just getting started and they will have the last word. They might have had the first too but for the Campaign pledge that put a no win question on the Clinton Agenda. I Don t View it that Way Clinton said on Larry King s can Call in program. I was in a no win if the Only Way i win is to do exactly what i think is  that would have meant lifting the ban As promised a step he said Congress would have overruled immediately probably As part of a defense Bill he could not have vetoed. Besides to let it become a veto Issue his first would have heightened the argument and helped opponents keep it going into the 1994 congressional Campaign and probably into Clinton s own in 1996. Republicans did not tackle Clinton on the question in the 1992 Campaign when the subject Drew neither notice nor attention. The year before the election he had said that he wanted to lift the ban an and lib reply to a student question after a talk at Harvard University in Cambridge mass. He made the Campaign Promise to a Gay audience at a fund raising rally in Beverly Hills As Well As in his Campaign Book putting people first. Clinton says he never committed to a change in the rules of conduct that would let Gays serve in the Mili tary without regard to what they do in private. The re Cord bears that out he did not mention it. Now private lives have become the disputed Crux of the Compromise which forbids disclosure of homosexuality and continues the Rule against homosexual con duct on or off base. It takes effect oct. 1. Still defense Secretary Les Aspin said the policy achieved most of what Clinton promised. His nutshell explanation at one in a series of congressional hearings s Gay policy Twe official a Oiom Owoo task Pont Teu. Mint new on the Issue was As a general proposition the  Don t ask Don t Tell Don t pursue the new part is in the Don t ask and Don t pursue not in the Don t Tell " so the military won t try to find out who is Gay no inquisitions or Witch Hunts Aspin said but if it does learn of homosexuality that remains grounds for discharge. It also will be grist for lawyers. We re going to have to test any proposal in the courts Aspin said. There Are people out there who want to litigate lots of things and test the limits and push their different agendas. A Usa today can poll published thursday suggests that Clinton May Nave gained support with the Compromise deemed acceptable by 58 percent including some of the majority who still favor a ban on Gays in the military. A first temporary order to Stop asking recruits about homosexuality was issued Jan. 29. To counter complaints that he had been distracted and lost his focus Clinton commissioned a time study and said it showed that he had spent Only 2vi hours on the Issue in his first 100 Days. According to the White House the president spent very Little time on the mat Ter until the week before the new policy was set an then dealt with it for Only a few hours. That same sensitivity erupted when Clinton was asked a question that suggested his Compromise Sig naked weakness. I am the first president who Ever took on this Issue he snapped. It May be a sign of madness sir but it is not a sign of  the associated press marching in step with . Carries some Pitfalls indecisive on Bosnia not me president Clinton insisted last week in a defense of his style that goes to the hear of his foreign policy. In Bosnia and Herzegovina he said he made a decision and stuck to it but the allies would not go along the United nations controls what happens in bos Nia he said. It is reasonably Clear what Clinton meant. It s not that the United nations literally controls what happens in bos Nia that would be news up at the United nations. It s that the United states has made a policy Choice to pursue consensus. The president asks credit not just Fortis decisiveness but for his multilateral  believers multilateralism suggests that the strength of Many be added tit the strength of one a comforting Post cold War design for staying engaged in a cooperative Mode and at reduced Cost. But of course multilateralism also can signify a policy of lowest common denominators in which Washington Abandons a leadership role. Is multilateralism merely a cover for a new isolationism the confusion spawned by a recent state depart ment hint of american global retrench  ment generated some new official formulations intended to dispel any such  of state Warren m. Christo Pher firmed up an upstairs downstairs Divide for vital interests a unilateral approach if necessary for other interests multilateral approach but in either Case the United states will Lead. . Ambassador Madeleine Albright bravely introduced a phrase that is a step but Only a step removed from being an oxymoron assertive multilateralism. It states a requirement for multilateral engagement and . Leadership within collective bodies. The administration s policies Are bound to be measured against its new rhetoric. Clinton s deferral to the allies in Bosnia for instance certainly meets the test of multilateral engagement. Does it also meet the test of . Leadership. Some Are deeply troubled by the move to multilateralism. Michael Lind of the National interest writing in the new re Public suggests that devout internationalists to him a suspect Breed saw George Bush s successful marshalling of the United nations in the persian Gulf War As ersatz  real multilateralism he defines and dismisses As the sort typified in Bosnia where a defaulting Washington allowed others to take the initiative and the policy turned out to be unworkable. But he does not address the decline in purpose and resources that has left the United nations with diminishing capacity for going it alone. Others see a need not for less multilateralism but for More. Former . Undersecretary general Brian Urquhart for one is plugging establishment of a standby military Force of International volunteers that upon Security Council i in administration policies Are bound to be measured against its new rhetoric. Clinton s deferral to the allies i Bosnia for instance certainly meets the test of multilateral engagement does it also meet the test of . Leadership j authorization could be dispatched by the Secretary general for timely peace enforcement in a local dispute. Albright observes that global organizations increasingly steer the course of world  that May be True in the sense that they Are doing a growing share of the Public s International businesses specially the High profile business of peacekeeping. But who is steering it is not the .," which is just a phrase. It is the membership and the bureaucracy they Are real and they Are in tension too. In fact this tension has tightened somewhat not excessively As the United nations has plunged into its Post cold War hyperactive phase. Its encounters have focused on the role and inevitably on the person of the United nations top bureaucrat Secretary general Boutros Boutros Ghali. His critics find him a Power grab Ber slyly mane vering to shrink the sovereignty of his nominal betters among the members. No doubt he is an ambitious Man. But it is ridiculous to imagine that the 183 members of the United nations including the mighty cannot protect their turf against their clerk. I would not de fend Boutros Ghali s every step but it seems to me obvious that most of his initiatives serve a desperate and conscientious Effort to perform the impossible missions particularly in peacekeeping that the members have heaped upon Nim. Listen to Carl Gershman of the National endowment for democracy. He detects a tendency toward ritualistic multilateralism in which difficult prob lems Are dished off to the United nations so that governments can appear to be taking action even while they turn their attention elsewhere. To paraphrase mane he writes in the journal of democracy multilateralism risks becoming the opiate of the West a cover for a Drift into parochialism and  not in a Power grab by the bureaucracy but in carelessness by the membership does the chief danger to an effective multilateralism lie. C the Washington pest