George Bush is, among other things, a man who simply can’t sit still. Last week he was on the road again, closing out his presidency by doing what he likes best. His farewell tour-the 25th overseas trip of his presidency-took him to Saudi Arabia, where he hobnobbed briefly with another senior member of the old boys’ club, King Fahd; then to Somalia, where he had one more chance to visit with soldiers he had sent into action; next to Moscow to sign the last superpower arms-control deal of the cold-war era, and finally to Paris to say goodbye to a fellow statesman who seems to be on his last political leg, President Francois Mitterrand. Along the way, Bush fired a parting shot at his bitterest enemy, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein-“a madman,” the president said in Somalia. Early last week, U S. F-16 fighters shot down one of Saddam’s planes in the “no fly” zone over southern Iraq. And NEWSWEEK learned that the Americans were prepared to strike at the dictator’s air bases and military facilities if he tried it again.
For a month or so after his defeat, Bush was stunned into lassitude, hurt by the voters’ rejection and dismayed by the prospect of lame-duck irrelevancy. Now his customary exuberance has been restored by one last chance to hurtle around the globe, dealing with tricky diplomatic issues ranging from the nuances of arms control to the imperatives of humanitarian relief In a sense, Bush’s defeat has liberated him. Freed from political calculations, he can do what he considers to be the right thing. None of his top advisers were keen on a trip to Somalia; when they gently tried to talk him out of it, they were told the commander in chief would spend New Year’s Eve with his troops. Period.
It was mostly a bittersweet nostalgia tour. But the trip also served to burnish Bush’s legacy, a reminder that diplomatic crisis management was always his strongest suit. Aides said he also hopes to firm up a foreign-policy agenda that Bill Clinton would be hard pressed to abandon, even if he wanted to. The key elements include collective military intervention in hellholes like Somalia and Bosnia and support for Boris Yeltsin’s Russia. Ever optimistic, Bush has suggested to some confidants that the transition may turn out to be one of the most significant periods of his presidency.
Bush’s visit to Somalia was a morale builder for himself and the troops-and possibly even for some Somalis. But it also may have been a prelude to a quick exit by most U.S. forces. The relief operation was going well, and even a new outbreak of clan fighting in Mogadishu during Bush’s visit did not convince the Americans that they had to disarm the entire country. With about 7,000 troops from 19 other countries on hand, the U.S. command canceled the deployment of 4,000 Americans who had been designated for Somalia. U.S. officials hoped to begin actual withdrawals by late this month, although they said that as many as a battalion of troops might have to stay behind as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force. Bush told an audience of Marines at the airfield in Baidoa that he expected Clinton to continue “this beautiful mission of helping other people.” But the president added: “I think he shares my view that the United States cannot do all the heavy lifting.”
Bush also found himself in sync with Yeltsin, who hailed the START II arms-control agreement as the “document of the century.” It would cut each country’s strategic arsenal by about two thirds, eliminating the most dangerous Russian weapons, land-based missiles with multiple warheads (chart). In a toast at a Kremlin dinner, Bush promised Yeltsin that Clinton would be “a 100-percent partner in working for this U.S.-Russian relationship that we treasure so much.” But the partnership may not improve the treaty’s prospects for ratification.
One hurdle is Ukraine, the former Soviet republic that now has more nuclear weapons-1,656 warheads-than any country except Russia and the United States. Last week the Ukrainians expressed support for START II. But they still have not ratified the earlier START I agreement, without which the second deal is a dead letter (box, page 18). The other obstacle to implementation is Yeltsin’s political opposition, which believes that START II favors the United States. As a result, the Russian president faces a bruising ratification fight in Parliament. “Yeltsin is like an American puppet,” charges Mikhail Astafyev, a conservative deputy, who adds that, like Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin is “closer to the West than he is to Russia.”
The partnership with Yeltsin is crucial to Washington, not just for arms control, but also for peacemaking. A Russian veto in the U.N. Security Council could thwart Bush’s efforts to organize multinational military intervention in Bosnia. This week U.S. officials will continue to press the Security Council for authorization to use air power to keep the Serbs from flying military missions over Bosnian territory. “We’ll get it eventually,” said a Bush aide. But U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali wants to delay enforcement in hopes of negotiating a settlement. In Geneva last Saturday, leaders of the three main Bosnian groups-Muslims, Serbs and Croats-began their first peace talks since the fighting started last April. Under discussion was a plan cosponsored by the special U.N. envoy, former secretary of state Cyrus Vance, to divide Bosnia into autonomous provinces governed by the three nationalities.
Another no-fly zone was contested in southern Iraq, where the United States has been trying to protect anti-Saddam rebels by banning Iraqi military flights. On Dec. 27, two Iraqi MiG-25s flew into the exclusion zone, the second test of the U.S. ban in a single day. When the Iraqis turned threateningly toward a pair of F-16s, the Americans shot down one of Saddam’s planes. “I’ve heard that [there] might be some test of our will near the end of my presidency,” Bush said later, “but those F-16s sent the message to him pretty clearly.” In case the test continued, the Pentagon dusted off contingency plans for strikes against Iraqi bases and command-and-control centers. Most analysts think Iraq currently poses no military threat to its neighbors. But Bush does not intend to let Saddam get away with mischief during the transition period.
It is perhaps the sharpest irony of Bush’s career that he is leaving office while Saddam remains in power-quite firmly, to all appearances. Yet as his days dwindle down, the president seems to be at peace with his record. He counts among his successes the orderly end of the cold war, the victory of Desert Storm, the invasion of Panama, the launch of the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations and now START II. “It’s been a wonderful ride,” he told the Marines in Baidoa. Bush had even mellowed on the subject of Bill Clinton, whom he once derided as a “bozo” with less foreign-affairs savvy than Millie, the White House dog. But that was only politics-something quite separate from good governance in Bush’s mind. Now he regards Clinton as “a very bright and able man suited to lead our country at this time,” he told the Marines. Bush seems to realize that when he leaves office, the luster of his legacy will depend in part on Bill Clinton.
PHOTOS (2): ‘It’s been a wonderful ride’: The president waves to U.S. and allied troops in Mogadishu before flying on to Moscow to sign the START II arms-control deal with Boris Yeltsin (LARRY DOWNING–NEWSWEEK, DOUG MILLS–AP)
