Tuesday, July 21, 1998

We need global vision, not Jesse Helms

By Donald Kaul

It is one of the curious ironies of history that, at the precise moment at which the United States has assumed the virtually unchallenged leadership of the world, our government has fallen into the hands of people whose vision, for the most part, does not extend much beyond the village in which they grew up.

To doubters of that thesis, I have but two words: Jesse Helms.

Helms, a mean-spirited, small-minded primitive who has seldom turned his gaze anywhere but toward the next election, is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Think on that for a moment.

We have awarded the chairmanship of the committee whose duty it is to oversee foreign policy to a man who has hardly been out of the country and never shown even the slightest interest in international relations. If you searched all of Congress for the person who was least qualified by education, experience and temperament to be chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Helms would easily be a finalist, and I like his chances to be the last left standing.

Why has this been allowed to happen? One could argue it is a quirk of the seniority system, but it is more than that. The Republican Party, which now rules the Senate, has abandoned the internationalism that characterized it a generation ago in favor of an America-first nativism. They're more interested in banning flag-burning, making English the official language and injecting prayer into the school day than they are in securing our place in the 21st century.

What interest in foreign affairs that still exists tends to focus on punishing nations with whom we disagree.

There have been, for example, some 115 times since World War I that this nation has imposed economic sanctions affecting aid, trade or other commerce with a foreign country. Sixty-one of those actions have taken place in the past five years, since Republicans took control of Congress. We have even sought to impose our view of sanctions on other countries, as in the case of attempting to coerce otherwise friendly nations to boycott Cuba.

We have withheld our dues to the United Nations, even while we have made use of that organization to help us calm the troubled spots of the world, and we have threatened to end our support of the International Monetary Fund at a time when it is trying to shore up the tattered economies of the Far East.

A Republican Congressman, Chris Smith of New Jersey, has held up an $18 billion deposit to the IMF out of fear some of it will be used for family-planning. Indeed, there are moments when it seems our entire foreign policy is being held hostage to the religious beliefs of a wing of the Republican party.

These are not the actions of a great and powerful nation, sure of its authority. They are the whine of a second-rate county that merely wishes to be left alone, like an outsized Switzerland.

We see this provincialism in the people we elect to office. Look at the leadership in both houses of Congress. Absent House Speaker Newt Gingrich - who can be infuriating but is at least smart - it is a rock garden. Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, Don Nichols. If the IQ of any of them exceeds their body temperature, they have kept evidence of it well hidden.

A couple of weeks ago, the Des Moines Register ran a piece on the way Iowa politicians compete on the basis of who is more Iowan. Four-time Governor Terry Branstad once vilified an opponent for having had the bad taste to have been born in New York state. It was on a small, poor farm, but still New York. He argued he had a better grasp of Iowa problems because he had been born there.

And when a native Iowan challenged Branstad in a primary, he pointed out his opponent had committed the sin of attending Harvard University, where he had become infected with unwholesome ideas, while he, Branstad, had gone to good old University of Iowa, where he had learned nothing that was not available to your average Iowan. He was elected both times, of course.

Iowa isn't all that different from the rest of the country. If it were, Jesse Helms would not be foreign relations chairman.

This is a time of great promise - and potential for failure. If we keep electing mediocrities and worse to leadership positions, I'll let you guess which way we'll go.

E-mail Donald Kaul at otcoffee@aol.com or write to him c/o Tribune Media Services. Inc., 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60611.