For Clinton, A Messy Hand

"The economy, stupid" may have been the catch phrase that won the election for Bill Clinton, but the new mantra is increasingly, "Hell . . . it's foreign policy again."

In foreign affairs, George Bush is passing a messy hand to Clinton, who can't easily reshuffle the deck. Nor can Clinton take his chips and walk away. How he plays his hand in the next six months could affect his entire presidency.

With the end of the cold war, there is no longer agreement on what the national interest is-especially when it comes to the use of force. Some members of Congress don't believe that soldiers should be deployed to prevent starvation in Somalia. Others seem willing to let American soldiers get killed going after Noriega. Indeed, it is no longer clear that what happens abroad now matters to most Americans-unless it affects jobs.

Five deteriorating areas will require Clinton's immediate attention: Russia, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Iraq and Somalia. They may (or already do) involve military involvement or large amounts of foreign aid or both. Clinton has to balance five totally different problems, moving at different speeds:

The successful democratic transformation of Russia is by far the most important challenge for our long-term interests. Richard Nixon has often derided Bush for not doing enough to assist Russia. But how much time and effort is the new president prepared to spend, and for how long, to help keep Boris Yeltsin afloat? Neither Clinton nor Bush has rhapsodized over foreign aid, and events at the Russian Parliament this week will not make the task of persuading our congressmen any easier.

This is the issue Clinton will have to deal with first-even before his Inauguration. Our policy has produced the worst of both worlds. The trade embargo instituted after the overthrow of the elected government has made a poor people poorer without toppling the dictatorship. Growing numbers of Haitians will head for the United States unless Clinton somehow stems the tide before he takes office. His options range from moving large numbers to Guantanamo, to getting rid of the embargo, to overthrowing the dictatorship, or all of the above.

Bush has saved Clinton from making a decision on Somalia. It is possible but not too likely that Operation Restore Hope will be completed by the time Clinton takes office. How will the new administration extract U.S. forces while trying to begin a minimum of political and economic reconstruction?

Clinton will probably get by for some time without doing anything about Iraq. Yet if Saddam Hussein marches up the road only a few miles to Kurdish villages, he will pose a test for the new president. Whatever Saddam does, at some point Clinton must decide whether to continue to protect the Kurds, even if that involves breaking up Iraq.

The former Yugoslavia keeps looming larger in Clinton's foreign-policy inheritance. Bosnia is probably unsalvageable, but someone will have to take responsibility for the safety and feeding of hundreds and thousands of displaced persons. And unless Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic is warned off-either by limited air attacks or an unmistakable threat from NATO-Serbia is all too likely to extend ethnic cleansing to Kosovo and Macedonia. Those skeptical about military intervention in Somalia will be even more distressed about limited military action in places like Bosnia or Serbia. And deeper involvement could siphon off resources that might have gone to aid Yeltsin.

It is possible that Clinton will get lucky. Milosevic may bide his time on Kosovo, or the Serbs may tire of him and speed his departure from power. In Russia economic recovery might take place earlier than expected and change the prospects for long-term evolution. Haiti's rulers may offer to strike a deal. But Clinton can't count on any of these.

Painful decisions will have to be made. Clinton will have to convince the public, Congress and our allies of what our real interests are in these ambiguous situations, and what the limits of our involvement should be. Some problems may turnout badly whatever we do. That would undermine Clinton's prestige and his ability to push through controversial domestic programs.

Clinton is not likely to-and should not-succumb to the temptation, as his predecessors did, to focus mostly on foreign rather than domestic policy. But he cannot avoid making foreign-policy choices from his difficult hand. Right now the nation seems to believe that the only pressing problems abroad are economic. It is only a matter of time before the new president says, not so.