Let us look at the record. It reflects an unmistakable pattern in the Bush administration's foreign policy. Fearing attacks by isolationists in his own party, President Bush was reluctant to offer Boris Yeltsin, Russia's freely-elected president, a helping hand. It took a chorus of complaints, culminating with the prodding of another Republican, Richard Nixon, to move him into action on the Russian aid package.
Just weeks before the attempted coup in Moscow, President Bush traveled to Ukraine. There he lectured a people subjected to genocidal starvation in the Stalin era, warning that their aspirations for independence constituted, and I quote, "a suicidal nationalism." months later, the people of Ukraine voted by a huge margin for the immediate and total dissolution of the Soviet Union.
A few
For over 40 years, the United States refused to recognize Soviet claims to the Baltic nations --Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. But when at long last the moment of Baltic independence came, President Bush suddenly became a reluctant bridegroom. (Applause.) The United States wat 37th among the world's nations to extend diplomatic recognition to these countries. We should have been first. (Applause.)
A year ago last June, Mr. Bush sent his Secretary of State to Belgrade where in the name of stability he urged the members of the dying Yugoslav Federation to resist dissolution. This would have required the peoples of Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia to knuckle under to Europe's last Communist strongman. When instead these new republics asserted their independence, the emboldened Milosevic regime launched the bloodiest war in Europe in over 40 years.
When I argued that the United States, in cooperation with international community efforts, should be prepared to use military force to help the UN relief effort in Bosnia, Mr. Bush's spokesman quickly denounced me as reckless. Yet a few days later, the administration adopte the very same position. (Applause.) While the administration goes back and forth, more lives are being lost and the situation grows more desperati by the day.
In the Middle East, I supported the President when it became necessar to evict Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. And I support his decision now to provide air cover to Saddam's Kurdish and Shi'ite opponents in the north and the south of Iraq,
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