Why America napped

How did our foreign policy in the 1990s set us up for trying to put together these global coalitions?

We can do it if we want. Richard Holbrooke and others did it very well. The rest of the world still looks for American leadership. In his last weeks as president, George H.W. Bush was visited by a bunch of representatives from new European democracies -- Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary -- who were imploring him to take greater action against Slobodan Milosevic. Bush was a hero to these people; he liberated them from the Soviet yoke. But he was also exhausted, he'd just done the Gulf War, and he wasn't interested in going after Milosevic. As the representatives are leaving, Slovenian foreign minister Dimitri Rupel turns to the others and says, "We hear a lot about the new Europe, but the truth is that the political will of the free world begins and ends in the Oval Office."

The rest of the world wants our leadership, but it wants real leadership. It doesn't want us to nap then wake up irritatedly and yell, "Where were you and why weren't you doing this?" and then return to napping. They're appalled when they come here and see what is on our news programs at night. This is the most powerful nation in the world with news programs that are, essentially, cartoons.

What have we been signaling to the rest of the world during the past 10 years?

What we've been signaling to the rest of the world is that we don't think they're important. We can nap, and when we want, we can push a button and their job is to do what we want. They only hear from us, not just when we want something, but when we're telling them something.

Has our relationship with Israel over the past 12 years affected the current crisis in a specific way? Would pressuring Israel back to the peace table help the current situation?

The easy answer is to say that this is all because of our policy in the Middle East. But it's much more than Israel. Israel has affected our policy in the Middle East in the past. This is a new chapter. If Israel weren't there right now, our opponents would have to invent it. This is much more about the assault upon moderate Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, which these people see as holy territory. They see some of the governments of the moderate Arab states -- which we help sustain -- as puppets of the infidels. They want us out of the Middle East. The second thing this is about is what we represent in terms of our decadent culture. Our women are allowed to call men, like me, and ask questions on the phone and write articles. Women run for the Senate and are elected. They hate our TV. They see all this as a threat. Everything is part of something larger. I don't think this is about Israel. This is about America.

Did we not see tribalist or nationalist or fundamentalist movements as threats to our own security?

No. We thought it was a problem, but we never thought it would seep over into the countries that we cared about.

Why don't you mention the bombings of the Kenya and Tanzania embassies in the book?

I was trying to keep down the size of the book. That was another direction.

Was there anything that you found in your research about that that seems important now?

Again, it was part of larger napping. It didn't go to the higher level and it wasn't something in terms of public attention that really galvanized us. In the piece I have coming out in Vanity Fair, I write about the terrorists that -- even if we are wise and patient and even if the fates favor us -- they will have succeeded more than they wanted in getting on our radar. Everyone tends to underestimate America. Dictators have always underestimated us: the Germans, the Japanese, the Russians during the Cold War. Milosevic said that we were afraid to take bodies. Bin Laden is saying that we're weaker and less patient than the Russians and therefore easier to fight than they were.

They don't understand a democracy's true strength: men and women freely summoned. It's very easy to forget that right before World War II, we got the draft by only one vote. At the beginning of the Cold War there was not great support for our policies of containment. It takes certain actions to galvanize this country, but when it is galvanized, the resource and muscularity of this country is great. The great advantage to being as old as I am is my sense of the resilience of America. What I see as strength, other powers have seen as decadence, but I will always put my bet on it.

Nothing about the last two weeks has shaken that confidence?

It's a very difficult equation because our power is not likely applicable. It's a different kind of enemy; it works in the night, it's a fugitive even in its own general terrain. But I still have this great deep faith in this country and what it represents in terms of the free society.

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