To the Rescue of Ingrates

By Charles Krauthammer

Asked if he felt indebted to Russia for helping crush the Hungarian uprising in 1848, Austria's Prince Schwarzenberg replied, "Austria will astound the world with the magnitude of her ingratitude." So will Haiti.

The first headlines from Haiti had boisterous, almost frenetic crowds joyfully welcoming American troops. Alas, we were also received with joy in Somalia. Why, even the Israelis were showered with flowers (by locals glad to be rid of the P.L.O.) when they invaded Lebanon in 1982. Three years later, they withdrew under a hail of bullets and bombs.

Initial shows of gratitude by the occupied are the norm. After all, they have often been liberated from something worse. And even if not, when men with guns and tanks arrive, it is a good idea to show a friendly face. It does not take long, however, for that face to turn.

It took a year for Somalia to turn, and in Somalia, we were there only to feed. It will take less than that in Haiti, where we have gone to rule. Ruling creates enemies. We are now the colonial power in Haiti, and Haiti will not long take kindly to its assigned role as white man's burden.

Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is already tired of it. He put his irritation with his benefactors on full display even before all U.S. troops had gone ashore. For three full days after the Carter agreement, he uttered not a word of thanks to America for the 20,000 troops on whose backs he will ride to the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince.

A thank you was eventually squeezed out of him, but it was not easy. It took importuning from the President of the U.S., a high-level meeting with nearly every big shot on Clinton's foreign-policy team, capped by a 21-gun salute on the Pentagon grounds. Thus flattered, His Excellency deigned to say a merci. The Clinton people sighed with relief.

The groveling was necessary. Haiti policy was being savaged by a Congress outraged at Aristide's sullen ingratitude. But it is the very craving for gratitude that betrays the emptiness of this adventure. A foreign policy carried out in a country's own national interest will justify itself. Gratitude is nice -- we appreciate the appreciation of the Grenadians, Panamanians and Kuwaitis -- but it is a bonus. For a foreign policy carried out in pursuit of no discernible national interest, however, gratitude is essential. It is, after all, the only reward.

America fled Somalia after 18 Army Rangers died because the cost of the operation became apparent. But there was a more visceral reaction propelling our retreat: a sense of betrayal. Here we are doing this for the Somalis, for no benefit to ourselves, and this is how they repay us! To hell with the ingrates.

Ingratitude is fatal to a foreign policy of selflessness. And selfless intervention, unmoored from any conception of national interest, defines Clinton foreign policy. For George Bush, author of our first purely humanitarian intervention, Somalia was an afterthought. For Clinton it is the model. In Somalia he inflated the mission from feeding the starving to nation building, until driven out by public opinion. In Bosnia only last month, a U.N. bureaucrat was able to call in U.S. warplanes to strike at Serbs to avenge French peacekeepers wounded by Serb gunmen bent on fighting Muslims. What this has to do with us Clinton has yet to explain. And now Haiti.

The problem with altruism as the prime mover of foreign policy is that altruism is a sentiment, not a strategy. And to paraphrase Lord Palmerston, America has no permanent sentiments, only permanent interests. The Emir of Kuwait, living high on the hog in Saudi Arabia waiting to be returned to his palace by American troops, was no more worthy or sympathetic a figure than Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But it did not matter much. America had more than altruistic reasons for going into Kuwait. Real, tangible, important things were at stake: oil, nuclear weapons, the future of the Middle East.

In Haiti nothing of the kind is at stake, which is why President Clinton staked so much on the inhumanity of the Cedras regime in justifying the invasion that never came. And which is why Clinton was so severely undercut by the deal that gave moral legitimacy to the men whose immorality and illegitimacy was the whole basis of the operation in the first place.

A foreign policy of sentiment lurches from one good deed to another, arbitrarily picking its spots for doing good. Rwanda, no; Bosnia, maybe; Somalia, until they start dragging G.I.s through the streets; Haiti, if only the ingrate will tip his hat.

But will he keep it tipped? Not for long. Aristide is a liberation theologian. His people are starved for freedom. Neither will long tolerate -- let alone express gratitude for -- foreign domination. No one does. In 1966 Charles de Gaulle ordered American troops -- successors of the D-day soldiers who had liberated France from Hitler and were now part of NATO -- to get out of France. "Do you want us to move American cemeteries out of France as well? asked Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

His was a tone of bitter hurt. Hurt is how liberators leave. Which is why they must never go ashore in search of thanks.