Clinton's Blunt Instrument

When the diplomatic equivalent of a bar fight threatened to break out last week in the United Nations Security Council, Bill Clinton's most outspoken foreign-policy official unblinkingly held her own. The ruckus was touched off by Saddam Hussein's chief emissary, Tariq Aziz, who accused the U.S. of ignoring Iraq's good behavior and maliciously refusing to lift an economic embargo against Baghdad. Since less than a fortnight earlier Baghdad had menaced Kuwait with more than 80,000 troops, Aziz's remark was disingenuous, if not absurd. The task of pointing this out fell to Madeleine Albright, the American ambassador to the U.N. "Words are...

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