The administration’s goal was to look tough. Haiti’s bad guys “will be feeling pressure they haven’t felt before,” warns a White House official. That means giving the new embargo 30 to 45 days to sink in. just how this will lead to a restoration of deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide remains a mystery. So far, the Haitian military isn’t impressed with U.S. resolve. In a show of nose-thumbing, they installed Emile Jonassaint, the 81-year-old head of the Supreme Court, as interim president-symbolically erasing Aristide. U.S. allies haven’t been overly supportive, either. Most members of the Organization of American States strongly opposed the use of force at a recent meeting. So did France, Canada and Venezuela, three of Haiti’s “Four Friends.”
Suppose sanctions alone don’t do the trick? Several military options exist: sending troops to protect Aristide, if he returns; using a security force to set up a safe haven-Gonave Island, for example-for Haitians fleeing terror; dispatching military personnel to separate and retrain Haitian army and police, but only after reaching a political settlement. A full-scale invasion would require bringing round a skeptical Pentagon and an even more reluctant American public. “When and if Clinton invades Haiti, the key rationale will be the heroin and drug-smuggling argument,” says a senior administration official. That same ploy worked for George Bush, when he painted Manuel Noriega’s regime as a pernicious narco-government, then sent U.S. forces into Panama. But that case against Haiti might be harder to prove: the junta is a more egregious abuser of human rights than of drugs.
When it comes to Haiti’s misery, the White House would prefer to deal with symptoms rather than causes. But Clinton’s decision not to force all Haitians to go back only increases the pressure to bring in a Caribbean country to help process refugee claims. So far, not one has offered to pitch in. The administration is bracing for a surge of up to 2,000 boat people a week. If he can’t find temporary homes for them abroad, Clinton may have to pry open American doors-or reconsider the use of force.
