Leading Article: One down, two to go for Clinton

PRESIDENT CLINTON has remained true to his election promise to concentrate on the United States's domestic problems. That decision is hard to fault, not least in political terms: after all, George Bush focused most of his energies on foreign policy, aided by his formidable Secretary of State, James Baker, and failed to get re- elected partly as a result of his neglect of the US's social ills.

Where Mr Clinton erred was in his choice of the three men to whom he would delegate much of the formulation and conduct of foreign affairs. He assumed that three apparently safe pairs of hands, all with a taste for consensus, could provide the necessary leadership.

Warren Christopher at the State Department, Les Aspin at Defense and Anthony Lake at the National Security Council have all failed to shine. Mr Christopher has been too much the grey lawyer, seeking out the views of allies and representing those of his client. When he did express his own, as in belittling Europe's present-day importance, he caused offence. At the Pentagon, Mr Aspin's indecisiveness drove the military to despair, while Mr Lake proved too donnish. Now Mr Aspin has resigned as Secretary for Defense, from 20 January. Among his misfortunes was to become identified with two humiliating episodes, the killing of 18 US soldiers in Mogadishu and the retreat of a US warship in the face of jeering armed Haitian hoodlums. Although he personally opposed the dispatch of the US ship, he failed, typically, to impose his view.

Over Somalia, he was not principally to blame for the central misjudgement of concentrating US efforts on the capture of the dominant faction leader, General Mohamed Aideed. But his rejection of a request from the US commander in Somalia for more armoured vehicles was shortly followed by the killing of the US soldiers by Aideed's men. His successor, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, is trusted and admired by the military and intelligence establishment: not necessarily a recommendation, but at least a working asset.

Mr Clinton should now contemplate a change in the vital post of Secretary of State. After 12 years out of power, the Democrats are desperately short of foreign policy specialists of stature. All the more reason for him to broaden his cabinet by including a Republican heavyweight - perhaps the outstandingly successful James Baker himself, were he willing. Meanwhile, Mr Clinton will be accompanied to the important Nato summit in Brussels on 10 January by a lame- duck Defense Secretary and a Secretary of State who inspires little confidence.