The Pol Pot alternative - U.S. relations with Cambodia

National Review, August 4, 1989

IN A MAJOR SPEECH at the Heritage Foundation a fortnight ago, Vice President Quayle analyzed what lies ahead for the long-battered people of Cambodia and asked, rhetorically: "Will members of either party in either House vote down the concept of meaningful assistance to the non-Communists and thereby risk a return to power of Pol Pot's genocidal regime?"

The Vice President's question came too late. Congress has done very little to increase its support of Prince Sihanouk and the non-Communist resistance in Cambodia-and time is running out. By the end of September, Vietnamese troops will be out of Cambodia, leaving in place Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander, whom the Vietnamese installed in power in Phnom Penh when they drove Pol Pot and his murderers out in 1978. It was hoped that by now Prince Sihanouk would, with the help of U.S. aid, be strong enough to head an interim government until such time as the Cambodian people could elect leaders of their own choosing. But Congress was more concerned this spring with John Tower and Jim Wright than with what remains of the Cambodian people, and what grisly future may yet be in store for them.

With no ace up his sleeve, Secretary of State James Baker admitted to ASEAN leaders in Brunei last week that the U.S. might be willing (read it: is willing) to accept Hanoi's and Moscow's puppet regime while hoping that Sihanouk will emerge as a head of state "with real powers." We have chosen the lesser of two evils: Hun Sen is undoubtedly preferable to Pol Pot, the third force in the field.

The U.S. track record on this kind of deal with the Communists in Asia is poor. When the U.S. went to the negotiating table during the Vietnam War to set up a tripartite regime in Laos, the result was the loss not only of Laos but ultimately of South Vietnam and Cambodia as well.