Polls show President Clinton with a big lead over Bob Dole in the presidential race. But foreign policy messes are piling up that could erode Clinton's leadership image. The sense is spreading that the victory the U.S. won in the cold war is slipping from Clinton's insecure grasp. PNS editor Franz Schurmann, author of "The Logic of World Power" and other books on foreign affairs, is professor emeritus of history and sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

As foreign affairs grow stormier, opinion shapers who a month ago were preparing to bury Bob Dole's political corpse are having second thoughts. Clinton still holds a big lead in the polls but a series of foreign policy messes is fueling fears that the victory the U.S. won in the Cold War in 1991 is slipping from Clinton's insecure grasp.

In 1993 the Clinton administration focused on domestic issues, having campaigned against Bush by charging him with neglect of America's deep problems at home. But in 1994 Clinton turned his attention to overseas, championing NAFTA while hitting hard at America's trade rivals, especially Japan and China. By 1995 Clinton had become what every president has been since Franklin Roosevelt -- a full-time foreign affairs president.

Clinton's mistake -- one that could prove to be the Achilles heel of his re-election campaign -- was his failure to understand that American victory in the Cold War was not as decisive as its victory in World War II. Securing that victory required more than hard work; it required the development of a credible vision for a better world. To paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, America had to speak softly, carry a big stick, and offer real hope, not just to some but to all countries in the world.

Instead, America's voice has become shrill and preachy, accusing country after country of being undemocratic or of violating human rights. At the same time Clinton has waffled between continuing the post-Cold War military downsizing or rebuilding America's military strength. Not since Gerry Ford has a president been so without vision as Bill Clinton.

Clinton's approach is to maneuver through challenges hoping to come out ahead. Yet even when he comes out ahead, he is unable to mount successful follow-ups. Initially he scored successes in three critical foreign affairs areas: Bosnia, the Arab-Israel peace process and China. Now his lack of staying power in each of these areas is turning foreign policy gains into losses.

* On Bosnia Clinton's insertion of NATO last summer, bypassing the bumbling Europeans, led directly to the spectacular success of the three-sided Dayton peace accords, signed at a huge American Air Force base. But now the bumbling Europeans are back in Bosnia, all three Bosnian sides are again turning against each other, and instability is growing in the Balkans rather than diminishing.

* Clinton took over the Arab-Israeli peace process and pushed it to a point where peace in the region with justice for the Palestinians seemed possible. Now, after hurriedly convening Israel, 12 Arab states and Russia at the Sharm-al-Sheikh conference to mount a war against terrorism, he faces an Arab world infuriated by the shabby treatment of the Palestinians; polls showing his friend Israeli Prime Minister Peres will lose reelection in May; and Peres' own announcement that there will be no peace with Syria this year.

* U.S.-China relations improved rapidly following Clinton's meeting with Chinese president Jiang Zemin in Seattle in November 1994. But in the recent Taiwan crisis, Clinton's loud show of force -- sending much of the Seventh Fleet into the waters off Taiwan -- turned into a wet firecracker. Both Chinese sides are getting ready to negotiate a deal between themselves alone.

The worst bumbling of all that could damage Clinton is with Russia. Instead of a post-Communist democratic Russia joining America as a post-Nazi democratic Germany did following World War II, Russia is rapidly turning into a rival. Even if Yeltsin is reelected in June, so much of the old USSR is coming back that the U.S. commitment to NATO expansion could soon face a crisis similar to that over Taiwan.

Clinton and Dole are not that far apart on domestic issues at this point but they are quite far apart on foreign policy issues. From the beginning of the Bosnia war Dole favored arming the Bosnian Muslims despite Russian objections. Clinton valued the Russian connection above everything else in the Bosnia situation.

On China, Clinton has taken the most hostile attitude of any president since Lyndon Johnson whose secretary of state Dean Rusk periodically intoned against the threat of a billion Chinese expanding over their borders. Dole, whose political feelings are strongest about southern Europe, will likely shunt China policy back to where it was under every president from Nixon through Bush.

On the Mideast, the Clinton administration has been so lopsidedly pro-Israel that the step-by-step peace process originally started by Henry Kissinger and carefully pursued by James Baker is now botched to the point that even Syria's Asad is pulling back, possibly hoping for a new president come January.

Political scientists have long known that presidents in this century don't get elected for their stands on bread-and-butter issues. Rather they win votes for their personal and moral qualities to lead a troubled nation. As the foreign policy messes pile up, Clinton may find himself as strongly challenged by Dole as he himself successfully challenged his predecessor four years ago.