Mostly, no doubt, because he doesn’t have much choice. He had pledged to enforce the peace back in 1993, when words were cheap (and peace unlikely). Last summer, he rejected the option of helping the hapless U.N. peacekeepers retreat from Bosnia–a risky, thankless operation–and chose to jump-start negotiations. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke was sent off shuttling the Balkans, in search of common ground. He found it, after a fashion: “The three sides may not want peace,” said a source close to the negotiations. “But they do want a deal.” Hence, Dayton. And if the deal being cooked seemed scruffy at best–imprecise, overpragmatic, too tolerant of tyrants, perhaps no more than a fig leaf for the dismemberment of Bosnia–it was the least awful alternative available.
Besides, there was a lurchy momentum behind it. Indeed, Holbrooke and his negotiating team have become momentum junkies. “This is about momentum,” they joked among themselves as they flew about the Balkans several weeks ago, “and momentum is about process, and process is about logistics, and logistics is about . . . having an airplane.” Last week, Holbrooke’s team was planeless–but still aloft. They had developed an elaborate rationale about how and why their deal would work: all three parties were exhausted– and had more to gain from a peace than to lose (at least, for the moment). The Bosnian government would gain U.S. military protection, of course. The Serbs, stalled on the battlefield, would gain the lifting of U.N. economic sanctions and some time to lick their wounds. The Croats would gain economic aid– with a peace settlement, several billion dollars’ worth of “development” money will flow to the region-and the possibility of eventually joining the European Union.
The Holbrooke team also was optimistic that U.S. military force could be inserted into the region without prohibitive risk. “The Serbs won’t challenge us,” the reasoning went. “They’re more likely to go underground for a year until we leave.” Indeed, military planners spoke of a “Cap Haitien” scenario: “Remember, the Haitian police challenged our marines right after we landed,” a Pentagon source said. “We blew 10 of them away, and we never had any trouble after that. If we’re lucky, we’ll send the same sort of message in Bosnia.”
It all seemed . . . plausible. But is it likely? There are at least four roadblocks in the path of Bill Clinton’s Bosnia Fantasy–a relatively risk-free year of peacekeeping, culminating in the triumphant return of the troops (just in time for Election Day):
The early signs were “encouraging,” U.S. officials said, but there were unofficial reports of fierce disputes among the parties over basic constitutional questions. And the American team hadn’t dared unveil its proposed map yet. That part won’t be easy: “This is a who-gets-that-pear-orchard process,” said an American mapmaker. A deal also depends on the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic’s actually being able to control–and perhaps re-move–the war criminals who lead the Bosnian Serb forces. The Muslims, with strong moral and political support (especially in the U.S. Congress), say that they won’t settle for a deal unless it (a) enables the victims of ethnic cleansing to vote in their old home precincts and (b) ensures that the United States will equip and train the Bosnian Army. Neither will be easy.
They tend not to get the ink, but they’re every bit as awful as the Serbs-and Franjo Tudjman, the Croatian president, openly disdains his Muslim “allies.” At a September meeting, the Holbrooke team was amazed when the Croats and Muslims began screaming at each other. Especially Tudjman: “Our army took 80 percent of the land [in the summer offensive]. You didn’t do anything!” If Tudjman believes in the peace process’, why did he allow 300,000 ethnic Croats living in Bosnia to vote in the Croatian elections last weekend? His plan is probably to play along, get some economic aid–then carve up Bosnia when the Americans leave.
They may, indeed, lie low for a year while NATO forces occupy the country–but it’s hard to believe they won’t be back in action by 1997. And even harder to believe that their half of Bosnia won’t secede or annex itself to Greater Serbia before long. Certainly, if the United States does arm and train the Bosnian Army, there will be rogue Serb units that will try to restart hostilities before the Muslims get too strong.
Why vote for any of this? A political rationale is nonexistent. A national-interest rationale is tenuous at best–although the worldwide hooting and loss of respect if the United States fails to act should count for something (even if it sounds eerily Kissingerian). A humanitarian rationale is compelling–but only if Clinton and Company can guarantee something resembling stability after NATO leaves and Bosnia has to defend itself.
Which is why the most important issue on the table may be the controversial American plan to Equip and Train (EAT, hereafter) the Bosnian Army. Until last week, the U.S. government seemed set to EAT–de-spite qualms from the Pentagon and NATO allies. “It’s the heart of the deal,” said Leslie H. Gelb, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Since you can’t be sure the agreement will hold, the least we should do is make sure the Bosnians are in a position to defend themselves.” But a series of nasty bureaucratic battles has erupted between EATers and dieters: those who think the best way to achieve military stability is to “build down” – that is, disarm the combatants. Both arguments have problems. Dieters–like Sen. Richard Lugar–admit it’s unlikely that rogue Serb elements, like the antic ethnic-cleanser known as Arkan, will turn over their tanks and artillery pieces. But EATers have trouble explaining how they’d bring the ragtag Bosnian Army into fighting trim by next October. And so there is now talk of a classic Clintonian gambit–EAT and diet simultaneously: arm the Bosnians while building down the Serbs and Croats. It is not a proposal that inspires confidence. “Don’t make me laugh,” said a congressional leadership source who was, indeed, laughing. “If they expect us to vote for this thing, they’re going to have to do a lot better than that.” For one thing, Bill Clinton will have to demonstrate more of an interest in fighting for his own peace plan. Perhaps he can halve his old welfare-reform slogan as a Balkan battle cry: one year and out.
