Blood, Threats and Fears

The British diplomat grumbled sarcastically: "Full marks for Clinton for appalling timing." Visibly angry, he was also speaking for most of his NATO colleagues. As Europeans saw it, they had the besieged Bosnian government just where they wanted. President Alija Izetbegovic was ready to capitulate to a plan to partition Bosnia and Herzegovina into three ethnic zones, with the largest slice going to the biggest aggressors, the Serbs. However distasteful, it was a settlement that might end the war with a "negotiated," face-saving way out for the West.

That was the precise moment Bill Clinton chose to threaten to bomb the Serbian forces that were "strangling" Sarajevo. Encouraged, possibly believing that U.S. military intervention could still save him, Izetbegovic bolted from the talks in Geneva. When Clinton's renewed determination to mount air strikes hit the NATO council in Brussels, it set off a 12-hour meeting so acrimonious that some participants feared the alliance itself was in danger of breaking apart over what would be the first offensive military action in its 44-year history.

The U.S. threat has catalyzed events in a way that forces all sides into critical decisions this week: NATO will have to decide what to bomb and under whose command. In order to avoid being bombed, the Serbs must demonstrate that they will live up to their promise to pull back a step from Sarajevo. Izetbegovic and the Bosnians will have to choose between defeat at Geneva and extinction. And all these decisions must be made at roughly the same time.

In spite of what resentful European allies think, Washington was not trying to complicate the Geneva negotiations. The proximate cause of war talk was a report in early July from the World Health Organization, saying Sarajevo faced potential catastrophe because of shortages of food, fuel and electricity. Worried by that -- and by the political beating the Administration would take for "losing" Sarajevo -- U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher joined hawkish National Security Adviser Anthony Lake in ordering an analysis of air power to break the Serbian choke hold on the capital. That surprised many policymakers unused to seeing Christopher push the government toward the use of force in Bosnia. But the Secretary of State felt badly stung by the failure of his attempts in May to push NATO into military intervention, and was worried that U.S. diplomatic credibility had been eroded by months of vacillation. As a result, he seemed determined not to be blamed if Sarajevo fell. He may also have felt disgust at the bad faith of the Serbs, who promised once again last week to lift the siege, then immediately started squabbling about exactly where their front line had been.

Clinton accepted the plan and told leaders of the NATO states about it in personal letters on July 30. Christopher followed up with letters of his own to foreign ministers of the NATO countries, Russia and U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.S., said Christopher, intended to use military force not only to relieve Sarajevo but also to push the warring parties toward a negotiated settlement.