Dropping the Ball?

(2 of 8)

As before in Bosnia, a change in U.S. policy was preceded by a new round of human suffering, grisly television reports and editorial-page outrage at the Administration's failure to act. On Thursday, after three weeks of carnage in Gorazde, one of six so-called "safe areas" for Bosnian Muslims, Clinton called for a substantial expansion of NATO's military role in the war. On Friday NATO issued a new ultimatum: the Serbs must stop firing on the city immediately, and they had until Saturday night to pull back their troops and weapons 1.9 miles and let in U.N. humanitarian teams to succor Gorazde's sick, wounded and starving. If the Serbs refused, NATO planes would bomb and strafe any Serb targets, including ammunition dumps and fuel depots as well as weapons, within a 12.5-mile perimeter. That extended to Gorazde and the five other havens the concepts of an ultimatum and an exclusion zone that had some, though not complete, success in easing the siege of Sarajevo. But the threat also opened the way for the creeping military involvement that many Americans dread.

First results were inconclusive. The Serbs broke yet another cease-fire and continued shelling Gorazde. But the barrage lightened enough to cause NATO to hold off on air strikes in hopes it would stop entirely. U.N. observers reported seeing Serb troops pulling back from the town late Saturday.

Clinton may have grasped the lesson put pithily by Michael Mandelbaum of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: "If you're not going to pull the trigger, don't point the gun." But it is by no means certain a corner has been turned. If air strikes do finally begin, they might not be even militarily, let alone politically, effective. Bombing runs may not be able to put out of action the Serbs' most effective weapons: easily moved mortars. And even if actual strikes or the threat of them stop the Serbs' Gorazde offensive, what is the next move? There are many places outside the six safe havens that Serb forces could then try to seize.

When minority leader Bob Dole asked the Senate to approve lifting of the U.N. embargo on weapons shipments to the Bosnian government, an idea Clinton has frequently endorsed, the White House pressured Dole into backing off because most of the allies are opposed. The President expressed interest in a Russian proposal for a summit conference on Bosnia, which could prompt a settlement -- but that settlement could be a new Munich.

It is not just Bosnia that is undermining the world's only remaining superpower. The fallout from Clinton's uncertain performance is everywhere.