Serbs Flout U.S. Warnings

The Serbs are calling the bluff. NATO generals raced to Belgrade Monday to warn President Slobodan Milosevic that air strikes remain an option after Friday's massacre of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. But Sunday's renewed Serb attack on the village where 45 civilians were butchered on Friday shows Milosevic doesn't believe the West has the will to act.

An immediate air strike isn't an option for NATO, because that would endanger the 700 monitors introduced to the region as part of the cease-fire deal brokered by Richard Holbrooke last November. But even if the monitors were withdrawn, it's not clear that the U.S. and its allies would attack: Many Western observers believe that only ground troops could keep the peace in Kosovo -- and that's a non-starter, since the Western alliance has no appetite for wading into an intractable civil war between the Serb authorities and the independence-minded Kosovar Albanians. And with no firm Western action, Holbrooke's cease-fire will likely melt away with the winter snows. Memo to President Clinton: You may want to drop that "Peace in the Balkans" item from your State of the Union list of foreign policy achievements.