SENATORS REBUFF CLINTON, NATO ON BOSNIA

Senate Democrats, in a growing challenge to President Clinton and European allies, lined up behind Republican leader Bob Dole as the Senate voted 69-29 to end the U.S. arms embargo on Bosnia. The bipartisan clamor grew despitea NATO agreementjust hours earlier to seek pre-emptive air strikes on rebel Serbs in the region. "There's only one thing that's going to protect the Bosnian people againstthe Serb expansion," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who waved published reports of continued Serb aggression. "And that is if they're allowed to defend themselves." More significant, Senate Republicans have secured the two-thirds needed to override a promised presidential veto if an identical measure passes the House, possibly by Thursday, by a similar margin. Whatever the outcome, TIME's Marguerite Michaels says, the drama is being played out for domestic consumption, and will do little to slow the Serbian drive. "Dole is running for President, and he doesn't want to be the guy who sends 25,000 Americans troops in there either," Michaels says. "From the beginning of the war, the only people who have been in control here are the only people who know what they're doing -- the Bosnian Serbs."