Bob Dole's Bosnia Folly

By Charles Krauthammer

Have American conservatives lost their minds over Bosnia? It was Bismarck who said the Balkans were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. Bob Dole and other conservative hawks have long made it clear that they do not consider the Balkans worth the bones of a single American ground soldier. Yet they seem quite prepared to sacrifice NATO on the altar of Bosnia. Destroy NATO for what? Certainly not to save Bosnia. That they admit is beyond doing. No: for the simple satisfaction of pretending to save Bosnia; for the warm, smug feeling that comes from lifting a finger too little and too late in a lost cause.

The occasion for Dole's Bosnia posturing was the Serb attack on the Muslim area of Bihac. In fact, as the French pointed out accurately, it was a counterattack. The Muslims began this round with a fierce surprise offensive in late October that won them 95 sq. mi. of Serb-controlled territory and quiet applause from the U.S. Now that the gambit has backfired and the Bosnian government is blaming everyone but itself, Dole is pushing for more NATO bombing, for lifting the arms embargo and for other forms of flailing unilateralism.

These measures, as even Dole admits, hold out little hope of turning the tide of battle in Bihac or elsewhere in Bosnia. But they are guaranteed to do great damage to the foremost U.S. foreign policy asset in the world: NATO. Lifting the arms embargo and mounting air strikes against the Serbs would endanger the thousands of British, French and other peacekeeping troops on the ground in Bosnia. Conveniently, the U.S. has none there, which invites Dole's cowboy notions. The French and British are justifiably apoplectic at a U.S. that is unwilling to risk a single soldier of its own, yet willing to risk the lives of NATO allies that have already lost dozens.

It is bad enough that the Clinton Administration unilaterally stopped enforcing the embargo last month, leaving the NATO allies holding the bag in the Adriatic. Dole would compound the damage to the alliance -- and to embargoes that we care about, such as that against Iraq -- by actually breaking the embargo over British and French objections. And embargo busting is more than just damaging. It is by now ridiculous. The Bosnian government, for whose sake we would presumably be breaking ranks, itself gave up the demand 10 weeks ago. In late September the Clinton Administration, under congressional pressure, was quite prepared to go to the U.N. to get the arms embargo lifted. But the Bosnian government, knowing that outside peacekeepers were not about to stick around under circumstances of all-out war, decided it did not want to risk a fight to the finish after all and asked Washington not to proceed for six months. Dole has yet to catch on.

Amid the cacophony of conservative commentators and legislators rattling sabers on behalf of the Muslims, the one voice of sanity on Bosnia has come from the Clinton Administration. Secretary of Defense William Perry acknowledged that the Bosnian war is essentially over and the Serbs have won. The U.S. now appears prepared to act with Britain and France to push for a cease-fire and settlement that would necessarily favor the victors. Such a position represents the dawning of realism. With luck it represents an end to the empty threats and misleading signals that have encouraged the Muslims to fight on for almost two years in the expectation that the U.S. cavalry would eventually ride to the rescue.

Cease-fire followed by partition has always been the only possible Bosnian solution, absent a huge Western land offensive to repel the Serbs. We were never going to deploy the thousands of troops necessary to secure any other outcome. And you do not win guerrilla wars from the air, as our generals learned painfully in Vietnam and our politicians relearned needlessly at Gorazde and now Bihac.

In February 1993 the Clinton Administration disdained the Vance-Owen partition plan that gave the Serbs 42% of Bosnia. Why? Not fair -- the Serbs constituted only 31% of Bosnia's population -- and besides, aggression must not be rewarded. So what did we do? Dithered. Backed and filled, bluffed and caved until we came up with the Contact Group plan of July 1994. By then the portion of Bosnia to be awarded the Serbs was up to 49%. Now a cease-fire in place will give them 70% and more. That is what our moralism has got us -- and got the losing Muslims, on whose behalf this high-mindedness was deployed.

Enough. Far better to end the war now than have it grind on to a future that for the losers can only be ever more painful and ever more tragic. Dole, however, seems prepared to fight to the last Bosnian. This is not the first time we have had a presidential aspirant talking tough and bluff on Bosnia to win points against an incumbent President following a line of unsatisfying prudence. Candidate Clinton did exactly that to President Bush in 1992. Dole's bluster may be poetic justice, but it is just as empty as was Clinton's two years ago.