Perhaps because it was such a distasteful alternative. Hastily slapped together by Secretary of State Warren Christopher and four foreign ministers, the plan smacked of surrender. Instead of challenging Serbian nationalists with force, the West accepted their territorial gains. The goal of the latest proposal, Christopher says, was to stop the killing. But it still wasn’t clear whether U.S. air cover would protect only U.N. troops or civilians as well. Beyond that, the plan resolved nothing about the size and composition of the proposed peacekeeping force or about its rules of engagement-ambiguities that were bound to create deep fissures within NATO. The new option also raised fresh suspicions that the West was implicitly ratifying the process of “ethnic cleansing.” “Life goes on and the Serbs will continue to mop up the last of what they want in greater Serbia,” says Republican Sen. Richard Lugar.
The first cracks in the alliance were French made. Foreign Minister Alain Juppe criticized Washington’s mini-malism, citing its continued refusal to commit ground forces to a United Nations contingent and its unwillingness to use air power to protect the Muslims. Italy was next, apparently miffed that it wasn’t consulted. Then Germany and Turkey weighed in with objections to havens on moral grounds, arguing that they ratified Serbian aggression.
Christopher-who at first agreed to the plan reluctantly but then became an ardent sponsor-insisted that stronger U.S. military action was still an option. But he had his own problems to attend to: after Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Peter Tarnoff told reporters that the U.S. focus on economic affairs would result in a sharply diminished international role, Christopher had to step in and declare that America would still “shoulder the responsibility of world leadership.” By then, the allies were already in disarray. During two days of discussion with NATO ministers in Brussels, Defense Secretary Les Aspin failed to win agreement on troops for the safe-havens idea.
Arms embargo:The United Nations was also sharply divided about safe havens. U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright tried to assure the 51-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference that safe havens were only a first step toward rolling back the Serbs. “Our job is to convince the nonaligned nations that this resolution is better than nothing,” says a U.S. official. “But, frankly, they’re screaming bloody murder.” They’re also threatening a veto, thanks to heavy lobbying by the Bosnian mission; the Muslims claim they have enough votes among the nonaligned security Council members, as well as New Zealand and Hungary, to block the resolution when it comes up this week. There was sedition closer to home, too: last week, Republican Sen. Bob Dole introduced a bill that would unilaterally lift the international arms embargo against the Muslims. That’s not going to happen. But with no real peace prospects, friends of Bosnia may be reduced to symbolic protests.
