‘PEACE FOR OUR TIME’ IN BOSNIA

(Washington, D.C.): Today’s announcement that
the perpetrators of genocide in Bosnia have reached a
“comprehensive peace agreement” with their
victims must, alas, be greeted with real skepticism and
profound misgivings. No one would wish for the
Bosnian people a genuine, durable peace more than the
Center for Security Policy. Indeed, from the first Serb
assaults against Slavonia through the Serb aggression in
Croatia to the beginning of the Serb ethnic cleansing in
Bosnia, the Center has argued that such foul deeds must
be firmly resisted and punished by the United
States and its allies.

Arguably the greatest problem with the Dayton deal is
that, having largely failed to do the former, the United
States and its “Contact Group” partners have
failed utterly to do the latter. While the details of the
agreement and its numerous annexes are not yet available
for public scrutiny, the broad outlines are clear: The
principled position taken by the United States in support
of a unified and secure multi-ethnic state in Bosnia has
not been translated into the accord.

Instead, arrangements have been put into place
that ensure the de facto partition of Bosnia along
ethnic lines, effectively ratifying the results of
campaigns of terror conducted for the purpose of
“cleansing” desirable territory of non-Serb
populations. What is more — by opting for arms
control arrangements, confidence-building measures and
other diplomatic sleights-of-hand rather than providing
for the arming and training of the Bosnian forces —
the government of Bosnia will, at best, be reduced to a
ward of the international community. At worst, it will,
in due course, be dismembered altogether by the far
better equipped Serb and/or Croat armies.

It should come as no surprise that the agreement has
such profound flaws — both in its broad outline and in
its details. In diplomacy, as in most other fields of
endeavor, the adage “You want it bad, you’ll get it
bad” is axiomatic. The Clinton Administration’s
monomaniacal determination to consummate a deal right
away (after three years of virtual indifference,
fecklessness and inaction on the Bosnian crisis)
precipitated round-the-clock negotiating sessions,
arm-twisting and knee-breaking that has produced a peace
accord, but almost certainly will produce no peace.

As the attached column in
today’s Washington Times by the Center’s director
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. makes clear, even if there were not
such serious problems with Mr. Clinton’s
“comprehensive peace agreement,” there would
still be compelling reasons not to send U.S. forces to
Bosnia to “implement” it. It is simply
irresponsible for President Clinton in a non- emergency
situation and in the face of the expressed opposition of
Congress to implicate the United States in such a
“peace enforcement” mission — the predictable
effect of his decision to begin the immediate deployment
of small numbers of American service personnel to Bosnia.

Congress should complete work on legislation passed
last week in the House of Representatives. Known as the
Hefley bill after its original sponsor, Rep. Joel Hefley
(R-CO), this measure would bar the use of U.S. forces
for peacekeeping missions in Bosnia, absent express
congressional approval. Naturally, provision must be
made for the safe extraction of such forces as have been
inserted into Bosnia by President Clinton in the meantime
— as should arrangements for providing the victims of
Serbian aggression there with the means to defend
themselves against the next genocidal campaign that is
sure to come, with or without Clinton’s false peace.