Beware the Peace-Processors

(Washington, D.C.): In a powerful op.ed. article published in today’s Wall Street
Journal (see
the attached), the Ambassador to the United Nations
from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Muhamed
Sacirbey, argues against repeating the mistakes the West made at Dayton as a means of
bringing
to an end President Clinton’s war in Kosovo. While this essay offers useful insights about the
present debacle — and steps now being contemplated that could make matters worse, its relevance
to the phenomenon of “peace processes” more generally make Amb. Sacirbey’s contribution
doubly valuable.

What Not to Do in Kosovo

Most importantly, perhaps, the Ambassador recalls the effect that the Dayton agreement —
that
brought to a temporary end the conflict in Bosnia — had in according the West’s diplomatic
seal-of-approval to the man most responsible for the Serbs’ genocidal ethnic cleansing there,
Slobodan
Milosevic:

By promoting [Milosevic] as the indispensable partner, the best of bad choices, Dayton
negotiators gave him a legitimacy that he did not deserve. They in effect gave him new political
life, the opportunity of a new place and time to again reinvigorate his authoritarian hold by
targeting a new enemy. In that sense, Richard Holbrooke became an unwitting midwife in Mr.
Milosevic’s rebirth. 1 If Dayton holds one
overriding lesson for the Kosovo endgame, it is
this: that Mr. Milosevic must not again walk away having been legitimized by an
‘agreement’ that bears his signature.

Amb. Sacirbey also warns, based upon his country’s hard experience, against a Solomonic
outcome now being promoted in Moscow 2 and Western
capitals — namely, the partition of
Kosovo.

[Milosevic] would gladly part with half the territory of Kosovo in order to get rid of the 90%
Albanian population and avoid the influence of NATO elements within the borders of a country he
now rules without accountability. His experience in Dayton leads him to believe that the
Western democracies would rather legitimize the consequences of ethnic cleansing than
commit the resources necessary to reverse it.

The consequences of accepting such an arrangement are infinitely unsettling. To
divide Kosovo
would be to doom Bosnia, Macedonia and other states of the region to endless wars of
partition and leave us hostage to the grand schemes of ethnic cleansers.

The Bottom Line

Regrettably, those who invest unquestioningly in the utility of “peace processes” — of whom
there
are many in the senior reaches of the Clinton Administration and other “Third Way” governments
in Europe — are unlikely to grasp the Ambassador’s essential message: It is not the case that such
processes are, at best, useful and, at worst, worth trying.

When conducted with ruthless despots like Slobodan Milosevic, Hafez Assad, Kim Jong Il,
Saddam Hussein and Jiang Zemin and thugs like Yevgeny Primakov no good can come from the
exercise. And more likely than not, Western interests and values will be sacrificed from the mere
act of engaging in negotiations with such men, if only because of the undeserved legitimacy they
secure from being, as Amb. Sacirbey put it, “placed on the same stage as the world’s most
powerful democratic leaders.”

The United States and its allies should heed Amb. Sacirbey’s advice, both in contending with
the
present menace posed by Serbia’s war-criminal-in-chief and in eschewing other false peace
processes elsewhere around the globe.

1 One wonders whether the egotistical Richard Holbrooke will
consider what was clearly
intended as a face-saving diplomatic formula — “unwitting midwife” — to be less than flattering.
Quite likely he would rather be considered a witting knave for cutting a Faustian deal with the
likes of Milosevic than an “unwitting” fool. See the Center’s Decision Briefs
entitled Kosovo:
Don’t Go There (No. 99-D 18, 3 February 1999)
and Glaspie Redux in the Balkans: As With
Saddam, Appeasing — Rather than Resisting — Milosevic is a Formula for Wider
War (No.98-D 45, 11 March 1998).