Moscow veto mood rising?

As the international community at last starts to move toward long-overdue military intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina, one conclusion is becoming inescapable: It had better do so quickly.

Otherwise, the United Nations will face more than just a rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground, with countless thousands of innocent civilians added to the 128,000 Bosnians estimated to have died to date — and the likelihood that the horror will spread to still other flash points like Kosovo, Macedonia and Vojyvodina. It may also find itself once again prevented from acting due to a veto from Moscow.

In recent days, as hard-line elements of the former Soviet Union have begun to reassert themselves in Russia, representatives of the Yeltsin government have launched what appears to be a coordinated effort to signal solidarity with the totalitarian Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic. The timing, as well as the content, of such interventions is ominous.

The most dramatic of these statements was made by Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) on Dec. 14:

"We see . . . essentially unchanged goals of NATO and the Western European Union, which are working out plans to strengthen their military presence in the Baltic States and other regions on the territory of the former Soviet Union, and to interfere in Bosnia and in the internal affairs of Yugoslavia.

"This course, evidently dictated the sanctions against [Yugoslavia]. We demand their removal and, if this does not happen, we assume the right to undertake necessary unilateral measures to defend our interests, all the more since they are causing us economic harm. In its struggle the present government of Serbia can count on the support of Great Russia."

To the enormous relief of the civilized world, Mr. Kozyrev subsequently disavowed this statement, suggesting that it was merely a "rhetorical device" designed to alert the international community to "the real threats on our road to a postcommunist Europe." Unfortunately, no such disclaimers have followed similar presentations by other Russian officials:

 

• According to The Washington Post, a few days prior the Kozyrev remarks in Stockholm, a Russian representative to the International Monetary Fund threw one of the organization’s executive committee meetings into turmoil when he launched into a diatribe against the West’s sanctions on Serbia.

 

• On December 16, Vitali Churkin — a veteran and thoroughly cynical public relations flack for Soviet communists — used an international conference in Geneva to denounce the international pressure being brought to bear on Serbia and expressed Moscow’s solidarity with Belgrade.

 

• A Russian diplomat recently tried to intimidate the Japanese government into backing off the Western consensus against Serbia, making clear that this was a matter of considerable importance to Moscow and threatening unspecified retaliation if Tokyo was not cooperative. To its credit, the government of Japan sent the Russian packing. It must be assumed that similar bilateral approaches have been made in other allied capitals, with unknown results.

In short, whatever the explanation for Foreign Minister Kozyrev’s bizarre performance at the CSCE conference last week, it seems clear that he spoke the truth at least when — as part of his retraction statement — he told his stunned audience: "The text I read out earlier is a fairly accurate compilation of the demands of what is, by no means, the most extreme opposition in Russia."

Indeed, far from being the policy of the "most extreme opposition," the pro-Serbian line appears to be increasingly that of the nominally reformist government headed by Boris Yeltsin. If the events of the past fortnight are any guide, as the hard-line communist-nationalist-fascist factions ascendant in Moscow consolidate their "creeping coup," the Russian government will become ever more strident in its opposition to the current sanctions on Belgrade — to say nothing of ideas of intensifying those sanctions or complementing them with long-overdue military actions.

Consequently, if the West is serious — at long last — about persuading Serbia to halt its aggression in Bosnia and Croatia, ending the attendant atrocities and "ethnic cleansing" there and preventing a reprise elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia, it had best get on with enforcing a no-fly zone and lifting the arms embargo that keeps the victims from defending themselves. A 15-day waiting period on the former and further deferral of the latter may mean that neither materialize in the face of a Russian veto — the first expression of the all-too-familiar "new" look of Moscow’s post-reform foreign policy.

Of course, moving swiftly now to the deal with Bosnia’s trauma will not necessarily prevent a confrontation with Russia. Had the West acted a year ago, as it should have, a crisis with the former Soviet Union could almost certainly have been prevented. At the very least, the devastation of much of the Balkans and the present prospect for a wider regional war might have been avoided. What is more, the tangible evidence of Western solidarity with freedom-loving people and willingness to resist oppression inherent in such an action might have helped to undermine the appeal of authoritarian elements in Moscow.

Failing that, it is probably better to determine where those forces plan to take Russia sooner rather than later. In particular, we would do well to know it before the Bush administration extends $2 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loans for the Russian oil and gas industry, before it issues hundreds of millions of dollars worth of credit guarantees for grain purchases, and before it signs onto further, possibly unverifiable arms reduction agreements.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is the director of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.