Politics & People: A Cold Warrior Keeps the Faith on Bosnia

By Albert R. Hunt
The Wall Street Journal, 08 December 1994

Sitting under a picture of his mentor and hero, the late Sen. Henry
Jackson, Richard Perle is his vintage self: a soft, calm demeanor
accompanied by articulate but chillingly tough rhetoric. Mr. Perle and
self-doubt are strangers.

He’s outraged by what he sees as the tragically flawed American
policy on Bosnia. He wants to lift the arms embargo on the Bosnians
immediately, withdraw all United Nations forces, supply the Bosnians
and bomb the Serbians forcefully.

Mr. Perle was the bane of the Soviet Union’s existence while a top
aide to Scoop Jackson and a top Defense Department official in the
Reagan administration. With the end of communism, more than a few of
his fellow cold-war hawks have changed stripes, moving closer to George
McGovern’s “Come home America” neo-isolationism. Not Richard Perle , as
can be seen in the following excerpts from a conversation about Bosnia:

“It is not too late to do the things that Clinton said he wanted to
do two years ago. That is the lift-and-strike option that we were
deflected from pursuing after the aborted Christopher mission to
Europe, when the allies refused to go along with it. We would lift the
embargo on the Bosnians and use air strikes to hold the Serb forces at
enough of a distance so that any move to attack in anticipation of the
armament of the Bosnians would be blunted.

“Bosnia involves important American interests, one of which is to
show that we will react to a blatant aggression, that a member state of
the United Nations is entitled to protection. That doesn’t mean we can
protect everyone everywhere. But it’s only with the greatest reluctance
that we should say there’s nothing we can do. No matter what else we
do, we must allow the Bosnians to defend themselves. Second, we must
not allow the Muslim world to believe that Muslims, unlike Christians,
are prevented from defending themselves and left to be slaughtered. You
could forgive a Bosnian child for believing that he’s a victim because
he’s a Muslim.”

What’s the danger of ignoring our NATO partners? Could it, for
instance, jeopardize sanctions against Iraq?

“I think they {the Clinton administration} don’t understand NATO. If
we cave in, in the short run the British and French are relieved that
we’re not insisting on a course that entails some risks and costs and
inconvenience for them. But the deeper, and I think more lasting,
effect is to shatter British and French confidence in the United States
as the leader of an institution which is nothing if it’s not led by the
U.S.

“The overwhelming majority of U.N. member states have voted to lift
the embargo in the General Assembly. Clinton continues to say that he
would like to lift the embargo, but he’s prevented from doing so by
U.N. resolutions, by which he means the British, the French and the
Russians. The embargo policy — American policy — is being made by the
British, the French and the Russians. I can’t recall an instance any
time during the Cold War in which American policy was so demonstrably
subordinated to the preferences of other countries.

“The embargo, in the case of Bosnia, is of very dubious legality.
And I don’t believe the French would end the sanctions against Iraq. It
wouldn’t be supported by the French public; they’re facing elections.
The British certainly wouldn’t do it.”

Most experts say that air power alone never has been sufficient.

“The opponents deliberately depreciate the value of air strikes. If
you can designate targets, you can destroy them. And there are plenty
of Bosnians who, armed with laser designators and other devices, would
be delighted to locate mobile targets. And there’s no question about
the accuracy of air power against fixed targets: ammunition dumps, air
fields, logistic bases could be devastated by air power. Ironically,
air strikes could save lives. We would target to minimize collateral
damage. Far more civilians are being killed by Serb gunners than would
be killed by stray weapons. But we’re not talking about air power
alone. There’s a Bosnian army on the ground.

“The denigration of air power has been accompanied by rigged
estimates of what it would take to be effective. The Defense Department
produced estimates that entail hundreds of thousands of Americans on
the ground and billions of dollars in expenditures. I think these are
fundamentally dishonest, intended to discourage U.S. action.”

Is it too late with the Serbs seemingly on the verge of victory?

“Late as it is, I don’t think this war will end with a Serb victory
over Bosnia. You can dismember Bosnia, you can allow Serbs to link
together the territory they now have in what will become part of a
`Greater Serbia.’ But that won’t be enough — they’re going to go for
the rest of it. So I don’t believe that we would be risking a wider war
as opposed to a tidy end to the fighting; you’re going to get a wider
war in the aftermath of the Serb victory, because victory will not
satiate Serb appetites. But although it’s admittedly very late, we can
still give the Bosnians a fighting chance, particularly if we’re
effective in the application of air power. The Bosnians have a highly
motivated but badly equipped army.

“I don’t think Americans ought to be on the ground in Bosnia. That’s
not the role that we can play effectively. I also don’t think the
British and French should be there. But the British and French make the
ludicrous argument that we’re not entitled to propose a different
strategy because we don’t have troops on the ground. Now when you stop
and think about it, they’re saying that if we don’t follow them in a
stupid, foolish decision to put hostages on the ground under U.N.
command — incapable of defending themselves, incapable of defending
safe areas — unless we repeat their folly, we have no right to say
that this is folly and there should be another approach. The way we
will wind up with Americans on the ground is if we go in as
peacekeepers to police an unstable settlement; that’s how you get
Americans killed. The way to avoid it is to make sure that this thing
ends with a stable balance, with a peace that can be defended by the
Bosnians themselves.”

Is there any possibility of this occurring?

“If we lift the embargo the Europeans will be out of there. Once
they’re out, the main argument against air strikes disappears. So far,
air power has been limited to a pinprick strategy {to respond in an
extremely limited way}. That’s really very dangerous. It annoys the
Serbs and tells them we’re not serious. This war is not a Manhattan
salon; the Serbs are very crude in judging power, and they regard
pinprick air strikes as an alternative to a real strategy.”