Lifting the Siege of Sarajevo: Only U.S. Power Can Do It

Sarajevo--a proud and great city with a luminous reputation for ethnic tolerance--now stands ready to succumb to the Serbian sword. That must not be allowed to happen.

The absolute transformation of Sarajevo from enlightenment to darkness would constitute a brutal and morally unacceptable mark against the very idea of multiethnic civilization. Sarajevo’s fall would prove to be yet another ghastly spectacle of carnage clawing at the world’s collective memory. Moreover, if Sarajevo falls, the ground would shake under other imperiled enclaves in Bosnia--and elsewhere around the world--with the risk that the minimum fabric of restraint underlying basic international order would disintegrate.

STILL-STANDING SARAJEVO: There yet remains a city of Sarajevo--but there is a little less of it each day. Mortar barrages from Serb-held mountain positions pound the besieged populace hourly. Absolutely no one is immune to the vicious assault, including U.N. peacekeeping forces. Lately 100 French troops, operating under the U.N. flag, have come under Serb mortar and tank attack. The attack was no accident. The Serbian nationalist troops knew exactly what they were doing. Indeed, Bosnia’s Serbs have known exactly what they have wanted all along. While the West vainly placed its hopes in peace negotiations to bring an end to the horror, the Serbs knew better. They knew they wanted Bosnia, or as much of it as possible, all to themselves and have been willing to kill everyone who gets in their way. The obvious next step is to pulverize Sarajevo itself.

This extraordinary city is not just a place--a clutter of buildings and roads and people. It is a special place, a repository of the very idea of the sophisticated and tolerant city. There Muslims live side by side with Christians; even ethnic Serbs, many still there, have enjoyed an urbane peace with their neighbors. Given the city’s history as a symbol of Balkan strife--it was the site of the assassination that sparked World War I--that was no small achievement. But now Sarajevo is dying: The city’s population, prewar, was about 600,000; today it is about 380,000. However, few have been leaving recently because the city, as if a tomb of living people, is now sealed off by murderous troops.

If there is one element that can bring the Serb side to its senses--and perhaps even alter the murderous chemistry of the region--it is American power. The Serbs fear only that one thing--not their consciences, not the judgment of history, not the U.N. forces, with their inferior numbers and hands tied by U.N. headquarters in New York. The Serbs fear only America. U.S. military power must now be used to save Sarajevo. The White House was suddenly suggesting Wednesday that U.S. warplanes might be deployed through NATO and the United Nations to protect U.N. peacekeeping forces wherever they might be. But that may not directly help Sarajevo. We recommend that U.S. troops be airlifted into that city’s airport, which is still open, and secure Sarajevo’s perimeter.

THE NARROW COMMITMENT: If the U.S. commitment is not open-ended-- and it must not be --casualties should not be heavy. The Serb forces around the city are thin, and the artillery units are vulnerable to air strikes. A U.S. air-ground intervention can secure the city with minimum casualties--and then the mission can be turned over to U.N. or NATO forces in a few months at most.

America cannot, and should not, try to do everything in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But, if the operation is as successful as only the American military can make it, the Serb forces will get the message: Easy-picking time is over, the war is over, the time has come to settle for peace and partition.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENTS: Objections to this course are admittedly formidable--and not easily brushed off. Why save Sarajevo, but not, say, Nagorno-Karabakh? If Sarajevo, then why not intervene in that African country or this Asian trouble spot? Isn’t the argument for saving Sarajevo a call for America to become the policeman of the world? A fair point, for this course would indeed put Americans in harm’s way for no obvious U.S. security reason.

We agree that America cannot and should not do everything. But that is not to say that it should, in this case, do nothing . Some military involvements are unavoidable in the post-Cold War world. If the Serb siege of Sarajevo does not pose the same direct threat to U.S. national interests as did the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which imperiled Saudi oil reserves, it does nonetheless frontally assault the basic standards of restraint that underpin the international system. And that erosion of restraint is taking place in the historical powder-keg region of the world, as Turkey, Greece, Albania and, behind them, other nations watch as Muslims die.

NECESSARY MOVE: After consultation with Congress, President Clinton must announce that America will come to the rescue of this city facing death, just as we once did, with the help of our allies, for Berlin. President Harry S. Truman did the right thing in 1948-49. So should Clinton now. He should ask the British and the French to join us, but he should assure the American people that, like the Marine effort in Somalia, the vast bulk of the U.S. commitment will end once the situation has stabilized. This must be a precondition of any U.S. relief effort.

Yes, there is a risk in intervention. But the risk of doing nothing now exceeds the risk of a limited Sarajevo intervention. Other cities or enclaves--and not just in Bosnia-Herzegovina but around the world--could easily degenerate into Sarajevos if the world offers no hint of deterrence when one ethnic group seeks to scorch another off the face of the Earth. In effect, the community of nations either pays now or pays later.

At the optimum, an American effort can change the evil chemistry of the holocaust in Bosnia; at the minimum it can save a city. Both are worth doing; either goal morally justifies the use of U.S. military power.