The Necessity of a Rough Peace : Geneva accord, monitored by the West, is the only way out for Bosnia

There is no question that the dismemberment of Bosnia-Herzogovina over the last two years will be written about in future history books as a great tragedy and that the unwillingness of the Western powers to have intervened long before this point to stop the carnage will be adjudged a great moral failure. Indeed, if the clock could be set back 18 months or so, a powerful gesture of Western military intervention might well have brought the savagery to an end.

But that did not happen and what did happen is now history. To set back the clock--to expel Serbian and Croatian forces from Bosnian Muslim territory--would require nothing less than massive intervention by the West--on the order of several hundred thousand troops and large-scale air support. There is simply no widespread public support in the West for that.

Given that reality, what should the West do? In our view, NATO forces, under American command and with many U.S. troops, should be committed to Bosnia if all three parties sign the partition peace plan negotiated in Geneva. And Washington should continue to stand ready to relieve Sarajevo, even unilaterally, if the Bosnian Serb nationalist forces resume the inhuman shelling that they suspended weeks ago in response to sudden U.S. and NATO pressure.

Given the grim realities, the Bosnian government must persuade its Muslim-dominated Parliament to ratify the latest version of the Geneva peace accord. The cold is coming, and the odds that the weather will be as forgiving as last winter’s are not great. Even now the United Nations is having difficulty delivering supplies. A fierce winter combined with a renewed onslaught from Serbian and Croatian forces would leave many more Muslims dead, not just from the fighting but from starvation and freezing.

Critics of the Geneva accord argue, not without justice, that it appears to reward ethnic cleansing and other war crimes. But failing to sign the accord, when that is the only viable option, will have the practical effect of continuing the nightmare. The war must not go on. The accord needs to be signed, implemented and competently policed by the West.