Americans Will Turn Away From War Begun in Trickery : Bosnia: If the Administration is finally ready to intervene, it must come clean or risk losing the public’s confidence.

Americans are justifiably proud of their country’s contributions to world democracy. They have every right, therefore, to expect the same standards from their own government. Yet the Clinton Administration is shortchanging them on the vital matter of war in the Balkans.

After an extraordinary series of conflicting statements from members of President Clinton’s foreign-policy team, the Administration has thrown itself into the Bosnian fray. Claiming that it is acting as a sort of indentured servant of the United Nations and NATO, it is promoting the U.S.-led air strikes on Serb positions outside Gorazde as part of the search for peace. In fact, a more honest interpretation would be that, if these strikes reflect a larger strategy and are not simply a short-term operation to demonstrate civilian control over the military, the attacks constitute an act of war that nails the American colors to the Bosnian Muslim side.

Some will regard this as perfectly legitimate and long overdue. Fair enough. But subterfuge is an inauspicious beginning for a momentous foreign undertaking. It is all too reminiscent of the sleight-of-hand involved in the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that set the stage for Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam build-up. Now as then, the Administration is exploiting a pretext--in this case, the alleged need to protect a dozen U.N. peacekeepers stationed in Gorazde but by official accounts far away from the shelling--to mask more wide-ranging aims. Already, spokesmen are talking about strikes on other towns throughout Bosnia.

Official dishonesty played a major role in eroding public confidence for the Vietnam War. If history is not to repeat itself--this time probably as farce--the Administration should come clean with the American people at a very early stage.

First, let’s look facts in the face. Military intervention in a civil war on behalf of one side to the disadvantage of the other constitutes an act of war. In war, Americans kill other people and may be killed themselves. By admitting that this is what is happening in Bosnia, the Administration will alert the country to the seriousness of its purpose and prepare it for the long haul.

Second, wars are fought for reasons and aims. What are these? The Administration has traced a very erratic course on whether American interests are involved in Bosnia. The time has come to let the American public into the secret of why, after more than two years of official vacillation and recent public disagreement, they should now support engagement in Bosnia. As for aims, what constitutes victory? Preservation of a unitary Bosnian state? A rollback of Serb gains to a specific proportion of Bosnian territory? Protection of certain named towns and villages from falling into Serb hands? Once again, all these may be legitimate objectives, but voters need to be assured that the Administration has thought things through.

Third, wars are fought to achieve victory with appropriate military means. A month ago, Defense Secretary William Perry commented about the fighting in Bosnia that it “still goes on in ways that are difficult to influence with the use of air power alone--in particular the small arms, close combat fighting around many cities and villages in Bosnia.” Does his advice still hold? In which case, the logical implication is that ground troops will have to be introduced at some stage. Will these be American, or have other countries volunteered their services? Or--shades of Vietnam--is the military accommodating its professional advice to the political needs of the day?

Fourth, wars have unintended consequences. To date, there are few good things to say about the Bosnian conflict, but at least the worst fears of a wider regional conflagration have not been fulfilled. Is the Administration confident that its change of policy will preserve this relatively benign state of affairs? Already, Russian rumblings, which call on deeper resentments than can be assuaged by a soothing phone call to Boris Yeltsin, fill the air.

In time of war, the natural inclination of most Americans is to rally around the President. This in turn gives him the confidence of robust support when the going gets rough and victory seems elusive. But as Somalia showed, this support will evaporate overnight if people feel they have been tricked. The result then is not victory but defeat.

The Administration may well have all the answers to the questions above. But so far, its troubling decision not to lay out the full facts in public but instead to gloss over the implications of its change of policy may come back to haunt it and the country. The last thing that America needs is another foreign-policy debacle.