DIPLOMACY : On Bosnia--Don’t Let Lloyd George Be a Guide

Led by Majority Leader Bob Dole, the U.S. Senate did something difficult last week: It found a Bosnia policy worse than President Bill Clinton’s.

If the House, as expected, joins the Senate and if both houses override the expected presidential veto, the United States will be committed to the “lift and strike” strategy--removing U.N. peacekeepers, lifting the arms embargo and striking with air power at future Bosnian Serb attacks.

Bad move. If the United States actually implements this tragic decision, the grim, barbaric slaughter in Bosnia will worsen, the United Nations will become even weaker, the disintegration of the Western alliance will accelerate--and U.S. prestige will suffer new and heavy blows.

Oh--and, after all this, the Muslims in Bosnia will be worse off than they are.

Ever since George Bush was President, America’s Bosnia policy has been a textbook example of what not to do. Its whole basis has been the refusal to face two unpleasant facts--one about the war, and one about ourselves.

First, the war: The Serbs won three years ago. The Serb rebels, though overstretched, dominate the battlefronts. Nothing short of massive intervention by ground troops can change that. No Western country, certainly not the United States, has the slightest intention of making that kind of commitment. The only decent thing to do is help the Bosnian Muslims come to terms with the Serbs. This means allowing the Serbs to join the former Yugoslavia. Had we done that three years ago, the Bosnians would have more land than they will get now, there would have been fewer deaths and Bosnia would be on the road to recovery.

That brings us to unpleasant fact No. 2: Helping the Bosnians isn’t what U.S. Balkan policy is about. Our real goal is to feel good about ourselves--without using ground troops. We want to feel moral and brave without doing anything courageous or difficult.

Nothing good can come of such attitudes--and nothing good has. Our feeble bluffs irritated the Serbs without intimidating them, and our false promises of support--along with our reportedly covert support of arms shipments from the Islamic world--encouraged the Bosnians to continue a losing battle. Meanwhile, the Western alliance is tearing apart, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization looks ridiculous and the United Nations is sinking into general contempt.

And now Congress is making things worse. Clinton was jogging toward a catastrophe in the Balkans; Dole has decided it’s time for a sprint.

It’s time for a reality check: Ending the arms embargo won’t help the Muslims. If they get more weapons from the United States, the Bosnian Serbs can get more from the former Yugoslavia and, ultimately, from Russia. If new arms and air support began to turn the tide against the Bosnian Serbs, their relatives and allies in the former Yugoslavia would come to their aid. More arms will intensify the killing, but won’t change the military balance.

That, unfortunately, isn’t all. If the arms embargo ends, it will take time for the Bosnian government to get new weapons and train its forces. The Bosnian Serbs won’t sit on their hands in the process. Everything we know about them says they will strike first, to cripple the Bosnian army, before the new weapons can be brought into play. Serbs will block supply routes, attack Bosnian training camps and step up the pressure on Sarajevo. They are ruthless enough to try all this, and strong enough to succeed.

This leaves the United States worse off than now. If the Serbs launch a preemptive offensive against a rearming Bosnian government, Washington will have to choose. Do we commit the forces--and this almost certainly means ground troops--to give the Bosnians time to rearm, or do we stand back while the Serbs defeat the army we are trying to strengthen?

When that crisis comes, the United States will be alone. We have broken with our allies; they don’t support what we are doing now; they won’t bail us out of the mess we have made. Dole’s Bosnia policy raises the stakes in the Balkans but doesn’t escape Clinton’s central dilemma: Neither policy will work without the ground troops we are unwilling to send.

This isn’t the first time the West has faced this kind of problem in this part of the world. In 1920, war engulfed the region as the multinational Ottoman Empire broke up. The United States refused to send ground troops; Britain, Italy and France sent peacekeeping forces to maintain some kind of order.

At the time, the Turks, who had sided with the Germans during World War I, were the bad guys in the eyes of the West, and the Greeks were the heroes. The British hinted at future support and encouraged the Greeks to attack the Turks, but it soon became clear the Turks were stronger. The Greek forces were routed, and an orgy of pillage and ethnic cleansing broke out as Turkish forces moved into Greek-held territory.

The West was caught in a trap. The French and British couldn’t agree what to do; David Lloyd George, the British prime minister, refused to give up on the Greek cause--though the British people were opposed to a war. “We can’t be the policeman of the world,” wrote leading politician Bonar Law. Lloyd George tried to bluff, threatening retaliation in the hope of frightening the Turks into halting their advance into the Balkans.

The Turks weren’t fooled, and the multinational peacekeeping force fell apart. Ultimately, 1.5 million Greeks were “ethnically cleansed,” and hundreds of thousands of Turks were forced out of what is now Greece. British prestige suffered a major blow, and Lloyd George was driven from office.

It was the worst disaster in modern Greek history. It was also the biggest political catastrophe in modern Britain. In the next election, virtually every politician associated with the Greek policy lost his seat. Lloyd George’s Liberal Party, a force in British life for 200 years, fell apart. Lloyd George was the last prime minister, ever, of the Liberal Party.

Clinton and Dole take note: Bosnia can wreck both your careers. If you don’t change course soon, it probably will.