NEWS ANALYSIS : U.S. Counts on Air War to Nail Peace in Bosnia

American diplomats are hoping the NATO air war over Bosnia-Herzegovina will translate into success at the negotiating table, despite risks that hardened Serbian defiance could spoil what many regard as the best chance to end Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.

“Of course [the air raids] strengthen our hand,” Richard Holbrooke, the chief U.S. negotiator and assistant secretary of state, said in an interview here Thursday.

Although Holbrooke sought to emphasize that the military campaign was independent of diplomatic efforts, it clearly has transformed the dynamics of the peace process. Until this week, attempts to win concessions from the Serbs had never been backed with significant force.

Fears that regional powerbroker Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia, would boycott talks in the wake of the air raids have not materialized. Instead, Milosevic made a point of having a leisurely lunch and long meetings with Holbrooke on Wednesday, even as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization dropped tons of explosives on Milosevic’s Bosnian Serb brothers.

There have been other signs of Serbian flexibility in the last 48 hours, including vaguely conciliatory statements by some Bosnian Serb leaders and an agreement to permit Milosevic to negotiate on behalf of all Serbs.

The Serbian accord, contained in a document released in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and of the rump Yugoslavia, was reached on the eve of the air strikes and described as a “breakthrough” by U.S. officials.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns hailed the pledge by Milosevic to organize a joint Serbian negotiating team as “an important procedural breakthrough for peace.”

“But,” Burns quickly added, “let there be no mistake: The road to peace will be long and difficult.”

In Zagreb, the Croatian capital, Holbrooke assessed the Serbian accord this way: “Up until that piece of paper, we couldn’t sit and talk about the map [of Bosnian territory] or the future. Now we can.”

But much of this apparent progress involves attitudes and not substance. Extremely complex, difficult negotiations lie ahead. The U.S. diplomatic initiative contains numerous stumbling blocks and thorny issues yet to be discussed fully, much less resolved.

Among those is Eastern Slavonia, the last piece of Croatian territory that is held by Serbs. The oil-rich sliver borders on Milosevic’s Serbia, and it is believed to be the one region he would fight to retain.

Sources said the U.S. initiative would put the matter on hold for three years--something that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman is unlikely to accept.

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Several diplomats and Bosnia’s Muslim-led but secular government remained cautious about prospects for settling a war that has witnessed unspeakable atrocities and claimed more than 200,000 lives.

“There have been promises in the past to negotiate, and they’ve not been fulfilled,” Bosnian Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey said in a Zagreb meeting with Holbrooke.

Attacking the Serbs has often backfired by causing them to dig in. In their view, the international community has taken the side of their Muslim enemies, eliminating any authority the United Nations or NATO might have.

“At last we have shown our resolve,” a European diplomat said. “But it can go too far. The use of force is not to defeat a people but to get them to the negotiating table. What we need now is a pause to let the Serbs contemplate their future.”

The U.S. peace initiative stands a better chance now for some of the same reasons the allies finally decided they could take decisive action: The reality on the battlefields of the Balkans, and in the region’s politics, has changed substantially in just the past several weeks.

Croatia’s rout of rebellious Serbs in the Krajina region early last month pierced the myth of Serbian invincibility and expelled tens of thousands of Serbian refugees, giving the Serbs a taste of the same sort of “ethnic cleansing” they have practiced so brutally.

The collapse in July of two of the U.N.-designated “safe areas,” Srebrenica and Zepa, exposed the West’s impotence once again and led to statements of renewed resolve by Washington and Europe’s capitals. In a significant change in the chain of command, the power to call in NATO air strikes was taken out of the hands of U.N. politicians whose vetoes in the past had allowed the Serbs to shell Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, and other civilian targets with impunity.

At the same time, former enemies Croatia and Bosnia formed a military alliance that successfully shattered the siege around the northwest Bosnian Muslim pocket of Bihac, while the traditionally united Bosnian Serb leaders bickered openly.

Milosevic, meanwhile, whose nationalistic rhetoric originally inspired Serbian separatists in Bosnia and Croatia, and whose participation is essential to any peace pact, has grown increasingly desperate to have international economic sanctions lifted from Yugoslavia.

Lifting of the sanctions is part of the U.S. initiative and would come in exchange for Milosevic’s recognition of Bosnia and Croatia, sources say.

The agreement in Belgrade giving Milosevic the power to negotiate on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs could facilitate a settlement.

The Belgrade press that Milosevic controls Thursday portrayed the development as a victory for Milosevic, rather than a healing of wounds among Serbian and Bosnian Serb leaders. The same media has reported the NATO air campaign in muted terms with only mild criticism.

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Holbrooke suggested the granting of negotiating power to Milosevic means that the Bosnian Serbs effectively stipulate to Milosevic’s positions, including acceptance of the five-nation Contact Group’s map for dividing territory as a basis for negotiation.

This is something the Bosnian Serbs always resisted, because the map gives them 49% of Bosnia, and 51% to a Muslim-Croat federation. The Serbs currently control nearly 70% of Bosnia.

In fact, it is ultimately the Bosnian government that may have the most reason to object to the U.S. peace initiative.

Holbrooke insisted that the “fundamental negotiating goal” was to preserve a single Bosnian state within its present international borders. But he acknowledged that such a state would include “a Bosnian Serb entity”-- widely reported to be an entity that would be allowed to enter into a federation with Serbia proper, effectively cutting Bosnia in half.

Times staff writer Stanley Meisler in Washington contributed to this report.