Did U.S. Concern for Bosnia Justify Iran Arms Pipeline?

For four long years the war in Bosnia defied Big Power fiddling, arm-twisting and diplomatic initiatives, finally collapsing last fall because the combatants simply ran out of gas. Had the Americans and Europeans been able to foresee that outcome, some considerable missteps might not have been made, including the Clinton administration’s decision to wink at Iranian arms shipments to the Muslim-led Bosnian government despite a U.N. arms embargo.

That administration decision achieved a result many in Washington had long and openly thought fair and positive, giving the outgunned Bosnians a fighting chance against superior Bosnian Serbian forces. But the fact was that hardly anyone knew of the plan, certainly not in detail. The CIA, for instance, and responsible congressional committees were in the dark.

A Times Washington bureau report on Friday was the first public disclosure that the White House and State Department told Croatian President Franjo Tudjman in 1994 that the United States would not raise an objection to an Iranian arms pipeline through Croatia to Bosnia, with the Croatians taking a cut. With the Iranian weapons came Iranian trainers.

Yes, the White House decision helped level the field in the Bosnian war, but surely the administration should have been more sensitive to the Iranian factor. Iran-Contra is not even in the history books yet. The Clinton administration, like its predecessors, has pursued a policy of containing Iranian influence beyond the Persian Gulf. Why then did the administration choose to tacitly endorse Iran’s shipment of arms? Weren’t there some other options at that time, including putting the question of the U.N. arms embargo back on the table? (It was partially lifted in December, after the American-engineered Dayton Accord brought a cease-fire and an uneasy peace to Bosnia.)

Fallout from the disclosures has begun and President Clinton is feeling the pressure in an election year. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, his presumed opponent in November, called the details of the Times report “disturbing news” and asked pertinent Senate committees to investigate. Speaker Newt Gingrich followed suit.

The White House circled its wagons, declaring that the secret policy followed the letter of the law in adherence to the U.N. embargo. The embargo was central to diplomacy in the brutal fighting that began in 1991 among the broken shards of the former Yugoslavia. The idea was to give no fighting force an advantage, not the Serbs, the Croatians or the Bosnians. But the Serbs already had the might of the former Yugoslav army and the industrial power to make the armaments it needed. The Croatians had built a powerful military as well. Bosnia had next to nothing and, as the most multiethnic of the former Yugoslav republics, it was primed for civil explosion; clearly it was disadvantaged the most by an arms embargo.

Supporting the Bosnians became a popular cause in Washington. The Clinton White House and congressional Republicans--and this newspaper--embraced the so-called “lift and strike” option, which would raise the embargo, let weapons reach Bosnia, and endorse air strikes by the Western powers to discourage advances by any faction. But the embargo stayed in place. The Europeans, who had peacemaking forces on the ground in Bosnia, were not enthused by the possibility of more guns in the country.

So it should be no surprise that the White House listened with interest to the Croatian proposal. The end result would meet its objective of getting arms into the hands of the Bosnian army. The United States would not directly be involved. So Tudjman was told by U.S. officials that they had “no instructions” regarding his proposal. Diplomatically, that meant Washington’s envoys had no instructions to oppose or endorse the arms pipeline. And, naturally, it went ahead.

Many a head of state has chosen to do the same in similar circumstances: Let it happen, it serves the national purpose without direct involvement. But there are consequences to inaction as well. The administration must deal with the issue of what it did and what it said it was doing.

The White House says it was observing the letter of the U.N. embargo, but the guns were going into Bosnia, with U.S. knowledge. And each shipment built Iranian influence there. The Iranians did not arrive in great numbers, but each who did posed a special threat to any American in the country.