Trusting a Madman to Make Peace

Over the past decade, the United States has been tormented by two intractable foreign-policy challenges: containing Iraq and reining in Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, and the aggressive strains of nationalism that it spawned amid the breakup of the country. The grueling standoff with Iraq appears to be the more formidable problem. Saddam Hussein has been getting all the attention as he confounds U.N. efforts to disarm him and harasses U.S. and British jets in the no-fly zones. Meanwhile, the Balkans had receded into the background--at least until fighting picked up again in Kosovo and led to another massacre of ethnic Albanians--with the Clinton administration regularly touting the success of its diplomacy in the region.

In reality, it is the Balkans, not Iraq, that poses the deeper problem for the United States. The United States has effectively boxed in Hussein and can afford to wait him out. But in the Balkans, U.S. efforts to build a lasting peace are coming apart at the seams. The administration is stuck in no man’s land, unsure whether to contain or coddle Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. Washington, furthermore, is struggling to implement a peace plan for Bosnia that is for now dead in the water. The U.S. should either cut its losses and prepare to disengage from the former Yugoslavia, or start pursuing policies that hold out a reasonable prospect of leading to a lasting peace.

Iraq and Yugoslavia are both aggressor regimes threatening regional stability in areas where important U.S. interests are at stake, but they do not pose a direct threat to the United States. The administration has therefore put U.S. lives on the line to stop aggression and the spread of conflict, but has justifiably refrained from running the risks of full-scale wars aimed at eliminating these regimes. When facing engagement in protracted conflicts of this type, the best option is to contain the immediate threat while buying time for aggressor regimes to run their course.

U.S. policy is on track in Iraq. President Bill Clinton’s leadership and his willingness to use force have checked Hussein’s ambitions and weakened his hold on power. Some critics contend that no end is in sight, and that it is time to topple the regime rather than continue indefinitely the game of cat and mouse. But Clinton is right to dismiss these criticisms and to limit efforts to undermine the current regime to offers of assistance to Iraqi opposition groups. He also knows that supporting opposition groups, although it might sound good, is unlikely to dislodge a regime that regularly relies on murder to stifle its opponents. Getting rid of Hussein in reality means inserting U.S. ground forces into Iraq, running the unacceptable risk of high casualties. Furthermore, the U.S. would have to oversee the emergence of a successor government, and a post-Hussein Iraq is not likely to be a congenial place, with its numerous factions and ethnic groups vying for control.

The United States has no choice but to wait out Hussein. When he eventually falls from power, the fact that political change came from within, and was not imposed from without, will increase the chances of a moderating transition. To ease the plight of the Iraqi people in the interim, Clinton was right to endorse a controlled easing of the economic embargo. But he should continue to keep the heat on Hussein. Most important, the United States must stand firmly behind continued U.N. weapons inspections and, if necessary, resort to force if Iraq refuses to comply. It is not the most elegant or satisfying approach, but this Iraq policy is on target and Clinton deserves credit.

The Balkans are another matter altogether. The United States is trying to contain Milosevic at the same time that it relies upon him as a regional power broker. Milosevic was the chief architect of the war in Bosnia and the more recent bloodshed in Kosovo. Nevertheless, the U.S. has negotiated peace plans for both areas that depend on his good graces.

Last October, Milosevic ceased military attacks on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo only after he faced the imminent threat of North Atlantic Treaty Organization air attacks. The administration then created a peace plan for Kosovo that played right into the hands of Milosevic. Foreign observers sent to Kosovo to monitor the peace were unarmed civilians; only one-third of the planned 2,000 monitors are in the field today. These observers hardly constitute a deterrent. A British observer and his interpreter were shot amid the recent violence. Milosevic has since ordered the U.S. head of the mission, William Walker, to leave Yugoslavia, making a mockery of the monitoring mission.

Once the threat of air strikes by NATO had receded, the only constraint on Yugoslav forces was Milosevic’s pledge of good behavior. No wonder Yugoslav troops have again taken to the field in Kosovo. For the same reason that it would be folly to rely on Hussein to carry out U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq, it makes no sense to craft peace plans in the Balkans that rely on Milosevic’s personal integrity. Far from striking bargains with the Yugoslav leader, it is time to box him in, contain his incessant mix of aggression and nationalist manipulation, and end his ruthless repression of Kosovo by using NATO air and ground forces.

A similar contradiction plagues the peace plan for Bosnia. Although the Dayton accords and the presence of foreign troops continue to avert conflict in Bosnia, they do so by working through the same nationalistic parties and patronage systems that oversaw the country’s vivisection. U.S. forces are supposed to be buying time for the reconstruction of a multiethnic Bosnia, one that will withstand the departure of foreign troops. Instead, the foreign presence is serving primarily to keep apart Serbs, Muslims and Croats. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, Dayton is consolidating the partition of the country--at an annual cost to the international community of billions.

The administration must now choose between two alternatives. It must either give up on reconstructing a multiethnic Bosnia and work toward a stable partition and a self-sustaining balance of power, from which U.S. forces can withdraw. Or it must amend the Dayton process in ways that will offer a realistic promise of fostering a stable multiethnicity. The latter choice is the preferable one, but it requires evaluation of Dayton’s failings and how to correct them.

Putting Dayton back on track entails three main initiatives. First, the international community and its Office of the High Representative (OHR), which oversees the Bosnian peace, must establish more effective governance. Currently, the international presence attempts to govern through a Bosnian government virtually paralyzed by infighting. OHR must penetrate this morass and ensure the implementation of policies that would otherwise never see the light of day. Closer cooperation between OHR and NATO forces in Bosnia will help drive economic and political reforms.

Second, the electoral system must be changed to reward more moderate politicians. Candidates for office now seek votes only among their own ethnic constituencies, producing nationalist platforms and repeatedly leading to the election of hard-liners. In elections last September for leadership of the Bosnian Serb republic, Nikola Poplasen defeated the more moderate Biljana Plavsic, indicating that matters are only getting worse. The solution is an electoral system in which candidates must garner votes from all ethnic groups to win office. This system would favor candidates encouraging ethnic reconciliation, gradually having a moderating effect on the political center of gravity.

Third, the Dayton process must make much greater progress in rebuilding ties across communal boundaries. Many refugees were to have returned to their original homes, restoring the multiethnic character of the country. Instead, they are settling in homogenous communities, thereby reinforcing partition. The international community must reverse this trend, providing physical protection and economic incentives to families seeking to go home. More must also be done to encourage economic ventures, schools and infrastructure that cut across ethnic boundaries. Without these more ambitious measures, the admirable efforts of the international community to preserve an intact Bosnia will prove futile.

Instability and strife in both Iraq and the former Yugoslavia are likely to continue, requiring additional U.S. perseverance and patience. In Iraq, this perseverance is set to pay off. In the Balkans, however, U.S. policy has veered seriously off course. If this decade’s major investments in a stable peace are to bear fruit, Clinton must be prepared to contain Milosevic far more effectively and to do much more to ensure that multiethnicity survives the breakup of Yugoslavia. Otherwise, the United States should acknowledge the completion of ethnic partition and expend its resources and patience on more promising enterprises.