The Bombing Coterie Brooks No Opposition

The day before she flew to Paris for the Kosovo peace talks, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met in her office with a small delegation of Kosovo Serbs led by Bishop Artemije Radosavljevic. She delighted them by speaking a few words of Serbian and recalling fondly her childhood days in Belgrade. She assured her visitors that she harbored no animus against the Serbian people.

Twenty-four hours later in Paris, she remarked brusquely that the Serbs should “wake up and smell the coffee.” Given that Albright entered office promising to “tell it like it is,” there is no surprise when she resorts to snappy phrasemaking. But what did she expect the Serbs to make of this ambiguous phrase? After all, unlike the Kosovo Albanians who counted several ex-State Department officials among their advisory team, the Serbs were on their own with regard to American idioms. Were they meant to scent the welcoming, warm aroma of a lifting of sanctions if they were receptive to the Western plan? Or was coffee a veiled reference to the hot vapors of a stealth bomber ready to rain down destruction in the event of noncooperation?

The answer, sadly, is that Albright was not addressing the Serbs at all. She barely bothered with them. Indeed, she followed a negotiating posture that seemed to. have as its main objective the sewing up of conditions that would allow the bombing of Belgrade. Her intended audience lay in Washington among the small but powerful coterie of nongovernmental organizations that have effectively captured the making of U.S. policy toward the Balkans. So averse is she to divergent thinking that on March 10, she asked Congress to cancel its proposed debate on Kosovo.

Made up of a diverse group of ex-officials, journalists, academics and hangers-on, these organizations are as rigid in their anti-Slobodan Milosevic ideology and as fervent in their advocacy of bombing as any die-hard Johnson- or Nixon-era opponent of Ho Chi Minh. So convinced are they of their moral case that they brook no opposition. At a recent Kosovo debate, an army veteran with combat experience was shouted down when he tried to ask why American soldiers should risk their lives in the Balkans. “Today’s army is all-volunteer,” he was informed. “Being killed is part of the deal.”

There is nothing wrong with vigorous public policy advocacy. And the anti-Milosevic crows have a good point. He is the source of much of what is wrong in Yugoslavia. There are plenty of brave Serbs who agree with this and are working hard to bring about change. Their only wish is that one day an American emissary would spare them five minutes before heading off for yet another bargaining session.

The danger, however, comes when a simplistic, unilinear explanation crowds out clear thinking and perspective. Knee-jerk anti-communism lay at the root of the Vietnam tragedy. Today, a liberal version of this same conformist rigidity is operating. As before, the mantra is bombing. Expect it to reach a new crescendo now that the Kosovo Albanians are reported to have signed up to the Western peace plan. This is the trap into which Albright has fallen over Kosovo. Whether through conviction or political calculation, her finger is always on the trigger. This is how she keeps faith with her fellow crusaders.

To be sure, democracies must respond to their constituents. But the noisiest among them do not necessarily have a monopoly on wisdom, especially when their preferred course of action is to unleash the dogs of war. It is the job of governments to safeguard national rather than sectarian interests. In the case of the Balkans, the Clinton administration no longer does this.

Who, then, speaks for Americans who as recent polls show, feel that their country cannot disregard human tragedy but do not believe that military adventurism is the right solution? In December, a bipartisan group of senators wrote to President Clinton urging him to lift his sights from piecemeal crisis management. On-off saber-rattling is no substitute for strategy, they argued. They proposed a concerted U.S. effort to bring about democratic reform within Serbia. One practical idea was the appointment of a senior coordinator of U.S. initiatives in this direction.

This approach does not promise instant gratification, a la Holbrooke. It will not satisfy the bombers. But it is the right balance for America. Let the Europeans take care of the immediate fighting while the U.S. attends to the strategic democratic framework in which peace can thrive.