One must ask, is this what NATO is doing?
I don't know. NATO's action is supposed to compel Milosovic to the bargaining table where the plan is to install 30,000 or so NATO troops for the purpose of the fence. Military action short of control of the ground will be singularly ineffective in compelling the desired peace. Remember the Bush administration's rosy proclamations regarding the imminent demise of Saddam?
We are dealing with almost a 700 year old religious war where the Serbs viewed themselves as the West's bastion of Christianity. The Moors were finally expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492. Throw continuing ethnic conflicts (Kosovars, Serbs, Croats,Bosnians, Macedonians, and God knows how many others) into the mix and you have a recipe for continuing conflict.
I don't know the answer. I am uncomfortable with Clinton at the helm of foreign policy, but I am feeling much more ease with the decision based on Friedman's assessment. Friedman is one of the brightest students of foreign policy I have ever come across. I thought that Rosenthal's commentary was vacuous because it simply pointed out that Clinton was dealing in an uneven way with other more or less comparable situations throughout the world. What else is new!
I think the real issues that need to be dealt with are whether the United States and NATO have an interest in Balkan peace, and if so, whether that peace is best accomplished by dismembering part of Serbia, or whether the thrust ought to be the ouster of Milosovic with a democratic replacement who will be interested in building a fair, tolerant and unified Yugoslavia. I believe the answer to the first question is yes, but I am frankly ambivalent about the second.
Your thoughts?
TTFN,
CTC |
