Assume you're right. Assume Milosovic capitulates totally tomorrow, says whatever you want you get, period. I give up totally. You win, end of discussion. Put whatever you want in front of me, I will sign it. (would we dare say "we won't accept your signature because you're an indicited war criminal, we don't accept your surrender? No. If there's a clear peace offer accepting Nato terms, Germany and Italy would insist that it be signed. So we keep dealing with Milosovic.)
So there's a clear deal. All Yugoslav troops out, 100,000 Nato troops in with armor, everything they want, all Kosovans to return (to what?!), etc.
Before we can expect Yugoslav troops to actually withdraw, we have to stop the bombing. They can't be expected to come out of their bunkers while they are being bombed. So we stop bombing. So the pullout is supposed to start the next day. Two days later it hasn't started. Then it starts, but very slowly. The Kosovans can't start coming back yet, and we can't start putting in troops yet. This goes on -- Milosovic says we have to repair the bridges to get our armor out so that has to happen before we can withdraw, whatever. We know that Nato would never approve a restart of the bombing unless Milo openly defied Nato, and probably not even then. So summer comes on, we still aren't in there rebuilding homes for the Kosovars, meanwhile Milosovic is repairing his infrastructure . . .
You write the scenario. There is no way we win. |
