More Of Clinton's inability to Act Presidential---- he man's the post at Pinhead Central...
April 2, 1999
The Clinton Way
Of War Meets Reality
By PAUL A. GIGOT
In the first week of "war" with Serbia, NATO flew 1,700 air sorties--1,100
fewer than on the first day of the Gulf War.
NATO also fired 100 or so cruise missiles--300 fewer than the U.S.
launched against Saddam Hussein in just 70 hours last December.
"Desert Fox Lite," quipped one military expert, comparing Kosovo to the
Iraqi effort. "A disgrace," added one Air Force officer to the Washington
Times.
To be sure, the modern world's most powerful military alliance might have
launched more cruise missiles against Serbia, if only it had them. But U.S.
stockpiles are now so low that military planners have had to conserve their
use. In planning for war, you'd think the commander-in-chief would at least
make sure his men have enough of his preferred ammo.
Instead President Clinton now asks Americans
to "be patient," a virtue not shown by Slobodan
Milosevic as he cleanses Kosovo of Albanians
and makes prisoners of American GIs.
Bill Clinton has sometimes talked, almost wistfully, about a crisis that would
let him match the greatness of an FDR. But so far in Kosovo he has shown
himself to be America's Anthony Eden.
As British Prime Minister in the 1950s, Eden presided over the humiliating
British and French retreat from the Suez Canal. His defeat at the hands of
Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser marked the end of Britain's role as a global
power.
The analogy isn't exact, because the U.S. today is
far stronger than Eden's declining England. But like
Eden, Mr. Clinton has been half-hearted in
prosecuting war. "The underlying cause was a
failure of will, not of strength," wrote historian Paul
Johnson about Suez. The same could be said about
a NATO trying to modulate its violence to influence
a Serb dictator whose only goal is victory.
Moreover, Mr. Clinton is doing Eden-like harm by
presiding over NATO's humiliation in its first
post-Cold War action. A bombing intended to
stabilize central Europe is spreading chaos instead.
The sight of a feckless alliance will embolden dictators from Baghdad to
Tripoli to Pyongyang and Beijing.
"The lesson others will draw from this is that the Pax Americana is over,"
says one Capitol Hill expert who reflects the widespread gloom here.
This looming debacle can't be blamed on NATO commander Gen. Wesley
Clark, who wanted a more robust air campaign, or on U.S. intelligence,
which foresaw Serbia's escalation. The buck stops with Mr. Clinton, his
counselor Sandy Berger and six years of foreign-policy habits that have
finally caught up with them.
"I want to level with you," Mr. Clinton said last week, the way he does
when he isn't leveling. "This is like any other military action. There are risks
in it." But NATO's slow, antiseptic bombing strategy reveals a president
who won't take any risks himself.
He didn't want to spend political capital on Kosovo, so he waited until the
last minute to inform the country it might soon be at war. He fears any
casualties, a la Somalia in 1993, so he directs a high-altitude, stand-off
bombing campaign that gives Mr. Milosevic time to clear out Kosovo.
The polls show deploying ground troops would be unpopular, so Mr.
Clinton rules them out, further emboldening the Serb dictator. We thus get
the spectacle of Mr. Clinton opposing ground deployments even as Mr.
Milosevic holds three U.S. ground soldiers hostage. Indeed, by ruling
ground troops out in the first place Mr. Clinton has made it more likely he'll
be forced to use them in more dangerous circumstances later.
Above all, Kosovo shows the consequences of believing your own spin.
Mr. Clinton predicts Mr. Milosevic will fold this time the way he did before
the 1995 Dayton accord, which the president portrays as a great victory.
In fact, as Johns Hopkins Dean Paul Wolfowitz has observed, "It was
Milosevic's chestnuts that were pulled out of the fire at Dayton." The U.S.
stopped a Croat-Bosnian ground force that was threatening the Serbs.
Dayton was a truce designed to punt Bosnia beyond the 1996 election and
included no Milosevic pledge to lay off Kosovo. Like so many other Clinton
episodes (North Korea, Iraq), Dayton traded short-term political gain for
long-term trouble.
In a sense, Kosovo is the foreign equivalent of Monica's blue Gap dress; it
leaves Mr. Clinton no easy, cost-free exit. He can now escalate the war in
ways that force him to take greater political risks than he ever has. Or he
can retreat like Eden at Suez with the result that NATO might never act
outside its own area again.
Kosovo, in short, is coming down to one more test of Bill Clinton's
character. His temptation will be to grab the first fig leaf Mr. Milosevic
offers, once the Serb has achieved what he wants on the ground in Kosovo.
Mr. Clinton could then try to negotiate and spin another Dayton, perhaps
agreeing to partition Kosovo. This would be the path of least political
resistance, though NATO and his successors would pay the price in lost
credibility and future wars.
The alternative would be to marshal the personal will, the military forces and
the public support necessary to win. We already know what Mr. Milosevic
expects. |
