THE SCORE after 15 days:
- The number of Albanians ethnically "cleansed" out of Kosovo is now above 400,000; the total for the past year is approaching 1 million.
- Macedonia and Albania, shaky to begin with, have been unhinged by the flood of refugees that poured across their borders.
- The war has convulsed Montenegro, Serbia's tiny sister republic; its government sympathizes with the West, but many Montenegrins are rallying to support Serbian ruler Slobodan Milosevic.
 Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic speaks to thousands of supporters in Belgrade, February 1989. |
- In Serbia itself, Milosevic is stronger than ever; his domestic opposition, organized and vocal just months ago, was the first casualty of the NATO attack.
- Europe, facing its worst refugee crisis since World War II, is stunned; tens of refugees are dying daily; the amounts of manpower and equipment needed to aid them are far greater than anything NATO anticipated.
- Three US servicemen are prisoners of war.
On its 50th birthday, NATO's first offensive military action is off to a rotten start. "Our mission is clear," President Clinton said on March 24 — to make "Serbian leaders understand the imperative of reversing course, to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo and . . . to seriously damage the Serbian military's capacity to harm the people of Kosovo." Of those three goals, America and its allies have achieved none. Milosevic, by contrast, has all but achieved his goal: the depopulating of Kosovo.
After 6½ years as president, Clinton has not a single unalloyed foreign policy or military success to his credit. Somalia ended in humiliation. Haiti continues to seethe. There is no peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Russia is sullen and dangerous. Northern Ireland keeps erupting in violence. Saddam Hussein, assembling his weapons of mass destruction, has outlasted the UN's inspectors. "Engagement" with China has led to espionage, campaign finance corruption, and harsh persecution of dissidents.
Given that record, it was an act of the purest optimism to have hoped that Clinton's handling of Kosovo would be well planned, clearly explained, and deftly executed.
Yet some of us did have that hope. We hoped that Clinton would make the case for NATO action in terms so compelling that Americans would mobilize behind it. We hoped he would lay out Milosevic's history of savagery — first hijacking Yugoslavia's national government, then revoking the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina, then strafing Slovenia, launching all-out war on Croatia, destroying Dubrovnik, besieging Sarajevo, torturing Bosnian women in rape camps, killing civilians by the thousands, and uprooting others by the tens of thousands. We hoped Clinton would announce that inasmuch as Milosevic has been the prime mover behind the Balkans' decade of blood, his removal from power would be the allies' first aim.
We hoped Clinton might acknowledge that the United States bears a special responsibility to act in Yugoslavia because of its inexcusable failures to act in the past. We hoped he would concede that by repeatedly drawing lines in the sand and allowing Milosevic to cross them with impunity, his administration (like the Bush administration before it) encouraged the Serb ruler to greater and worse aggressions.
We should have known better. This, after all, is the president who had Monica Lewinsky service him sexually while, on the phone to a member of Congress, he discussed sending US servicemen to Bosnia. Not even Balkan slaughter and the prospect of putting American troops in harm's way could hold his undivided attention. In retrospect, it was naive to imagine that Clinton could ever have mustered the seriousness or thoughtfulness required to be an effective commander-in-chief.
The talk for days has been of a land invasion. It isn't going to happen. In the months it would take to organize an expeditionary force powerful enough to defeat the Serbian army, the conquest of Kosovo would be over and done with. Just getting the 24 Apache attack helicopters and 2,600 support troops promised last Monday into Albania will take a week and a half. By then there may be no Kosovars left to save.
The administration declares that it will not accept some "phony peace deal" in exchange for a cease-fire. It was unmoved by Milosevic's Easter cease-fire. Only his agreement to take back the Kosovars and restore their autonomy under NATO supervision will do, says Washington.
But aerial bombardment alone cannot bring that about. That means the only options left are: (1) a full-fledged invasion of Serbia or (2) a phony peace deal. Option 1 might be defensible if it resulted in Milosevic's removal, the destruction of his regime, a supervised transition to democracy, and the repatriation of the Kosovars. It would restore much of the respect the United States has squandered of late. But the cost — in blood and treasure — would be huge, and it is inconceivable that Clinton could provide the leadership necessary to see it through.
Which is why, to repeat, it isn't going to happen. The emptying of Kosovo will continue. When it is done, a phony peace deal will be arranged. Clinton will slickly explain why it is a great victory for NATO, and some people may even believe him. But there are other Milosevices out there — in Central Asia, in Africa, in who-knows-where — who are even now contemplating a little "ethnic cleansing" of their own. They will understand what happened in Kosovo, and they will take heart.
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
-- ## --
Follow Jeff Jacoby on X (aka Twitter).
Discuss his columns on Facebook.
Want to read more? Sign up for "Arguable," Jeff Jacoby's free weekly email newsletter.