David Binder

The South Slav Journal, v. 16, No. 61-62, Autumn-Winter 1995 ISSN 0141-6146

A widely noted oxymoron for the last four years has been the phrase "United States Policy Towards Yugoslavia".

After all, until the summer of 1991, Washington insisted that the Federative Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia should be kept together - a reflection of four decades of support for "the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence" of that country during which the United States spent upward of $3 billion to sustain those essentials. Then, as Yugoslavia tottered, fell and shattered, Washington said, "It's all right if you collapse as long as you do it in a nonviolent manner", as if that were ever an option in the bloody Balkans. When the fighting started, the Bush Administration turned its back, saying, "It is a European problem", and the Europeans should solve it.

Six months later, Cyrus Vance, the former American Secretary of State, negotiated on behalf of the United Nations, a ceasefire and trucial arrangement between Croatia and the Serbs - without a shred of help from Washington.

Yet, for its own peculiar reasons, domestic and international, the Bush Administration re-entered the Yugoslav tournament at this time in a rather tentative fashion. The international impulse came from the early recognition of the secessions of Slovenia and Croatia demanded by Germany and forced upon Germany's European Community partners by Bonn's blackmail. All at once Washington, which had sensibly opposed this recognition initiative, found itself out of step with its key European allies on a sensitive issue. This was perceived as a dangerous dysfunction in America's key Atlantic relationships. With the Bosnian cauldron already bubbling, the Yugoslav conflict suddenly became a priority for Secretary of State Baker.

Few have noted that in 1992, Baker literally created the supposedly independent and supposedly sovereign Bosnia and Hercegovina with its Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, thereby provoking Europe's first protracted war since 1945. He did so with the blessing of President Bush and with considerable input from Larry Eagleburger and Warren Zimmermann - past and contemporary ambassadors to Belgrade. Their design was both complex and devious, but they were so convinced of its efficacy that they supported Izetbegovic in his rejection of the European Community's Lisbon plan for dividing Bosnia and Hercegovina in a federative scheme.

To get back in step with Germany and the other European powers, the United States would simultaneously recognize Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina. Macedonia was also to be in this package, but with elections looming, President Bush bowed to the powerful Greek lobby's objections and deferred that. Not wishing to step out in front on any Yugoslav issue, the Bush Administration strong-armed the Europeans to make the first move, according recognition to the Sarajevo government on 6 April, while the United States followed 24 hours later with simultaneous recognition of the governments of Sarajevo, Ljubljana and Zagreb. At the time, Eagleburger and Zimmermann argued that international recognition of the Izetbegovic regime, along with United Nations membership, would automatically shield it from Serb predations. Both subsequently acknowledged that they had been disastrously mistaken. But, of course, it was too late.

The Bush Administration had been on record since 1991 as hostile to the Serbs in general and Slobodan Milosevic in particular. That, too, was principally the work of Zimmermann and Eagleburger. Their bias was also evident in the fact that they did nothing to embrace or support any of Milosevic's Serbian opponents.

Sporadically, and in a reactive manner, the United States engaged itself marginally in the Yugoslav conflict by pushing for economic and political sanctions against Serbia, by participating in enforcement of a no-fly zone over Bosnia and other multilateral measures including the creation of an international tribunal to try war crimes. (Critical jurists have pointed out that in its structure the tribunal had little to do with genuine legal principles or practices). These were mainly fig leaves disguising the unattractive reality that Washington, while talking boldly, was essentially doing nothing.

But when the United Nations and the European Community began the first of many efforts to negotiate a Bosnian peace settlement, the United States stood aside. Even when Cyrus Vance and David Owen presented their plan in January 1993, the outgoing Bush Administration deliberately avoided an endorsement, although it would have cost them nothing. To the great consternation of Vance and Owen, the incoming Clinton Administration immediately opposed their plan, arguing that it was too soft on the Serbs and too hard on the Muslims.

Already in his election campaign, Bill Clinton, spurred on by his moralistic security adviser, Anthony Lake (who has described his task as combat against .. evil"), and by Vice President Gore, had taken up the cause of the Bosnian Muslims, saying they should be helped with air strikes against the Serbs and a lifting of the 1991 UN arms embargo for the Sarajevo government forces. But, as President, his heart wasn't in either option for another two years. Instead, having fatally wounded the Vance-Owen plan, the Clintonites went on to undermine its successor, the Stoltenberg- Owen plan, which also flopped as a result. The only constant in the on-going, off-again Clinton approach to the war was continuing support for the Bosnian Muslims. At no time did the United States under Bush or under Clinton contemplate taking an even-handed approach in the three-sided civil war.

As the war wore on, however, the United States gradually succumbed to the long-term strategy of the Bosnian Muslims (which had been in place at least since June 1991 - see Ejup Ganic's interview in Oslobodjenje) to draft in USNATO forces on their side. First it was the heavy weapons exclusion zone for Sarajevo (originated in the Vance-Owen plan), a worthy idea if applied equally to Serbs and Muslims, in February 1994. Then it was air strikes on Serbian forces around Gorazde, then the same for the Bihac enclave. The problem then and later was that the Muslims had figured out very well how to use UN "safe havens" as safe springboards for offensive operations out of Sarajevo, Gorazde, Srebrenica, Bihac and, later, Tuzla. This was clearly not the Security Council's intent in creating the safe havens for Bosnian civilians, but that was the practical effect.

In the summer of 1994, under increasing attack at home from both Republicans and Democrats for its foreign policy failures, the Clinton Administration jumped into the Yugoslav arena with both feet. This time the vehicle was the plan of the fivc-nation Contact Group. At last the Americans had discovered the value and use of Slobodan Milosevic as an instrument to break up the Balkan logjam - no matter that he was regularly anathematized as a war criminal. (Later, the Clintonites were to discover the value and use of Franjo Tudjman as another heavy duty Peavey hook). There are more than enough ironies here - that the United States would enlist the detested Serb and the barely tolerated Croat to assist in an effort to preserve something of Bosnia for the Muslims led by Izetbegovic - but in Realpolitik there are no strange bed fellows. Although the Contact Group plan (in reality an American invention) eventually acquired a measure of acceptance even from the Bosnian Serbs, the final push was lacking.

In the early summer of 1995, the Clinton Administration found itself confronting two alarming challenges. One was the deterioration of NATO, which had been fractured by disputes precisely over Bosnia involving the United States, Britain, France and Germany. The other was the legislative thrust by Senator Robert Dole, already Clinton's principal Republican challenger for the presidency in 1996, to lift the arms embargo for the Bosnian Muslims. Both posed serious questions about Clinton's capacity for leadership.

To the rescue came Franjo Tudjman with his ready-willing-and-able plan to seize the Serbian held Krajina. "We will not object," said Ambassador Richard Holbrooke in confidence to the Croatian president in Zagreb in July. The subsequent retreat of the Krajina Serbs changed the balance of forces in Bosnia and Hercegovina as well. American led NATO air strikes on the Bosnian Serbs provided the ultimate impetus for their acceptance of the 51#-49 division of Bosnia and Hercegovina. (The degree of Muslim influence in that operation was made evident when it was disclosed that Rasim Delic, the Bosnian forces commander, was calling in air strike targets from Sarajevo in daily telephone calls to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon).

By the beginning of October it appeared that the long delayed Clinton Administration actions had brought about a tentative agreement among the three waning parties and something approaching a cease fire. But there was no longer-range planning for contingencies or an articulation of longer-range goals for the region. Call it not a policy, but perhaps a half policy.

The fundamental United States plan for Yugoslavia, if it can be dignified by that name, is to make it simply disappear as a problem on the American agenda. By any measure, that must be chalked up as a gigantic failure so far and most likely for the future.

Worse, in my opinion, by means of its misguided actions and non- actions, the United States has greatly contributed since 1991 to the prolongation of the Yugoslav wars, especially the Bosnian conflict, and thereby to the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Muslims, Croats and Serbs, the destruction of scores of cities and hundreds of villages and the uprooting of several million innocent civilians.