Monday, September 8, 1997

Foreign Affairs

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Wishing- Away Bosnia

Prodded by the Clinton team, NATO has stepped up efforts to harass,if not arrest, Bosnian Serb thug-in-chief Radovan Karadzic. Bringing Karadzic to trial for war crimes is surely the right thing to do and I hope it happens soon.

But the recent focus on Karadzic has an air of unreality about it. To listen to Clinton officials, if only Karadzic were removed, the Dayton peace accords would fall into place. Hardly. The fact is, arresting Karadzic will solve the Karadzic problem - the problem of an evil, indicted war criminal still operating right under NATO's nose. But the Dayton problem is something else.

The Dayton problem is embedded in the Dayton accords. Let's remember there was a war in Bosnia because the Muslims wanted a single centralized state and the Serbs and Croats wanted their own independent entities. The architects of Dayton stopped the war by promising all sides what they wanted: part one of Dayton was the de facto partition of Bosnia to create a cease-fire; part two was a promissory note to create a unified, multi-ethnic democracy in Bosnia sometime in the future - through elections, power-sharing and a return of refugees.

The only reason the two strong powers - Serbia and Croatia - agreed to Dayton was that it satisfied their war aims. It carved out of Bosnia semiautonomous Serbian and Croatian regions and even gave them the right to align with Serbia and Croatia proper. The weak party, the Bosnian Muslims, got the promissory note - that if they swallowed the de facto partition, one day these regions would be knit back together under a single central government in Sarajevo, which the Muslims would dominate.

But neither Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic nor Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman ever intended to allow such a strong Muslim-dominated central government. So ever since Dayton, U.S. officials have been wrestling with this problem: Does the U.S. force implementation of the promissory note, as it winked to the Muslims it would do, or does it simply police the cease-fire and Bosnia's de facto partition, as NATO commanders and America 's European allies prefer?

If there is a strategic reason to arrest Karadzic, it's not that it would open the way to fully implementing Dayton, but that it might make it easier to manage Dayton's likely failure. That is, what, is the difference between Karadzic and the Bosnian Serb President, Biljana Plavsic, whom Karadzic is trying to oust? They have both long advocated a separate Bosnian Serb republic. They just disagree on the means to achieve it.

Karidzit thinks it can be secured by scuttling Dayton and Mrs. Plavsic thinks it can be secured by building on the de facto partition in Dayton, and obtaining some Western aid and legitimacy along the way. But she hasn't had therapy. She is no more prepared than he is to implement Dayton's promissory, with full integration and refugee returns. She is prepared to accept a softer partition, even take in a few Muslim refugees, but without threatening the purity and autonomy of the separate Serbian republic in Bosnia. Still, even that might prolong the cease-fire, and grow into something more stable and integrated one day. (But forget this nonsense that the Serbian people are just confused and misled and will all want what the Muslims want if only the evil Karadzic is removed. Karadzic reflects widely held views in Serbian society.)

That's why, with or without Karadzic, America's real choices in Bosnia are still very hard:

1. The U.S. can forge a de jure partition, which might allow NATO forces to leave by their June 1998 deadline, but that would require redrawing some of the current dividing lines so they better reflect populations on the ground. 2. The U.S. can force full implementation of Dayton and impose a unified, multi-ethnic democracy in Bosnia, but that could only be done by NATO troops indefinitely holding such an artificial entity together. 3. The U.S. can settle for the de facto partition we have now, but in that case some NATO troops would probably have to remain indefinitely to police the inter-ethnic boundary lines. 4. The U.S. and its allies can just quit Bosnia in June, and let events take their course.

The first option is only stable if you redo Dayton; the second option is only stable if you redo Bosnia; the third option is stable but offers no exit strategy; and the fourth option offers an exit strategy but isn't stable. So let's get Karadzic. It's the right thing to do, and once he's gone maybe we can focus on our real choices.