The question of whether to lift the arms embargo is as old and fractious as the war itself. (In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, two thirds see the crisis as a “tragedy” that can’t be resolved “if the two sides want to keep fighting.”) Last week’s Senate action gave new life to the issue, pitting the United States against its European allies, and Congress against the White House, which has promised to veto the measure. At stake are two competing responses to years of failed Western policy: one that aims to give the Bosnians a stronger means of self-defense, and the other to intervene with more aggressive NATO airstrikes against the Serbs. To help clarify the issue for Americans still searching for answers to the Bosnian crisis, NEWSWEEK asked President Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole to present their cases, respectively, for keeping or abandoning the weapons ban (following pages).
Threatened for months, the Senate bill was no surprise. Europeans often warned that it would trigger a pullout of U.N. forces and the deployment of up to 25,000 U.S. troops. It won’t–at least, not right away. In the near term, the Senate action put additional strain on the alliance–even as NATO agreed last week to extend the threat of massive force to protect “safe areas” beyond Gorazde, and largely to eliminate U.N. civilian approval for air-strikes. The Europeans believe that U.S. foreign policy is hostage to the narrow interests of a Republican Congress. As a result, says a senior British official, “this administration is not in a position to promise anything.” He cites Clinton’s having to circumvent GOP leaders to help pay for the new U.N. Rapid Reaction Force. (The money came from unspent Pentagon funds.) The French accused Washington of covertly providing arms to the Bosnians–a charge U.S. officials deny.
The squabbling ignores the basic question of whether lifting the ban could actually change the military balance in Bosnia. *A Pentagon study conducted in the spring of 1993 concluded that tanks, long-range artillery and fighter jets would be too hard to deliver and too difficult to operate, maintain or resupply. Even small arms–requiring more than 100 trainers, as well as months of a heavy bombing campaign to keep the Serbs at bay–would, at best, allow the Bosnians to hold their own. History has proved the point. For more than a year the Muslims have received infantry and antitank weapons, AK-47s and light mortars from the likes of Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. These haven’t turned the tide of the war.
But the balance could well shift as a result of the growing conflict in Bihac. Surrounded on all sides by rebel Serbs in Bosnia and in Croatia, the enclave is a strategically critical region to all three combatants and their surrogates. If Bihac fell, Croatia could have to accommodate at least 150,000 fleeing Bosnians–on top of the 380,000 refugees and displaced people it has already absorbed. Serbs would virtually complete a Greater Serbia from Belgrade to Knin, the capital of the Krajina region held by Croatian Serbs. For the Muslims, it might spell final defeat and grim acceptance of a ministate in central Bosnia.
The battle for the enclave could signal the endgame in Bosnia–or a renewal of the war between Croatia and Serbia, kept to a low boil since late 1991. Last week combined forces of Bosnian and Croatian Serbs and rebel Muslims attacked the Bi-hac pocket, seizing about one third of the area. Days later Croatian regulars and Bosnian Croat troops captured two Serb-held western Bosnian towns and pushed east-ward. “For months we’ve been warning the international community that if nothing is done to implement the most basic U.N. Security Council resolutions, we would be faced with renewed hostilities on a large scale,” says a senior Zagreb official. But many Balkans analysts suspect Croatian motives. “They can say they’re going to help the poor Muslims,” says a Western diplomat, “but Bihac is an internationally defensible excuse to go into the Krajina” and take back territory lost to rebel Serbs four years ago.
What can the West do about it? “The feeling is that NATO can’t do anything,” says a senior official in the alliance. “All factions will probably prohibit us from getting involved in the Bihac fight.” NATO has pledged to protect only the designated safe area–a tiny portion of the Bihac pocket. The alliance may have to rethink its strategy–and quickly. At the weekend, Bosnian Serbs called on Belgrade for military help. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic met with officials to consider the often If the Bosnia crisis reignites the Serbo-Croatian war, there will be a horrendous conflagration–with or without lifting the arms embargo.
