COMMENTARY; OP-ED
" A Robert McNamara in the making? "
By Richard Grenier; THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The speech! The speech! The speech of President Clinton's
lifetime! The speech which, by simultaneously embodying the
qualities of Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi, Mr. Clinton
hopes will write his name in history as the U.S. president who
roused the American people to preserve European stability by
sending heavily-armed combat troops to Bosnia as "peace enforcers"
- what Defense Secretary William Perry calls the "meanest dog on
the street." But just how mean is this dog? If he gets part of
his hide ripped off, how mean will he be then?
A statesman's prime duty, wrote Karl von Clausewitz, who
viewed war and diplomacy as a continuum, is properly to assess
various kinds of conflict, properly measure his people's will and
resources, and when he sends his troops forward (I translate
freely from the German now) to understand what in God's name he's
getting himself into.
"The first, grandest, and most decisive act of judgement the
statesman is called upon to make," Clausewitz wrote, "is rightly
to understand the kind of war in which he is engaged, and not to
take it for something - or wish to make it into something - which
the nature of circumstances makes it impossible for it to be."
"When political goals seem unimportant," Clausewitz warned,
"motives weak, and the war fever of either his people or his
military forces insubstantial, a cautious commander may try all
kinds of ways, while avoiding great crises and bloody solutions,
to twist himself skillfully into peace. But he must always
remember when traveling at his peril on these forbidden paths
that at any moment he may be surprised by the God of War."
Well, I listened carefully to every word of Mr. Clinton's
speech, and read it in print the next morning with a microscope.
And, despite respectful statements of leaders of both parties,
I found little in it: above all, no clearly defined mission.
Are we merely to keep the three warring parties separated?
Defend Muslims? Guarantee free elections? Return of refugees?
What's our exit strategy? Where's the vital American interest?
The speech contained, of course, a significant amount of
utopian dreaming. Reminisced Mr. Clinton: Sarajevo was once a
symbol of "multi-ethnic tolerance." Bosnia stood for "unity in
diversity." Sarajevo's magnificent stadium hosted the Olympics,
"our universal symbol of peace and harmony." And Bosnia "can be
that kind of place again!"
I want to be clear. I think that Bill Clinton is sincere,
in his way, and that he'd genuinely like to do "good" in this world.
But his notions of "good" are so foggy, and his understanding of
evil so simple and childlike, that he hasno idea that his goody-
goody notions of multi-ethnic tolerance and "unity in diversity"
have little meaning in a pre-modern society like the Balkans.
Indeed, with the exception of a tiny number of ultra-tolerant
democracies, these notions hardly work anywhere. Why should
colorful, loveable Ireland (and there are scores of such countries)
be divided by an ancient, dogmatic issue like religion?
To persist in believing that "unity in diversity" is a universal
formula for national happiness is embarrassing.
Although of late I've received company, I've written almost
from the start that Bosnia is not a nation. It's not a people.
It has no common culture. Neither Serbs, Croats, nor Muslims ever
had the slightest intention of living under one another's rule.
This " Bosnia" is an antique satrapy of the Ottoman Empire,
preserved as an artificial administrative unit by Josip Broz Tito.
It should absolutely never have been admitted to the United
Nations as a sovereign nation. The gruelling effort in Dayton,
Ohio, to preserve this Bosnia as a "unitary" state has resulted
in a legalistic concoction that's little short of preposterous.
Mr. Clinton, in this dreamy one-world way of his, would in the
1930s have been pleading for "confidence-building measures" between
Nazis and Jews. If the Nazis could only see what lovely people
the Jews were, why Jews and Nazis could live together like brothers!
Unity in diversity!
Of public figures whose opinions I respect most in these
matters, two, General Scowcroft and James Schlesinger, feel that,
committed as we are, with all the risks involved, "to turn our backs
now" would be a "catastrophe for U.S.reliability."
Sen. John McCain, a third, said his decision to support the mission
would "probably be the most difficult I've ever made." With
substantial unanimity, the country's editorial pages, liberal and
conservative - with heavy qualifications - have given the Bosnian
mission the kind of support they give when our troops, for whatever
reason, are destined to go into action.
Judging by the morning-after opinion polls, however,
Mr. Clinton's heart-rending appeal to the American people to save
Bosnia was a complete bust. In the CBS-Washington Post poll
66 percent of respondents said peace in Bosnia was not - repeat
not - worth U.S. lives.
For years now my solution, harsh though it may seem, has been:
partition. And if you want to have America in a challenging world
leadership role, imagine what it was like for Woodrow Wilson in
1918, dividing up the remains of the vast Austrian, Turkish and
Russian empires - with ethnically thoroughly entangled populations
-into something like 20 sovereign nations.
If Mr. Clinton lucks out, and Bosnia comes apart with more
slaughter but only after next November, I've a private vision of
Mr. Clinton in a Robert McNamara mode touring the stricken areas,
whimpering that his attempt to keep this artificial Bosnia
together was not only a rotten idea, but that he knew all along
it was a rotten idea. His sincere remorse will be terrible to behold.
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Richard Grenier is a columnist for The Washington Times.
His column appears here Tuesday and Friday.
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