The U.N. withdrawal ““could set off a chain reaction leading to a general Balkan war,’’ Richard Holbrooke, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, said last week. ““We are going all out to prevent this,’’ he added. At the weekend, Holbrooke and Vice President Gore appeared to have reached a tentative agreement with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to keep at least some peacekeepers in place. The American plan called for a much smaller U.N. peacekeeping force, which would have a more difficult mandate. To satisfy a longstanding Tudjman demand, the new U.N. force would patrol Croatia’s borders with Bosnia and the Serbian Republic, the major component in what is left of Yugoslavia. The U.N. presence would also have to be accepted by Tudjman’s enemies, the Croatian Serbs, who control the Krajina region (map). Even if everyone signed on, the peacekeeping force might be too puny to prevent the outbreak of a general war.
NATO commanders had already drawn up a plan to bail out the U.N. troops. A well-placed Pentagon source told Newsweek that if the peacekeepers get into trouble, NATO will respond with more than 40,000 soldiers: the U.S. First Armored Division (based in Germany), a British division, a reinforced U.S. Marine brigade and French and Canadian brigades, under the overall command of a British officer, Lt. Gen. Michael Walker. Support would come from five aircraft carriers and land-based NATO warplanes. Airstrikes would be called in by U.S. Special Forces personnel. Some of them, the source said, are already deployed in the Balkans, wearing blue U.N. helmets instead of their usual green berets.
Washington has assured its allies that U.S. forces will help if it becomes necessary to evacuate their peacekeepers. The Croats appear to be eager for a fight. ““I don’t think Yugoslavia would even have time to intervene before we deal with Krajina,’’ Defense Minister Gojko Susak boasted recently. Even as Tudjman was hosting Holbrooke in Zagreb early last week, the Croats were announcing a new, anti-Serbian military alliance with Bosnia. But the Serbs won’t be beaten easily. Crusading for a ““Greater Serbia’’ in Bosnia and Krajina, they have been the aggressors – and usually the victors. Last week, U.S. officials leaked to The New York Times a CIA study concluding that the Serbs were responsible for at least 90 percent of the ““ethnic cleansing’’ atrocities that have driven Muslims and Croats from their homes in Bosnia. The report undercut the officialEuropean – and occasionally American – excuse for not intervening in the Balkans: that the struggle is a civil war for which the Serbs, Croats and Muslims are all to blame.
The irony is that, because they failed to intervene against Serbian aggression when it began in 1991, the NATO allies may now have to intervene to rescue the peacekeepers. But if he sticks to his order evicting all the peacekeepers from Croatia, Tudjman will be subjecting his country to an even more fearful risk. Clinton administration officials have warned him publicly and privately that they will not help him if he gets into another war with the Serbs. With U.N. forces out of harm’s way, the Western powers would have no incentive to stop the Serbian juggernaut – and save Croatia.
