A distinct sigh of relief is in order now that the warring factions have finally agreed to a peace settlement in bloody Bosnia.
For this achievement, President Clinton can take a deep and well-deserved bow. The breakthrough came only after Washington elbowed aside the other outsiders that had been standing on the sidelines and wringing their hands for four years. Finally, Uncle Sam grabbed the war's ringleaders by the scruff of their necks and hauled them to Ohio for a combination of lecturing, cajolery and diplomatic brokering.Even that exercise looked like it had failed when the Monday deadline had passed without an agreement. But Clinton kept ordering his feisty envoy, Richard Holbrooke, back into the fray and told Secretary of State Warren Christopher to put his formidable skills as a lawyer and negotiator to work.
After three weeks of arduous talks, including round-the-clock discussions during the last four days, Christopher decreed that one way or another there would be a final ceremony at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. Either the ceremony would send the warring parties home in defeat and disgrace, having blown a last-ditch effort to end 43 months of killing. Or the ceremony would be one of triumph in which the parties bid farewell to Dayton with a round of handshakes.
Faced with that alternative, the disputants finally put the last parts of a rickety agreement into place. Under its provisions, Bosnia is to be a single country divided into two republics - one controlled by Bosnia's Muslim-Croat government, the other by the Serbs. Bosnia is to get a new office of the presidency, consisting of several representatives of each ethnic group. A single, federated parliament is to eventually be elected, with elections watched by international monitors.
The federation government is to be responsible for Bosnia's foreign policy, economic policy and other national matters. Individuals charged with war crimes will be barred from political office. Both the Bosnian government and the Serbs will retain their own armies.
The best that can be said for this arrangement is that a flawed peace pact is better than none at all as long as it works. But how long can this one prevent further strife?
There's reason for wondering, because two other settlements were agreed to in 1992 and 1993 only to fall apart. And because the new plan has some of the weaknesses of the old ones.
How can a government with so little central authority and so much enmity among its constituent parts remain viable? Despite the strenuous efforts of the United States, what's to keep Bosnia from eventually being partitioned between neighboring Serbia and Croatia?
These are among the questions bound to arise as the U.S. Congress starts dissecting the terms of the deal, including Clinton's promise to send 20,000 American troops to the Balkans as part of a 60,000-member NATO peacekeeping contingent, the largest in the history of the Western alliance.
The $1.5 billion price tag on the U.S. end of that mission won't sit well with a Congress trying to balance the deficit-ridden federal budget. Nor will the open-ended nature of the U.S. troop commitment, which is to last at least a year with no firm deadline for a return home. Nor will Clinton's threat to send the troops over any objections from Congress. That threat could provoke Congress into cutting off appropriations for the American contingent. Even if that showdown is averted, the American and other NATO peacekeepers must be withdrawn eventually. What, then, for Bosnia?
The best thing the new agreement has going for it is that the warring factions seem to have fought themselves to a standstill, leaving them little to gain from further fighting. The danger is that the settlement could only provide a breathing space for the combatants to regroup, re-arm and renew the bloodshed.
Words on paper produced by ingenious diplomacy are still no substitute for the genuine desire for peace. It remains to be seen how firmly that desire has taken root in Bosnia.