Late last week, 81 homes were destroyed near Sarajevo in what was the worst ethnic attack in Bosnia-Herzegovina since peacekeepers moved in last year. It sent a strong signal that the region's difficult problems have yet to be resolved, and it ought to raise the question of how long President Clinton intends to keep U.S. troops in the region.

When he spoke to a nationwide television audience last Nov. 27, Clinton said the mission would last only one year. American troops would be home by December 1996. While this page has urged him to keep to that timetable, it is clear now that he won't. A recent decision to send an additional 5,000 U.S. soldiers to the region means an American presence that will last at least until March.If troops are on an extended mission to Bosnia, Americans deserve to know the goals and parameters of that mission. Open-ended commitments in regions as contentious as the Balkans are not in the nation's best interest.

Clinton had good reasons for committing soldiers to the war-torn area. Chief among these was to maintain the integrity of NATO and the leadership role of the United States in that organization. Clearly, the rest of Europe would not have attempted to restore peace without the help of the United States. As a result, about 53,000 troops from 30 nations now are in Bosnia, trying to enforce the provisions agreed upon last year in Dayton, Ohio.

But, as a Heritage Foundation analysis recently noted, the overall mission seems contradictory. The military seems intent on separating Serb, Croat and Muslim forces, but the political goal of the Dayton accord was to unite Bosnia in a type of three-cornered fabric.

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Still, some success has been achieved. Recent elections established a three-person presidency, and those leaders met recently for the first time, crossing ethnic borders to do so. They have agreed to meet again.

However, the elections themselves showed Bosnia has a long way to go before total peace and unity is achieved. Eighty percent of the electorate voted solidly with their own ethnic groups. Borders remain in dispute, attitudes remain hostile and economic conditions have shown little improvement. Elections for local offices recently were postponed.

Despite the need for U.S. leadership in the area, Bosnia primarily is a European problem. President Clinton needs to define a plan for reducing the U.S. presence there and for gradually turning responsibility over to Europe.

The job of quelling animosities in Bosnia will be a long one. The United States can't afford to make its commitment indefinite.

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