Saturday, December 27, 1997

Apparently 'No Exit' from Bosnia

Editorial by the Orlando Sentinel

The United States' foreign policy in Bosnia is starting to seem a lot like writer Jean-Paul Sartre's play "No Exit."

The characters in Sartre's drama are trapped in hell. The situation in Bosnia isn't much better.

That inhospitable nation -- with its age-old hostilities between ethnic, religious and political groups -- has bogged down international peacekeeping troops for years.

Many of those troops -- which are drawn from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- are American.

Extend participation

Now that President Clinton has chosen to extend U.S. participation in Bosnia peacekeeping beyond next summer's planned withdrawal, a substantial number of U.S. troops will stay on. "How long?" would be a logical question.

Clinton isn't saying. As he paraded around Bosnia this week, trying to justify his overall actions, the lack of an exit strategy stood out as the most egregious element of an increasingly reckless policy.

Once the president said the Bosnia mission had clear goals and a timetable.

Now he says there are clear goals but an open-ended commitment. How far are Americans from seeing the "clear goals" slip away, as well?

Actually, there can't be clear goals -- other than frustration, danger, folly and waste -- in Bosnia.

The goals Clinton has in mind -- such as healing, peace and stability -- are unrealistic. They form the thinnest of veneers over the roiling tensions of Bosnia. It's just a matter of time before public animosity rips through and leaves Clinton's goals entirely in shreds.

To make an open-ended commitment to keep troops in that country under such conditions virtually guarantees a tragedy.

The problem began with Clinton's setting a deadline, because it led to exaggerated expectations.

In truth, setting deadlines in Bosnia is like trying to drive fence posts into quicksand. It's an exercise in futility.

Root of problem

The root of the problem, though, was the United States' getting overly involved in Bosnia. European countries, which have the most at stake in Bosnia, had better reasons to be gung ho about intervening.

The U.S. role should have been a peripheral one, without any American troops stationed in Bosnia.

Instead, the United States is left to take the heat, and the Clinton administration is showing curious reluctance to change that.

That's political arrogance at its worst. The American people and Congress ought not to stand for it.

Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service