AN AMERICAN MUSLIM CONVERT

The U.S. Has A Vital National Interest in a Just Settlement

By Greg Noakes

Opponents of increased United States involvement in Bosnia argue that no vital U.S. interests are at stake in the Balkan crisis, and thus America should keep its distance. It is true that Bosnia is not floating on a lake of oil, nor is it a nuclear power, an outlaw state-sponsor of international terrorism, nor an old and trusted ally of the U.S. The Balkans are not the Persian Gulf, and Bosnia-Herzegovina counts for little on the geostrategic map. Nevertheless, what is at stake in Bosnia is the United States' credibility as a world power—indeed, the world power following the end of the Cold War—and the reactions of a billion Muslims around the world.

Two things set Bosnia apart from other world crises. First, Washington already has made countless promises to the Bosnians, either unilaterally or as part of NATO or the United Nations. That is, the U.S. is already involved in this conflict.

Second, what is happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina is not a typical case of civil unrest or even civil war; rather, it is plain and simple genocide, happening in full view of the outside world. Since the vast majority of those being massacred are Muslims, their fellow believers around the globe are saddened, stunned, angered and left wondering why no one is moving to put an end to the outrageous crimes being perpetrated in Bosnia.

Keeping Promises

Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton have, over the past three years, made a number of pledges to the government and people of Bosnia. These include guaranteeing humanitarian relief supplies, ensuring the safety of the U.N. "safe havens," pursuing a fair diplomatic solution, and deterring further Serb aggression through means ranging from sanctions to air strikes. None of these pledges has been kept.

The message to the world is clear: the value of a U.S. commitment is worth less than the paper on which it's written. Because of our inaction in the Balkans, our allies around the world are questioning our resolve everywhere.

The collapse of the Soviet Union left the United States as the only nation on the planet with both the political prestige and the military and economic power necessary to lead in the international arena. That provided a golden opportunity for the U.S. to step up to the challenge of its international commitments and influence the course of world events for the better.

Bill Clinton, however, with his finger in the air to see which way the political winds blow, is on the verge of squandering that opportunity through his waffling over Bosnia, the second great international test of the post-Cold War era. In the earlier conflict, the 1990-91 Gulf war, George Bush was able to assemble an impressive international coalition through his use of American prestige and his own resolve. Subsequent heady talk of a "new world order" was predicated on a world governed by international law based upon American principles and ideals as well as U.S. leadership. After Bosnia, the "new world order" has become a rueful joke. The reserve of U.S. presidential prestige is almost expended. Will anyone associate "resolve" with "White House" again?

Bosnia is not a cut-and-dried issue, the skeptics say. There are allies to consult, U.N. procedures to be observed, global interests to be balanced, precedents to uphold. All of this is well and good, but, even combined, these excuses do not provide reason enough for President Clinton to allow his hands to be tied over Bosnia.

Despite three years of consulting, observing, balancing and upholding, the conflagration in Bosnia is still at a fever pitch. It seems clear that it is time for new thinking from Washington on Bosnia and bold U.S. leadership.

The Europeans had their chance to resolve the conflict, and failed. The United Nations also has failed, in the process squandering whatever prestige it may once have enjoyed. How many more times must the "Contact Group" meet, how many more blue helmets must be taken hostage, and how many more Bosnian civilians need to be slaughtered before the president finally steps up to the plate and starts swinging? The rest of the world would like to know, and soon.

The Only Good Muslim a Dead Muslim?

Aside from the serious issue of American credibility in the world, there is also an important moral element to the crisis in Bosnia. This is of paramount concern to observers in the Muslim world at large. For them the war is about aggression, it is about genocide, and it is about appeasement in the face of evil.

Diplomacy is supposed to be a cold-eyed business of pursuing national interests, not morality. Nevertheless, politicians like to believe they stand for some credo, some value or some way of life. Thus, to honor those who gave their lives in the struggle, the Allied leaders this summer are solemnly commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II and the defeat of fascism and militarism in Europe and Asia.

At the same time, unfortunately, these presidents and prime ministers are re-enacting the decade leading up to that terrible conflict. In the 1930s, the West stood aside while fascism came to power in Berlin and Rome, the legitimate republican government was crushed in Spain and the Nazis gobbled up Czechoslovakia with British acquiescence. Six decades later, the heirs of Neville Chamberlain wring their hands and hold endless consultations while the Serbs set up concentration and rape camps, massacre civilians and prattle on about an ethnically purified homeland.

Many in the Muslim world ask whether "Never again!" was meant to apply to them as well, or if protection from genocide is granted solely to Christians and Jews. Television sets from Casablanca to Kuala Lumpur flicker nightly with images of unspeakable horror: a mortar round here, an artillery shell there, a bullet in the brain to round things out. In the 1930s and early 1940s, world leaders could perhaps plead ignorance of events in Germany and in the countries under German Nazi occupation. In the 1990s, however, there is no such excuse.

The Muslim world knows this, and angrily charges that the West places no value on Muslim lives in the Balkans. The Bosnians are Europeans, geographically, linguistically and ethnically. They are largely secular and were considered unlikely candidates for Islamic radicalism. Before 1992, ironically, Bosnia was most often mentioned as an ideal bridge between Islam and the West due to the manner in which its moderate, Westward-looking Muslim population co-existed with Serb, Croat, Jewish, Hungarian, Gypsy and other groups within its borders. If the "ethnic cleansing" of that population is tolerated by the West, how can non-white, non-European Muslims from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso expect the world to come to their rescue if needed?

Far from being a "bridge of understanding," now Bosnia strengthens the hands of anti-Western elements in the Muslim world who uphold the inevitability of a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West. In their scenario, however, it is not Islam which attacks the West (as most American believers in the Kulturkampf model would have it), but the West which allows (some would argue encourages) the wholesale elimination of Muslim populations from Europe. The notion may seem ridiculous, but the last three years of Western dithering in Bosnia provide little empirical evidence to disprove it.

This growing outrage among Muslim populations is putting increased pressure on Muslim governments to move unilaterally to help their co-religionists. Pro-Western governments in Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Malaysia are coming under the most strain, since they have either manpower, military equipment or financial resources to assist the besieged government in Sarajevo, and are criticized for not doing so. They therefore have resolved within the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to lift the U.N. embargo unilaterally.

Until the United States provides both the political and military cover to ignore the unjust United Nations arms embargo on the former Yugoslavia, however, these countries will find it difficult to provide the heavy weapons the Bosnian government needs to offset the tanks and artillery supplied from Belgrade to the Bosnian Serbs by the army of the former Yugoslavia. Up to now the Muslim governments have compromised by pouring their resources and efforts into humanitarian assistance projects and some smuggling of small arms from Iran and Turkey, but everyone recognizes this will not stem the Serbian tide, and pressure to do more will continue to mount.

Even if the politicians in Washington, Paris, London and New York don't give a whit about the welfare of two million Bosnian Muslims, it can hardly be considered wise policy to enrage a billion other Muslims around the globe, some of whom occupy strategically vital bits of land and others of whom control two-thirds of the world's proven petroleum reserves. Yet that is precisely what is happening as a result of the West's refusal to ratchet up its response to the Bosnian Serbs. The Muslim world has been woefully silent thus far, but it would be presumptuous to assume it will remain so.

Whether the U.S. continues to temporize, or instead leads, follows, or at least gets out of the way will influence relations between Islam and the West for decades to come. No vital U.S. security interests at stake in Bosnia? Hardly.

Greg Noakes is a former news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.