Kosovo: US More Chastened than Triumphant? Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit KOSOVO: US More Chastened Than Triumphant Analysis - By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON, Jun 14 (IPS) - Even as NATO diplomats steamrolled their terms through the U.N. Security Council and prepared to order troops into Kosovo, the elation one might have expected over the turn of events in Yugoslavia last week seemed remarkably absent in Washington. Triumphalism has been hard to find, even within President Bill Clinton's administration - despite the apparent achievement of NATO's aims after 77 days of war against Belgrade, without the death in combat of one NATO soldier. It's not just that Clinton himself is wary of appearing as the great Balkan conqueror and thus fuelling fears in China, Russia, and elsewhere that NATO's action is just the opening act in asserting NATO's global hegemony. Nor is it because Republicans, with a few exceptions, never rallied behind the war as Democrats did behind George Bush during the 1991 Gulf War, once fighting got underway. Remarkably, even after the past week's events, most Republican lawmakers have refused to praise the war effort or even acknowledge that NATO had won a major victory. And it's not just because Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic appears to have survived in power, at least for now. Some, including Republicans, who only a couple of weeks ago urged Clinton ''to give peace a chance'' by suspending the bombing, have suggested that Milosevic's survival has tarnished NATO's victory by making it incomplete. Nor is it just because there remain so many unknowns that can still go wrong on the ground - from the refusal of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to ''demilitarise,'' to a possible mass exodus of the province's 200,000 Serb inhabitants that would undermine NATO's stated commitment to protecting the rights of ethnic minorities. The explanation lies in all of the above, but in many other factors as well. The lack of celebration has puzzled many political observers, particularly foreign journalists who remember the euphoria that followed the US-led victory over Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War which lasted a mere six weeks, compared to the almost 11 weeks of bombing before Milosevic threw in the towel. ''Everyone seems so subdued,'' said one Arab reporter. ''It's almost disconcerting. It's like no one really cares that much.'' Surprisingly, that observation is not far off the mark, according to recent polling data. While the war was supported by a majority of the public, it never became a major pre-occupation. ''Unlike the Persian Gulf War, the Balkan conflict never moved into the national consciousness and took up residence,'' wrote William Powers in The National Journal. ''And, as the battle progressed, there was a slow attenuation of whatever emotional engagement there had been at the beginning,'' despite steady media coverage. That may have been because of the unique way the war was fought - from 5,000 metres above the ground, according to P.J. Crowley, a Clinton spokesman. The dangers to NATO flyers, while serious, were less visible than in a ground war, and the fact that not a single one was killed or captured - though two warplanes were downed - only added to the sense of emotional distance. The way the war was fought proved to be source of great criticism, as well, particularly among US military brass. When Milosevic refused to bend after several days of bombing, as the Clinton administration had convinced itself he would, the complaints poured in from retired generals and anonymous serving officers about US strategy. They proclaimed that, air power alone would fail to prevent Serb forces from ethnically cleansing Kosovo and because Clinton ruling out a ground war - not even planning for one - actually encouraged Milosevic to believe that he could get away with his plans. Similarly, the strategy of escalated bombing - by which NATO warplanes confined their initial attacks to strictly military targets and only gradually expanded their target list to include more strategic but politically sensitive sites such as power plants - was widely assailed by military analysts here. It was made necessary, however, by NATO's governing structure which gave to each of the alliance's 19 states veto power over an entire range of targets. Consensus rules - which greatly frustrated US military leaders - meant that all countries had to agree before the air war could be escalated to the next level. If the United States had fought the war unilaterally, it would have demonstrated the full range of its destructive power in downtown Belgrade from the very first night of the campaign on March 24, according to Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Short. The idea would be to persuade the Serb leadership that ''we were taking the gloves off.'' Another source of unhappiness about the war was the so-called ''collateral damage.'' It caused the deaths of hundreds, possibly more than a thousand, innocent Serbs and Kosovar Albanians and strained US and western links with Russia and China, whose Belgrade embassy was hit in one air attack last month. ''As a result of Kosovo, ''both (Russia and China) have been alienated, the fires of virulent nationalism and anti-Americanism have been stoked, and the political moderates there have been undermined,'' wrote Owen Harries, a prominent neo-conservative foreign-policy analyst. ''Further, and this is no mean feat, these countries have been driven closer together than they have been for decades.'' ''We look like the big bully to a lot of people around the world,'' according to former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. For whatever reason, the Kosovo war is not being hailed as a great victory for the United States and its western allies or even as a precedent for future action elsewhere. ''Clearly, this is not an experience that anybody would like to repeat any time soon,'' said Ivo Daalder, a former senior administration official who now with the Brookings Institution. ''We're going to be (in Kosovo) for many, many, many years, if not decades.'' (END/IPS/jl/mk/99) (c) 1999 IPS ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-06.19.99-05:18:48-9028