Peace in our time

Maybe NATO’s critics are right; maybe you can’t win a war just with an air campaign. You can, however, force a peace.

Keeping it will be the hard part. The indicted war criminal Milosevic still shakes his fist in defiance, although it is a pathetic sight. The Serb army, though shattered, still has enough armor and war criminals in training to cause misery. The Kosovo Liberation Army and any others with retribution on their minds must be restrained. Russia must be allowed to think it matters, yet not allowed to get in the way.

The United Nations peacekeepers, including 7,000 Americans, will be on the ground and in danger. The Kosovar countryside is littered with land mines and booby traps. No doubt there will be snipers bent on martyrdom. Unimaginable horrors await — already mass graves are being discovered.

Kosovo must be rebuilt, and it will take an almost superhuman humanitarian effort. Food, shelter, medicine and water (the fast-retreating Serbs apparently lingered long enough to poison every well they could find) are the immediate needs. To the greatest extent possible, families must be reunited, property and identities must be restored.

Serbia, too, must be rebuilt, but President Clinton is correct: not until Slobodan Milosevic and the four other indicted war criminals are arrested and forced to face justice. The lesson of Iraq, of what happens when a defeated aggressor is left in power, must not be forgotten.

Congress must steady its nerves and put political animosities aside. This almost didn’t happen Thursday, when a GOP provision in the defense bill called for a cutoff of all Kosovo spending after Sept. 30. This monumental global embarrassment was averted when the president promised to seek Congressional approval for U.S. involvement in the peacekeeping force. Congress has ample reason not to trust Mr. Clinton, it has just cause to be concerned that Europe will not shoulder the burden called for in the peace agreement, but these matters call for diligence, not pique.

Finally, the world must commit itself to ending the centuries of senseless slaughter that have gripped this region. It is time, as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, “to bust the ghost of the Balkans past and built a new reality … it will be our gift to the next generation.” It won’t be cheap, but it’s a gift that must be given.