Richard Cohen: Bosnian War Offers Lessons for Syria's Conflict
Richard Cohen is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post.
We are coming up on a melancholy anniversary. On April 5, 1992, Suada Dilberovic and Olga Sucic were shot and killed. They were attending a peace rally in Sarajevo when Serbian snipers opened fire. The two women were the first of more than 100,000 people killed over the next few years. The Bosnian war had begun.
This is also an instructive anniversary. Much of what characterized the Bosnian war, including hideous barbarity, is now occurring in Syria. Once again, we are seeing sectarian butchery. Once again, we are confronted with a travelogue of peoples, religions, sects, tribes and clans. Once again, we are being warned of the daunting challenges of topography — the Syrian desert, the Syrian mountains, the Syrian cities. Once again we are being told that arming the opposition would exacerbate the killing.
All these arguments were made about Bosnia. The book “Balkan Ghosts” had been published in 1993. It was a good book, read by Bill Clinton, then the president. Author Robert Kaplan peeled back layer upon layer of nationalities and religions — a Balkan peninsula peopled by ethnic groups known only to stamp collectors. It was a religious mosh pit — Roman Catholics, Orthodox Catholics, Muslims and Jews living in harmonious anxiety. Kaplan portrayed it as a mysterious, deeply exotic place of blood feuds and incomprehensible politics. The book’s message was unmistakable: Stay out.
Clinton did. I thought he was right. I had visited the region. It was an intimidating place of furious hatreds and difficult terrain — mountainous and forested. A felled tree could stop a regiment. The weather — cold and snowy at higher elevations, warm and foggy in the valleys — could obstruct bombing. I thought Bosnia was no place for America or NATO to intervene. I was wrong. Clinton ultimately reversed course and NATO bombed. It worked; the killing ended.
Now the “Friends of Syria” are slowly coming to the conclusion that more has to be done to help the insurgents...