West should accept right of Bosnia to defend itself

COMMENTARY

"The world has done nothing for Sarajevo," says Bosnia's President, Alija Izetbegovic, defending his decision last week to launch the biggest offensive of the war by the Muslim-led forces against the Bosnian Serbs. He is not entirely right.

The United Nations peace-keeping and humanitarian effort, though flawed in many respects, has served a vital purpose insofar as it has prevented the Bosnian Serbs from achieving their goal of partitioning Sarajevo into two separate sectors, one Muslim and one Serb.

The principles of the city's unity and its status as the capital of a single Bosnian state have been kept alive, albeit precariously.

Moreover, for all the Bosnian government's complaints that the UN tends to favour the Serbs, the truth is that in some ways the UN presence has acted as a shield behind which the Muslim-led forces have been able to draw breath, build up their strength and increasingly take the war to the Bosnian Serbs.

The UN, acting through Nato, has never launched air strikes against the government forces and it has also turned a blind eye to the covert arms deliveries reaching the Muslims from abroad.

Western governments can make all these points and more, but there is surely an essential truth in what Mr Izetbegovic says. His underlying theme is that the West believes its own security is best served by containing the war and making sure that it does not spread beyond the borders of former Yugoslavia.

If this means prodding the Bosnian government into accepting a peace settlement that involves a degree of injustice for the Muslims, then the West is prepared to go down that road, according to Mr Izetbegovic.

In his view, all the West's protestations that it does care about Bosnia do not make up for the fact that there is clearly a point beyond which Western countries will not go to assist his government's cause.

Proceeding from this assessment of the Western position, Mr Izetbegovic argues that he has every right to take the initiative into his own hands, making a grand military effort to weaken the Bosnian Serb siege of Sarajevo and roll back Serb territorial gains elsewhere in Bosnia.

He has calculated that the increasingly effective Muslim-Croat military alliance and the gradual erosion of Bosnian Serb strength make this an opportune moment to intensify the war.

It is, however, a strategy that carries enormous risks. It could mean the collapse of the three vulnerable Muslim enclaves of eastern Bosnia - Gorazde, Srebrenica and Zepa - and a calamity for the tens of thousands of civilians in those so-called "safe areas". It could mean yet more brutal punishment for the people of Sarajevo. It could mean that Serbia, with the most powerful army in former Yugoslavia, re-enters the war.

Above all, it could mean that Britain, France and their allies decide that enough is enough and it is time to terminate the UN operation in Bosnia. Without the UN's protective shield, much of Bosnia's Muslim population would undoubtedly be in greater danger than at present.

The aid convoys of food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies have played an indirect part in sustaining the Muslims' fight for survival. Even if a UN withdrawal were to be followed by a lifting of the arms embargo on the Bosnian government, there is no guarantee of a swift victory for the Muslims and Croats.

In short, the Muslim-led government is probably better off if the UN stays in Bosnia. But the principle that Mr Izetbegovic is asserting - the right of an internationally recognised state to defend itself - is one that the West has no business undermining.