The Middle East is one of the areas where the limits of US power appear in sharpest relief. On the one hand, in the Gulf itself, Saddam Hussein is still boasting and the US have no alternative to push forward. On the other, the US is confronted with the Israeli-Arab conflict. Washington thought it could pull its chestnuts out of the Iraqi fire by convening the Israeli-Arab "Peace Conference" in Madrid on October 30, 1991. It gambled on moving towards a regional Pax Americana by confronting the intransigence of Yitzhak Shamir's Likud government with financial pressure.
It knew that the state of Israel desperately needed a ten billion dollar loan and that it had asked the US government to guarantee it. Without this money, the Zionist plan of absorbing a million Jewish immigrants from the ex-Soviet Union - more or less pushed in the direction of Israel since they could not go to the US — would be a dead 4 letter. It was in order to obtain these funds, and for this reason alone, that the Shamir government agreed to go to Madrid. It was for precisely these same reasons that this conference got bogged down.!
Given the stakes involved, one could count upon the Bush administration using its financial leverage.2 This is exactly what happened: not being dupes, the men in Washington refused to approve the loan guarantee until tangible concessions were made on the Israeli side. Shamir thought the goose was in the bag but instead he found himself empty-handed. The battle was joined, with mutually acrimonious charges leveled on both sides as each protagonist sought to influence the other's electoral campaign.
The Bush administration's efforts to achieve its goals led to an unprecedented deterioration of American-Israeli relations. The message of their Zionist Labor Party allies was that Likud intransigence was leading Israel down the road of bankruptcy and disaster. For its part, the Likud, with help from its friends in the US Democratic party, plied US public opinion with startling revelations about the Republican administration's Iraqi policy.
### Washington wins
In this test of strength it was Washington who won. Of course, domestic political and socioeconomic factors played a role in Rabin's victory, and we will return to these in our next issue. But, they are all tied in one way or another to the American factor. It is likewise not surprising at all that on June 24 Rabin publicly called for the Bush administration to reverse its decision to deny the Israelis the guarantees for their ten billion dollar loan. In all likelihood, they will now get it.
In all this, the shortsightedness, nay dumbness, of the Palestinian right, especially Arafat, who rejoiced in Rabin's victory, are clear for all to see. Rabin will carry out policies little different from Shamir's (including on the "autonomy" conceded to the Palestinians), as he has already on more than one occasion demonstrated - though in a more flexible and subtle form in order to reap the fruit of Washington's favors and to regain the sympathy of the European governments. Once again, the common sense of the masses turns out to be more perceptive than that of some leaders who take their desires for reality. Many Palestinians who were interviewed by reporters on the streets of Jerusalem said that Rabin and Shamir were essentially the same for their people or even that the former was more dangerous than the latter because he was more crafty and enjoyed the support of the US. * 1. See /V 216, November 11, 1991 2. See /V 206, May 13, 1991.
International Viewpoint # 232 • July 6, 1992
What comes after sanctions? THE conflicts in the Balkans resulting from the break up of Yugoslavia continue to spread and get worse. Despite UN sanctions and talk of outside military intervention, the war in Bosnia continues and may culminate in a direct clash between Serbia and Croatia over their conflicting claims on the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BH). Democratic, peace and labour forces in the region remain under siege (see box on page 6).
The following article was written on June 11, 1992, for the Austrian revolutionary Marxist publication, Die Linke. CHRISTIAN POMITZER
IS there a possibility that Belgrade will be bombed?" "There certainly is, and by the Americans or NATO. However I don't believe it. It would be sheer bestiality and the Western military alliance would lose credibility. Our air force is totally ready for the struggle. All the missiles' systems have been withdrawn from the territories of the newly independent states and are now in place primed for action around Belgrade. Anyone who comes to Belgrade will find they are expected" . "From where can the attack be expected?" "Either from the amphibious troops of the American Sixth Fleet or from the NATO intervention centre in Italy"
These exchanges were between Lieutenant General Bozidar Stevanovic, commander-in-chief of the Yugoslav
airforce and journalists of the pro-regime daily Vecernje Novosti a few days before the United Nations instituted comprehensive sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro.
The trigger for the decision to impose an embargo on the new version of Yugoslavia were the terrible pictures seen on TV screens at the end of May; in Sarajevo Serb irregulars fired on a bread queue, carrying out a bloody slaughter. In fact, in recent months Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina (BH) have seen far worse massacres without the "international community" feeling obliged to take such drastic measures. Now, however, not only has the Bush administration come out strongly for sanctions against Serbia, but there is also talk about an air and sea blockade and military intervention. Meeting in Oslo, NATO members decided to make available an intervention force for "peace-keeping action".
Some of the reasons for the American change of heart are easily seen: after basking in the glory of his Gulf adventure for a few months, domestic economic realities saw George Bush losing support among the white middle class. Then came the disturbances in Los Angeles and other US cities and the sudden rise in the fortunes of the independent candidate for US president Ross Perot. Bush is hoping to compensate for his domestic weaknesses through foreign policy success. Then there is also the first signs of a challenge to the hitherto unquestioned "defence" role of NATO from European countries, especially France and Germany, who have been talking of setting up a "Eurocorps".
The Gulf scenario
Are we then approaching a rerun of the Gulf War in the Balkans? Certainly the catalogue of measures taken or proposed— first sanctions, then a blockade and then military intervention - are reminiscent of the Gulf scenario. And Slobodan Milosevic seems ready and able to step into Saddam Hussein's role as monster of the month. Even his proposal for a Yugoslav conference under UN auspices and his fantastic request for the USA and Russia to take control of all the fighting militia on the battlefield is reminiscent of the Iraqi dictator, who started producing all kinds of proposals in the last few moments before Desert Storm.
However, here the comparison breaks down. Milosevic takes pride in the fact that he has withdrawn from Bosnia soldiers of the former federal army originating from Serbia and Montenegro. And the reality is that the Serbian regime is not able to control the Bosnian-Serbian
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
THE GULF WAR AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER by Salah Jaber (in Arabic)
piece of the former federal army, the Bosnian Serb militia or the various Serb irregular forces. This is why repeated demands by Belgrade that the Serb militia halt their attacks in BH have fallen on deaf ears.
Continued Serbian involvement
However, even if he is no longer responsible for the further escalation of the war, it was still Milosevic who was responsible for the whole scenario, along with his Serbian allies in Croatia and BH. And, finally, air attacks on targets in Bosnia are increasingly starting from bases in Serbia since the army abandoned and destroyed Bihac, the most important airfield in Bosnia. Furthermore, the leaders of the various irregular forces can move freely around Belgrade and call press conferences whenever they wish.
That Radovan Karadzic's "Serbian republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina" and the various "Serbian Autonomous Regions" will be supplied by Serbia is beyond doubt. Thus, Milosevic has not yet lost his Kuwait — at least not totally.
Any eventual military measures by a Western coalition have to be evaluated both from a strategic and a political point of view. The first such measure, an air-and sea blockade, would be the work of the sixth fleet. Such a blockade would not only serve to ensure respect for the
AL-MITRAQA, our sister publication in the Arabic language, is launching a new collection of notebooks.
No. 1, just released, includes Salah Jaber's articles on the Gulf War and its aftermath, already published in
English in the Notebooks for
Study and Research of the
IIRE in Amsterdam.
Price per copy, including postage, is $5 or £2.50 - send to PEC (Al-Mitraqa notebook no.1), 2, rue Richard
Lenoir, Montreuil, 93108,
France. For further payment details see box on page 2 of this International Viewpoint.
The next Arabic notebook will include documents of the
Fourth International on the world situation. embargo, but would above all seek to prevent planes taking off from Serbian airfields or frigates from Bar and Kotor in Montenegro going to join the siege of Dubrovnik. If all this is not enough, then a limited direct military intervention could be expected. This would - on the pattern of the Gulf War - involve a flood of air attacks on airfields and barracks in Serbia and Montenegro.
It is also possible that the supply lines from Serbia to Bosnia would be bombed. However, such attacks could not stop the fighting in BH itself. Once outside involvement had reached such a level, however, the next step would follow inevitably: a landing by ground troops in Sarajevo to create a security zone there and save the legal government of BH. It is by no means certain that the plan of UN president BoutrosGhali — to negotiate a ceasefire in Sarajevo or at least for its airport and send in UN troops to keep the peace — will succeed.
The battles implied by such an intervention would involve heavy losses and for this reason it is at least open to question whether the green light will be given. A full-scale "liberation" of BH is not to be expected. Speaking against this is the difficult terrain, the training of the units of the former federal army in partisan warfare as well as the many secret supply dumps.
And who will defeat and disarm the dozens of militia scurrying about BH? 5 Active here are: units of the army of the
July 6, 19920