In today’s Washington Post, Richard Holbrooke asks Was Bosnia Worth It? Since Mr. Holbrooke was Pres. Clinton’s primary envoy during the Bosnia crisis, its perhaps not surprising that he answers yes.
I was generally opposed to American involvement in Bosnia and, later, Kosovo, during the mid and late 1990s. Basically I could not see what national interests of the United States were implicated in either conflict. It was true that there was alot of needless killing going on, most of it in the name of ethnic hatred, but that has been happening in Europe and elsewhere in the world for centuries. The telling thing for me was the fact that Clinton choose to intervene in Bosnia but failed to do anything beyond offer words during the Rwanada genocide. If any event of the mid-90’s justified intervention, it was the senseless murder of a million people in Africa. (And, no, I don’t think that U.S. should have intervened militarily in Rwanda).
Holbrooke looks at the history of the last ten years and sees justification for our involvement. He may be right that Bosnia is better off now than it was ten years ago, but that does not mean that Clinton’s decision to intervene was correct.
To be honest, though, I am less sure of my position with respect to Bosnia and Kosovo than I was 10 years ago, principally because of the war on terror. The links between Al Qaeda and some of the Muslim groups that were taking root in Bosnia in the early and mid 90’s are pretty clear in hindsight, and the idea that Osama bin Laden came close to obtaining a foothold in Europe is pretty scary in retrospect.
Over at Vodkapundit, Stephen Green looks at Holbrooke’s comments on Bosnia and sees Iraq.
