Clinton Faces the Bosnian "Brute"

. THE ISSUE HAD BEEN DESCRIBED BY AN AIDE AS "A brute," and for a week Bill Clinton marched the brute around Washington for all to see. Only after the public viewing did he undertake to decide what to do about his most vexing foreign policy problem.

Action seemed imperative. The Bosnian Serbs had turned down the Vance-Owen peace plan and laid siege to a new brace of Muslim towns. Boris Yeltsin, his referendum victory safe, announced he would no longer shield the Serbs indiscriminately from "the will of the world." Former Secretary of State George Shultz, among others, counseled military force. People compared the Serbian aggression to the Holocaust, thus suggesting that intervention was a moral necessity. Meanwhile, Clinton consulted. Dozens of members of Congress, eyeing polls that said only 30% of the public supported air strikes, rejected the Holocaust comparison for one to the Vietnam quagmire. Others disagreed. The military's top brass debated publicly whether strikes, arming the Bosnians, or the creation of "safe havens" would work -- or lead to civilian deaths and American casualties. And suddenly the Serbs announced they would reconsider Vance-Owen -- while asking for territorial concessions. But on Saturday the Administration came to a decision anyway. It will remain private until Secretary of State Warren Christopher can finish consultations in Western Europe and Russia. That may be all the time the Serbs have to make the decision moot. (See related story on page 48.)