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The greatest irony of this situation, of course, is that for a decade Milosevic was supposed to be the antidote for war in the Balkans. In deal after deal, Western diplomats worked with him whenever his false promises offered a cheap, if distasteful way out of crisis after crisis. Now we are paying the price for thinking he was ever a man the West could do business with.
After the campaign's first moves, NATO is staring at a very real possibility of humiliation. Milosevic can crow: he has expelled hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from sacred Serb soil; he has destabilized his Balkan neighbors; he has considering the takeover of Montenegro; he is pushing ahead with plans for a show trial of the three captive American soldiers. Against that, NATO's tally looks meager. And the geopolitical consequences of continuing to bomb are also piling up: deep strains with Russia; the possible chain reaction of instability in Macedonia and Albania; and above all the terrible tide of human misery flooding out of Kosovo. In fact, for Milosevic, the refugees have become his most potent offensive weapon, distracting NATO's leaders as they struggle to find a way to deal with hundreds of thousands of displaced persons.
To all that, Bill Clinton counsels patience "if we expect to see this mission through." NATO vows that the bombing will go on, day after day, week after week, until Milosevic cries uncle. But what if, having gobbled up Kosovo, he simply stops fighting and declares victory instead? How will patience cope with that?
--With reporting by Massimo Calabresi/Belgrade, Ed Barnes/Podgorica, James L. Graff/Brussels, Thomas Sancton/Paris and Mark Thompson and Douglas Waller/Washington