RIGHT OF CENTER: ARMS EMBARGO RAISES STICKY QUESTIONS

With the Senate's vote this week to lift the arms embargo in Bosnia, fighting between government forces and rebel Serbs is bound to escalate. So too will the death toll mount. But the alternative, genocide and acquiescence in slavery, demand the embargo's end.

The House already approved a measure to lift the embargo, which prohibits the Bosnian government from protecting its citizens from the well-armed rebel Serbs, and the 69-29 Senate vote this week likely will fend off President Clinton's veto threat.

The United States' unilateral action to lift the embargo contrasts with the international coalition former President George Bush forged against Iraq's Saddam Hussein in 1990. But then Bill Clinton is no George Bush when it comes to foreign policy. President Clinton has opposed lifting the embargo. He contends the best hope for an end to the hostilities in the former Yugoslavia is to negotiate a settlement between the Serbs and the Bosnian government.

That an end to the arms embargo by the United States will prompt a withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia is obvious. United Nations withdrawal, and the arming of Bosnian forces, might turn the region into killing fields for a drawn-out civil war.

It's that blood-letting that so offends President Clinton. After all, since the arms embargo was enacted, the death toll from the war in Bosnia has dropped significantly. That's why he wants the embargo intact until the United Nations can broker a peace deal. But what would a settlement mean for Bosnia?

By preventing the Bosnian government from arming its troops, the United Nations has assured Serb superiority and given tacit consent to the modern genocide against the Muslim people of Bosnia. Thus the Serbs will benefit from any U.N. peace deal at Bosnia's expense. Should the Bosnian government simply concede all the territory the Serbs already have taken by force? Or should it be given the opportunity to determine its own fate?

The U.N. track record in Bosnia shows it is unable not only to protect Bosnian citizens in U.N. "safe areas" but also is incapable of keeping U.N. peacekeepers out of harm's way. The Bosnian government is left with the grim choice between conceding Serb demands for a settlement to end the conflict or pay the price of self-determination in Bosnian blood.

The question remains whether Americans will watch idly the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people in Bosnia. It's important, then, that the United States begin to consider what interests it has in the Balkans. The next step is to define a sure way to protect those interests. If that means U.S. military intervention in Bosnia, so be it. But we haven't yet reached that point. If we do, President Clinton and the Congress must ensure that U.S. forces answer only to the U.S. and not be subject to U.N. incompetence.

It is naive to think our nation's inaction reaps any fewer consequences than its actions. By lifting the embargo, the United States gains short-term satisfaction, realizing it no longer will impede Bosnia's efforts to protect its citizens. Less gratifying is the knowledge that the action might propel us into a conflict to which we now have only tenuous ties.

We must be mindful that the decision to resist evil in the world always bears a cost. We paid a price in the middle of this century when we hesitatingly intervened in the Pacific and in faraway Europe. Neither was our 40-year-long Cold War with the Soviet Union inexpensive.

We needn't intervene in Bosnia only because our nation is best able to resolve the conflict. Our actions must instead depend on what is right. By lifting the arms embargo now, we can come down on the side of morality and humanity. It's too early to tell where that choice will lead.

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.