BOSNIAN ISSUE HINGES ON CONFIDENCE IN PRESIDENT'S POLICY

After a campaign notable for its failure even to reach serious issues of foreign policy, reality intrudes on us once again. A re-elected President Bill Clinton faces the tough question of what to do with American troops in Bosnia. The president had frequently promised that he would have American troops out of Bosnia by Dec. 20, just one year after their mission began.

The fighting has stopped, but implementing other aspects of the U.S.-mediated peace accord reached last Nov. 21 has been patchy and sluggish. This means a substantial multinational military force, most likely led by NATO, must remain through all of next year at the very least, and possibly for years beyond that as well. There are 12,000 U.S. troops in the NATO-led peace force, and they are expected to leave on time. But a covering force of approximately 5,000 additional U.S. soldiers, now taking up positions to assist withdrawal of the current force, will be in Bosnia until March.

This lag in the military mission only reflects the lag in achieving the goals of the peace accord reached last year in Dayton, Ohio. The NATO-led force has stopped the fighting, separated the armies and put some of their weapons under lock and key. Still, a year after the fighting ceased, war crimes suspects are still on the loose. Fewer than 250,000 of Bosnia's 2 million-plus refugees have returned to their homes. Millions of land mines still litter Bosnia. Although national elections have been held, there is neither a functioning central government nor other national institutions. Most of the promised $1.8 billion in international aid has yet to arrive.

With this multiplicity of problems in the Balkans, diplomats say foreign troops are still needed to make peace more than an absence of fighting. Peacekeeping "is a long-term job," said one official working to enforce the accord. "We need time and we need an international military force on the ground to back the process."

Indeed. It appears that when American troops were committed to the powder keg known as the Balkans, they were being committed for the long term. Americans would feel better about this dangerous aspect of foreign policy if they had any confidence that the president and his foreign-policy aides had thought it through to what, exactly, their end game is. Expect American troops to remain in Bosnia for years to come.