MISSOURI COMMENTARY: THEY MYTH OF DAYTON, THE REALITIES KNOWN

The current party line is that President Bill Clinton will have his difficulties in dealing with a Republican Congress, but his agony will be offset by the ecstasy of exercising his presidential authority over foreign affairs. Clinton came to the White House unversed in international matters. He declared that his primary mandate was to focus on the domestic issues that caused him to be elected, the economy and health care.

The economy is, for the time being, stable -- thanks in party to Clinton and Alan Greenspan. Although Clinton's plan for a comprehensive national health care system was crushed in 1994, health care as an issue survives in the form of the funding and reform of Medicare.

Foreign policy, however, may not be pure ecstasy in the second term. One of the great achievements of Clinton's first four years wil crop up as a headache in the second administration. The Dayton Agreement, premised on a couple of myths, will fail in its central purpose of creating one nation-state of Bosnia comprised of Muslims, Croats and Serbs.

The Dayton agreement called for the United States and its NATO allies to send a military force to separate the warring parties. that part of the accord has been a success. The unrealistic premises of Dayton, however, were the notions that (1) the NATO force could be withdrawn at the end of 1996 because (2) the rival ethnic groups would then be prepared to live in an unmonitored peace.

Such prompt, miraculous reconciliation was never achievable. An early withdrawal date may have been a necessity to sell the plan initially in America and the other NATO allies, but it was a complete unreality in the context of the facts on the ground in Bosnia.

Bosnia is no closer to harmony today than it was a year ago. There is no cohesive effort to establish even the bare bones of a multi-ethnic national government. There is no major effort to resettle refugees in their previous places of residence. The Dayton policy of downsizing armaments in all ethnic sectors of Bosnia while simultaneously re-arming and re-training the Muslim forces, has thus, far been a flop. Cooperation between the Muslims and Croats -- ordained at Dayton to be partners of convenience -- has never occurred.

Bosnia is de facto partitioned and awaits the day when this reality is official recognized by the world community. There is no putting Bosnia back together again. The hatreds run too deep. The horrors are too fresh. The political will is not there.

A follow-on NATO force with a new name has to go to Bosnia to perform the same function as the original force., Without a NATO presence, war would most likely break out again -- first in isolated encounters and then escalating on a grander scale.

The political picture has not altered. The antagonists are fundamentally the same. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are no longer the front men in the Bosnia Serb Repulika Srpska, but their intransigent policies march on. The Bosnian Serbs are determined to create a pure Serb region and to be a part of Greater Serbia. The only question is one of timing.

The Croats harbor similar aspirations. President Franjo Tudjman is considered something of a moderate on the spectrum of Croatian nationalism. He was willing to go along with the Dayton agreement as a way of achieving a cease-fire and a way of pleasing Western Europe of which he deems Croatia to be a part. Tudjman did not surrender his life-long aspiration that the Croatian part of Bosnia should some day be part of the motherland. He simply was willing to be patient a bit longer than some of his countrymen.

Unless NATO forces remain in Bosnia on a near permanent basis, the country will some day fly apart. Reality will be sanctified in new nation-state boundaries. The Muslims will be aggressively unhappy.

During the presence of the follow-on force in Bosnia, the NATO allies will have to recognize that the myths of Dayton are not sustainable over time. Clinton would not want to go into the 1998 Congressional elections with a request of yet another follow-on force. Having won a big victory in 1996, he is entitled to one extra helping. Two would be one too many.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.