Molly Ivins March 28

AUSTIN, Texas — It may be that Texans are the only Americans who can understand how the Serbs feel about Kosovo.

I bring up this unlikely proposition to shed light on at least one corner of this Rubik's-Cube-with-no-solution of a foreign-policy mess. At this point, most of us would probably agree with an observation once made by former Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis: "There's a lot of uncertainty that's not clear in my mind." And as Lewis also once said, this has "far-reaching ramifistations."

According to The New York Times, "Kosovo is fundamentally different in the minds of many Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia. It is a treasured part of Serbian tradition, the site of a glorious medieval defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Turks." I suspect that the correspondent was being snide, and I can see the rest of the country boggling at the idea of a treasured, glorious defeat. In Texas, of course, we need only two words: the Alamo.

It is not inconceivable that at some future time, when nine out of 10 South Texans are Hispanic, as nine out of 10 Kosovars are Albanian today, South Texas might want to split off from the rest of the state. And there we'd be: unable to let them have the Alamo. As ahistorical as Americans so famously are, sometimes the sacrifices of the ancestors speak even to us.

Not that the Alamo analogy will clarify the Kosovo bombing for you, any more than the Milosevic-is-Hitler analogy explains it all. Because this is one complicated little stinker of a problem. And the only thing you can be absolutely sure of is that anyone who tells you it's simple is an idiot.

In what may be the ultimate damned-if-we-do/damned-if-we-don't choice, the Clinton administration has chosen to Do Something rather than just sit around and let Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic once again carry out a campaign of "ethnic cleansing." The problem is that by Doing Something, we may well cause the two consequences we would least like to see.

The first is widespread slaughter of the Kosovars by the Serbs; there are already some indications that the paramilitary squads that did so much dirty work in Bosnia are starting to work in Kosovo as a response to the bombing. The other hideous consequence is, of course, Slobodan Milosevic forever.

I can rarely be persuaded that military intervention will help anything, but I do think there is a moral imperative here. And I think the main moral imperative is: "Get rid of Milosevic." Unfortunately, as all the thoughtful correspondents on the ground have been pointing out, the bombing only cements support for Milosevic.

Even the democratic opposition feels it can no longer speak out; indeed, one school of thought is that Milosevic has been so obdurate precisely in order to bring about this scenario, which ensures his grip on power.

On the other hand, it's also possible that sustained bombing aimed at the military will inspire some general to turn on Milosevic. The only sure thing is that after it's all over, many people will be saying that they knew all along how it would turn out.

This has to be the toughest and closest call that the Clinton administration has made yet. This is a 51-49 call any way you look at it.

I checked on the right-wing radio talk shows just for the pleasure of NOT having to listen to anyone say, "Clinton is only doing this to take our minds off Monica Lewinsky." I am pleased to report on the consistency of Clinton haters: The new line is "Clinton is only doing this to take our minds off China."

One anti-intervention argument seems silly to me: "If Clinton really cared about human rights, he would have intervened in (Rwanda, China, Libya, name-your-poison)." Human rights issues may be universal, but what can be done about them is discrete.

American politics is already far too obsessed with blame games. "What can we do about it?" is a far more useful question than "Whose fault is this?" But in this complicated Balkan equation, there is a tragic history of missed opportunities.

David Binder of The New York Times, who knows the region well, says we muffed it in '90, '91, '92 and '96. The last occasion seems the saddest to me: For months in the winter of 1996-97, hundreds of thousands of brave Serbs demonstrated against Milosevic. Night after night in freezing weather, they came out to protest, knowing full well that they might be shot by government soldiers. And we did nothing to help them. Nothing. And now, we're bombing them — for their own good, of course.

It might have been a pleasant change to have a U.S. senator from Texas take a leading role against military involvement; we haven't seen a thing like that since Ralph Yarborough was in office. And there's certainly a case to be made against intervention.

Unfortunately, Kay Bailey Hutchison just embarrassed the state with her argument in the Senate. The thrust of it was that intervening in Kosovo would be a real bad thing, unlike the noble time that President Reagan intervened in Nicaragua on behalf of "freedom fighters." In case it has slipped your mind, the Reagan intervention in Nicaragua was (1) illegal, (2) secret and (3) paid for by selling arms to Iran.

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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