By limiting U.S. troop deployments, the Bush administration sends encouragement to Albanian terrorists. To the people of the Balkans who so earnestly seek peace and stability it sends an insult that will only create disillusion and division.
Crisis looms again in the Balkans.
On the other side, Yugoslav and Macedonian authorities try to quell these threats to the fragile status quo. It sounds like Kosovo all over again. In 1999, Serbian atrocities and President Milosevic's intransigence prompted military intervention by NATO to protect ethnic Albanians. The war, humanitarian relief, and subsequent civilian and military missions to govern Kosovo were expensive, and the United States bore a heavy share. Now violence has broken out again to the south and west.