So it was, on paper. That fiction can be maintained, barely, while American troops remain. When they leave, as they were initially scheduled to next month, it will collapse. Bosnia's tripartite division, which the accords ratified, is far along. Haris Siladzic, the leader of the Party of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the only political leader who believed in a multiethnic democracy, was beaten in June 1996 by an Islamist mob for his pluck.
Human rights are in no better shape.
Under Dayton, refugees have the right to return to their original homes. But barely anyone has returned. And it took American and Russian troops to quell fighting in Koraj last month when Muslims who returned to the area were attacked by Bosnian Serbs. The best-case scenario in Bosnia is that U.S. forces manage to prevent a new upsurge in ethnic violence even as partition goes ahead. An arms race looms.