Much like Bosnia, ultimatums came and went, and the slaughter only got worse. President Clinton had no good choices left, only this one. Force having been used, NATO for its own and the Kosovars' sake must succeed.
Force changes the course of events in unforeseen and unpredictable ways.
The Gulf War was not, as forecast, a bloody quagmire, but a 100-hour walkover. No one foresaw the subsequent eight-year stalemate. Kosovo is work that the United States and its European allies left unfinished when Yugoslavia violently imploded. The bloody mathematics of ethnic killing are such that the two sides, Serbian troops and Kosovar guerrillas, will have to be separated, forcibly if necessary. NATO, with the United States in the lead, should not shrink from the use of ground troops.