Not long ago, millions of its citizens, particularly young ones upon whom the Clinton Administration based its certitudes about a pro-American Russia, saw the United States as an exemplar of civilized political conduct. Now most of them see us as barbarians in the sky. We must prove they are wrong by stopping the bombing of Yugoslavia before the necessary political settlement is even harder to achieve, before the only peace is that of the graveyard and moral redemption is impossible. War is not an optional extra of diplomatic policy, or a gesture of irritation at being unable to impose one's own power. Least of all is war a good way of making peace.
Most wars leave their original objectives far behind.
Already Nato's original objectives of enforcing the Rambouillet agreement and preventing the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo are dead and almost forgotten. The diplomatic, military and political strategies have all been misconceived. The Balkans have been at war for as long as human history has been recorded, and Balkan wars have an equally long record of atrocities. The only prolonged periods of peace have been those in which a strong empire has imposed stability. The Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and Soviet empires were able in their time to keep the peace in the Balkans, but when each of these empires went into decline, the ethnic wars started again.