By A.M. ROSENTHAL
In just one secret move, President Clinton did the following
things:
Made a decision, critical militarily and politically, over the
head of Congress and behind the back of the United Nations.
Double-crossed America's closest allies on a matter of the lives of
their own troops. Strengthened the terrorist power of Iran, the
country Washington and foreign offices around the world believe is
the principal sponsor of international terrorism. Cut straight
across America's own policy of trying to contain Iran absolutely
contrary to it. Damaged, perhaps beyond repair, U.S. efforts to get
friendly nations to help the containment at economic cost to
themselves.
These results came from Clinton's secret decision in 1994
surreptitious is more accurate to give a silent nod that
encouraged Croatia to become an open highway for shipments of
Iranian arms and military trainers to the Muslim-led Bosnian
government then at war with the Bosnian Serbs.
Now that the war is at least temporarily over, the longer-term
and even more important results of the decision are becoming clear.
But the major result has not sunk into the consciousness of
Congress, press or public.
Clinton opened the way for Teheran to achieve the one thing it
wanted most from the Bosnian war, the same thing that Europeans
feared most: a militant-Islamic Iranian base in Europe. Iran
quickly established a terrorist center and dispatch point and a
political haven in Europe, in the most unstable area on the
Continent.
Now Iran and the Bosnian government are using in peacetime the
Iranian power and presence that came with the weapons and the
specialists accompanying them.
Iran is the major foreign political presence in Bosnia. Iranian
soldiers barely disguised as volunteer guerrillas run training
centers and carry out terrorist missions. Iranians have trained
Bosnians in an Iranian speciality death squads created to operate
on foreign soil.
One target is Fikret Abdic, a Muslim now in exile in Croatia. He
is an opponent of Islamic militancy, and in 1990 outpolled Alija
Izetbegovic for the presidency but was squeezed out of the post.
When the war started, Abdic led Bosnian Muslims who were in armed
opposition to Izetbegovic. The Western press consistently and
erroneously uses the Bosnian government's propaganda epithet for
Muslims who opposed Izetbegovic renegade.
The specific Clinton decision was to tell Croatia that
Washington had no policy about Iran's request to send large
shipments of weapons through Croatia to Bosnia. That is diplomatic
code for "go ahead and do the dirty work." Ever since The Los
Angeles Times broke the story, Clinton has refused to disclose
documents and told his aides to keep their mouths shut, tight.
We can assume what made the Clinton administration carry out
this colossal deception of its own public, the United Nations and
its allies. He not only broke the U.N. embargo, which he had said
the United States must never do, but did it without getting the
agreement of Britain, France and other countries. They had said
they would pull their troops out of Bosnia if arms from anywhere,
let alone terrorist Iran, flowed to the Muslims.
Clinton wanted to help the Bosnian Muslims in their war against
the Bosnian Serbs, without committing American troops or openly
sending arms. There was an honorable way to act inform our allies
and break the embargo publicly, over their objections. The
administration's choice was to do it with cowardice aforethought
go ahead, but keep us out of it. (A side result: He put his secret,
and honor, in the hands of Iran and Croatia, which grow in mutual
cooperation.)
Presidents have taken secret military actions before. But when
Reagan, for instance, approved the arming of the Nicaraguan
contras, and Nixon the bombing of Cambodia, at least they thought
they were helping causes they were fighting for. I cannot think of
another case where a president made a secret deal that would so
predictably damage his own cause as Clinton did to the containment
of Iran.
Maybe the Clinton people thought they would never be found out.
Maybe they thought that would make it all right. Many people talk
themselves into that. Most of them are children, one way or
another.
End quote.