Waiting for Godot.

Last August, Susan Sontag, the American writer, went to Sarajevo to direct Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot. Against criticism that doing theater in the midst of a siege was an affront to the tragedy of the Sarajevans, Sontag replied that more than a few of them "feel strengthened and consoled by having their sense of reality affirmed and transfigured by art," and "far from it being frivolous to put on a play...it is a serious expression of normality." As for the choice of Godot, perhaps nothing could have been more emblematic: "During the long tragic silence of the Vladimirs and Estragons which follows the messenger' s announcement that Mr. Godot isn't coming today, but will surely come tomorrow,...my eyes begin to sting with tears .... No one in the audience made a sound" (New York Review of Books, October 21, 1993).

Sarajevo along with the other besieged Bosnian cities and towns have perhaps, after twenty-two months of war, developed a wholly other sense of reality than they had before the war. Was the silence of Sontag's audience a stunned recognition that hoping against the odds is a delusion, pure and simple? Or do they cling still to the improbable chance that Mr. Godot will come tomorrow, that Messrs. Clinton, Major, Mitterand will take a decisive step to lift the Serbian siege?

Last August threats of NATO attacks against Serbian artillery brought a respite from the shelling. But to no avail. The Bosnians refused the division of their country, the Owen-Vance plan devised by the European community. The Serbs and Croatians refused concessions that would have provided for the territorial and economic integrity of Bosnia, measures that would have allowed the country, if only in rump form, to actually function as an independent entity. The United States stood by the Bosnians. The Serbs resumed their shelling. The decision not to respond with NATO air strikes against the Serbs was buffed in obfuscating indecision. The siege continued.

The first weeks of February saw a flurry of renewed diplomatic activity and announcements focused once again on threats to permit NATO bombing of the Serb artillery pounding Sarajevo. Do the new calls for air attacks and a more public American presence at the Geneva talks presage a real breakthrough in lifting the siege? Or are they so much smoke and mirrors? Will heightened international scrutiny and a streamlined UN decision-making process for air attacks force the Serbs to stand down in Sarajevo? Or is all of this just a prelude to Western withdrawal from Bosnia?

It is very hard to sort through the information and disinformation that surround efforts both to advance and to paper over the differing goals of Europe and the United States in the former Yugoslavia. The warring factions--Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians--are themselves driven by internal differences. President Milosevic of Serbia has only a tenuous hold on the Serbian militias in Bosnia, yet his military continues to fight there and support the militias. President Tudjman of Croatia, who has played a double game with both Serbs and Bosnians, has allowed Croatian militias to undermine the alliance that Croats had maintained with Muslims in Herzegovina, the western part of the country. In the meantime, Muslim forces within the Bosnian army have increased by sheer dint of the number of refugees created by both Serb and Croat ethnic cleansing; the Muslims are fighting to return to their homes and villages. The Bosnians are being armed by the Arab states and there are reports of Islamic fighters, the mujahidin, in their midst; this cannot be good news for the moderates who now lead the government.

The situation in Bosnia becomes ever more desperate and a solution ever more elusive. That is why the current flurry of threats and maneuvers may turn out to be a shield behind which Britain and France are working toward the withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping force. The United States has been drawn in on the European side, at least in this sense: we will now be the ones pressuring the Bosnians to settle. If we are not careful, this could well mean that the Serbs and with them the Croats will declare victory and annex what they have gained through ethnic cleansing. Not only would this give ex post facto approval of aggression, it would guarantee that the Bosnian army, now largely Muslim, would begin a protracted guerrilla war to win back their homes. Though there is little possibility of an agreement that would restore the pre-war boundaries, the terms of a settlement must insure the government and people of Bosnia a politically and economically viable state.

If the February initiatives are anything other than one last show of resolve on the part of the West, and if the Serbs do not observe the terms of the UN-NATO ultimatum, there must certainly be air strikes against Serb artillery. UN troops must extend the buffer around Sarajevo sufficiently to end Serbian attacks. And then the siege of Sarajevo must be lifted by removing the Serb roadblocks that surround the city. Eventually this process will need to be repeated in other besieged cities and towns. The Serbs must eventually concede territory and grant recognition to the Bosnian government.

In order for this to happen, the Serbs must know that Europe and the Unites States are deadly serious, and that what they threaten will be carried out. Air attacks on supply routes, including bridges that join Serbian-held Bosnia to Serbia, may become necessary. Nor should such attacks against Croatian supply routes be ruled out. Weapons, at least defensive ones, must be supplied the Bosnian army. And finally there should be a threat (with intent to carry through) of increasing UN forces, including probably U.S. ground forces. What this adds up to is a gradual, but inexorable series of threats and carry-throughs that will convince the Serbs they have nothing further to gain in Bosnia, and much to lose. All of this must be done in a manner that will convince all of the parties, Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs, that they have extracted as much as they can from war. Of course, this policy may fail.

But what is the alternative to a firm commitment? If NATO and the UN are not prepared to enforce their will, if the allied forces simply withdraw, there is no reason to believe that Serb forces will rest content with their gains to date. We could see a further swallowing up of territory, accompanied by more large-scale slaughter, especially of the citizens of Sarajevo, Tuzla, and other besieged Bosnian enclaves. The implication for any sort of tolerable world order would be disastrous.

Is President Clinton capable of standing behind a firm policy? Is anyone in his administration? Does the United States actually have a foreign policy? We shall see.

We are all waiting for Godot.