CROCODILE TEARS

Anne Applebaum says that

pretending to care is worse than doing nothing at all

ONCE, serious books about diplomacy and politics were liable to contain sentences like this: 'The antithesis of utopia and real- ity — a balance always swinging towards and away from equilibrium and never attaining it — is a fundamental antithesis revealing itself in many forms of thought.'

So began E.H. Carr's worthy discussion of the philosophy of international relations, published in 1939. Utopia v. reality, theory V. practice, intellectuals v. bureaucrats: these are the categories which he used to explain the events of the previous 20 years.

One can also instantly recognise the advocates of realpolitik, the men who saw the world as a cold place where the fuzzy

dreams of intellectuals had no importance beside the imperatives of national interest and balance-of-power politics. Men like Bismarck had been realists, but so were Churchill and Stalin. Although perfectly willing to cloak their intentions in the lan- guage of universal justice, neither was averse to the secret diplomacy which Wil- son so abhorred, and neither left either national interest or balances of power out of their calculations.

Since then, there has been a certain evo-

lution in the world of diplomacy. The real- ists and idealists still exist in various forms, but they have been joined by a new sort of politician, men who are perhaps best called pseudo-moralists. Pseudo-moralists are a curious breed. They fit into no intellectual categories, and they support no particular philosophies. They often sound like ideal- ists, but their language masks either an inability or an unwillingness to undertake any meaningful action whatsoever. They often affect to be realists, but in fact do not confront political problems head on, even in secret. They take rhetorical risks but not actual risks, they implement 'neutral' humanitarian policies, but avoid political decisions.

One of the clearest, and most familiar, signs of pseudo-moralism is fervent revolu- tionary rhetoric, accompanied by equally Loose rhetoric is not the only tool of the pseudo-moralist, however. After the Kur- dish debacle, it was felt that, although marching to Baghdad still made everybody nervous, something had to be done to sal- vage the reputation of the Gulf war. So we had Operation Provide Comfort, blankets and food for starving Kurdish children, John Major's safe havens, and a UN-sanc- tioned No-Fly Zone imposed over northern Iraq. Yet however humanitarian it was in practice, however big-hearted Operation Provide Comfort appeared to television viewers back home in America and Britain, it failed, once again, to provide any long- term answer to the question of the stateless Kurds. Northern Iraq is still 'temporarily' occupied by western troops — not as if that prevents the Turkish army from invading the same territory, as it has already, any time it wants to — and Kurdish terrorism is increasing. Operation Provide Comfort served only one clear political purpose: Adam Roberts, the professor of Interna- tional Relations at Oxford, has pointed out that 'not the least of its remarkable achievements was the degree of comfort which it provided in the countries which organised it'.

At the time, Operation Provide Comfort was widely described as a 'model' relief operation. It did indeed become a model in Somalia, where politicians once again tried to find a neutral, 'humanitarian' solution to a political problem — namely, the effective disintegration of an African country. This time, the rhetoric was different: toned down, apolitical, and pseudo-moral. From the very beginning of the American inter- vention in January 1993, the American leaders who instigated Operation Restore Hope were careful to make their neutrali- ty clear. This was to be a purely humanitari- an operation. 'We do not plan to dictate political outcomes. We respect your sovereignty and independence,' George Bush told the Somali people.

This was a dishonest statement: there can be nothing apolitical about sending heavily armed Americans into a poor African country, and nothing neutral about the distribution of food during wartime when food is scarce. But because President Bush did not acknowledge this reality the Somalia mission has become increasingly confused. Inevitably, bribes were paid to some local warlords. Inevitably, the Ameri- cans — and then the UN commanders who followed them — became caught up in local politics. Inevitably, attempts to 'paci- fy' the situation by shooting a few belliger- ents led local people to focus their anger on local white people, like the handful of journalists who died during riots a few weeks ago. A 'humanitarian mission' has now become a peace-enforcement mission which no one wants to sanction, and which has no conclusion in sight: again, it pro- vides no long-term political solutions.

But in retrospect Operation Restore Hope and Operation Provide Comfort seem very successful, when their failures are compared to the damage which the pseudo-moralists have done in Bosnia From the earliest days of that war, at least two distinct sets of policies were available to western leaders. On the one hand, they could have taken a strong moral and legal stand, advocating the idea that Bosnia — a member of the United Nations — should remain a unified state, and providing politi- cal and military support for that idea: by bombing Serbian supply lines, or perhaps by simply allowing the legitimate leaders of Bosnia to purchase weapons on interna- tional markets. On the other hand, the West could have announced that a unitary Bosnia was unnecessary and undesirable from the point of view of western national interests, and refused to provide the Bosni- ans with any form of support — offering, perhaps, to negotiate the division of the country instead.

Instead of making this choice, two Amer- ican Presidents, a French President, a Ger- man Chancellor and a British Prime minister took a different path. They gave rhetorical support to the idea of an inde- pendent, unified Bosnia, recognised the country and deplored efforts made to destroy it, but at the same time refused to lend it political and military support. They took the moral risk, in other words, but not the political risk, and as a result they dam- aged the cause which they claimed to advo- cate. The endless threatened interventions, coming from the European Community, the American President, and the United Nations, certainly helped to keep the Bosnians fighting; the endless failure of those bodies to make good their threats certainly emboldened the Serbs. Because both sides were encouraged by western behaviour, neither was willing to negotiate properly until the war was effectively over.

Instead of a policy, the West provided humanitarian aid. Certainly, western food and medicine saved many lives; just as cer- tainly, western food and medicine also helped prolong the war. In order to drive through barricades and across battle lines, UN troops had to pay bribes to local com- manders — thereby providing funding for the war effort. In order to bring food to civilians, British and French troops also made themselve into policy hostages, pre- venting Britain and France from posing any credible military threat to the Bosnian Serbs. Food aid also helped prolong the sieges of several Muslim cities, including Sarajevo. Perhaps it would have been kinder to withhold it, and let the war end more quickly.

Instead of a policy, the West sponsored negotiations. From the early stages, these too were infected with pseudo-morality: the negotiators were, to start with, con- cerned almost exclusively with cease-fires. No one discussed the sources of the war, preferring to adapt instead to what was happening on the ground; Lord Owen and Cyrus Vance helpfully produced a map meant to reflect the status quo, but in the end the absence of western political sup- port for their efforts destroyed the negotia- tors' credibility anyway.

Even Lord Owen admitted last week that 'like many things in diplomacy, the cocked pistol is better than the smoking gun. To some extent this is a matter of bluff, but in order to be effective you have to be pre- pared to do it.' Jonathan Eyal of the Royal United Services Institute points out that the negotiation process was used by the belligerents, particularly Serbia and Croat- ia, to probe one another's military inten- tions. The negotiators became, in other words, pawns of the warlords.

Instead of a policy, there have also been gestures, usually in response to pictures on television. A year ago, a wave of loud con- demnations and references to the Holo- caust followed journalists' revelations of ethnic cleansing and concentration camps; these gradually ebbed, as the Bosnians were judged to be insufficiently innocent victims. Over the last week, emergency flights and medical supplies have been pro- vided to combat newspaper photographs of dying babies; these too will presumably fade away, perhaps when the babies are discovered to come from families which are also involved in fighting the war. Ultimate- ly, such gestures are not only cynical, but also damaging, because they seem to offer more hope to the Bosnians than they are intended to provide.

At least, if there had been some genuine humanitarian feeling behind the many humanitarian missions of the last several years, it might be possible to feel genuine sympathy for the many politicians whose policies failed in Bosnia — the way one always feels rather sorry for Woodrow Wil- son, in retrospect. But, in the end, the cyni- cism remains more memorable than the missions themselves. Who can forget the sight of American marines landing on Somali beaches in the dead of night, emerging from the water in the light of blinking flash-bulbs? Or the sound of Bill Clinton renewing his promise to 'do some- thing' about Yugoslavia only after discover- ing that bombing Baghdad increased his approval ratings? Last week, after the British medical teams complained about the 41 wounded adults whom the UN had supplied for evacuation, the UN spokeswoman in Geneva put her finger on the problem: 'Maybe Britain wants only children under six, or blonde children, or blue-eyed children?' In the end, the British rescue mission only discredited western policy in Bosnia further, as the Sarajevans struggled to understand why, at this point in the war, with thousands of people dead and wounded, with the city close to col- lapse, RAF commanders should be scour- ing the streets for wounded babies whose pictures could appear on the front pages of tabloid newspapers.

When the Bosnian war is over, the pseu- do-moralists will defend themselves by reverting to pseudo-realism. Already, there are three versions of this argument in cir- culation. One of them was voiced by William Zimmermann, the former Ameri- can ambassador to Yugoslavia. 'The best and ablest people in the world community have addressed themselves to your prob- lems,' he told the Bosnians. Having addressed themselves superficially to the problem, in other words, the best and the ablest feel that everything has been tried, that nothing better can be done: the con- ceit and self-satisfaction which it requires to say such a thing defies description.

The second form of pseudo-realism is the 'it's not worth American/ British lives' argument, which is one which many people agree with. But, if this were true, why were the lives of British peace-keepers risked? And why was this policy constantly contra- 'dieted by threats of American interven- tion?

The third form of pseudo-realism is pseudo-realpolitik: Douglas Hurd's argu- ment that because Bosnia will serve as an example to the rest of the world, the West should not intervene there, lest similar nations expect a similar sort of support when they have difficulties with large neighbours in the future. We want it under- stood now, in other words, that when the Russians invade northern Estonia or east- ern Ukraine, the West will do nothing. So much for credible psychological deterrents, so much for new worlds orders, so much for peace in Europe.

In fact, the western failure in Bosnia is going to provide encouragement for the invasion-minded for quite a long time.By placing their moral beliefs and legal theo- ries on the line, and by then failing to come up with the necessary political support for those beliefs and theories — by willing the ends, in other words, but not the means— the body of nations which we call the West have discredited themselves in the eyes of others. Whatever prestige western ideals might have won by the victory over the Soviet Union has now dissipated in a wave of cynicism. Whatever respect western weaponry might have attained during the Gulf war has now dissolved amidst suspi- cions of western cowardice. The West, as such, no longer stands for anything; threats made by what is called the 'international community', a body dominated by western nations, will in future be meaningless.

But there has always been something particularly despicable about moral hypocrisy disguised as neutrality. Fifty years ago, George Orwell was irked by the views of certain wartime pacifists, the pseu- do-moralists of their time. He penned a long response in verse, and the end is worth repeating today:

But for the half-way saint and cautious hero, Whose head's unbloody even if unbowed, My admiration's somewhere near to zero; So my last words would be: Come off that cloud, Unship those wings that hardly dared to flitter, And spout your halo for a pint of bitter.