NEWS ANALYSIS : U.S. Officials Heartened--at Least for Now

WASHINGTON —  U.S. officials now expect NATO to achieve at least ragged compliance with its demand for withdrawal of the Bosnian Serb howitzers and other heavy weapons that have rained random death on Sarajevo for almost two years.

And respite for Bosnia’s battered capital is likely to be accomplished without an immediate need for allied air strikes.

But the unsteady cease-fire in the snow-encrusted mountains above Sarajevo is not expected to last more than two or three months at best.

Renewed fighting, when it comes, will probably include not only a resumption of the shelling that has claimed 10,000 lives in the besieged capital but also a determined ground offensive by numerically superior Muslim forces that have heretofore been defensive underdogs.

New fighting by Croat troops seeking to recapture lost ground and stabilize their positions in Bosnia is also expected.

As a result, with Monday’s deadline for compliance with the U.N. and NATO ultimatum in Sarajevo close at hand, the assessments that are guiding the Clinton Administration run nearly parallel with those of analysts on the ground in Bosnia and elsewhere: a bittersweet mixture of surprising optimism for the short term and deep-seated pessimism for the long term.

“At best, the West has provided an interval of sanity for Sarajevo. But the war will continue,” said a congressional source, echoing the thinking of officials inside the U.S. government. “The factors required to make all the parties believe that peace is in their best interest at the same time simply aren’t there yet.”

Bosnian Serb leaders want to avoid an outright armed clash with allied air power and will comply with the ultimatum enough to avoid such attacks. Their ultimate goals will not change, however.

“For the immediate future, we’re likely to get cooperation. But whether within a month or even sooner, all sides will begin a testing period to see what they can get away with,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, former assistant undersecretary of defense for policy planning and now senior strategist at the RAND Corp.

Moreover, even immediate respite for the dispirited citizens of Sarajevo--welcome as it will be in psychological and humanitarian terms--is not likely to end the grim work of “ethnic cleansing” by Serb nationalists using terror, harassment and persecution against Muslims elsewhere in Bosnia.

Nor will lifting the siege of Sarajevo bring automatic relief for dozens of cities and towns lacking the symbolic prominence of the long-suffering capital.

The plight of the 40,000 Muslims trapped in Srebrenica will not change, nor will that of the 150 Canadian soldiers serving as the encircled town’s human shield.

And Bosnian Serb forces still operate deadly artillery cordons around the predominantly Muslim cities of Gorazde, Zepa, Maglaj and Bihac. So far, they are believed to have held back from wholesale killings and expulsions primarily to stave off the kind of punitive actions that NATO is threatening for Bosnian Serb gunners above Sarajevo. But such enclaves remain highly vulnerable.

Already, angry Serbian leaders in Belgrade and in the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Pale have warned that Western intervention might widen the Balkans conflict, rather than contain it.

“We are openly telling everyone: In case of air strikes, all foreigners who find themselves on our territory will become hostages,” Gen. Manojlo Milovanovic, the Bosnian Serb army chief of staff, was quoted as warning in the latest edition of the Serbian weekly Intervju. “Those include International Red Cross and (U.N. relief) workers and, sadly, journalists too.”

The defiant rebel leader also threatened “massacre of international representatives” in Muslim enclaves, an apparent reference to the Canadians in Srebrenica.

Most of the hundreds of aid workers and 12,000 U.N. troops deployed throughout Bosnia could be moved to more secure areas as a precaution against their becoming targets for retaliation. But some have recently been reminded of their vulnerability.

Five officials of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees office in the northern Serb stronghold of Banja Luka were prevented from leaving Serb-held territory last week on the pretext of having failed to apply for travel permission.

A UNHCR official conceded privately, however, that the agency interpreted the incident as an attempt by the Bosnian Serbs to keep potential hostages within their grasp.

Real as such dangers are, what will bring short-term relief to Sarajevo, if it comes, will be the punishing potential of NATO air attacks.

NATO has amassed more than 200 combat aircraft and a flotilla of warships around the Adriatic Sea in its biggest show of force since the 1991 allied strike against Iraq.

Alliance officials have not said publicly when and how they would strike against recalcitrant Bosnian Serb gunners who defied the 1 a.m. Monday (4 p.m. Sunday PST) deadline for withdrawal.

But senior Western military officials have indicated that they might target command posts, ammunition bases and other strategic sites as well as the heavy artillery emplacements retained in defiance of the withdrawal order.

Such strikes would likely do more to shackle the Bosnian Serb war machine than would direct hits at artillery, because communications with rebel commanders throughout Bosnia would be frustrated and vital lines of supply broken.

If Monday’s deadline does in fact bring an acceptable level of Bosnian Serb compliance without allied air strikes, the next critical period is expected to come in late March, as the spring thaws and longer hours make fighting easier and as the U.N. peacekeeping mandates in both Bosnia and Croatia are up for renewal.

The Clinton Administration, congressional sources and other experts all predict a series of violations before there is any significant or lasting progress on a peace settlement.

After an interval, in this view, the Bosnian Serbs will resume their cat-and-mouse game of testing U.N. resolve by secretly moving weapons back near Sarajevo and resuming the bombardment.

For their part, the Muslims are equally unlikely to use the long-awaited end to fighting in the Bosnian capital to seek a settlement.

Western government leaders have been saying for months that they want a viable Bosnian state to emerge from partitioning talks underway in Geneva.

But an apparently successful U.N. ultimatum will embolden the Muslim forces to go on the offensive in an effort to recover more territory, it is believed.

“During the past six months, Muslims and Croat forces have initiated much of the combat in Bosnia, and that’s not likely to change, regardless of the action to secure Sarajevo,” the congressional source noted.

Muslim troops were considered elite in the army of the former Yugoslav federation, according to U.S. officials. They are also more numerous.

Bosnian Serb forces have been able to seize large sectors of Bosnia largely because of vastly superior armaments and disorganization among the Muslims.

The Muslims have carried out an effective reorganization of their forces and, while almost completely lacking in heavy weapons, have plenty of small arms and ammunition.

“With their superior numbers, the Muslims now have a chance to dominate on the ground. And there are sections of greater Sarajevo and other areas of Bosnia that they might try to take to enhance the size of their region,” Khalilzad said.

The wild card is the Croatians. On the one hand, Croatia holds the key to a major Muslim demand--access to the Adriatic Sea for the landlocked state.

But Bosnian Croats have also been losing territory to the Muslims in recent weeks, leading Croatia to dispatch its troops into Bosnia. Well in excess of 5,000 Croatian troops have joined their ethnic brethren to fight Muslim forces.

And although the Croatian-Serbian front has been comparatively quiet recently, it remains highly unstable.

The Clinton Administration, congressional sources and U.S. experts all anticipate some kind of renewed fighting to sort out the boundaries of a larger Serbia and a more abbreviated Croatia.

“We’ve decided to use a large cannon to secure a small target because the target--Sarajevo--is important. But there’s a great deal more of Bosnia to worry about. The current arrangements are not likely to either stabilize or eliminate this problem,” another congressional source said.

Wright reported from Washington and Williams from Ancona, Italy.