The essence of tragedy is blindness. The tragic figure believes that he is free. He thinks that his motives are unimpeachable, that his actions spontaneous, and that he can foresee the results of his behavior. But on all counts he is deceived. His activities really conform to a preordained pattern. His motives are hidden even from himself. And the consequences of this failure to perceive are not only bloody and chaotic, they embody the exact sort of bloody chaos that he was certain, in his hubris, he could avoid.
Oedipus Rex, meet Bill Clinton. By taking sides in the violent struggle between Serbian unionists and Kosovar secessionists, the United States and its NATO allies have blinded themselves to patterns as old as fate, but far more avoidable. The Westerners claim to act purely out of humanitarian motives, in order to rescue the Albanian Kosovars from Serbian brutality. But they do not seem aware that one can enact a classically imperialist role while seeming to pursue only humane objectives.
Among the Allies, the almost inconceivable bloodletting of World War I was pictured as a response to Germany’s “rape of Belgium” rather than as a product of the Great Powers’ struggle for global domination. The American seizure of Cuba was supported by a great wave of popular revulsion against the genuine atrocities committed by Spanish troops against Cuban independence fighters. And in Vietnam, which has still not recovered from our last “humanitarian intervention,” Presidents Johnson and Nixon insisted, as President Clinton does now, “We seek no territorial gains.”
Of course not. We do not want territory in the Balkans; we just want to draw the maps. Along with justice for the Kosovars, Clinton & Company seek a regional order that suits the interests of Western investors, exporters, financiers, political strategists, and military planners. The American leaders have a special interest in keeping the Western alliance dependent upon U.S. military power. And they have reserved the right to intervene selectively in pursuance of these goals: to permit the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia, for example, but to avenge the expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo; to sell arms to the Turks to be used in crushing Kurdish separatists, but to bomb the Serbs for meting out similar treatment to the Albanians.
Worse yet, the craving for domination that they refuse to recognize in themselves the intervenors now project onto their enemies. “We” are broadminded altruists; “they” are narrow-minded nationalists. We offer peace plans; they deliver ultimatums. We employ violence reluctantly and judiciously; they are vicious and indisciminate. We improvise responsively; they scheme and plan. Clinton and his allies cannot see Slobodan Milosevic as a nationalist leader who has acted much as they would have done if they had watched their own nations dismantled piece by piece. Nor do they seem aware that, from the Serbs’ perspective, they stand in the shoes of the Romans, the Hapsburgs, the Nazis, and all the other imperial powers who have sought to divide and dominate the southern Slavs.
Oedipus-like, therefore, the West’s actions have eerily accelerated the processes they allegedly sought to avert: the exodus of Albanian Kosovars, destablization of neighboring countries, solidification of Serbian support for Milosevic, expulsion of the Kosovo Liberation Army, and reignition of Russo-Western enmity. But here Clinton and Oedipus part company. In recognition of the ghastly consequences of his self-deception, the Greek hero put out his own eyes. By contrast, consumed by embarrassment and wounded pride, the American and NATO leaders must still pretend to “see.”
We will bomb Yugoslavia through the summer, they declare; then the Serbs will surrender. There are two possible interpretations of this hard-line stand. The bombing may be a prelude to helicopter gunship attacks, the insertion of commando units, and, finally, a massive invasion by NATO ground forces. If an invasion occurs, the fatal pattern will be fixed. NATO’s alleged “rescue mission” will inevitably become a war of aggrandizement. The West will redraw the map of the Balkans, and its new military legions will soon extend their reach far beyond the European theater.
More optimistically, the current escalation may be a method of improving the Western bargaining position prior to negotiations for the return of the Albanians to Kosovo. At Rambouillet, Milosevic accepted both the principle of Kosovar autonomy and the presence of a peacekeeping force to guarantee it, so long as the force was not a NATO occupying army and the KLA agreed to disarm. This could provide a natural starting point for renewed trilateral talks. But a real resolution of the multiple, interlocked conflicts that have torn the Balkans apart should involve representatives of all the region’s embattled peoples, and should exclude outside powers whose interventionist meddling has brought the region nothing but grief.
Independent, non-partisan facilitators chosen by the parties could convene a series of workshops leading to a continuing conference of South Balkan representatives, perhaps under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The goal of the conference would be, for the first time, to permit the local parties, free of outside interference, to define their own basic needs and explore alternative methods of satisfying them.
What makes Oedipus a hero, in the end, is that the sightless man finally “sees.” Ending the tragedy of the Balkans means recognizing the underlying imperialist paradigm that has long multiplied and exacerbated local conflicts there, and that largely dictates our choice of humanitarian clients. It means permitting the South Balkan peoples themselves to create new modes of autonomy and cooperation based on their own informed choices. Perhaps it is too much to expect the wielders of great power to subscribe to such a vision. But the leader who could set this process in motion would be a hero, indeed.
* Richard Rubin is a professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at George Mason University in Virginia and a former director of the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution there. He has written a number of books on violent conflict.
