by Patrick J. Buchanan – December 22, 1997

Those who warned that the U.S. troop commitment to Bosnia risked an open-ended entanglement in the Balkans were right. Bill Clinton has now confirmed that U.S. troops will remain indefinitely. No plan, no strategy, no timetable exists for their withdrawal.

What are the conditions the president has set before the United States can leave? Bosnia’s joint institutions must be “self-sustaining.” A civilian police force must be in place, large enough and sufficiently trained to keep order in the country. And Bosnia’s media should be “free of hate and venom.” This is a formula for permanent entrapment.