But as Petritsch took a ground-up, practical approach, nevertheless had to keep a lid on the possibility of new inter-communal violence, so he occasionally cracked down hard on any signs of trouble-such as when Croats in Mostar tried to set up an independent administration-and to do that he had to act as proconsul armed. Petritsch ordered NATO troops into the city, removed democratically-elected officials from office, and closed down a bank that was laundering money from the region's active smuggling and shake-down operations. And that was only the dramatic side of Petritsch's political task. The international community's protectorate over Bosnia, all in the name of democratic development, has empowered the High Representative's office to issue regulations for and control all of the country's border, to design its national flag and money, to dismiss elected governments and whole parliaments, outlaw candidates from running for local office, and even to rule by decree when required to maintain local law and order. Specifically, the Office of the High Representative lists seven categories in which it is able to issue decisions, as rooted in the provisions of the Dayton Accords: decisions relating to state symbols and state-level matters and constitutional issues; decisions in the economic field; decisions in the field of judicial reform; decisions relating to the Federation, Mostar and Herzegovina-Neretva Canton; removals and suspensions from office; media restructuring decisions; and decisions in the field of property laws, return of displaced persons and refugees, and reconciliation.

Since all of these powers have indeed been exercised at one time or another, it is no mystery that the locals are a bit confused about the democracy thing. Their country is reduced to a satrapy of international bureaucrats who have taken away all real freedom from each group's communal authorities, while those bureaucrats keep insisting all the while that Bosnia citizens should think and act, in effect, like late-18^th century British gentry. With all due respect for the good intentions of these kinder and gentler NATO and NGO imperialists, this is really quite batty. It is little wonder, then, that most voters support the only local politicians who seem to have maintained at least their pride if not their power.

Mr. Petritsch's successor, the good Paddy Ashdown (Lord Ashdown, actually), is the former leader of Britain's Liberal Democratic Party. The Liberal Democratic Party never came close to winning an election in Great Britain, but Paddy Ashdown is now, more or less, the colonial governor of a foreign country. The British certainly aren't the imperial bounders they once were, but at least their fine tradition of seconding sound if not wildly successful gentlemen to the colonial service persists, God bless them. But if an Austrian cannot succeed in the Balkans, what odds on a Brit?

In any event, Ashdown has promised to travel more throughout Bosnia, to hold more "town meetings", and to talk less with politicians and more with judges, teachers, and businessmen. He speaks of representing the interests of "all Bosnians" and the country as a whole; of being not just a representative of the international community but "a servant of Bosnia and Herzegovina." Whatever is the man going to do when he learns that there is no such people, that there really is no such country, and that trying in this land to distinguish between politicians to the one side and businessmen to the other is like trying to name and remember individual eels in a bucket?

 

If the peoples of Bosnia are grateful for what NATO and the international community have done for them, they nevertheless find it hard to express their gratitude in ways that this community best appreciates. So another good deed gets punished. The Bosnian protectorate will likely endure for many, many years, and it will probably never produce a self-sustaining multiethnic democracy-this despite the advantages of its European democratic (or, in Southeastern Europe, democratizing) context. What it will produce, and at what ultimate cost to its mostly clueless shepherds, is still anybody's guess.

But it's a good thing that American officials and others have had this experience in recent years. We now know a deal more about what may happen when outsiders go about introducing democracy into societies that have never known it and, as far as anyone can tell, never asked for it either. The Bosnian experience is something we should definitely not forget as we set our minds-some of us anyway-to the task of bringing democracy to Iraqis, Palestinians and, to listen to some people talk, upwards of twenty-two Arab countries and near on a billion Muslims beyond that.

We have a saying in Chestnut Nook; goes like this: "A good example overcomes a lot of bad advice." Anyone see any good examples around here? By now even Tilly has gotten wind of the bad advice.

 

Adam Garfinkle is Editor of The National Interest.