A Grip-But No Grins

摘要

In Dayton, the stiffness was all. Warren Christopher opened the Bosnia peace talks with a chilly, brittle statement. He shook no hands, and seemed anxious to get back to the Middle East—or somewhere. The presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia—three gray men, anonymous to Americans—then choreographed a halting, arthritic minuet of nods and handshakes, without ever quite looking at each other. The moment seemed more grudging than hopeful. And it begged a larger question, about another president who was, pointedly, not present: why was Bill Clinton, the world's most twitchy political animal and a man not normally obsessed by foreign policy, willing to risk his future by putting 20,000 or so American troops on the ground in the Balkans during an election year?