STAY ON TARGET

Perhaps encouraged by cheers or approving silence from abroad, the Muslim-Croat leadership stepped back early last week from their longstanding commitment to a negotiated peace. With NATO bombs threatening the Serbs' heavy weapons around Sarajevo - a third of their armaments - and Croatian tanks and artillery giving Bosnia's legions the punch long denied by the U.N. arms embargo, the alliance has expanded the territory it controls to at least half the country, if not two-thirds, compared with the 51% it would be granted under the latest U.S.-proposed peace plan. But now the Muslim-led government of President Alija Izetbegovic seems intent to score even bigger gains on the battlefield in the hope of reviving its dream of a multi-ethnic Bosnia within its old borders. Once prostrate from war, Muslims and Croats crave victory.

And many would ask, why in the name of justice shouldn't they? Disarmed by the Security Council and pounded by Yugoslav cannons left to the Bosnian Serbs, Muslims and Croats saw their homes emptied of friend and family and reduced to blood-splattered rubble. The International Criminal Tribunal has indicted many of their opponents for war crimes, including Mr. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb premier, and Gen. Mladic. And the Bosnians endured the tragic farce in which U.N. peacekeepers sent to protect refugees prevented the West from bombing the Serbs into civilized conduct. Finally, under pressure from U.S. Republicans moving to lift the arms embargo, NATO has mounted the most devastating attacks in its history to drive Serb heavy weapons away from Sarajevo. In an alliance with Mr. Izetbegovic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman has evened up the odds further with his armor and artillery. With the Serbs reeling, shouldn't the Muslims and Croats hit them hard before they can regain the upper hand?

Whatever agenda the Balkans' warring leaders may have, there is only one that the U.N. should push: immediate and lasting peace. It may be poetic justice for the Serbs to finally get a beating at the hands of their erstwhile victims. But it would be an unconscionable enormity for thousands more innocent civilians to suffer and perish so that scores of the past three years could be settled. Indeed, with recent Muslim-Croat advances giving Serbs reason to deal before they lose even more land, casting aside that chance for peace would be an act of utter cruelty to the ravaged peoples of Bosnia. And to keep guns blazing in the hope of uniting Muslims, Croats and Serbs within the pre-war borders suggests a delusion of the first order. After four years of Yugoslav carnage, which began with the Serb-Croat conflict in 1991, it will take at least a generation for the belligerents to even wish they could stop hating and fearing each other. Just ask the Koreans.

So keep the pressure on all sides to stop shooting and deal. It was wise for NATO to spare most of the Serbs' heavy weapons around Sarajevo and blast their anti-aircraft defenses, ammunition dumps and communications facilities instead. Letting those howitzers and tanks live to fight again should disabuse Mr. Izetbegovic and his generals of any notion that they could win handily with the alliance's two-to-one numerical advantage. The next step should be to tell Messrs. Izetbegovic, Karadzic, Tudjman, and their opposite number in Serbia, Mr. Slobodan Milosevic, to get a ceasefire in place by yesterday - or NATO will do it for them. Anyone moves - Serb, Croat, Muslim or mercenary - he gets a radar-guided bomb down the gun barrel. If Croatia won't cooperate, slap it with the same economic sanctions squeezing Serbia. All sides will of course cry bloody murder - except the civilians spared from it.

Whether or not most of the guns fall silent in Bosnia, America and Russia should shepherd all belligerents to Geneva. Mr. Warren Christopher, the American secretary of state, stressed last week: "The map should be addressed not on the battlefield but at the peace table." Hear, hear. And let not his acknowledgement of the Bosnians' "natural inclination to try to regain lost territory" be construed as a green light for anti-Serb offensives. It was encouraging to hear Mr. Mate Granic, the Croatian foreign minister, report that Croatia has told its army to stop further advances against Serb-held areas, including Banja Luka. But at midweek Bosnian forces remained on the attack, in the northwest, near Ozren in the center and Mostar in the south. Do they really want to push Serbia to join the fray, Russia to weigh in with massive weapons aid and NATO to lose all moral justification for intervention?

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), which met in Kuala Lumpur last week, has correctly called for a speedy settlement of the conflict and determined efforts toward peace and stability. Lauding the OIC's 18-point declaration, Mr. Abdullah Badawi, Malaysia's foreign minister, cited the body's full commitment to helping achieve Bosnian victory and strengthen President Izetbegovic's negotiating position. He called for unrelenting air strikes against the Serbs until they stop all aggression; the OIC itself is continuing to raise arms, troops and funds for Bosnia. "We would like to contribute positively to the peace process," declared Mr. Abdullah. "But not peace without justice and honor for our brothers in Bosnia-Herzegovina . . . It must be just and durable, and must not reward the criminals in Pale," the Bosnian Serb capital.

The elements of a lasting settlement should include sufficient security guarantees for all, particularly the Muslims, who do not have Croatia or Serbia to come to their aid in any future conflict. At the same time, a people's right to exercise democratic choice and refuse minority status - as Bosnians, Croats and Slovenes have done - should also be accorded the Serbs. Forcing them to remain part of the Bosnian state will only sow the seeds of another war. The settlement plan is expected to create a multinational force including Muslim troops to police the peace. There should also be a regional council to resolve disputes; it should include representatives of NATO, Russia and the OIC. Even if peace is secured, of course, there is no guarantee that the belligerents and their backers would not resume their bloody contest for dominance in the region. The best way to dissuade that is to make it inescapably clear that the world will no longer wait three years before chastising the aggressors.