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CHAPTER 15: BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURYOUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORYhowever, Oslo eventually fell apartwhen details were discussed. Palestinianleader Yasser Arafat rejectedfinal offers from peace-minded Israelileader Ehud Barak in 2000 andJanuary 2001. A full-scale Palestinianinsurgency, marked by the useof suicide bombers, erupted. Barakfell from power, to be replaced bythe far tougher Ariel Sharon. U.S.identification with Israel was consideredby some a major problemin dealing with other issues in theregion, but American diplomatscould do little more than hope tocontain the violence. After Arafat’sdeath in late 2004, new Palestinianleadership appeared more receptiveto a peace agreement, and Americanpolicy makers resumed effortsto promote a settlement.President Clinton also becameclosely engaged with “the troubles”in Northern Ireland. On one sidewas the violent Irish RepublicanArmy, supported primarily by thoseCatholic Irish who wanted to incorporatethese British counties into theRepublic of Ireland. On the otherside were Unionists, with equally violentparamilitary forces, supportedby most of the Protestant Scots-Irishpopulation, who wanted to remainin the United Kingdom.Clinton gave the separatistsgreater recognition than they everhad obtained in the United States,but also worked closely with theBritish governments of John Majorand Tony Blair. The ultimate result,the Good Friday peace accords of1998, established a political processbut left many details to beworked out. Over the next severalyears, peace and order held betterin Northern Ireland than in theMiddle East, but remained precarious.The final accord continued toelude negotiators.The post-Cold War disintegrationof Yugoslavia — a state ethnicallyand religiously divided amongSerbs, Croats, Slovenes, BosnianMuslims, and Albanian Kosovars— also made its way to Washingtonafter European governmentsfailed to impose order. The Bushadministration had refused to getinvolved in the initial violence;the Clinton administration finallydid so with great reluctance afterbeing urged to do so by the Europeanallies. In 1995, it negotiatedan accord in Dayton, Ohio, to establisha semblance of peace inBosnia. In 1999, faced with Serbianmassacres of Kosovars, it led athree-month NATO bombing campaignagainst Serbia, which finallyforced a settlement.In 1994, the administration restoredousted President Jean-BertrandAristide to power in Haiti,where he would rule for nine yearsbefore being ousted again. The interventionwas largely a result ofAristide’s carefully cultivated supportin the United States and Americanfears of waves of Haitian illegalimmigrants.In sum, the Clinton administrationremained primarily inwardlooking, willing to tackle internationalproblems that could not beavoided, and, in other instances,forced by the rest of the worldto do so.INTIMATIONS OF TERRORISMNear the close of his administration,George H. W. Bush sentAmerican troops to the chaotic EastAfrican nation of Somalia. Theirmission was to spearhead a U.N.force that would allow the regularmovement of food to a starvingpopulation.Somalia became yet anotherlegacy for the Clinton administration.Efforts to establish a representativegovernment there becamea “nation-building” enterprise. InOctober 1993, American troopssent to arrest a recalcitrant warlordran into unexpectedly strong resistance,losing an attack helicopterand suffering 18 deaths. The warlordwas never arrested. Over thenext several months, all Americancombat units were withdrawn.From the standpoint of the administration,it seemed prudentenough simply to end a marginal,ill-advised commitment and concentrateon other priorities. It onlybecame clear later that the Somalianwarlord had been aided by a shadowyand emerging organization thatwould become known as al-Qaida,headed by a fundamentalist Muslimnamed Osama bin Laden. A fanaticalenemy of Western civilization,bin Laden reportedly felt confirmedin his belief that Americans wouldnot fight when attacked.By then the United States hadalready experienced an attack byMuslim extremists. In February1993, a huge car bomb was explodedin an underground parking garagebeneath one of the twin towers ofthe World Trade Center in lowerManhattan. The blast killed sevenpeople and injured nearly a thousand,but it failed to bring down thehuge building with its thousands ofworkers. New York and federal authoritiestreated it as a criminal act,apprehended four of the plotters,and obtained life prison sentencesfor them. Subsequent plots to blowup traffic tunnels, public buildings,and even the United Nations wereall discovered and dealt with in asimilar fashion.Possible foreign terrorism wasnonetheless overshadowed by domesticterrorism, primarily theOklahoma City bombing. The workof right-wing extremists TimothyMcVeigh and Terry Nichols,it killed 166 and injured hundreds,a far greater toll than the 1993Trade Center attack. But on June 25,1996, another huge bomb explodedat the Khobar Towers U.S. militaryhousing complex in Saudi Arabia,killing 19 and wounding 515. A federalgrand jury indicted 13 Saudisand one Lebanese man for the attack,but Saudi Arabia ruled out anyextraditions.Two years later, on August 7,1998, powerful bombs explodingsimultaneously destroyed U.S. embassiesin Kenya and Tanzania, killing301 people and injuring more330331