If we want to avoid the triumph of hyena politics we must commit however many

If we want to avoid the triumph of hyena politics we must commit however many troops and policemen - particularly police - it takes to ensure order in the short term. The Serbs are the victims now, but shall we face a day - not too far off - when anybody who opposes the KLA is targeted? If this was a war about tolerance and decency - and I believed it was - then we'd better act fast.The alternative is a warlord state in Kosovo, a place not unlike neighbouring Albania, where the most ruthless and cunning come out on top. As the impatience of its leaders and foot soldiers grows, then the potential for conflict with the UN and the Kfor troops will increase. Certainly the KLA - and it has some very dangerous people - has its eyes on the prize of total power. Soldiers are not policemen and shouldn't be expected to assume that role.It is a disgrace that the international police force for Kosovo has still not been deployed to anywhere near full strength.

There are 65 UN police officers on patrol in Pristina - 65, in the most dangerous and volatile town in Europe! Bureaucratic delays, a less-than- effective UN administration in Pristina and a KLA that is hungry for power point to a crisis that seems likely to get steadily worse.I noticed that a British paratrooper was quoted the other day as saying that in six months the Army could find itself fighting the KLA It could be like Belfast, he said. These are realities that call for tough language, and the willingness to take robust action.The British and other troops on the ground are doing the best job they can; they are all that stands between Kosovo and anarchy But they can't be everywhere. Massacres of farmers; old women shot in their flats; KLA militants acting as judge and executioner. And yet we hear surprisingly little from our leaders about the plight of the Kosovo Serbs. When Mr Blair visited he made all the right appeals for tolerance, and he was justifiably given a hero's welcome by the Albanians But he tiptoed around the reality. And once you go down that road you set yourself a very high standard.The cynical realpolitik that allowed the West to ignore what happened to the Krajina Serbs when they were driven out by the Croats in 1995 simply won't wash in these days of ethical foreign policy.

Perhaps, with hindsight, we may think that we promised the impossible. With so much hatred, did we have the right to make such a pledge? The truth is that we had no choice; as I said earlier, this whole enterprise was founded on ethical principles. Anybody who listened to the stories and opinions of the Albanian refugees arriving in Macedonia and Albania knew that the single biggest post-war crisis would come with the return of the same refugees to Kosovo. I lost count of the number of Albanians - ordinary people, not KLA activists - who said they could never live with Serbs again.We knew that this was what people felt, and that the KLA would do anything it could to rid the province of people it hated But we promised the Serbs that they would be protected.