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As Serbs' preoccupation with hardship mounts and anti-government street protests dwindles, the leaders of Serbia's democratic opposition have urged Washington to lift sanctions against the towns they control as a way to boost their popularity with the Serbian public. Washington's European allies have also grown uncomfortable at the prospect of an increasingly impoverished Weimar-esque Serbia.

All of these factors contributed to a decision announced Wednesday by the State Department to agree to a European plan to deliver humanitarian shipments of heating fuel to two Serbian towns controlled by the opposition. In addition, Washington went further, promising to lift an oil embargo and flight ban on Serbia should Milosevic submit to internationally supervised free and fair elections, even if he wins those elections -- a possibility Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said was remote.

"I find it really, really, really hard to believe that Milosevic might win a free and fair election," Albright said Wednesday, after meeting with a delegation of Serbian opposition politicians who are on a visit to Washington. "I expect the people of Serbia -- who have suffered under the boot of Slobodan Milosevic -- will choose correctly."

While the offer to lift sanctions should Milosevic hold elections seemed to signal a major policy reversal and was welcomed by Serbian opposition politicians, Balkans analysts suggest that its potential impact is more symbolic than substantive, and instead reflects a deepening pessimism shared by Western governments and Serbia's anti-government opposition over whether Milosevic can be gotten rid of any time soon.

"The State Department is smoking dope," said one former U.S. diplomat who asked not to be named. "Milosevic is no fool. He's not going to hold elections he can't win."

The former diplomat predicted Milosevic would agree to something far less than free and fair, internationally supervised Serbian parliamentary elections, in which a coalition of opposition parties might be able to win a majority over Milosevic's ruling coalition. Instead, he suggested, Milosevic would possibly agree to hold municipal elections whose outcome he could better control and would be less decisive, and in fact which could risk the opposition losing control of several of the towns it currently rules.

"The opposition is going to be presented with a proposal for municipal elections, which the opposition can either decide not to participate in, in which case they would lose. Or half the opposition parties will agree to participate, in which case Vuk Draskovic's party would win some municipalities. Or the opposition will agree to the elections, and Milosevic will cheat," the former diplomat suggested.

"It really doesn't make much difference, because the opposition is never going to oust Milosevic," said Balkans expert Chris Bennett, co-founder of the Berlin-based think-tank ESI, European Stability Initiative. "Elections don't change anything in this society."

Bennett suggested Serbia's problem is not so much Milosevic as the entire system inherited from the former communists.

"In Serbia, the communist structure has never been overthrown. You have a system of dependence on authority. If you step out of line, you lose not just your job, but your home. It's an especially insidious system," he said.

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