While most of us have been focusing on the war against Islamic terrorism, quite a little spectacle has been unfolding at the Hague. It seems that the war crimes prosecution of the Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic is being jeopardized by the reluctance of the former American envoy Richard Holbrooke to testify in the open. Or so say prosecutors, according to a report in the Financial Times. Meantime an appeal is underway on behalf of a former reporter of The Washington Post, Jonathan Randal, who doesn’t want to testify either. The Post has argued that if Mr. Randal were forced to testify, it would set a precedent that would hinder the willingness of involved parties to speak with journalists in the future, even on background.

We have nothing but regard for Mr. Holbrooke — and, for that matter, The Washington Post. But it sure looks like a case that deserves some attention from the liberal elites who have been plumping for the idea of an international criminal court in the first place. The first chance we get to place an accused mass-murderer head of state in the dock, the witnesses all run for cover. According to the report in The Financial Times, the State Department is pushing to have the court keep secret the testimony of Mr. Holbrooke, who was the architect of the Dayton Peace Accords. It says the Bush administration is wary of setting any precedent of senior American officials testifying before international courts ahead of the creation of the International Criminal Court, which America opposes.

The negotiations, FT also says, have become so difficult that the United Nations’ prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, is said to be considering not calling the witnesses. But if she doesn’t call Mr. Holbrooke, the FT reports, he faces having to testify for the defense, in which case his testimony would then be “shaped to a larger extent” by the accused tyrant. And, of course, the FT adds, the man who aspires to be secretary of state in the next Democratic administration risks being embarrassed by the Serbian. The last thing Mr. Holbrooke wants, the FT quotes a former American official as saying, “is to have repeated his time drinking whisky with Milosevic after the agreement at Dayton.” If all this adds up to a circus, wait until the new International Criminal Court gets around to the Middle East.