Now that the air war against President Slobodan Milosevic looks like dragging on and on while Kosovo has been emptied of much of its population, nerves are getting jittery in Washington.
Relations with Russia are badly strained and wild talk from Moscow about the nuclear targeting of countries bombing Yugoslavia is unsettling to say the least.
It was not meant to be like this, so scapegoats are being sought. Spokespersons are struggling to contain a suspicious media and the public is losing confidence in President Clinton's avowed goals and how he means to reach them. It is not a pretty sight.
As a respected columnist, Thomas Friedman, wrote yesterday in the New York Times: "If the Clinton team were half as good at targeting the Serbian tanks in Kosovo as it is at targeting its own members in the press, we would have won this war already." And he has a warning: "If the allies see everyone on the Clinton team blaming everyone else, how long do you think NATO will stick behind America?"
The knives are really out for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Hardly a day goes by without an article criticising her heavy-handed efforts at the Rambouillet peace conference, which allegedly drove the Serbs into defiance and a slaughter in Kosovo.
She is being attacked for her ultrahawkish stance on the crisis and for being too ready to brandish US military might without regard for the consequences and the misgivings of the Pentagon. "Madeleine's War" has gone awfully wrong, her anonymous critics gloat.
Her spokesman, the urbane Jamie Rubin, defends his boss as best he can. "There is a certain degree of finger-pointing going on," he said this week at one of his briefings. "I don't think it is particularly appropriate in a time of crisis, but that is the nature of democracy." He points out that the editorial line of newspapers is often supportive of the Administration while influential columnists take personal swipes.
As the NATO war on Yugoslavia moves into higher gear, Ms Albright has to take second place to the generals from the Pentagon at the daily White House meetings. As Mr Rubin puts it: "her biggest task each day is to ensure that the NATO allies remain as united as they've been remaining". So far she seems to be doing this successfully.
President Clinton himself is seen to be losing his once sure touch. Like his advisers, he assumed Milosevic would sue for peace soon after the missiles began to fall. Instead, a dismayed Washington watched the daily exodus of Kosovans whom NATO was supposed to be protecting.
But the President had ruled out ground troops, thus encouraging President Milosevic to press ahead with his ethnic cleansing before the bombing could take effect. Mr Clinton still sticks to this doctrine, dubbed "immaculate coercion" by his critics, of avoiding US losses at all costs.
But the American public was never convinced this would work. A poll this week taken for the New York Times/CBS shows that only 32 per cent believe the airstrikes will get Milosevic to stop attacking Kosovo, while 76 per cent believe the US will send ground troops. Asked about President Clinton's ability to handle an international crisis, 48 per cent are "uneasy about his approach" and 47 per cent are "confident he will deal wisely". However, 52 per cent approve of his handling of the situation in Yugoslavia.
The timing of the crisis was bad for a President who, during the critical period, was facing the impeachment proceedings in the House and then his trial in the Senate. In between he had launched air strikes on Iraq to no great effect, it now appears.
It will get tougher for the President next week when Congress returns from its Easter recess. Normally there is a closing of the ranks once American military personnel are engaged in action and members of Congress will tend to mute any criticism. But this may not be the case next week as divisions are already showing up among both Democrats and Republicans over the President's policies for ending the crisis in Kosovo. Inside both parties there are those for and against the use of ground troops. There is also much unease about the planning for the NATO air strikes and its unintended consequences such as the emptying of Kosovo.
In two weeks, Washington will be the host to the NATO 50th anniversary summit. Planned at a time when an expanded NATO was seen to have a rosy future, the celebrations will include the members of NATO's associated Partnership for Peace or virtually the whole of Europe with the exception of Russia, Ireland and some micro-states like Andorra.
If the NATO action against Yugoslavia is still in full cry, the Washington summit will be a restrained affair. The US plans for a new "strategic concept" in the post-Cold War Europe which would "globalise" NATO and give it a role outside its own territory will be much more closely scrutinised.
Slobodan Milosevic, smoking ruins in Yugoslav cities and the harrowing images from Kosovo will be a grim backdrop as the glasses clink at the toasts to 50 years of the alliance.