WASHINGTON -- Jimmy Carter's peace mission to Bosnia provides the Clinton administration with a fig leaf to cover plans to make key concessions to Bosnia's Serbs -- a conciliatory strategy that became a practical necessity after the Serbs successfully resisted several months of economic pressure and flaccid NATO military threats.


Washington's stand results from one overwhelming desire: to persuade the separatist Serbs to negotiate with Bosnia's Moslem-led government and conclude the war, even on conditions that were once considered unthinkable. Under the cloak of anonymity, administration officials said a softening had taken place. "People will be happy if we can just get everyone to the table," remarked a State Department official.


In part, the eagerness to settle reflects the administration fear that Congress might force it to begin arming the Moslems, an act that many administration officials believe would drag the United States directly into the war.


A settlement also would put an end to disputes over Bosnia that have fractured the valued NATO alliance, throwing into doubt whether it has a role in the post-Cold War world of ethnic and regional conflict. The inability of the United States to persuade NATO last month to systematically use bombing as a diplomatic tool contributed to the turn to conciliation.


For the Moslems, it means the latest in a series of retreats on the part of their staunchest big-power supporter, the United States. Unable to muster diplomatic and military support for the Moslems, Washington is pushing them back to the table at a vast disadvantage on the ground.


The bait for the Serbs to talk is the chance to fashion a territorial solution to their liking. In effect, Carter has opened the way to negotiate new terms of the once inviolable international proposal to divide up Bosnia.


Originally, 51 percent was offered to the Moslems and 49 percent to the Serbs in a deal worked out by the self-styled "contact group" of mediators from the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Russia.