WASHINGTON -- While the world's eyes were fixed on Hainan Island off the coast of China, Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebels were completing a tactical retreat after an offensive by government forces. Some hope that Macedonia's government will now, as expected, offer greater political rights to its ethnic Albanian minority and that the looming civil war in that country may be defused. In that event, NATO could safely remain on the sidelines of the conflict. There is also hope that peace will finally descend on the Balkans now that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is out of the way.