The military effectiveness of the mujahideen is disputed. Although, former U.S. Balkans peace negotiator Richard Holbrooke said in an interview that he believed the Bosnian Muslims wouldn't have survived without foreign help, as at the time a U.N. arms embargo uniquely diminished the Bosnian government's fighting capabilities - he called the arrival of the mujahideen "a pact with the devil" from which Bosnia still is recovering. On the other hand, according to general Stjepan Šiber, the highest ranking ethnic Croat in the Bosnian Army, the key role in foreign volunteers arrival was played by Tuđman and Croatian counter-intelligence with the aim to justify the involvement of Croatia in the Bosnian War and the crimes committed by Croat forces. Although the Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović regarded them as symbolically valuable as a sign of the Muslim world's support for Bosnia, they appear to have made little military difference and became a major political liability.