Balkans: Stop Mastermind – give Change to Locals
Published on
In
March, Mrs. Clinton – FM/USA - commented in Brussels that the Obama
administration was "determined to listen, advise (European Union
countries) and through agreement arrive at wise solution to common
challenges." Among the "common challenges" was that the "Balkans is in
danger of becoming part of the forgotten past." She added the ominous
view that "it will not be allowed for unfinished business to remain
there."
Kosovo
A recent panel discussion on the Balkans presented by the Lord Byron Foundation at Toronto's Royal Canadian Military Institute (RCMI), brought together experts on the subject. The panellists agreed that recent moves indicate "reinvigoration" of the former Clinton policies, whereby then-secretary of state Madeleine Albright worked assiduously to go to war on behalf of Kosovo. That was arguably, one of the greatest errors and miscalculations of the Clinton regime. The justification was that Serbs were intent on genocide ofKosovo Albanians when, in fact, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) provoked Serbian reaction, and fabricated massacres. Since the war al-Qaida and Muslim extremists have flooded into the Balkans: Kosovo, Bosnia, Macedonia. The dreaded spectre of militant Islam in the heart of Europe has become a reality, enhanced by U.S. policy and now apparently revived by Obama.
Now
Europeans realize they were hoodwinked into recognizing Kosovo's
independence on the pretence it would resolve problems and bring peace.Kosovo
case was not unique, like it was introduced into playgrounds of
international politics, it was a precedent to numerous separatist
movement on globe that violence is the right mean to achieve political
aims instead of international law. Bosnia-Herzegovina
Bosnia- Herzegovina (BiH) is a country whose chronic ethnic divisions have defied one of the most intensive, multilateral nation-building efforts ever attempted. Last year, for the first time since the war ended, there was anxious worry in Sarajevo about renewed conflict. Even if the parties never pick up arms again, BiH risks permanent stagnation, a quite plausible scenario that would put the substantial American investment -- and continuing American interests -- in BiH at risk. Instead of an inevitable EU member, Bosnia is more likely to remain an unwelcome, dysfunctional and divided country, with an aggrieved Bosniak (Muslim) plurality, a frustrated, increasingly defensive Serb entity, and an anxious, existentially threatened Croat population. More in my article “BosniaCollapsing”.Mujahedeen batallion in Bosnia War
Bosnia-Herzegovina
is on the stage of transition from an international protectorate to one
responsible for its own reform dynamics. Scepticism is growing about
the EU's capacity to facilitate such reform, when the reinforced EU
Special representative (EUSR) should replace the Office of the High
Representative (OHR).
Leaders
of the three strongest national – Serb, Croat, Bosnian Muslim -
parties, met on late 2008, after alarming negative EU reports, with the
aim of reaching an agreement over several highly disputed issues that
are crucial for country’s EU membership, as well as the closure of the
Office of the High Representative, OHR. In only two hours, they reached
a general agreement on a process of future constitutional changes,
questions that would be covered in 2011 census, as well as regulation
of the status of the Brcko district and state property. More here.
Deepening
talks have continued after this sc Prud Agreement, which will
strengthen federation elements while weakening central state power. The
Agreement states that Bosnia-Herzegovina is a decentralized country
with four—as opposed to the current three—territorial units, while the
changes to the Constitution would be discussed in more detail at their
future meetings.
The
US Vice President Joseph Biden’s visit to Balkans on May 2009
represents the end of the “Dayton phase” of BiH and the beginning of
the new phase of upgrading the Dayton Agreement or entering into a new
agreement for BiH. “Do Something…Anything”
Presidend Obama is now in a bit similar situation in Balkans than President Clinton during 90s.Quote from Time: Do Something…Anything, May 3rd, 1993:All the new options, Clinton acknowledged, "have pluses and minuses," and "all have supporters and opponents in Congress." That is a large part of the President's problem. He is getting plenty of advice, but it is not consistent. He is being pulled and tugged in several directions at once in a * field -- foreign affairs -- for which he does not have his own fingertip instinctiveness. He is being asked to lead where his allies in Europe are reluctant to follow.Clinton feels the strength of the moral argument for action echoing around Washington but is unwilling to start something without knowing how he will end it. Selection of Mr. Obama brought hope to see some change with US Foreign policy in Balkan too. However when he selected Biden as his vice I went to deep doubts about his judgment. Selecting a man on the record for stating that “all Serbs should be placed in Nazi-style concentration camps” during Senatorial deliberations in 1999 over NATO aggression on Serbia, and that United States ought to conduct a fascist, “Japanese-German style occupation” of Serbia. If Mr. Obama needs help of this kind of redneck so bay bay change.
Some background to U.S. Balkan politics during 90s see e.g.“Beyond Tragedy: NATO’s Intervention in The Former Yugoslavia/Virginia University