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Bosnia needs Biden

Ismet Fatih Čančar, who holds a BA in Economics from Sarajevo School of Science and Technology and University of Buckingham and an MA in International Political Economy from King’s College London (where he studies under the Chevening scholarship program awarded by the United Kingdom), writes:

The results of last week’s primary confirmed the heavy frontrunner. Winning four out of six states that voted, Joe Biden has completed a turnaround rarely seen in American politics. Barring a political scandal, Biden is the preemptive candidate to secure the nomination of the Democratic party. When he faces Trump in November, it will be a clash of two opposing ideologies. However, some 5000 miles away, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a small country in the Balkans, Biden’s win could mean salvation.

The history and present

Biden’s history with Bosnia goes back to the 1990s. During his Senate Foreign Affairs Committee tenure, he was a staunch supporter of American intervention to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide of Muslims in Bosnia. Following Joe Lieberman’s and Bob Dole’s lead, he was also one of the first to support lifting the arms embargo on Bosnian Muslims and advocated for “lift and strike” – a NATO air power mission. Through those murky times, Biden’s passionate speeches in the Senate drew the sympathies of Bosnians as a rare, genuine friend.

The last visit of a high-level US official to Bosnia was in 2009 – and it was Joe Biden. During his stay he urged the political elites to turn the page from nationalistic politics and focus on real reforms that would pave the way for EU and NATO accession. Little has changed since he last set foot in Sarajevo. On the contrary, the country has regressed on its Euro-Atlantic road.

The recent political crisis, whose chief architect is Milorad Dodik, has once again put the country in crisis. Calling actively for secession from the Bosnian state, the nationalist Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) has a history of threatening peace in Bosnia. While Dodik is already under sanctions by the US, the failure of the EU to follow this course of action has led to lukewarm results.

Additionally, the Kosovo-Serbia issue has regained momentum with US engagement. According to this report, redrawing borders along ethnic lines is back on the menu. Such a solution bears catastrophic consequences. Dodik has been abundantly clear he intends to use this partition in pursuing the independence of Republika Srpska. But more so, politics of this kind move us further away from what the US goal for the region was in the first place – the establishment of liberal democracies and the integration of the Balkans into the modern Western world.

Restoring US credibility

In his platform published in Foreign Policy, Joe Biden has put strengthening democracy at the helm of his global agenda. He has committed to making the United States prepared to lead again “not just with the example of our power but also with the power of our example”. The challenge the United States will face under Biden is restoring its credibility as a world beacon of democracy that entails an integral respect for human rights and opposition to authoritarianism and nationalism. Bosnia and Herzegovina could be a good starting point.

Biden’s reengagement could shift the focus of the American administration to help solve the structural issues in the country. It could safeguard Bosnia by countering the breakthrough of Russian interference through Dayton’s Peace Accords – which Holbrooke himself said would need upgrading. Being a sui generis state with two entities and three constituent people, Bosnia is damned to be dysfunctional. The solution is chartering a new constitution of a civil (citizen) character on the basis of the civil constitutions many modern European countries possess. This is a condition Bosnia has to fulfill if it is ever to see the entrance doors of NATO and EU.

Handling such a complex issue would again grow America’s reputation in the world as a credible and trustworthy factor that can effectively address crises around the globe. However, the challenge also implies a risk of failure; the inability to gather partners along the way, primarily in right-wing Europe which is increasingly displaying a more xenophobic character. Bringing the EU along with US lead is mandatory for the region. I wrote earlier about the United Kingdom initiative in taking a more active role with its allies in Bosnia. Together, the Anglo-American partnership could establish a new leadership format. Biden’s personal experience in solving similar issues can lead the way. 

For this to work, American pressure has to fall on Serbia to give up the Greater Serbian ideology, the same ideology that was responsible for the genocide of Muslims in Bosnia during the war. Until Serbia and Republika Srpska acknowledge what has been done under Milosevic’s and Karadzic’s rule – both in Bosnia and Kosovo – and stop the revisionism of settled historical records, no relationship will be prudent or friendly in the future. Furthermore, redrawing borders should be an absolute red line. Biden knows this. He experienced the consequences of Serbian ethno-national exclusivism first-hand and has understood that staying silent to nationalist ideologies is not an option. It instead leads to new conflicts in the Balkans.

If Biden really is as he says ready to “champion liberty and democracy, reclaim our credibility, and look with unrelenting optimism and determination toward our future” then keeping the status quo in Bosnia is counter-productive. The worst possible solution for Biden’s US, as the face of a democratic administration, is doing nothing. That would not only betray everything that was successfully done during the Clinton administration, which is deliberately undermined by the current Trump administration, but would also surrender Bosnia and the Balkans to growing Russian hegemony.

Making America great by making America good again

America cannot be made great again through Trump’s selfish and xenophobic media tirades that are music for right-wing ears all over the world. America can only be great if it establishes the far-reaching political vision that is occasionally seen in Biden’s election campaign. Freedom, peace and a sense of responsibility for the global good seeks the support of democratically-minded men and women all across the US, and especially Bosnian Americans who have found their second homeland in the United States.