Tag: China
Biden is toast, but don’t burn him
I expect President Biden will soon announce the withdrawal of his candidacy. That’s good. His decline since I saw him up close last winter is obvious. While I would still far prefer him to Trump, he is wise to throw in the towel. He has a fantastic record of restoring the country to sanity and steady economic growth, reknitting its alliances, appointing capable and diverse officials, getting a lot done on climate change, meeting the Russian challenge in Ukraine, shoring up defenses against China, and I could go on. Bowing out now ensures a positive legacy.
Challenges ahead
The rumor mill suggests the convention will be an “open” one with several candidates to replace Biden on top of the ticket. That seems to me a bad idea. It ensures a floor fight that will necessarily be divisive. It could also stimulate street demonstrations, which could get out of hand. I favor handing the baton to Kamala Harris. Biden has repeatedly avowed that she is ready to take over. He should let her do so.
The campaign against Trump will still be an uphill battle, no matter the candidate. The Democrats need not only to unify. They need to present a clear and compelling alternative to Trump’s lying, criminality, and immorality. He is a terrible candidate. That Biden in his weakened condition is still running neck and neck with him in the polls suggests the Democrats can recover from the last few weeks to win.
Biden can help
Biden can be a useful surrogate in the effort. He still has strong Democratic support and could help to get voters to the polls. He is a formidable fundraiser and a savvy political operative. His sterling record contrasts dramatically with the chaos and decline of Trump’s presidency. Biden may be toast, but it would be a mistake for any successor candidate not to use his record and his savvy.
Whoever the Democratic candidate, s/he should rely a good deal on Biden, whether or not he remains in the presidency. The mistake Al Gore made–not to rely on President Clinton’s record–should not be repeated. Biden has been a successful president. Running away from him would be a big mistake.
Trump is worse than too many think
I’m hearing wishful thinking about a second Trump term. To the contrary, it will be far worse than his first. Just listen to what he says. He wants to weaponize the Justice Department, claiming falsely that Biden has done it. He wants to cut taxes for the rich again and raise them on middle class people who (necessarily) spend most of their income. Trump will give Ukraine to Putin and won’t protect Taiwan. And he’ll support extremists in Israel who want to expel Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. If you think the world is problematic now, just wait until a new Trump presidency.
Trump will also use a return to the White House to deliver retribution to those who oppose him. Take it from the Australians:
Part II isn’t out yet.
And remember this: Trump deployed unidentifiable law enforcement personnel on the streets of Washington (and wanted them to fire on demonstrators), he has praised the January 6 rioters, he is a committed racist, and he has appointed Supreme Court Justices who think a woman shouldn’t be allowed to decide on her own health care. That’s in addition to being a rapist, a tax cheat, and a Russian asset. Trump is far worse than too many think.
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The Balkans are simmering
My ten days in the Balkans June 18-28 visiting Sarajevo, Skopje, Tetovo, and Pristina constituted my first trip there in more than five years. I’ll try to summarize my impressions/findings here. I won’t reveal sources and methods, but it is no secret that I have talked with prominent politicians in and out of power, government officials, diplomats, thinktankers, civil society people, and university professors and students. My focus is on the conflicts: are they over? getting worse? staying the same? metamorphizing?
Sarajevo is mostly looking good…
In Sarajevo I found the wars of the 1990s fading both in memory and in physical representation. The city shows few scars or even memorials from the siege of 1992-95. The young mayor is a woman better known for her work in academia than politics when the city council selected her. She and her family lived on the confrontation line during the war. The city is almost entirely restored, the confrontation line erased, and the metropolitan area significantly expanded, especially to Ilidza in the west. That is where the much-lauded Sarajevo School of Science and Technology resides (photo by DAVOR BILANDŽIĆ, a local guide, as I neglected to take one):
Serbs I talked with are living comfortably in the city. Many more are commuting from Republika Srpska to the east, where Bosniaks are also said to be buying apartments because they are cheaper. Bosniaks have even returned to Stolac in southern Bosnia, from which Croats ethnically cleansed them in 1993.
…but
But political life in Bosnia still revolves around ethnic identity. A big gap is opening between the society, where individuals speaking a more or less common language get along without much friction, and politics, which organizes and mobilizes around whether you are Serb, Croat, Bosniak (Muslim, whether religious or secular), or Other. The worst interethnic violence I heard cited was that someone had slashed tires on some Serbian-plated vehicles. Reprehensible, but not a war crime. It isn’t clear who did it, but it caused the Orthodox prelates to boycott the Inter-religious Council. The Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish members continue to meet.
Some pessimists suggest that the ethnic groups are just waiting for the next opportunity to slaughter each other. I hope that is not true, but we can’t be sure. The Dayton constitution under which the country is governed enshrines ethnic identity as a major factor in politics. Generations of living under that system has empowered ethnic nationalists, with consequences that could be catastrophic. Some think young people are even more nationalist than their parents. I find that hard to believe of the many 20- and 30-somethings noisily frequenting the bars in central Sarajevo until late at night, but that indicator may not reflect the rest of the country.
Skopje is restored too, but with a difference
In what is now officially North Macedonia, which never saw serious fighting in the capital, Skopje shows many signs of two conflicts that have plagued the country for decades. In 2014, the government launched a much-needed reconstruction of the center of the city. An ethnic nationalist government adorned it with grotesquely large statues of Greek heroes and a triumphal arch.
These monuments underlined the false claim that modern Macedonia, whose majority population is Slav rather than Greek, has roots in ancient history. That not only annoyed Greece but increased the sharp contrast between the mainly Macedonian part of the city and the more traditional other side of the river:
The construction of an Orthodox Church on the grounds of Skopje’s large, mainly Ottoman-era fortress remains stalled due to Albanian claims that the work is destroying an ancient Illyrian site. A colleague who has spent her career working on Macedonian/Albanian relations suggested to me that the “social distance” between citizens of different ethnicities is growing, due in part to separate schools, mutually incomprehensible languages, and little concern with inter-ethnic comity. But the politicians cooperate in coalitions that always include both Macedonians and Albanians. So the situation is the inverse of that in Sarajevo: the political class cooperates reasonably well, but ethnicity increasingly governs the society.
Pristina celebrates its own modern heroes
Pristina, which also suffered no widespread destruction, sports monuments to Kosovo’s conflict with Serbia. The monumental statues of Kosovo heroes, both nonviolent leader Ibrahim Rugova and Kosovo Liberation Army fighters, are prominent:
There are also now giant portraits of Kosovo’s former President Thaci and its former Parliament Speaker Veseli, both on trial in The Hague for war crimes. Statues of Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright, who supported Kosovo in the 1990s, occupy prominent spots, and Bill Clinton Boulevard interests with (Senator) Bob Doll (sic) Street. The commercial bustle distracts attention from all these monuments and portraits, but they are not hard to find.
Nevertheless, Serbs now circulate safely and freely in Pristina, despite the still high interethnic tension in the northern four municipalities, which are majority Serb and contiguous with Serbia. Few young Albanians learn Serbian. Even fewer Serbs learn Albanian. Physical separation is the rule rather than the exception. Most Serbs live in Serb-majority municipalities. There is little political cooperation at any level.
Ambitions are similar…
In all three countries, I found similar government goals. Economic development is the top priority. Politicians in the capitals all agree that their citizens want jobs created and corruption reduced.
Kosovo’s prime minister is generally regarded as having clean hands. The country’s rule of law scores have been improving. But more than one person suggested that the administration lacks expertise and competence, both at the national and the municipal levels. The prime minister seems to his opponents to value loyalty more than capability.
The new prime minister in Macedonia is proud that the mayors from his political party who gained election two years ago have not garnered criticism for corruption. The party he inherited in 2017 was both broke and corrupt. He has rebuilt it and would be unlikely to welcome back his predecessor, who has fled to Hungary. The new government will include Albanians who have mostly been in opposition, displacing an Albanian party that had been in power for all but two of the past 12 years. That party had garnered a lot of criticism for arrogance and patronage.
…but Bosnia is different
In Bosnia, the situation is more complicated, as usual. The US has sanctioned the President of Republika Srpska (RS), the Serb 49% of the country, for corruption, along with members of his family. The economy in much of the RS–which depends heavily on Russian financing–is moribund. Its eastern wing is depopulated. Corruption also plagues the main Croat nationalist political party, but evidence has proven hard to find. Its leader is careful not to leave his name on paper.
For reasons I find hard to fathom, the US and the international community High Representative preferred when they got a chance to torpedo the head of the main Bosniak party, not the Croat or Serb. The only explanation I heard was that its leader allegedly opposed meaningful state-building. A puzzling first choice for international ire, he is now in opposition but has maintained his command of a main Bosniak political party. The other two ethnic leaders are still on the target list.
Geopolitics heighten tensions
In all three countries, the US and EU are in competition with Russia and China. The Russian objective is to de-stabilize and thereby cause Washington grief. It does this using politicians in Belgrade, including the President, as proxies. Serbia seeks dominance of the Serb populations in neighboring countries. This “Serbian world” objective is a carbon copy of Putin’s “Russian world” that justified the invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese are looking to use the Balkans, especially Serbia, as a trade route into the EU, which is still the region’s (and Serbia’s) main trading partner.
The US declares that it wants to see all the countries of the Balkans in the Western camp. But Washington has turned a blind eye to Serbia’s definitive turn in the last couple of years towards the East. Belgrade happily takes weapons from Russia and investment from China. The EU claims to want all the states of the Western Balkans to become members, but that prospect is far off. In the meanwhile, Brussels fails to use sanctions and even verbal condemnation against those standing in the way of EU accession.
Macedonia in the middle
Moscow will be pleased with the new Macedonian government. It includes a deputy prime minister who is a vigorous Russophile, as well as two others close to Moscow. A Hungarian bank said to have Russian financing granted a 1 billion euro loan to the new government immediately after it was sworn in. The newly installed President has refused to use the country’s official name, North Macedonia. The 2018 agreement with Greece to use that name was a major EU achievement.
The new prime minister in Skopje is nevertheless at pains to emphasize his Western orientation, his ambition for EU membership, and North Macedonia’s fidelity to NATO membership. His Albanian coalition partners will insist on those points. A deputy prime minister can either be someone important or someone the prime minister wants to keep an eye on.
Macedonia’s biggest current international issue is with EU member state Bulgaria. Sofia is insisting that Skopje recognize in its constitution the fewer than 1000 citizens who identify as Bulgarians. The new prime minister campaigned against that. But he may be willing to do it in the final stage of EU accession, when the Bulgarians can’t afterwards raise additional issues. In the meanwhile, some optimists hope the Bulgarians will be willing to absent themselves from decisions on Macedonia’s accession process. That is what Hungarian Prime Minister Orban did on EU aid to Ukraine.
Bosnia is split, as always
The Russians will also be pleased with the current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Serbs and Croats there combine often to do things Moscow enjoys, including the defanging of the judicial system. The Europeans have been reluctant to use their considerable leverage in Bosnia, thinking that the accession process will fix everything. Brussels has not sanctioned the Serb leader, despite Washington pressure. Moscow seems ready to continue giving him money, with little prospect of ever getting it back.
The Bosniak and other participants in the current government of the 51% of the country they control in condominium with the Croats owe their position to the Americans. But they are a weak reed to lean on. While the Federation’s economy is doing better than that of the RS, its politics are still far from functioning at what we like to think of as a Western level.
Pristina is bandwagoning without benefits
Unlike Belgrade and the RS, the authorities in Pristina have no option to hedge their bets. Kosovo necessarily “bandwagons” (that’s the technical term) with NATO and the EU.
But the current prime minister is unhappy with Washington and Brussels for appeasing Belgrade. The results are felt keenly in the EU-sponsored and US-supported “dialogue” between Pristina and Belgrade. Kosovo wants Belgrade to withdraw a letter disowning an agreement on political normalization reached last year. Pristina asks that Serbia sign the agreement and transfer for trial the self-confessed organizer of a September 2023 terrorist plot. The prime minister has made these legitimate desires a condition for re-engaging in a dialogue that has produced precious little. That angers the EU and US, which see the dialogue as an end in itself, not just a means.
The result is anomalous. Kosovo is in the dialogue mainly to improve relations with the US and EU. But its conditions for participating are doing the opposite. This is not the first time Pristina has displeased its closest friends. Somehow it needs to find a way to make demands of Belgrade without alienating Brussels and Washington.
American leadership is decisive, but so too is European vigor
Most everyone I talked with recognized that America’s November election will be decisive for the Balkans. President Trump favored partition of Kosovo and will no doubt continue in that direction if re-elected. His willingness to surrender part of Ukraine to Russia will re-open the partition question in the Balkans.
Trump’s reliance on Serbophile Richard Grenell for advice on the Balkans and his son-in-law’s investment in Belgrade will guarantee support for Serbia’s ambitions. That would precipitate challenges to Serbia’s borders as well as Bosnia’s and perhaps Montenegro’s and Macedonia’s. Such challenges will spark violence, ethnic cleansing, and ultimately war. The simmering Balkans will boil over into instability, and even regional war if Trump gets another chance to pursue ethnic partition.
President Biden, while in my view too soft on Serbia, has maintained nominal support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the Western Balkan states. In a second term, he should correct course. He should give up on political normalization between Kosovo and Serbia, which is a bridge too far, and stiffen policy towards Serbia. He should also try to get past the Dayton constitution in Bosnia and pressure Bulgaria to postpone its hope for constitutional change in Macedonia.
The EU is appointing Estonia’s anti-Russian* prime minister as the new High Representative for foreign affairs. That will give Washington a stronger reed to lean on than the incumbent. He and his chief negotiator came from two countries, Spain and Slovakia, that do not recognize Kosovo. They both leaned towards appeasing Serbia. Kaja Kallas will be far more vigorous in countering Moscow’s influence. Biden will get along well with her. Trump won’t.
*A careful reader writes:
One small quibble – Kallas is not “anti-Russian,” she is anti-Kremlin or anti-Putin, or anti-Russian imperialism.
I accept that amendment.
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Could the message be any clearer?
I spoke this morning at Hudson Institute-US/Europe Alliance event on Foreshocks in the Black Sea and Western Balkans: Repercussions of the Russia-Ukraine War. I drew on this post:
All too often those who follow the Balkans view Moscow and Beijing as manipulating President Vucic. That is not the whole story. He “has agency” in the awkward syntax of political science. Vucic has decided to align his increasingly autocratic regime with Russia and China, as well as with Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Hungary. He likes their “might makes right” style, which gives him some hope of recovering Kosovo or part of it. He would no doubt befriend Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, if Pristina hadn’t beaten him to it by establishing its embassy in Jerusalem.
The many reasons why
Ethnonationalist, autocratic preference comes naturally to Vucic, who learned his politics at Slobodan Milosevic’s knee. But he had a choice when he became Prime Minister in 2014. He could have adopted a truly pro-Western approach. He has long talked pro-EU. If deed had followed words, Serbia would today have a consolidated democracy well on its way to accession. Instead, it has drifted towards authoritarian rule. Freedom House ranks it generously as “partly free.” Its ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) “has steadily eroded political rights and civil liberties, putting pressure on independent media, the political opposition, and civil society organizations.”
Vucic has not only presided over Serbia’s democratic decline. He has encouraged it. Many Balkan watchers complain about “stabilitocracy.” They mean by that the alleged Western preference for incumbent rulers because they provide stability, despite democratic shortcomings. But that ignores the fates of Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevski, Montenegrin President Djukanovic, and Kosovo President Thaci. Vucic fears lack of Western commitment to stability. He worries, I hope rightly, that the day he faces defeat in an election or indictment in an international court no one in Europe or the US will trouble themselves with him.
There are no doubt ample economic reasons for Vucic’s autocratic drift as well. China is not beneficent, but its mining, rail, and tire projects and investments leave ample room for hiring well-connected locals and skimming off a percentage to support Vucic-connected oligarchs and politicians. Moscow deals are even less transparent. Both the Chinese and the Russians are all too willing to help as well with internal security cooperation that might go a yard further than the Americans or Europeans would countenance, including extensive electronic surveillance.
Vucic is serious about the Serbian world
But in the end the biggest factor in Vucic’s Eastern leanings is his admiration for those who take what they want, without offering any excuses. Vucic wants to govern all the Serbs of the Balkans, de facto if not de jure. His minions call that ambition the “Serbian world.” In Milosevic’s era it was known as Greater Serbia. Vucic is achieving his objective de facto in Republika Srpska and in Montenegro with minimal violence. That won’t be possible in Kosovo. Any violent move there would throw the Balkans back into chaos and ethnonationalist slaughter.
Belgrade’s new government includes the strongest Serbian world advocate, Deputy Prime Minister Vulin. He claims to have organized the terrorist incident in northern Kosovo last year. It was intended to provide an excuse for Serbian military intervention.
The new Prime Minister was Defense Minister last year when a rent-a-crowd injured dozens of NATO peacekeepers and when Serbia kidnapped police from the territory of Kosovo. He denies genocide in Bosnia and vaunts his ambition to get Montenegro “closer” to Serbia. He shows no sign of accepting as valid the two agreements negotiated last year on normalization with Kosovo. His predecessor disowned them. The new Foreign Minister, the former Ambassador in Washington, can talk for an hour or so with an EU diplomat without mentioning them.
Vucic himself has made it clear he is biding his time until geopolitical circumstances allow him to grab at least northern Kosovo.
This is where the Chinese, who want to do likewise with Taiwan, and the Russians, who have already annexed something like 18% of Ukraine, are most useful. They help Vucic keep alive the hope that some day he can seize what he wants.
So where will the fate of the Balkans be decided?
We should take Vucic’s ambition seriously. Washington and Brussels need to extinguish it. It will be difficult to do that until Biden wins in November and Ukraine evicts Russia. It will be impossible if Trump or the Russians win. Washington, Donbas, and Crimea will decide the fate of the Balkans.
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See no evil is not good policy
Serbia’s parliament approved the country’s new government last week. The personnel and program represent a further turn to the ethnonationalist, anti-EU right. AP makes many of the details easily accessible. The government includes ministers the US has already sanctioned for corruption as well as blatant Russophilic sycophants. Not to mention a prime minister who led the Serbian Defense Ministry last year, when it was complicit in a terrorist attack in northern Kosovo, the kidnapping of Kosovo police, and rioting against NATO-led peacekeepers. He has already reiterated Serbia’s desire for good relations with Russia and refusal to align with EU sanctions against Moscow.
President Vucic is leaving little room for those who argue that Serbia is headed West. In recent months he has ostentatiously met with the would-be dictators of Hungary and Azerbaijan as well as the all too real authoritarians governing Belarus, Russia, and China. Vucic is making no secret of his ambition to extend his authority to the Serb-controlled 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina, all of Montenegro, and Serb-majority northern Kosovo. Vucic also presided in December over a grotesquely unfair national election, and a fraudulent municipal election in Belgrade, that have prompted Freedom House to continue lowering Serbia’s democracy scores.
Why Europe and the US delude themselves
Still, officials in the US and Europe are prepared to tolerate and even reward Vucic. Some fear that any alternative might be worse. Others don’t want to admit the failure of three years of going easy on Vucic. Still others imagine that crumbs he hands out in the Western direction–Serbs using Kosovo license plates and identity documents–may presage improvement on bigger issues. The shells and bullets Serbia allows to reach Ukraine may influence some, though surely similar amounts–if not more–make their way to Russia.
But self-delusion is a big part of this story. Vucic has made clear that he will not implement agreements the US and EU regard as legally binding. Belgrade has opposed Kosovo membership in the Council of Europe. This is despite its qualifications and the benefits that could derive therefrom to the Kosovo Serbs. Surely intelligent Americans and Europeans understand that Serbian participation in NATO exercises generates a substantial flow of intelligence to Russia. But doing something about Serbia’s malfeasance requires heavy political lifting. Why take that on if no one above your pay grade objects to a “see no evil” policy?
An opportunity to shift
There should soon be an opportunity to take a more effective tack. The officials who forged the see no evil policy are headed elsewhere. Rumint says EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajcak and US Deputy Assistant Secretary Gabriel Escobar are both getting ready to move on. They invested heavily in Vucic and have little to show for it. So has the US embassy in Belgrade. Ambassador Hill has repeatedly denigrated Kosovo’s leadership while lauding Serbia’s.
The new leader of the State Department European Bureau, Jim O’Brien, has not fallen entirely into their unproductive rut. He has been notably blunt on some issues with Vucic. But he, too, continues to promise Serbia progress on instituting an Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in Kosovo that Vucic intends to use as an irredentist mechanism for governing Kosovo’s Serbs.
The Association requires fulfillment of the quid pro quo
This is unfortunate. Kosovo promised this Association in a 2013 agreement that included recognition of the validity of the Kosovo constitution on its entire territory and a commitment to allowing Kosovo and Serbia to accede to the European Union separately and without mutual interference. This amounted to de facto Serbian recognition of Kosovo, since only sovereign states can accede to the Union.
But Serbia has withdrawn from those commitments. Vucic has made it clear that he has no greater tolerance for de facto recognition than for de jure recognition. He has pulled the Serb mayors, police, judges, and other officials out of Pristina’s institutions in northern Kosovo. Belgrade encouraged the Kosovo Serbs to boycott the last municipal elections. Serbia is also opposing Kosovo membership in the Council of Europe and other regional institutions.
The problem is democracy
To expect Kosovo to form the Association without the benefits that Serbia promised in return is foolish. Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti has held a commanding position for most of the past five years in Kosovo politics. There would be no quicker way for him to lose it than to give the Association to Serbia without getting anything in return. He likely faces an election next year. To expect him to commit political suicide to please Belgrade is diplomatic malpractice.
Of course the same is true for President Vucic. Serbia may be headed towards autocracy, but it is not there yet. Few Serbian politicians risk saying the obvious: that Kosovo is lost and Serbia would be better off admitting it. Vucic’s main opposition for years has been more hawkish on Kosovo than he is. It would require unusual courage for him to buck the political currents in Belgrade.
The only way of reviving the Association is to revive the 2013 quid pro quo as well. That should include genuine participation of Serb citizens in Kosovo’s governance, Belgrade acceptance of Pristina’s constitutional and judicial authority in the north, and an end to Belgrade’s opposition to Kosovo membership in international organizations. Kurti might then be able to boast that he had made a good deal. Vucic could claim to have have gotten what Belgrade wanted. And the US and EU would be able to claim real progress in bringing both Serbia and Kosovo closer to EuroAtlantic institutions and values.
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The wider war has arrived, when will peace?
Iran yesterday retaliated against Israel for its bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed high ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles was ineffective, due to Israeli, American, British, and Jordanian air defenses. The Iranians made no secret of what they intended to do and presumably are hoping it will not trigger another round.
Multiple vectors
But it is still reasonable to conclude that the wider Middle East war many have feared has already begun. Israel continues its attack on Gaza. Lebanese Hizbollah and Israel are exchanging shots across the border. Israel is frequently targeting Iranian assets in Syria. Yemen’s Houthis are targeting shipping and warships in the Red Sea. Iraq’s Iranian-sponsored “Popular Mobilization Forces” have been targeting American military bases. Israeli settlers have been chasing Palestinians from their homes on the West Bank.
Of course the pace and lethality of this wider war could heighten. So far, its most deadly axis by far has been Israel/Hamas. Hamas has killed about 1500 Israelis and the Israelis have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, in retaliation for the mass murder, kidnapping, and mayhem of October 7. Elsewhere the wider war is more than symbolic, but still far less fatal.
Worsening prospects
Once such things start, the natural tendency is towards escalation. Certainly things have gotten worse in the past six months. They are likely to get worse still. The murder of an Israeli teenager on the West Bank last week sparked heightened settler violence against Palestinians there. Hizbollah could do a lot more damage if it unleashes its missiles. So could the Israelis if they decide to push into southern Lebanon. Iran still has lots of drones and missiles it could use in a second attack.
The next round will be Israel’s choice. It could choose to write off yesterday’s attack as ineffective and unworthy of response. Or it could decide to reassert deterrence with a direct attack on Iran or on Iranian assets in the region. I suspect the decision will be based primarily on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s domestic political calculations. He faces growing demands for his resignation. Any pause in the fighting could provide the time to bring him down. He is still hoping for enough of a victory in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran to enable him to remain in power.
That seems unlikely in Gaza. Israel has done significant harm to Hamas there but is still far from the total defeat Netanyahu has set as its war goal. Israel has been hitting Hizbollah in Lebanon without much reaction. That could be a likelier prospect. He may think a devastating blow against Iran would enable him to avoid the inevitable for a while longer. Why anyone in his war cabinet would go along with that is unclear to me, but so far they have generally supported his wartime decisions.
Can diplomacy work?
The still wider and more deadly war in prospect is not in the US interest. Nor do the Europeans want it. Karim Sadjadpour on MSNBC last night pointed out that the Chinese would likewise prefer stability in the Middle East to lower and steady oil prices. The Russians by contrast benefit from de-stabilization and the consequent distraction from the Ukraine war as well as the bump up in oil prices. But even acting together it is unclear that the Americans, Europeans, and Chinese could exert sufficient influence on Israel or Iran to de-escalate.
Both countries have leaders whose political mandates won’t last much longer. Iran’s Supreme Leader is almost 85 years old and ill. Netanyahu is suffering a catastrophic decline in popularity as well as serious corruption charges. Both are claiming not to want to escalate. But neither sees an enticing option other than escalation. Both want victory over the other as a political legacy. The wider war has arrived, but until there is decisively new leadership in both Tehran and Jerusalem peace is unlikely.
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Time to turn the policy around
There is no exaggeration in what Albin is saying. President Vucic financed, supported, and orchestrated the terrorist attack of September 24. The Kosovo police the EU wanted (and continues to want) withdrawn from northern Kosovo responded professionally, killed three of the perpetrators, and prevented worse from happening. Washington and Brussels know this but won’t say it. They prefer to allow Vucic to get off scot-free.
They are likewise allowing him to avoid responsibility for the unfair national and fraudulent Belgrade elections of December 27. The European Parliament has called for a commission to investigate. But so far the European Commission, the Council, and most of the Member States are keeping their mouths shut about an election that wouldn’t pass muster in any EU country. It didn’t come close to the relatively free and fair elections in recent years in Kosovo, including two that installed Kurti in office.
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil
Why this “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” approach to someone who is taking an EU candidate country into ever closer alignment with Russia and China? Many tell me the ammunition Serbia supplies to Ukraine is a factor. But Belgrade surely ships as much ordnance or other military supplies to Moscow as it does to Kyiv. It is unlikely Vucic would cut off Kyiv out of spite for Western criticism. Inat only goes so far when it is a question of profits for your arms manufacturer friends.
Support for “stability” is another possible explanation. But Vucic has no viable opposition, either on the liberal democratic side of Serbian politics or the ethnic nationalist side. Serbia’s problem is a lack of political competition, not an excess of it. He is the destabilizing force both in his country’s politics and in its relations with its neighbors.
The internationals are part of the problem
Lack of international political horsepower is another explanation. EU negotiator Miroslav Lajcak is exhausted and at the end of his rope. The dialogue he has led for more than three and a half years has played out. Belgrade has repeatedly and loudly renounced supposed “legally binding” agreements reached there. Yesterday he refused to sign them at the Security Council. Without real progress on de facto if not de jure recognition, Pristina refuses to create the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities that Lajcak and American negotiator Gabe Escobar unwisely made their top priority.
Many hope things will improve with Assistant Secretary of State O’Brien in charge. He has been appropriately blunt with the Bosnians. But it is not clear whether he is prepared to dial up the heat on Vucic about the Serbian elections, the dialogue with Pristina, Belgrade’s September 24 terrorist attack, or the kidnapping of three policemen on Kosovo territory. Jim recognizes the difficulty of any political settlement and tries to steer his efforts in the economic direction, hoping to flank the recognition issue.
So who cares?
None of this is a big problem, at least as seen from Washington or Brussels. But it isn’t a big problem until it is. Vucic is increasingly serious in his efforts to destabilize the neighboring countries with irredentist and self-victimizing claims on behalf of their Serb populations. The Russians will be pushing him in that direction, to echo and amplify their own claims in Ukraine. The atmosphere in Bosnia, Montenegro, and Kosovo is increasingly tense. It would not take much effort to provoke instability even in all three, then justify the movement of Serbian tanks to protect the local Serb population from false rumors of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Even without revanchist moves into his neighbors, Vucic can exploit the Serbian domestic scene to promote violence. His security forces have been arresting and beating dissenters who dare to apologize for Serb atrocities in the 1990s. They have even lain flowers on the grave of a young girl killed by Serb security forces in Kosovo. The repression intimidates the Serbian opposition and ensures it will not retreat from hard-line Serbian nationalism on Kosovo. It is admittedly inclined not to do so anyway, but Vucic wants to make sure no one gets any fancy ideas about acknowledging the malfeasance of the Milosevic era. As Information Minister then, he was a mainstay of that regime.
What is to be done?
The right approach to this situation is to recognize failure and turn the policy around. I thought when he first came to power Vucic might be the guy to take Serbia in a democratic direction. He has chosen not to be. He instead decided not to befriend the West but rather to ally with the East. He dishes out just enough goodies to Washington and Brussels to keep them from calling his bluff. It doesn’t take much.
It is time to call him out, loudly and clearly. The US should insist on the transfer of the September 24 perpetrators to Kosovo for trial. As the European Parliament has proposed, the EU should stop its ample financing of Serbian efforts to prepare for accession until new elections are held, at least in Belgrade. The dialogue should be refocused on the economic issues O’Brien prefers. The EU and US should call out high-level corruption in Belgrade. The EU should lift the “consequences” it levied on Kosovo and acknowledge Pristina’s anti-corruption efforts. That would be a Balkans policy worthy of President Biden’s claims to supporting democracy.
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