The war crimes trial of Croatian general Ante Gotovina got under way yesterday. For a backgrounder on the unseemly politics of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, take a gander at my article in The American Interest from a few months back:

After Dayton, the international community turned its attention to prosecuting war crimes as a further means of forcing reconciliation. Again, the underlying assumption was that all sides were guilty; Serbia was perhaps quantitatively, but not qualitatively, more guilty than the other parties, but this was not important for practical purposes. For example, the fact that Serb civilians, fearing retribution, were fleeing in front of advancing Croatian and Bosnian armies was also viewed as “ethnic cleansing”, even though the Croats and Bosnians were not engaged in the methodical slaughter of innocents and forced deportations perfected by their Serbian adversaries over the years.

Doubtlessly atrocities did occur during Croatia’s “Operation Storm”, and Tudjman and his generals certainly weren’t terribly concerned that thousands of Serbs were fleeing their homesteads. This was not, however, “the single largest event of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the 1991-1995 wars” as the NY Times would have it.

The Croatian Serbs had massacred hundreds and expelled thousands of Croats from their homes in the intervening years, and they very rightly feared that their returning neighbors wouldn’t take too kindly to them. Tudjman’s cavalier attitude and his failure and unwillingness to provide security for these people stands as a black mark on the history of the founding of modern state of Croatia. But it doesn’t even begin to measure up to the systematic barbarities and deportations practiced by the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia during the Balkan wars. Equating the two sides, as the Times does above, is either dishonest, or more likely just plain historically ignorant and lazy.

I’ve written about this before: Russia’s game over Kosovo has less to do with warm feelings viz. the Serbs and has more to do with securing energy monopolies over Eastern Europe, a region Russia clearly sees as its legitimate sphere of influence.

This article by Charlie Szrom in The Weekly Standard lays out the argument as clearly and as cogently as you can hope to read anywhere.

The West should recognize Moscow’s less-than-noble motives in opposing a free Kosovo, and it must blunt the power of the Nord and South Stream pipeline projects. Europe can either accept a grim future under Russia’s thrall, or it can begin walking a difficult, if necessary, path.

Do we care about Eastern Europe falling back into Russia’s orbit? Working through the implications of how you answer that question will yield a coherent policy for the United States. Any other approach will yield confused half-measures and disastrous prevarication.

Serbian PM Vojislav Koštunica called for a massive, peaceful protest this week to show the world Serbian dignified indignation at Kosovo being allowed to declare independence. Today, those protests occurred:

Serb rioters broke into the U.S. Embassy Thursday and set fire to the facade after a massive protest against Kosovo’s independence.

Masked attackers were seen climbing over a first-floor railing on the building and trying to throw furniture from an office. A blaze broke out along the mission’s front facade.

Glad to see the government took all the necessary precautions to safeguard against such behavior. Again, charming.

Next up, it turns out that the Dayton Accords have gone missing in Serbia. The Croatian weekly Nacional is dripping with condescension as it reports:

“The Dayton Accords never appeared in the Foreign Ministry. The Ministry is where all international treaties are stored for safekeeping, we have treaties reaching back to the Kingdom of Serbia, but this document is not here,” [the Serbian daily] *Politika* was told by the Ministry. But Vlado Nadeždin, chief of office at the time of the signing of the treaty claims to have personally delivered the document to the Ministry.

This follows on the heels of the news that the Bosnian government can’t find its copy of the Accords either.

No worries, says Former Serbian Foreign Minister Goran Svilanović. There’s a copy in the archives, and as a last resort, we can always call Paris where another original is stored.

The Croatian government, as of yet, has not lost its signed copy.

Here’s what you get when you nurture national grievances as a means of reaching political consensus: a bunch of semi-fascist youth busting up your city when geopolitics doesn’t go your way.

The Serbian youth attacked the American and Slovenian embassies, harassed the car bearing the Brazilian ambassador as he was leaving Serbian government buildings, and heaved stones and firecrackers at police and anyone with a camera.

Charming.

Matt thinks the main price of Kosovo’s independence will be paid by the Georgians as Russia retaliates by establishing mini-states in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Well, maybe and maybe not.¹ I don’t think that Russia would waste such a winning hand in a fit of pique over Kosovo. It’s far more likely that they’ll agitate over Georgia when it suits the West least. As I’ve written before, Russia doesn’t much care for consistency in the international system, nor does it actually care about their Serbian “brothers”. It’s all about power politics and establishing spheres of influence in its near-abroad.

It does make Georgia’s bid for NATO membership far more problematic, and brings John McCain’s severe hawkishness into relief. Is he willing to say that the U.S. would commit troops to Georgia to ensure its territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression?

They done gone ahead and did it—Kosovo has declared independence. They’ve elected to use a flag with motifs reminiscent of the EU’s own standard: blue background, gold color, and stars. They’ve also chosen to use a map of the territory of Kosovo as an element in the flag, much like another long-suffering, partitioned country: Cyprus. If the Serbs do manage to establish de facto independence for the northern parts of Kosovo, however, it’s not likely that they would declare autonomy like the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, but would rather be annexed outright by Serbia.

One has to think that this obvious parallel was not lost on the Kosovars, and that they opted for this flag design as an explicit reminder to the West to not let the same thing happen to them as has befallen the wretched Cypriots. Whether symbolism is an effective means of communicating with the wretched Eurocrats remains to be seen.

Smarting from their memories of Srebrenica, the Dutch bravely blocked the EU from going forward on the Stability and Association Agreement with Serbia unless Serbia first serves up Ratko Mladic to the Hague. Smart move by the Dutch. As long as Serbia remains unreconciled with the horrors perpetrated on her behalf during the last few decades, any long-term healing in the region is impossible.¹

Those unconvinced that the political situation in Serbia is as toxic as I make it out to be need only to look at the results of the first round elections. The only politician running on an unabashedly pro-Western pro-modern platform, the only candidate to publicly concede that Kosovo was a lost cause for Serbia was Čedomir Jovanovic.² He got only 5.34% of the vote.

The New York Times has a simple narrative for you:

Nine candidates were vying for the presidency, but only two were considered serious contenders: the pro-Western incumbent, Mr. Tadic, and his pro-Russian nationalist challenger, Mr. Nikolic. The presidency is formally a ceremonial post in Serbia. But during Mr. Milosevic’s autocratic government in the 1990s, when he virtually ruled alone, it gained in importance and influence.

Mr. Tadic, a telegenic and soft-spoken moderate who is supported by a majority of European leaders, advocates Western-style reforms and integration into the European Union, after more than a decade of isolation and wars under Mr. Milosevic.

…

Mr. Nikolic, a former ally of Mr. Milosevic, has sought to evoke Serbs’ nationalist pride by playing on their growing frustration over American and European Union backing for Kosovo independence. Analysts say a victory by Mr. Nikolic would probably bury Serbia’s pro-European aspirations, push the country back into political isolation and undermine its economic prospects.

Nonsense on stilts. Tadic has been playing the nationalist card as well, edging towards Russia, going along with Prime Minister Kostunica’s dirty games—all in hopes of taking some votes away from the Radicals and Nikolic. He is a cowardly politician who’s made some bad decisions during the past few years, and he will likely lose for it.

Furthermore, this is not the result of “growing frustration over American and European Union backing for Kosovo independence” as the Times would have it. The real story here is that there is a very large percentage of Serbs, quite possibly a plurality, who have not renounced their recent history and for whom Kosovo and Bosnia are still open questions. These are the same forces that brought Milosevic to power and who supported him through three disastrous wars. The Balkans will not be peaceful until Serbia goes through some sort of catharsis and relegates these ideas to its fringes.

Ultra-nationalist radical Tomislav Nikolic won the first round of Serbia’s presidential elections. If he wins the whole thing, this is nothing short of Serbia voting to rehabilitate the legacy of Milosevic.

Be prepared to hear commentary on how the West’s unreasonable policy over Kosovo has brought the hardliners to power in Serbia. That’s nonsense. This is the result of Serbia never having been compelled to come to terms with its most recent history, either through decisive military defeat or through a proper criminalization of its actions through the farcical ICTY.