Balkans
Stephen Schwartz writes:
Americans should pay attention to the unfortunate outcome of UN-EU-OSCE rule in
the Balkans, since the abdication of global responsibility proposed by the
Obama administration is predicated on a greater world-wide role for these
increasingly-discredited international organizations. Kosovo’s independence
should be guaranteed, to defeat radical Islamists who have returned to the
Balkans as a theatre for their malign operations, as well as to hold the line against
Russian scheming in the region. America made a promise to the Kosovars, and the
Kosovars believe that America keeps its promises. The Kosovars should not see
their hope in our integrity disappointed. It's time for EULEX to go
home. – The
Weekly Standard Blog
An exit poll from Sunday's presidential elections in Croatia has indicated a leftist opposition candidate and a longtime mayor of Zagreb will face off in a runoff vote. Both candidates are considered pro-Western and friendly toward the U.S., and both will likely support Croatia's efforts to win entry into the European Union, possibly in 2011 or 2012. The poll, carried out by Ipsos-Puls, considered a reliable polling agency, and released just after polling stations closed, gave leftist Social Democrat member Ivo Josipovic 32.7% of the vote. It showed Mayor Milan Bandic -- an independent -- would win 14.1% of the vote. – The AP
Nearly two years after the
newest country in the world declared independence, outside powers are still
firmly in control. About 14,000 NATO troops are on hand to keep the peace, a
decade after their arrival to protect Kosovars from annihilation by next-door
Serbia. With just 2 million people in Kosovo, that's more than twice as many
foreign soldiers, per capita, as are currently deployed in the NATO-led
coalition in Afghanistan. The economy is a basket case, with a 45 percent
unemployment rate. Most people are dependent on foreign largess… And yet, in
spite of its problems and growing pains, Kosovo is cited by many diplomats as a
credible model of nation-building, a sign -- relevant to the current debate
over Afghanistan -- that a determined effort by foreigners can help to build a
country from the ashes. After years of ethnic conflict, security and stability
are taking root. Predictions that independence would lead to revenge killings
by the ethnic Albanian majority against ethnic Serbs, who make up an estimated
7 percent of the population, proved overblown. Early next year, NATO is
expected to draw down its forces by one-third. – Washington
Post
“Hashim Thaci, Kosovo's prime minister, has claimed that his party has won the territory's first independent elections. The elections for city council and mayors in 36 municipalities on Sunday were seen as a key test of Kosovo's viability as a state following its contested February 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia. Preliminary results were expected later on Monday. But just hours after the polls closed, Hashim Thaci, the Kosovan prime minister, announced that his party had won in 20 of the 36 municipalities. ‘Today we gave freedom, independence and democracy its full meaning,’ Thaci told his supporters.” – Al Jazeera
Bob Dole writes: "Today, Bosnia is again under threat. This time the threat is not from the brutality and immediacy of genocide. Rather, it is a more subtle menace: the prospect of a state weakened to the extent that it dissolves; leaves its people in separatist, monoethnic conclaves; loses all hope for democratic development; and validates ultranationalism. This is happening not on battlefields, but at the negotiating table. It is happening because, rather than strengthening state powers and drawing the recalcitrant Bosnian Serbs back into Bosnia, representatives of European Union member nations led by former Bosnia chief negotiator Carl Bildt are walking back parts of the 1995 Dayton Agreement that had put an end to the three-and-a-half year war that had torn the country apart." –Wall Street Journal
The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President:
In the wake of your recent decision on European missile defense, we write in the hope that you honor the deep and principled connections that have bound the United States and the nations of Central and Eastern Europe since the time of Woodrow Wilson. Mindful of these links, we are concerned about the impact that canceling the planned missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic will have on our relationship with these strategic allies, other countries in the region, and our global credibility.
The Polish and Czech installations were a proposed response to the threat from Iran's missile and nuclear programs. As you said in April in Prague, "Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran's neighbors and our allies. The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles." Let us not ignore that courage amid debates about revised time tables, intelligence estimates, and technological feasibility.
We urge you to reiterate America's commitment to these allies that have endured Russian intimidation in support of the United States and a shared commitment to democracy. One way to do this is to move quickly to ensure that some of the land-based SM-3 missile defense sites your administration is proposing will be placed on Polish and Czech soil. Further, the United States should leave the door open to deploying Ground Based Interceptors should a long-range missile threat from Iran materialize sooner than you anticipate and alternative technologies not be available to defend against it. The planned deployment of a U.S. Patriot battery to Poland should proceed without delay, and similar arrangements should be explored with other allies in the region. We also encourage you to explore other ways to improve the U.S. defense relationship with both countries as well as their neighbors, including increased U.S. support for defense modernization efforts.
In July, a group of Central European leaders addressed to you, in an open letter, their concerns about the weakening state of U.S. relations with their region. "When it comes to Russia," they wrote, "our experience has been that a more determined and principled policy toward Moscow will not only strengthen the West's security but will ultimately lead Moscow to follow a more cooperative policy." Mr. President, our friends' advice is sound. Their wisdom has been earned both under the thumb of Soviet rule and in the shadow of today's more assertive Kremlin.
Polish and Czech leaders supported U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan despite heavy criticism. Though the signatories of this bipartisan letter have varying views on the merits of your administration's proposed missile defense architecture for Europe, we are united in our concern about the effect that even the perception of U.S. disengagement from Central Europe could have on our allies in the region. Supporters of the United States should not have to gamble on the staying power - or the commitment - of American leadership. We urge you to make every effort to ensure that Moscow does not conclude that America retreats in the face of threats to its most loyal allies.
Continuing plans to build missile defense sites in both Poland and the Czech Republic would send a clear message about the depth and sincerity of America's engagement in this region that shares our values and is vital to our security. The Central European letter stated: "Many in the region are looking with hope to the Obama Administration to restore the Atlantic relationship as a moral compass for their domestic as well as foreign policies." Many in America are hoping the same. Rather than raising additional doubts about our commitment to European allies, we urge you to work assiduously to strengthen it.
Sincerely,
| Elliott Abrams Max Boot Seth Cropsey Thomas Donnelly Jamie M. Fly Richard W. Graber Brian Green Jakub Grygiel Larry Hirsch Robert Kagan David J. Kramer |
William Kristol Charles W. Larson Robert J. Lieber Tod Lindberg Thomas G. Mahnken Michael Makovsky Clifford D. May A. Wess Mitchell Martin Peretz Peter Podbielski |
David Satter Randy Scheunemann Gary Schmitt Dan Senor Simon Serfaty Marc Thiessen William Tobey David J. Trachtenberg Ken Weinstein Leon Wieseltier |
"In many ways, Bosnia and Herzegovina ought already to be a showcase success for European 'soft power.' In the years since the United States brokered the 1995 Dayton accord, the E.U. has largely taken charge here. Its special representative, Valentin Inzko, doubles as the international community's high representative, and has wide powers to overrule feuding local politicians. Yet analysts fear that nationalist tensions are so strong, and European officials so unable to deliver progress for the hundreds of millions of euros poured in here, that violence could surge anew. 'We are now in a dangerous dynamic,' said Paddy Ashdown, former high representative, 'and if we fail to operate in a cohesive fashion we could end up with the de facto disintegration of Bosnia- Herzegovina.'" -- The New York Times
Reuters reports that “Iraq is negotiating the return of 19 fighter jets that Saddam Hussein's regime sent to Serbia for servicing at the end of the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqi Defence Ministry said. ‘We discussed the matter with the Serbian side about the possibility of repairing these aircraft and returning them to service,’ the ministry said. ‘Everyone knows our need for fighter jets.’ Two of the jets were ready for ‘immediate use’, the statement said, and a preliminary agreement had been reached with the Serbian government to repair the others and send them back.”
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