Balkan Ghosts Haunt Democrats
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, August 24, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Balkans: Remember Kosovo? The restive Serbian province is little changed from 1999 as talks go on and warfare brews. Yet this is a reminder of the multilateralism that Democrats endorse.
U.S. involvement in the Balkan wars occurred on President Clinton's watch, and we're still waiting for results. They hardly trump the progress we now seem to be making to win the war in Iraq.
Back in 1999, Clinton ordered NATO to bomb Serb positions around the breakaway province for 78 days as the United Nations dithered. Then he passed the buck to the U.N. for final resolution of Kosovo's status.
"I think that it's obvious that we are doing the right thing, and we are going to prevail," said Vice President Al Gore in April 1999.
Eight years later, 16,500 NATO boots remain on the ground as jawboning between the three U.N.-mandated diplomatic players — the U.S., the European Union and Russia — goes on. And on.
This month, the U.N. set up a 120-day diplomatic talk "surge" with a Dec. 10 deadline to resolve whether Kosovo and its 2 million citizens will go independent or become autonomous within Serbia.
Sensing indecision, hotheaded Serb nationalists and Kosovar independence militants are hinting at renewed warfare. Law enforcers report intercepting big arms shipments in Kosovo. Indecision is creating a void and emboldening troublemakers.
It's easy to see why. The U.S. and Germany call for Kosovar independence, possibly to keep Russia from gaining a monopoly on Europe's energy via Serbia. Meanwhile, Serbia, its historic ally Hungary and even Israel have doubts about a "second Albania" in the area, worrying it may become a gangster paradise or Islamofascist redoubt.
But the big obstacle is paranoid Russia. It firmly opposes Kosovo independence, saying it thinks Kosovo will become a "NATO state." With its U.N. veto, Russia is blocking any resolution at all.
All of which goes to show that getting the cooperation of European allies and involving the U.N. in regional conflicts are hardly substitutes for the kind of clear victory that President Bush is pursuing in Iraq.
Yet Democrats loudly insist on multilateral solutions no matter what the war. Their presidential candidates (and not just foreign-policy lightweights such as Barack Obama) advocate multilateralism for Iraq and Iran.
In a July 10 speech in Des Moines, presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said:
"Over the past four years, we have learned the hard way about the need for a truly multilateral approach in Iraq, one built on sound strategy and long-range planning, not ideology and wishful thinking. The president's go-it-alone attitude has diminished our position in the region and around the world."
Clinton's Senate Web site also endorses a "multilateral" solution to Iran's nuclear threat.
Then there's Bill Richardson. In his seven-point "new realism" plan for Iraq, he wrote:
"We should convene a regional conference to secure the cooperation of all of Iraq's neighbors — including Syria and Iran — in promoting peace and stability. Among the key objectives of such a conference should be guarantees of noninterference, as well as the creation of a multilateral force of U.N. peacekeepers, should the Iraqis request one."
It doesn't take long for predators, whether in Iraq or Kosovo, to draw out the process when they see a lack of leadership.
If the U.S. doesn't want another decades-long Kosovo on its hands in the Middle East, questions must be asked about this multilateralism, however fashionable.
Much as they holler about Bush not finishing the Afghanistan war before going to Iraq, Democrats are haunted by much longer Balkan ghosts. Kosovo remains their war.
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