November 23, 2005
NO ONE LOOKS TO EUROPE TO SOLVE EUROPEAN PROBLEMS:
US pushes Bosnia leaders into deal after 10 years of ethnic divide (Ian Traynor, November 23, 2005, The Guardian)
Bosnia's rival leaders agreed yesterday to the biggest shift towards centralising power in their partitioned country since the war ended 10 years ago.A pact reached in Washington under heavy American pressure aimed to overhaul the creaking constitutional machinery that ended the 42-month war in November 1995, but left the country partitioned and dysfunctional.
At ceremonies in Washington to mark a decade since the Dayton accords ending the war were sealed, leaders of parties representing Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats, as well as leaders of non-ethnic parties, agreed "to streamline" parliament and the tripartite presidency and "embark on a process of constitutional reform" that will strengthen a national government.
The ambitious US-authored scheme aims to turn Bosnia into a "normal" parliamentary democracy and reduce the role played by ethnic factors.
If the U.S. doesn't do such things no one does. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 23, 2005 12:02 PM
Their back story was a bit abbreviated. They needed to go back another thousand years, and if the "Guardian" thinks this agreement is a good idea, then color me skeptical.
Posted by: erp at November 23, 2005 12:39 PMThe US needs to leave sclerotic Europe as quickly as possible and that includes the Balkans. The EU needs to have responsibility for defending itself after 50+ years of acting like twenty something adults living at home and off their parents (the US). Problems within Europe, whether in France, or the Balkans need to be addressed by Europeans.
Yes, I know that is risky and the US may later be faced with a difficult, even a military situation, but it is the only real option at this point.
Mark
Posted by: Maddog at November 23, 2005 2:22 PMActually, if the US started acting like a 'cowboy', it would help a great deal more. Imagine if a SEAL team had killed Radko Mladic in 1995, and Karadzic shortly thereafter. We wouldn't have needed thousands of troops, and Clinton could have told the Euros to get their act together, or such activity would become standard US policy. And Bill could have been sure that the GOP wasn't going to try to undermine him or his policy - McCain would have been out there urging even more.
As for today, it would work wonders if Mugabe were killed tonight, and the only thing that is going to help in Darfur is hundreds of dead janjaweed. If we won't do that, then a few dozen Sudanese leaders would be a good start.
The thing is, the bad guys have to always be scared and hunkered down. It hedges them in, and prevents the UN from enabling more genocide.
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 23, 2005 3:15 PM