Even as they criticized the George W. Bush administration for invading Iraq, leading liberals defended Clinton administration war-making in the Balkans. Sharply challenging this positive assessment is David Gibbs of the University of Arizona. A man of the left, Mr. Gibbs nonetheless disputes the nostrums of so-called humanitarian intervention. His assertions are contentious but well-supported. Attacking Serbia turned out to be neither humanitarian nor prudent. "First Do No Harm" highlights the many inconvenient truths of the Balkan imbroglio. For instance, Berlin lit the fuse for the Yugoslav explosion by backing Croatian and Slovenian independence without insisting upon protections for ethnic minorities — most importantly Croatian Serbs. Writes Mr. Gibbs: "In retrospect, Germany's actions contained a heavy element of miscalculation and showed a tendency to underestimate the destructive consequences that the intervention might have." Even more shocking was Washington's coldblooded and counterproductive Realpolitik strategy of targeting only the Serbs. Notes Mr. Gibbs: "Franjo Tudjman was just as racist and aggressive as Milosevic; the persecution of ethnic Serbs in Croatia was just as morally objectionable as the Serb-perpetrated atrocities in Kosovo." Little better were the Bosnian Muslims. Clinton officials also encouraged Operation Storm, Croatia's brutal assault on the Krajina Serbs. Promoting ethnic cleansing made a mockery of the Clinton administration's humanitarian pretensions. Notes Mr. Gibbs: "The Croatian atrocities embarrassed the United States, and some figures sought to distance themselves from the whole operation, at least in public." Others, however, rationalized Croatian atrocities. Mr. Gibbs never sugarcoats Serbian misbehavior. But here, too, there was "an element of moral complexity," he explains. Regarding Kosovo, the tendency was to emphasize Serbian brutality, but "such perspectives ignore the history of Albanian provocations against Serbs that preceded the repression of 1989. The imposition of martial law followed years of oppression orchestrated primarily by the Albanians, with Serbs as victims," he explains. Moreover, the Kosovo Liberation Army engaged in brutal attacks designed to provoke Serbian retaliation. U.S. and European officials even termed the KLA a "terrorist organization" — until the Clinton administration decided to dismember Serbia.
Russia hopes the Obama administration will keep to agreements made between the US and Russian presidents in Moscow, Foreign Minister Lavrov said. “I hope that the Obama administration will follow the course adopted in Moscow. We consider abnormal the attempts by this administration to drag us back to the past as Vice President Joe Biden tried to do. His interview published in the Wall Street Journal looks like the rhetoric copied directly from the Bush administration”. The US Vice President gave the interview to the Wall Street Journal after last week's visit to Ukraine and Georgia. Biden also said Russia's economy is “withering” and suggested this will force it to make concessions to the West, including on a wide range of national security issues such as the relationship with its closest neighbors. Experts say that Biden’s rhetoric is complicating Russia-US relations.
Turkey’s continuing violations of Greek air space and disputing of Aegean sea borders were broached by Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis yesterday before the European Union’s General Affairs and External Relations Council in Brussels. Accusing Ankara of implementing a “provocative policy of dispute” in the Aegean over the past few weeks, Bakoyannis told her European Union counterparts that this behavior by EU candidate state Turkey toward an existing member state should be borne in mind ahead of a scheduled progress report from Brussels in December. “As firm as our support for Turkey’s full accession to the EU is, so too is our conviction that the principles of international law and good-neighborly relations must be respected,” Bakoyannis said. The minister also referred to the decision by Turkish authorities to prospect for oil off the coast of Cyprus. Talking to reporters after her speech in Brussels, the minister said that her goal had been “a full and clear briefing at the highest possible level with the aim of shaping a common approach.” In an interview with Sunday’s Eleftherotypia, Bakoyannis was more outspoken, noting that Ankara was obliged to respect EU regulations and standards and remarking that “Europe is no place for bullies.” At the EU summit, which continues today, Bakoyannis also had a brief meeting with her Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, though there were no reports about the content of the talks. Athens last week reacted angrily to comments by Bildt in which he suggested that the military dictatorship in Greece was responsible for instigating the events that led to the occupation of part of Cyprus by Turkish forces.
Kosovo today, despite its declaration of independence, is an "unfinished state,” says Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation report. Kosovo has only limited sovereignty and is de facto divided into a Serb north and an Albanian dominated south, while neither UNMIK nor EULEX have so far been able to do anything "to prevent the partition of the country", the analysis, signed by Vedran Džinić and Helmut Kramer, claims. The paper, entitled, "Kosovo After Independence – Is the EU's EULEX mission delivering on its promises", continues to say that every important macroeconomic indicator points to negative development in Kosovo, a situation only made worse by the global economic crisis. They also point to low economic growth, a rising trade deficit and high poverty and unemployment rates. “Eighteen months of independence have done nothing to ameliorate this catastrophic situation," says the analysis. “EULEX, in its role as 'guardian of democracy and the rule of law' has only modest achievements to show for its first six months. Closer scrutiny of the objectives, legal mandate and activities of the new EU mission gives rise to the rather sobering realization that, basically, the previous, failed policy of UNMIK is still being pursued,” the document reads. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation analysis also recommends that the EU set more conditions to Serbia, and to make changes in the EULEX mission.
The Greek Cypriots believe it is still too early to estimate the prospects of the ongoing direct negotiations aimed at bringing an end to the decades-old division on the east Mediterranean island. "According to all developments that we have seen so far on the negotiation table, I would say that there are many things that need to be changed in order to open the door for a solution in Cyprus," Government spokesman Stephanos Stephanou, a Greek Cypriot, told the London Greek Radio on Monday. His remarks echo a recent survey, which shows that 72 percent of Greek Cypriots see no solution could be worked out in the next 12 months. After years of stalemate and failed reunification efforts, Cyprus President and Greek Cypriot leader Christofias re-started comprehensive peace talks with Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat in September 2008. The two leaders have met 38 times so far in an effort to find a mutually acceptable solution based on a federal structure. The two sides have agreed in principle to solve the problem in a bizonal bicommunal framework, but differ on how it should work, especially on governance and power-sharing.
The mania over Alexander is the latest chapter in a long-running feud between Macedonia and Greece that some officials fear has the potential to destabilize a region still trying to recover from the Balkan wars of the 1990s. The dispute centers on a basic question: Does Macedonia, a country born out of the rubble of the former Yugoslavia, have the right to call itself what it wants? For 18 years, the conflict has defied attempts by the United States, the United Nations and European powers to find a solution. After Macedonia declared independence in 1991, Greece prevented it from joining the United Nations and imposed an economic blockade that nearly strangled the fledgling country. Greece also vetoed Macedonia's bid to join NATO last year and is blocking its admission to the European Union. Under a truce brokered in 1995 by former U.S. secretary of state Cyrus Vance, Macedonia was allowed to join the United Nations on the Greek condition that it refer to itself in multinational institutions as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM. It was also required to change its flag and rewrite its constitution to include a promise never to violate Greek territory or interfere in Greece's internal affairs. Macedonians say the name of the country is crucial to developing their still wobbly national identity. Ethnic Albanians say they would revolt if the Slavic Republic of Macedonia was the new name because they are not Slavs. Almost nobody wants another Greek-preferred version, the Republic of Skopje, which ignores everyone outside the capital. Historically, territory inhabited by ethnic Macedonians has belonged to other nations: Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. Those countries have been reluctant to recognize ethnic Macedonians as a separate people, to recognize their Slavic language as a distinct tongue or even to recognize the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Pavle Voskopoulos, a Greek citizen who leads the Rainbow Party, a group of ethnic Macedonians in northern Greece, said the country subscribes to a myth of a "pure" Greek people who are directly descended from Alexander and others from his era. "This is all about modern Greek identity," he said. "If there is a Macedonia as an independent state, this is a great threat against Greek policy and Greek ideology."
The spiritual leaders of the Orthodox Christian churches in Istanbul and Russia led Sunday prayers together in a show of unity after years of jostling for influence. Istanbul Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I said the two churches must overcome differences, though he stressed his church's status as "first among equals" with the historic role of coordinating between the various Orthodox branches, of which Russia's is the largest. "From time to time clouds have temporarily overshadowed ties between the brethren churches," Bartholomew said after the service, addressing newly elected Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill. "These ... must immediately be sent to their places in the pages of history." The two churches have been wrangling for influence over Soviet republics Estonia and Ukraine, with the Moscow Patriarchate struggling to maintain control over all 95 million of the Orthodox believers it claims, out of the world's 250 million Orthodox. It is unclear if any of the Moscow Patriarchate's policies might change under Kirill, who was elected in January after the death in December of Moscow Patriarch Alexy II. Alexy had been leader of the Russian church since 1990. The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul dates from the Orthodox Greek Byzantine Empire, which collapsed when the Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople, today's Istanbul, in 1453. The Istanbul Patriarchate directly controls several churches, including the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.