One of the chickens that Clinton and Blair concocted as the first lesson of liberal internationalism are now coming home to roost. The international community has proven that soft power is little more than justification for another form of colonialism.
Britain and the United States would prefer Kosovar independence to be channelled through the United Nations, but their time has run out. The European Union just dickers. Now that the Democratic Party of the geurilla leader, Hashim Thaci, has won an election, a unilateral declaration of independence will follow shortly. We can see how this might play:
Belgrade, for its part, is warning that independence for Kosovo would mark the first stage of further disintegration of the Balkans, starting with Kosovo itself, as the Serbs in the north break away to join Serbia proper, followed by a similar move by the Bosnian Serb republic in Bosnia.
Kosovo is looming to be a major foreign policy headache for the EU, which is anxious to avoid a repeat of the dilemma it faced in the 1990s, when internal splits over how to deal with the Balkan wars showed its ineffectiveness in forging an effective foreign policy.
"This is a European challenge. It is not one we can ask the United States to solve for us," [Britain's Minister for Europe, Jim Murphy] Murphy said.
Events will undoubtedly propel Murphy's sentiment into deserved oblivion. The wider context of Russian influence in the Balkans and Serbia's repositioning as their client state bodes badly for renewed stability in the medium term. The United States should stand idly by and wait for the Europeans to **ck up.