RE: I definitely agree with you that any engagement in the Balkans is disastrous.
Currently, the Czech policemen try to separate the enraged Serbs and enraged Kosovars at the problematic border crossings. Brave people, and doing ungrateful work. Why ungrateful? Because they will earn hatred of both sides – such are the wages of engagement in the Balkans.
The Balkan peninsula contains a toxic mixture of ethnic and religious hatreds, some of which date back to the times of the Byzantian empire. America has yet tasted first bitter drops of that poison. I am not happy with that; I sincerely wish that the Americans avoided the regional hell entirely. They chose to dive in…
Every single superpower that ever engaged in Balkans got its fingers burnt and made no lasting allies. The Habsburg attempt to extend control over Bosnia resulted in death of the 400-year-old empire in 4 years. Italians lost one war there. The British engagement in the Greek civil war was nasty, costy and no, Greece was not a reliable ally of Britain after, though it was saved from the Reds (partly) by British effort and blood.
Even the warmongering Soviets under Stalin avoided direct confrontation with Tito in the 1950s, because the prize was not simply worth the risk.
For Michael Totten: imagine that the USA took openly one side in the Lebanese civil war of the 80s. Would you consider this a wise political move? In fact, the Lebanese terrorists killed 240 Americans in Beirut in 1983; yet you seem to like the Lebanese better than the Serbs, who, so far, have done smaller damage.
