Interesting, how safe is it for certain Sunni to wander in the Al Sadr neighborhoods of Baghdad? Eventually it will be safer for the Sunni to stumble about in Sadr City at night than for MJT to have driven through North Mitrovica. The difference is in the will and the ability to resolve differences in Iraq, Differences which run just as deep and just as recent, opposed to the will for the differences topped by instability which is the former Yugoslavia.

In Iraq even the Kurds recognize their near term well being is tied to a healthy and democratic Iraq. What incentive have the any of the former Yugoslavian states to unite, much less live in peace with each other? Tito was a strong man, but he could not bind the country together so to outlast his strength. The weakness of tribalism and the myth of a multicultural philosophy.

It will take quite a hot fire to alloy the various Yugo’s into a strong entity. A fire that hot tends to be unforgiving and massively difficult to control and contain. While I agreed with the decision to interfere in the blood bath of the 1990′s, I am not certain what was achieved by the interference. Perhaps we just delayed the inevitable, or maybe we helped bridge the distance between something very ugly and something pleasing to behold. Time and time alone will tell.