Exclusive: President Bill Clinton’s Kosovo war of 1999 was loved by neocons and liberal hawks – the forerunner for Iraq, Libya, Syria and other conflicts this century – but Kosovo’s political violence and lawlessness today underscore the grim consequences of those strategies even when they “succeed,” writes Jonathan Marshall.
By Jonathan Marshall
The insatiable appetite of America’s bipartisan foreign policy elites for military intervention — despite its record of creating failing states in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen — traces back to the marriage of liberal and neoconservative interventionists during the Clinton administration’s 78-day bombing of Serbia to create the break-away state of Kosovo in 1999.
One scholar-advocate has called NATO’s campaign “The most important precedent supporting the legitimacy of unilateral humanitarian intervention.” Even Sen. Bernie Sanders was proud to support that use of American power, ostensibly “to prevent further genocide.”
Kosovo Foreign Minister (and former leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army) Hashim Thaci.
But Kosovo, which is still not recognized as an independent state by nearly half of all UN members, and which still relies on 4,600 NATO troops to maintain order, is hardly a showcase for the benefits of military intervention. With an unemployment rate of 35 percent, Kosovo is wracked by persistent outbreaks of terrorism, crime, and political violence.
Following a series of violent street protests and wild disruptions of parliament, the leader of the radical nationalist party, Vetëvendosje, announced on Feb. 19, “This regime is now is in its final days. They will not last long.”
That day, members of Vetëvendosje set off tear gas cannisters in parliament and tussled with police in the latest of their many protests against an agreement reached by the government last summer to grant limited powers to the country’s Serbian minority, in return for Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo. Opposition lawmakers also rail against endemic corruption and the country’s under-performing economy.
Two days earlier, at least 15,000 Kosovars gathered in the central square of Pristina, the…