Analysis of the Protests in Bosnia, by a participant

Please see this excellent blog post about the situation in Bosnia.

Pessimism about Bosnia's politcal order

From Radio Free Europe comes this interview with Morton Abramowitz on the inherently unstable nature of the Dayton Constitution, and what this means for the future of Bosnia:

Interview: Morton Abramowitz On The 'End Of Bosnia'

Unfortunately, it appears that The National Interest doesn't have the original article archived on the website. If I find a link to it, I will certainly update this post.

New Op-Ed from Bob Dole in Wall Street Journal

Former Senator and Republican candidate Bob Dole weighed in on the current constitutional crisis in Bosnia in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

Bosnia and American Exceptionalism

This is a very serious, sober, and incisive analysis. I commend Dole for taking this unambiguous stand, and I hope policymakers in Washington are listening to him.

World Cup Qualifying Update and a Couple of Recommendations

A bit of a grab bag today. I was out of town at a youth soccer tournament (our son's team made the final only to lose 2-0; a good result for a new team still trying to gel as a unit) and yesterday I was simply too tired to jump back into the groove. I plan to resume the book review this week.

Anyway, speaking of soccer, the Bosnian national team clinched a spot in UEFA second-round qualifying with a 2-0 win over Estonia in Tallinn. This is a great achievement for this team, and we should soon know who their competition will be in that final round. A World Cup appearance could be a real boost to a shared sense of Bosnian identity.

As long-time readers of this blog know, I have a bad habit of periodically realizing that I've been visiting another Bosnia-related blog for months or even years without ever remembering to add it to my Blogroll. So today, allow me to partially atone for yet another oversight by giving a big tip of the hat to Tuzla Daily Photo, a fantastic photoblog which has been documenting daily life in Tuzla for over three years now. Word is that at least one of the two authors is getting discouraged with low traffic and is considering throwing in the towel; this blog is a fantastic resource documenting the day-to-day realities of life away from the headlines in post-war Bosnia, and it would be a shame if it were to go into disuse. Please give them some more traffic (and then continue to do so) so we don't lose yet another wonderful blog.

Finally--and I hate to end on a somewhat pessimistic note--anyone with an interest in Bosnia and its continued viability needs to read Marko Attila Hoare's sobering piece Bosnia: Weighing the Options. It's grim reading, but given that he may very well be correct that time is running out, this may be the bracing splash of cold water some policy makers need to hear.

George Will Draws the Wrong Lessons from Bosnia

It's a little hard to pin down exactly what George Will is trying to say in Bosnia's Lesson, his syndicated column today. Will--who has recently called for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan--suggests that the deteriorating situation in Bosnia today has lessons which can be applied to nation-building in Afghanistan. And, as far as that goes, he is most likely correct. But what are those lessons, exactly? Will does not say--although he quotes the late Samuel Huntington (whose famous work "Clash of Civilizations" completely misread the situation in Bosnia) approvingly: "It is human to hate." Well, yes. It is also human to love, to fear, to worry, to hope...and so on.

Will does encourage the reader to read The Death of Dayton, and this suggestion is by far the most useful and productive passage in his column--oddly enough, it seems he did not take his own advice.

While Will seems to be arguing for the pointlessness of trying to use "force" to create a nation in a place torn by hatred, the authors of the Foreign Affairs piece he alludes to do not at engage in broad generalizations about how humans have an innate need to hate, or that--as Will cryptically states--"Communities, like individuals, crave clear identities, which sometimes are built on foundations of shared dislikes." Rather, the article--which really is worth your time (and unfortunately is not available in full through the link in the article)--addresses the specifics of the Bosnian situation, and the mistakes made by the international community. The primary mistake, of course, was the faulty Dayton constitution imposed on the country, which strengthens nationalist extremists, discourages political moderation and compromise, and fosters endemic corruption.

It is also worth noting that one repeating theme throughout this article is the damage that decentralization has done to postwar reconstruction in Bosnia. The authors do not pretend that ethnic tensions do not exist in Bosnia, but they recognize that some political systems can harness, contain, or even diminish ethnic tensions, while other systems can inflame nationalist passions and deepen ethnic divides. Will seems to agree with Huntington that the human "need" to hate is the primary fact of geopolitics. The very article he selectively quotes--without acknowledging that the authors are calling for a renewed Western commitment to Bosnia rather than a pullout such as he called for in Afghanistan--refutes that contention.

It is not clear whether or not Will even recognizes the disconnect. Like so many pundits on the subject of Bosnia, he alters the facts to fit his beliefs rather than the other way around.

"Crisis and reform: a turnaround in Bosnia?" by Peter Lippman

A great article by Peter Lippman from the openDemocracy website:

Crisis and reform: a turnaround in Bosnia?

If you haven't read Lippman--who has covered the region for years--before, you can find many of his articles at Balkan Witness (linked in the sidebar as well), which is operated by his brother Roger Lippman.

Lippman analyzes Bosnia's political situation and summarizes some of the various crises the government has been through over the past several months. Most encouraging is the cautiously optimistic note Lippman strikes at the end; the possibility that Bosnia's domestic politicians now have bought themselves some breathing room and are demonstrating a willingness to use the window of opportunity is quite a nice bit of optimism to begin 2008 with.

Corruption Pervades Government in Bosnia

A sobering look at the situation in contemporary Bosnian government:

IN DEPTH: Auditors Lambast Culture of Corruption in Bosnia

While I had expected that the top-heavy, multi-layered nature of Bosnia's cumbersome governmental structure would be an important factor in enabling corruption in Bosnia, it seems that the problem is more deeply rooted in the central government than in either of the two entity governments. This cannot be good news for any efforts to rewrite Bosnia's constitution in favor of greater centralized control, since public support for the central government will most certainly be affected by perceptions of the current system.

Still, one can hope that at least some Bosnians in both entities will see that the Dayton constitution has imposed an impossibly top-heavy and overburdoned governmental structure on the country.