Washington and Helsinki Week

After a hectic day commenting on the death of Milosevic and the direction – or rather lack thereof – of Balkan policy in the European Union, I have now arrived in Washington on the other side of the Atlantic.

The view from my hotel is only marginally different from the picture.

And after having left the deep winter in Stockholm, it certainly nice to arrive in the spring of Washington.

It’s a town in slight pre-election mood – and in a rather bewildered state as concerns its relations to the outside world.

The recent de facto rejection of a deal under which a British operator of some US ports would be aquired by a Dubai company of great reputation in the area – serving the US Navy on a daily basis, among other things – has highlighted the state of the political system here.

In effect, we saw the White House defeated by a mad scramble of politicians and others trying to outdo each other on what was perceived as an issue of national security. It was xenophobia in action.

Practically all of the Democrats joined the rampage, which in this election year caused a not insignificant number of Republicans to do the same.

And that effectively decided the matter.

For all the tendencies that we are seeing towards ”economic nationalism” in different parts of the European Union at the moment, this must be said to have been worse.

I’ll be here for three days discussing a rather wide range of issues before heading home again.

But the stay home will be short. I’m heading off to Helsinki for a meeting with the board of the Finnish-Swedish center at Hanaholmen.

Not the most significant institution of the world, but a significant one in terms of cooperation between our two Nordic nations. And that cooperation is difficult for our position in the world of today.

So, it will be a week between Washington and Helsinki.

All Gone…

In connection with the death of Milosevic, I stumbled on this photo showing the opening of the Bosnia peace negotiation in Dayton in the US in late 1995.

It was little more than ten years ago, but now all the three main Balkan leaders of the period are gone.

Croat President Franjo Tudjmam died in December 1999 after a lengthy struggle with cancer. When Milosevic lost power in Serbia in October 2000, the departure of both of them was seen as the beginning of a new era in the region.

Alija Izetbegovic, the leader of the Bosnian Muslims, was a very different man from the two others. Tudjman was the committed nationalist, Milosevic the fanatical opportunist, but Izetbegovic was a decent man of decent and deep religious beliefs who felt somewhat uncomfortable with the realities of power.

He died in Sarajevo in October of 2003.

And now Slobodan Milosevic has died in The Hague.

New generations everywhere are carrying their countries forward.

The picture is really a picture of history.

Although Richard Holbrook, myself and Pauline Neville-Jones seen with our backs to the camera are distinctly still around.

Failure in Salzburg

The Salzburg meeting on the Balkans policy of the European Union resulted in a less than brilliant and certainly not very forward-looking compromise.

It was a rather short communique, the most significant part of which was this:

”In this respect, the EU confirms that the future of the Western Balkans lies in the European Union. The EU recalled that a debate on the enlargement strategy is due in 2006 as set out by the Council conclusions of 12 December 2005. The EU also notes that its absorption capacity has to be taken into account.”

Although I note that the Austrian presidency is trying to spin it more positively, noting that the word ”membership” wasn’t totally banned, this text is still a more of a victory for the blocking forces inside the Union.

Previous commitments are repeated in the vaguest possible form. Then one refers to something the French invented in order to block further debate for the time being. And then one adds the catch-phrase of ”the absorption capacity” to it all, meaning that this all could be too much for us.

This phrase is particularly worrisome. Although it’s been around for a long time, it has resurfaced in the debate about Turkey, being repeated time after time primarily by some Germans and the Austrians.

But while the issue might be a real one with Turkey, it has never been one before with the Western Balkans. We have now seen the introduction of a new possible blocking element in the deliberations – and in the official texts.

And if one had hoped that there would be the readiness to go forward with other steps, there isn’t much of that in the communique.

A support for consolidating the patchwork of bilateral free trade agreements in the region into a multilateral one is good, but will not make much of a difference and falls far short of what really could have been done.

On the important issue of reducing the impact of the high visa barriers that have gone up across the region, and between it and the European Union, there is only a non-committal reference to coming proposals.

One would have thought that the death of Milosevic should have concentrated the minds of the ministers on the need for a more forward-looking policy.

It did not. A failure.

Much of this is blamed by individual ministers on the problem of getting their respective electorates to accept further enlargement or other steps that take the Union forward.

This would have been a more respectable point of view if there had been any signs of them really trying. But there isn’t. They are declaring defeat before even attempting to achieve something.

It’s not the lack of support that is the problem – it’s the lack of political will, courage and leadership.

Slobodan Milosevic

The death of Slobodan Milosevic in his cell in the UN detention unit in Schveningen in The Hague isn’t entirely surprising.

His health wasn’t the best, and I remember hearing people years ago fearing that he wouldn’t survive too extended a trial.

He did not, and we will now never get the verdict that was an important purpose of the entire exercise. Too many questions will be left hanging in the air – and that is never good in situations like these.

The story of Slobodan Milosevic is the story of a communist appartschnik in old socialist Yugoslavia who saw that the system was collapsing and decided to ride the tiger of nationalism in order to get to and preserve power.

He wasn’t really much of a nationalist. I dealt with him extensively during a number of years. He had his prejudices, but probably somewhat less than the regional average.

He was an opportunist and a tactician. He was a man of power and ambition. He was never much of a man of principles, and history shows that he was an extremely poor strategists. He was extremely keen in winning the small battles – but he failed to see that he was losing the wars.

It all started in Kosovo when he saw the power of a raw Serbian nationalism that was driven by a no less raw Albanian nationalism. Communism was disappearing – but nationalism was rising.

In the dying days of communism, he made rising nationalism his instrument of power.

There followed the different wars of Yugoslav dissolution. He manoeuvred from the one to the other, trying to be the master of every game.

Whether some peace could have been preserved, and all wars avoided, if he hadn’t been there is one of these questions that history will never be able to answer.

Perhaps – but perhaps not. There was a powerful breed of nationalist fears and nationalist dreams that might have been beyond the control of anyone.

But there is little doubt that he made things worse. He played on the fears. His was the propaganda of fear and prejudice.

His duel with Croatia’s Franjo Tudjman brought war first to Croatia and then, most fatefully, to Bosnia in 1992. They both tried to carve out their own pieces of that complex country at the centre of the Balkans. More than 100 000 people are likely to have died in the carnage, and millions had to flee their homes.

Once the hounds of war had been unleashed, they were not easy to control. Once started, the Bosnia war went on longer than he wished. But in late 1995 it was brought to its end in Dayton, and there was the possibility of a new start for Serbia. Sanctions were lifted.

But then came Kosovo. It was in reality an Albanian insurrection in 1998 and 1999 that he tried to suppress with a brutality that brought upon him the reaction of the world. Another war, and another loss.

He was brought down by his own exaggerated view of his own position. Somewhat strengthened in relation to the democratic opposition by the 1999 war with NATO over Kosovo, he in 2000 called an election in order to make himself president of Yugoslavia. He was convinced that he would win.

But he lost, and tried to save the situation by falsifying the results, thus causing the popular uproar that on the dramatic October 5th deprived him of his power.

From then on it was all downhill. Within a year he was in The Hague. Even there he has remained chairman of his Socialist Party, but the party has lost a lot of its standing in today’s Serbia.

I saw him for the last time in a corridor in Schveningen a couple of years ago. We just said a few words.

Now he’s dead. He will not get his judgment from the UN tribunal in The Hague.

He will be judged by history. Harshly.

He brought disaster to his own Serbia.

Balkan Failure in Salzburg?

Yesterday and today the Foreign Ministers of the European Union are meeting informally in Salzburg in Austria under Ulrika Plassnik, the Austrian Foreign Minister.

It’s the informal meeting that happens twice each year. Originally ment to allow a more free-wheeling and less prepared discussion, these meetings have over time become more formal as well.

Originally, the Balkans was supposed to be the great issue at this meeting. All the Foreign Ministers of the Balkan states have been invited for a discussion. And there will be a communique issues afterwards – most unusual.

But what was supposed to take the Balkan policy of the EU forward now risks taking it backwards.

It was at the summit meeting in Thessaloniki in Greece in 2003 that one formally opened up a membership perspective for all the Balkan states. It was a most important step.

And there has been progress since then. Croatia is negotiating for membership. Macedonia has been given candidate status.

But in the discussions leading up to Salzburg there has been fierce resistance against spelling out a firmer membership perspective for the region. On the contrary, new conditions have been added, and the language on the European perspective watered down and watered down.

It’s primarily driven by France, although there are some others following in its wake.

What the French really want is beyond me. They are not saying that enlargement will never happen, but they are putting brakes on every single little step that could conceivable take the Union in that direction.

It’s a policy without an aim. It’s tactics without a strategy.

The discussion during the day will show the extent to which other member states are prepared to accept that the entire European policy in the region is dragged down by this.

Salzburg will be an important debate.

Coming Jerusalem War?

In the midst of the election campaign, acting Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has spelled out his plans for the future.

They are – let’s be clear about that – plans not only for a continuation but for a serious aggrevation of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

In the longer term, there is no doubt that they will create grave new dangers for the state of Israel.

He doesn’t want to negotiate with the Palestinians any longer. His Foreign Minister has said that Abu Mazen is ”no longer relevant”. Not that there was a great eagerness to negiotiate with him before…

Insteas there will be a unilateral demarcation of a new border and a forced separation of Israel from Palestine, although with a continued Israeli military presence thoughout the West Bank.

That some settlements will be evacuated could of course be described as good. What will happen with Hebron and the very militant settlements there will be most interesting to see.

But as some form of compensation Olmert plans to get total control of all of East Jerusalem and the area East of it by building up the so-called E1 area. This is something Washington has previously stopped Israel from doing, and it will be interesting to see which stand they will take now.

For those interested in the situation in more detail the leaked report from the European Union Heads of Mission in Jerusalem is well worth reading. It’s linked to above.

E1 is the end of any possibility of building a functioning Palestinian state. It ends the road map and it ends the two state possibility of peace.

The reason is that it cuts the West Bank into two areas virtually out of communication with each other. And it cuts the Palestinians of East Jerusalem off from contacts with the West Bank. It’s truly a decisive strategic shift in the entire situation.

A reasonable peace between Israel and Palestine would include some transfers of territory and border adjustments. That has been accepted by the Palestinian side. But E1 is the end of that consensus. It means a perpetuation of the conflict – in all probability an aggrevation of it.

There is no doubt that this will be publicly opposed by the European Union. And there is no question that it violates international law and resolutions by the UN Security Council. It also goes against US policy as it has been expressed until now.

Certainly a serious step.

Certainly not a step towards peace. Certainly a step towards conflict.

Perhaps even war. Of some sort.

Finland Commenting and Debating

It’s been a fairly hectic Nordic day for me today.

Breakfast in Stockholm. Lunch in Helsinki. And dinner in Oslo. And useful discussions – at least in Helsinki and Oslo.

A deecade or two ago the Commander of the Finnish Armed Forces Admiral Kaskeala would have been in great trouble indeed.

Now it’s little more than a debate about political etiquette.

On a visit to the United States in connection with a crisis managment exercise, he has been fairly explicit concerning developments in the great country neighbouring Finland to the East.

That’s Russia.

The reason was some reports that the Russians are strenthening their military capabilities in areas adjacent to Finland. And issues like these used to be rather sensitive in Finland – for very obvious historical reasons.

Admiral Kaskeala said that these rumours were ”greatly exaggarated”. The Russian armed forces have been in decline for a long time, and the fact that there is now the beginning of some modernisation was not something to be unduly worried by.

So far so good.

But then he went on to say that this wasn’t the real problem concerning Russia. The real problem was the political developments in the country:

”All power now tends to be concentrated in the hands of president Putin, and neither in the Duma nor anywhere else in the country does there seem to be any balancing power. This is not the promising development towards democracy that we had hoped for.”

Hardly too sensational a statement. You would find it difficult to find a well-informed Russian who would disagree.

But it still caused a small stir when these words were uttered by the Commander of the Armed Forces. Political statements of this sort used to be made by the political leadership. In particular in Finland.

Neither the President nor the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister has chosen to comment on Admiral Kaskealas views. The Minister of Defence disagreed mildly – unclear why – but said that the Admiral had the right to express his view. The Social Democratic Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament praised what he has said.

It’s a breeze in a teapot – these days.

And essentially you don’t really find anyone in Helsinki disagreeing with the Admiral.

You do find quite a number that find it refreshing that someome actually said it.

Finland is a normal European country.

It’s a different and better Europe nowadays.

Earthquake in Norway

Politics in the Nordic countries is normally a rather slow-moving affair, with political shifts happening gradually and over time rather than very suddenly.

But now it looks like we will be witnessing a minor political earthquake in Norway.

The election last autumn brought to power a leftist coalition government dominated by the Social Democrats but including the Socialist Left Party as well as the very nationalistic Centre Party. Together, they formed a majority government.

But now there is suddenly drama in the opinion polls.

A recent poll – so far the only one – suddenly showed the rightist populist Progress Party, which established itself as the country’s second largest in the election, overtaking the Social Democrats and becoming the largest party in Norway at the moment.

With 22% in the election, they now climed to no less than 33%. And the Social Democrats, with 33% in the election, registred 29% support.

Opinion polls are only opinion polls, and the only thing absolutely certain with them is that the next one will be different.

But still…

There seems to be wide agreement that the key reason for this sudden surge of inward-looking populism in Norway is the recent cartoon-crisis in the relations with the Muslim world. The Progress Party has a history of being anti-immigrant.

A secondary factor could be the fact that they are changing party leader – pictured Siv Jensen taking over.

But it is striking that this surge in support for them mirrors developments in more directly affected Denmark, where there has been a significant strengthening of the rightist populist Danish People’s Party and a weakening of the opposition Social Democrats.

It’s undoubtedly worrying.

Forces of prejudices are storming forward both among us – and most probably in the Muslim world as well.

It’s the least that we need at the moment.

These Small Conflicts…

There are a number of small conflicts in or around Europe that have the potential of having wider repercussions – and that have to be solved sooner or later.

The last few days have suddenly seen renewed tension around the break-away statelet of Transdniestria in Moldova.

We will hear more about the place later in the year, I believe.

When Moldova – once a Soviet Republic – acquired its independence, the small Russian-dominated area on the Eastern bank of the Dniestr river refused to accept the authority of the capital Chisianu.

And they certainly had the force to assert their position. Theirs was the main staging area for the 14th Army of the old Soviet Union, with huge stocks of arms and ammunition geared to support – in the old days – a Soviet offensive down towards Turkey and the Bosphorous.

Since then there has been an effective stalemate. App 550 000 mainly Russians have persisted in living in a socialist and smuggling economy, being the source of both illegal arms and the trafficing of women. And they have had the support of people in Moscow as well.

You get the flair of the place by its distinctly Soviet-style coat of arms.

Moscow still keeps some remnants of the 14th army – app 1 500 soldiers – there to protect the break-away statelet. Within the OSCE they have committed themselves to withdrawing these, but nothing has happened.

But gradually the European Union is increasing its pressure for some sort of solution. Customs monitors have been deployed along the border between Transdniestria and Ukraine, creating problems for thre lucrative smuggling that often use the near-by Black Sea port of Odessa.

And on Friday Ukraine said that it will only allow goods to enter from Transdniestria that had the stamp of approval from the Moldovan authorities in Chsinau. If properly enforced, this would effectively pull the rug from under the feet of the rebel authorities in Tiraspol.

Accordingly, they have been screaming murder, and have appealed to Moscow for help. In addition, they have blocked train traffic on the direct route from Ukraine to Moldova since it passes through them.

So, it’s an economic war that is rapidly escalating by the Dniestr.

It’s an ouverture to what will happen later. Moscow has already started saying that if Kosovo gets independence they don’t really see why not places like Transdniestr could not be given the same. And there are more places in the Caucasus that, in their opinion, would qualify.

These conflicts must not be forgotten – they need to be sorted out. If not, they might poison relationships and issues of far greater importance.

One would hope that the European Union will have the will and the persistence to continue to gradually increase the pressure on the issue.

That’s in all probability the only way a solution can be reached.

Simplistic Xenophobia in Austria

It has to be a source of major embarrasment for the Austrian government that the FPÖ party this week is launching a massive campaign of xenophobia and anti-Muslim and anti-Europe sentiments.

It’s part of them trying to get a profile on these issues prior to the national elections this autumn.

There are many strange aspects to the Austrian situation. On the one hand, it’s one of the countries where public hostility to European Union enlargement, and in particular to Turkey, is strongest. The two major parties ÖVP and SPÖ are, sorry to say, competing in negativism concerning Turkey. It’s only the Greens that dare to think otherwise.

But on the other hand, Austria is one of the countries that has profited the most from membership in the Union and in particular from enlargement.

Austrian exports have been growing by more than 10 % every year for the last decade, the stock markets belong to the best performing in Europe and Austrian companies are selling and exporting all over Central Europe.

Vienna is no longer a city surrounded by barbed wire – it’s a metropolis right in the hearth of one of the most expansive economic areas of Europe. You see it and you feel it when you are there.

But still it’s possible to wipe up xenophic sentiments. The pictured poster is only one of them at the moment. It’s a crude attempt to play on the crudest prejudices. To portray the European Union as a coming islamist alliance threathening the freedom of Austrians is to go rather far…

I am convinced that there are many Austrian that feel positively ashamed.

I do hope that they make their views known – and that it preferably be heard outside their borders too.

Another Week Ahead

It’s still distinctly winter in this part of Europe. We have seen heavy snowfall both in Stockholm and elsewhere during the weekend.

Spring seems to be far too long away. And I understand that the same is the case in most of Europe north of the Alps.

Today is the day of the IAEA Governing Board in Vienna with the Iran issue as the by far most dominant. The interesting thing will be the Iranian reaction to the expexted referral to the Security Council – as well as the reaction to the Iranian reaction.

Across the Atlantic, I guess President Bush will have to spend some time to brief congressional leaders and others on his trip to India and Pakistan. The nuclear deal with India requires congressional approval, and that will require some work.

But there will also be the arrival in Washington of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov for talks with his US counterpart Rice. The topics are fairly obvious – Hamas, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, energy security, probably a little bit of Kosovo and possible some Caucasus as well.

Europe sees a new President coming into office on Thursday when Mr Cavaco de Silva takes over as President of Portugal. He was Prime Minister for nearly a decade, responsible for an impressive period of modernisation of his country, and is now coming back after a decades absence from the political scene.

I’m not there for the inauguration – nice as that would have been, but will spend parts of Wednesday and Thursday giving speeches on the past and future of Turkey in Stockholm, Helsinki and Oslo in connection with East Capital launching a new funds oriented towards the Turkish economy.

Over the weekend the Foreign Ministers of the European Union will meet for their twice-annual informal meeting, this time in Salzburg in Austria. Added to the meeting this time will be a summit with the Foreign Ministers of the countries of the so called Western Balkans.

I don’t expect too much to come out of it, but I do hope that they manage to move policy somewhat forward. This will be a year that will as important as it will be difficult in the region, and in the absence of a clear and consistent EU policy line there is the risk of things going seriously wrong in several respects.

Salzburg will be important. I’m unfortunately not convinced that all going to that meetings are sufficiently aware of that fact.

Blessed Gas From Iran?

The President Bush visit to Pakistan was much shorter on most things than the days and nights spent in India.

But it was nevertheless of some importance.

In all probability, it was the first time President Bush and Usama bin-Laden shared the hospitality of the same country at the same time. The bombs outside the US consulate in Karachi served as a reminded of that fact.

Again it was energy that turned out to be an important subject.

The Pakistanis made it clear that they, too, needs new sources of energy in the years ahead, and that nuclear is an important option for them:

“We have a holistic energy policy and, frankly speaking we are already pursuing it. We are pursuing nuclear energy for civilian use in the shape of Chashma Nuclear Power Plant-I and II. At the same time, we are also considering the Iran-Pakistan-India and Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipelines,” the Foreign Minister said.

In the one-to-one meeting between President Gen Pervez Musharraf and President Bush as well as the delegation-level talks, the Pakistani side stressed that the country’s economy had been growing at a robust pace for the past few years.

“We need energy to maintain our growth momentum. Few years back, we had a projected gas reserves for 40 years. But after the economic turnover these reserves are now going to last for only 10 to 15 years”.

Obviously, a nuclear deal like the one with India was not in the cards, although there is very little doubt that Pakistan will from now on start to work for one in the future.

But the meetings seemes to have produced a no less important U-turn in US policy. It seems as if president Bush accepted the Pakistani arguments that there is a need to build a pipeline to be able to import natural gas from Iran in the future. That pipeline will also, by the way, serve the needs of India.

Previously, US policy to this project has been distinctly negative.

But now news report speaks about another attitude. Mistake? U-turn? New policy?

More will be heard about this.

When Will The Bomb Come?

The issue of the Iranian nuclear ambitions will back on the top of the international agenda the next few days.

On Monday, the Governing Board of the International Atomic Energy Authority meets in Vienna to consider the issue.

There seems little doubt that there will be some sort of referral of the issue to the UN Security Council. Different Iranian initiatives at talks in both Moscow and Brussels do not seem to have achieved enough of progress. The international community stays with the red lines it has indicated.

But once in New York, progress on the dossier will be deliberately slow.

And there isn’t really that much of a rush. There are no real sign that the Iranians are moving forward particularly fast in their nuclear ambitions.

A report in the New York Times today tries to go to the bottom of the issue:

”Estimates of just when Iran might acquire a nuclear weapon range from alarmist views of only a few months to roughly 15 years. American intelligence agencies say it will take 5 to 10 years for Iran to manufacture the fuel for its first atomic bomb. Most forecasters acknowledge that secret Iranian advances or black market purchases could produce a technological surprise.”

Of great importance would be to retain that degree of Iranian cooperation that allows regular IAEA inspections. We did learn from the somewhat painful Iraqi experience that intelligence without access to inspections on the ground and inside the facilities is hardly reliable.

We should not pursue a policy that blinds ourselves. And that means being careful to ensure continued Iranian cooperation.

Then there will be time for continued diplomacy. The only real alternative to an open and extremely dangereous conflict a couple of years down the road is some sort of grand bargain between Iran and the international community.

That’s hardly possible today.

But time might create new possibilities. Playing for time is sometimes good politics.

White House Flying European

 
Few things are as symbolic of US power as the aircrafts and helicopters transporting the President of the United States around.

Air Force One is the most famous. Actually, that’s the designation of any aircraft that at any time carries the president, but normally it’s a specially built and very specially equipped Boeing 747 that carries this designation.

And that is likely to remain the same for decades to come.

The helicopter version is called Marine One since it’s operated by the Marine Corps. But here the helicopters – old Sikorsky S61’s – are beginning to get rather old, and there has been a very major competition on the replacement.

That issue was decided last year, when a competition between a Sikorsky-based design and a European-based one was decided on favour of the later.

The final helicopter will of course have very major US component, not to speak of the special equipment associated with the special mission.

But basically it is a European-designed helicopter that for decades to come will serve as Marine One.

It’s a joint British-Italian design originally called EH101 and geared for troop transport and anti-submarine operations. It’s one of the very most modern helicopters around.

These are days when nationalism seems to be rising. European governments are blocking trans-European mergers, and the US political scene has gone bananas about a Abu Dabi firm buying the British firm operating a number of US ports.

In this athmosphere it’s worth noting that there are exceptions.

The White House will fly European. 

Preventive Dialogue

What has happened in Moscow as a delegation from Hamas had held talks with the Russian leadership might well be called preventive diplomacy.

An effort to try to prevent things going from bad to worse.

Israel and the US have been trying to impose a political embargoe on the government of the Palestinian administration even before it has been formed. But discreetly in some cases, and more openly as in the case of the Moscow talks, this embargoe is being broken.

Just as well, in my opinion.

It is difficult to see what purpose can be served by refusing to talk to Hamas after they have captured a majority of the seats in the Palestinian parliament. A policy that made perfect sense when they were just a militant opposition group, not to speak of when they were engaged in a campaign of suicide bombings against Israel, no longer makes much sense.

And in private you would find that most European diplomats dealing with the issue agree with that statement.

There is no reason to doubt that Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has impressed upon the Hamas delegation the need to respect previously signed agreements, to at the least acknowledge the reality of Israel and to be ready to move towards some sort of dialogue and accomodation with it.

This will not come neither easily nor fast. And it is of course somewhat difficult to ask Hamas to enter into a dialogue as long as Israel very clearly refuses any such thing with them.

It is however interesting to note that the language used by the Hamas leaders is very different from the one in the founding documents.

Then the talk was about extinguishing Israel altogether, but now it sounds like a willingness to at the least live side by side with an Israel that goes back to the 1967 frontier and also allowed refugees to come back.

Those are not demands that will cause much joy in Israel, neither are they a realistic basis for a peace, but it can not be denied that they are fairly well in line with a succession of UN Security Council resolutions over the years. As such, they can not be seen as wildly extremist.

Most important is that Hamas seems ready to extend the truce of the last year into a long-term cease-fire of some sort. It would require, they say, some sort of reprocity from the Israeli side. That will, I guess, be forthcoming if there is no violence from the Palestinian side.

Here I guess the dialogue with different international partners could be of great importance. Such a dialogue can certainly not be combined with a resumption of a campaign of violence, and it is important that this is made abundantly clear.

Looking at the situation now, it becomes even more obvious what a missed opportunity last year was.

After having been elected President in January 2005, Abu Mazen was extremely eager to enter into talks with Israel and get some sort of agreement. But time after time, Israel said that he was not the partner they wanted and refused any substantive talks.

This undoubtedly played into the hands of Hamas. Abu Mazen couldn’t deliver the progress towards peace and an end to the occupation that many had hoped. And so they voted Hamas.

And now we are were we are.

More difficult to talk. But not less important. At the end of the day there is no other alternative to chaos and conflict.

Bush Shining on India

As President Bush is now leaving India, he can look back on a visit that might well in the future be seen as one of the most important of his presidency, as well as on a visit to a country where he is significantly less unpopular than in most other places.

The centre-piece of the visit was undoubtedly the deal on cooperation in the field of civilian nuclear technology. Last minute, it was possible to bring the US and the Indian perspectives together.

What exactly the US can give India in the form of civilian nuclear technology I don’t really know. They haven’t been ordering any new nuclear power plants since the early 1970’s, and the foremost name in US civilian nuclear technology – Westinghouse – is a British-owned company now being sold to Mitsubishi och Japan.

I guess key is that India will now have secure access to US deliveries of nuclear fuel for its reactors. This was previously prevented by it not having signed the NPT.

In terms of modern civilian nuclear technology, it wouldn’t surprise me if France is ahead of the United States.

But this is besides the point, which really was the overcoming of the profound burden for the relationship that the Indian success in developing their own nuclear weapons outside all the international frameworks was. They refused to sign the non-proliferation treaty, barred any international inspections and managed to hide all of their preparations for their first test so well that US intelligence was genuinely surprised.

Sanctions followed, and relations went very sour.

But this no longer works. The modern India is a nation that sees its powers as growing, while the United States is aware of the limits of its powers every day. And with Asia rising, there is a need to have a relationship with all its rising powers.

In a more general way, there is little doubt that the Indians were truly flattered by the praise heaped on them by the President as he spoke about a new era of cooperation between the world’s largest and the world’s most powerful democracy.

They see themselves as lifted up on a higher level in the new world that is now emerging.

And they are right in that assessment.

Congratulations, Mikhail Sergeyevich!

 
Today is the 75th year birthday of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. There will be some sort of celebration this evening in a Moscow restaurant, with Helmut Kohl as one of the more personal guests.

There is every reason to congratulate Mikhail Sergeyevich on his anniversary. He certainly is one of the great figures in Soviet history, although perhaps somewhat less so in the Russian equivalent.

I have to confess that I belong to the few that have been somewhat less admiring of his political greatness than most others. I think his greatness is essentially a function of him not understanding what he was doing and what was happening.

No previous Soviet leader had suffered from the illusion that their state and empire could be preserved and held together without the use of brutal force now and then.

Lenin abolished the Duma that had been elected in early 1918 and proceeded with a brutal civil war that set up the state. Stalin not only carried forward the repression and brutality but brought it to levels hitherto very seldom seen in history.

And while Chrustjechev certainly denouned Stalin for his crimes in his famous secret speech in early 1956, it did not take many months until he sent the Soviet tanks rolling into Budapest. Twelwe years later, Bresjnev repeated the procedure against Czechoslovakia in 1968. His successor Andropov threathened the Poles with invasion if they did not introduce martial law themselves against the Solidarnosc trade union movement, and having served in the Soviet Embassy in Budapest in 1956 he knew what he was talking about.

The truly historic decision that Gorbachev took was that the system and the empire should not be defended by force.

It was a decision based on a misunderstanding. It seems as if Gorbachev genuinely believed that the Soviet system could be given a new life with some more transparency and some more reforms. Ironically, the fact that he had never served in any more central position in the Kremlin or the Central Committee apparatus might have made him a victim of Soviet propaganda.

AS things started to deterioate, Gorbachev mostly stayed with his principle of not using force. Instead, each situation was handled with a small retreat in the belief that this was the last and the reforms would then turn everything around and a modern and better Soviet Union will emerge.

But no such thing happened. One demand for change instead gave way for another. There was no half-way house when issues of freedom and national independence were suddenly raised. With the spectre of the tanks gone, the dissolution of the Soviet system began to look like an avalanche.

There were – this is part of the picture – exceptions.

Early in his period as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party he presided over using troops to brutally break up demonstrations in Tblisi in Georgia.

And it is clear that the attempt to use military force to turn the clock back in the Baltic republics in early 1991 was sanctioned and lead by so high authorities in Moscow that is seems incredible that Gorbachev in the one way or the other was not involved. I remember seeing him in Stockholm a few months after this operation failed – and he blamed everything that had happened on ”fascists” in Lithuania that were trying to destroy the Soviet Union.

It was in Germany everything could have gone very wrong. But as the wall in Berlin was opened, the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany around the city held their tanks in their halls under order from Moscow.

Helmut Kohl had managed to establish a relationship of thrust with Gorbachev, and it worked. Later, Gorbachev had to accept what was the unavoidable consequence of the decison not to send in the tanks in the form of the disappearence of the GDR and the reunification of Germany within the European Union and NATO.

On the domestic scene, his failure on the economic side meant that the country went into an economic, social and political tailspin. The attempt in August 1991 to unseat him through a military coup failed, but after that he was effectively gone, although he did not resign until late December of that year.

Then it was Boris Yeltsin who took over. He knew what he was doing. He had previously been thrown out by Gorbachev for advocating too radical reforms. He forced the recognition of the independence of the Baltic countries, the banning of the Communist Party and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He called in the radical reformers that turned the failing economy around, brought food back to the shops and gave a new hope for a new Russia.

But that’s another story that I will have reason to return to in the connection with another birthday in Moscow in the next few weeks.

In the meantime we congratulate Mikhail Sergeyevich as the man whose misunderstanding gave us the peaceful dissolution of the Evil Empire. 

Mladic and Karadzic Arrest Story

 
As of yet, we have not seen Radko Mladic turning up in The Hague. But I still stick to the basic analysis of the situation that I did here a week or two ago.

That’s in all probability how things still are.

Awaiting further development, some history of the issue never hurts.

Ambassador Bill Montgomery was Special Representative of the President of the United States for peace implementation in Bosnia in the years immediately after the war. We worked together intensely on all sorts of issues.

Later, he served as US Ambassador in first Zagreb and then Belgrade. Today, he has retired from the US diplomatic service, but writes a regular column that appears in some of the main newspapers of the region.

In his latest column, he goes into some of the history of why Mladic and Karadzic are not yet in The Hague. He knows what he is talking about:

”I remember very well in 1996 and early 1997, when Western military strength in Bosnia was at the height of its power, the senior officials of the uniformed and civilian sides of the United States Department of Defense absolutely refused to have anything to do with the apprehension of war criminals in Bosnia.”

”At that time, Karadzic drove freely through military checkpoints on the way to political rallies. Ratko Mladic gave interviews while skiing on Jahorina. Even when our attitude towards this process began to change, there was continued resistance from at least one prominent NATO country with direct military responsibility in Bosnia for areas where it would be most likely to find Karadzic in particular. If we would have done what was necessary in the immediate post-Dayton period, it would have eliminated a lot of heartache and moved the whole process along significantly faster.”

I can certainly confirm that story, although the statement that Karadizic drove freely through military checkpoints is somewhat of an exaggeration. He was not a courageous man.

There was however a truly massive reluctance throughout the NATO chain of command – the senior commanders on all levels of relevance being American – to address the issue.

Simply speaking, they had no intention whatsoever to do anything to arrest either of them.

That’s the history.

Now we are pressing the countries of the region to do what we couldn’t do when it was relatively easy.

There isn’t always fairness in history. 

From Kabul With Love

 
By now, President Bush should be on his way to New Delhi after his brief stop in Kabul and Afghanistan.

The link between the two places throughout history has always been strong. It was through the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush and through present Afghanistan that successive invading civilisations over the centuries entered the plains of northern India and made their impact on the subcontinent.

The massive Red Fort in Delhi was built by the Mughal imperial rulers of India in the 17th century. It was in the front of the Red Fort that the independence of the nation was declared by Nehru in 1947.

A plan to have President Bush deliver an address from its ramparts has allegedly been shelved for security reasons. The Red Fort is in a part of Delhi dominated mostly by its Muslim population.

The three-day visit will be a most important affair.

The nuclear deal I have written about earlier will be the subject of what well be very difficult negotiations. There is a hard-line nationalist line in the nuclear establishment that might not give in that easily. Their fast breeder-reactor seems to be at the core of the controversy over what can be opened up for international inspections and what can not.

We’ll see the outcome in a couple of days.

But in a broader sense the visit will highlight the emergence of India as a major international player – both in terms of politics and economy. As an article in Times of India puts it:

”In many ways, what Bush will see is a far more confident India juggling deftly tradition and modernity, increasingly aware of its place under the global sun, with an economy growing steadily at the rate of eight percent per year and 300 million middle class consumers that exceed the population of the US.”

”Bush, here on a maiden visit, comes to a country whose billion-plus people have shown an inexhaustible appetite for democracy and half of whom are younger than 25 – unlike China which has an ageing population – and an IT juggernaut that is flattening the world bringing Bangalore and Boston together.”

It’s a different India – and accordingly a different world. 

Small Balkan Triumph

 
It is indeed a small triumph for the diplomacy of the European Union that there is now agreement on the conditions for a referendum on independence in Montenegro.

It remains to be formally confirmed at the session of the Montenegrian parliament today, but following the firm stance by the European Union at its foreign ministers meeting on Monday it seems clear that both the government and the opposition parties will fall in line with the recommendation by the EU negotiator Miroslav Lajcak.

This paves the way for a referendum on May 21 that is likely to be very hotly contested, but the result of which should then be recognized by each and everyone. Most notably of course by the European Union.

The result? I think it’s too early to say. Opinion polls have consistently given a marginally higher support for independence than for some sort of continued link with Serbia, but whether support will be sufficient in order to meet the criteria now agreed upon is far from certain.

What happens after the referendum will also be of importance – and by no means easy.

A divorce will have to be agreed in all its details. The rights of all those Montenegrians in Serbia and Serbs in Montenegro suddenly turned into foreign citizens must of course be regulated. A border regime as open as possible must be agreed. A division of some remaining assets must also be sorted out.

And from the Belgrade point of view this will have to happen at the same time as the Kosovo issue heats up towards some sort of resolution.

Add to that the fact that Serbia will be left hanging without a functioning constitution. In Belgrade there is now both a President of Serbia and Montenegro and a President of Serbia. How do you handle this mess without going into an immediate constitutional review process?

A defeat for the independence option will certainly not be easier.

The present federation is clearly not working, and the task then would be to negotiate and agree on structures that really could work. It is difficult to see that this could be done without new elections in Montenegro bringing a government committed to constructive negotiations to power.

It will take its time, and it will not be easy.

And then comes all the issues associated with the process of European integration. Both Serbia and Montenegro are n ow negotiating a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, and separate such would not be much of a problem.

Membership might well be a more difficult issue further down the road.

Can one see a referendum in France on whether small Montenegro will be allowed the same role in the European Council as France and the same role in agreeing on future treaty changes?

In some way, it doesn’t really sound very likely.

A small triumph of European Union diplomacy is thus behind ud. But there will be the need for more of those as we continue.