Now Bosnia wants to join.
Reports the Kuwait News Agency:
Bosnia-Herzegovina Presidency Chairman Zeljko Komsic on
Saturday submitted a request for receiving the NATO membership
action plan. The military alliance's Secretary General,
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said after his meeting with the Bosnian
delegation on Friday in Brussels that the bid was "the best way
toward lasting stability in the Euro-Atlantic region." "I would
like for all Western Balkans countries to be integrated into
NATO, " he said.
The Bosnian delegation also included Foreign Minister Sven
Alkalaj and Defense Minister Selmo Cikotic. The action
plan in question is meant to prepare candidate countries for a
full-fledged NATO membership. Rasmussen also discussed
Bosnia's contribution to the NATO mission in Afghanistan with
the Bosnian delegation, and the progress made in the
Partnership for Peace program.
What conceivable value does Bosnia--an artificial state which
remains sharply divided internally along ethnic lines--add to the
Western alliance? Why should Americans promise to defend
such a bizarre and unstable geopolitical creature?
Bosnia's request illustrates yet again why Washington should step
away and leave Balkans affairs to the Europeans. Even if
the latter make a mess of it--again!--it doesn't matter for the
U.S. which is, if people haven't noticed, rather busy elsewhere.
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).
