The Biden Administration fell into the trap it set for the Trump Administration
Four years ago, Kosova and Serbia were very close to signing a historic agreement. Today, we are closer to a war than an agreement.
Berat Buzhala
President Joe Biden’s Administration and the most powerful countries of Europe, such as Germany and the United Kingdom, have officially started a war with the Frankenstein they themselves created.
Four years ago, when Kosova had made progress towards reaching a historic agreement with Serbia, mediated by the envoy of President Trump, Richard Grenell, the propaganda that was being carried out against this agreement, by Western governments but also by elements of the Democratic Party, was brutal and bizarre.
All the world was fighting against COVID, while in Kosova, we were getting ready to fight against each other.
On one side, there was the President of Kosova, then Hashim Thaçi, who believed in an agreement with Serbia, mediated by Trump and Grenell, whereas on the other was Albin Kurti, who had won the election in November 2019 and who had turned into a proxy of Josep Borrell, Miroslav Lajcak, the Government of Germany, the Government of the United Kingdom, and certain fractions of the US Democratic Party.
Out of fear that an agreement between Kosova and Serbia would have helped Donald Trump win the election, the latter aligned with Prime Minister Kurti in order for him to sabotage any possibility for an agreement at the White House. Halfway down the road, I was among the victims of this propaganda and lobbying as well.
As a consequence, there were luckily no victims on the street, but there were plenty of political victims. President Hashim Thaçi was one of them. Exactly in the middle of the political process, the American prosecutor Jack Smith brough charges against President Thaçi, at a time when Thaçi was travelling to the White House. The interference was frightening and unprecedented. Hashim Thaçi was ten thousand meters above the Earth, when the indictment against him was filed.
At present, Jack Smith is a prosecutor appointed by the Biden Administration to investigate Donald Trump.
Hashim Thaçi was not the sole political victim. The Democratic League of Kosova, then led by Isa Mustafa, got a blow above and below the belt, by the international community, because it decided to vote the removal of Albin Kurti from power, in order for – however – an agreement to be signed at the White House that brought the recognision of Kosova’s independence by Israel but also better relations with the United States.
As a responsible politician, Isa Mustafa decided to vote for the removal of Kurti, at a moment when Trump’s envoy, Richard Grenell, had declared that “the Trump Administration would not have worked with Kurti any longer due to his destabilizing and unilateral actions”.
In order to save the country, Mustafa destroyed himself and his party.
The removal of Kurti had frustrated the countries I mentioned above. These countries, via their ambassadors, and these political entities (I am looking at you, America’s liberals), went on to sharpen the horns of Kurti, the Prime Minister who was removed from power, and they continued to hit all the other political parties in Kosovo.
In such a political atmosphere, Kosova was moving towards a snap election.
Kurti showed up publickly in the media accusing Trump and Grenell for removing him from the power. In addition to that, he decided to go public via a video and invite the Albanians in the US to vote for Joe Biden in the eleciton. This was the first time in Kosovo’s history that a such important political figure of Kosovo took a stand about an internal election of Kosovo’s most important ally.
Most of diplomats of that time whom I’ve met were convinced that they had already found their partner in Kosovo for the upcoming decade.
With President Thaçi detained, with the Democratic League of Kosovo torn apart, Albin Kurti with his movement, that was already turned into a nationwide movement, forced the country towards an election exactly three years ago.
A short time before that, he had also won the bet on the US election. His opponents lost and Joe Biden won. Kosovo was politically overturned as never before. A political party won over 50 % of the votes for the first time.
Everybody was happy. Kosovo’s people were happy, the new American Administration was happy, the governments of Germany and the UK were happy, too. In my view, even the Government of Serbia was happy. Everyone for different reasons.
Where do we stand now?
Exactly where we were four years ago. With the exception of Kurti now being much more powerful politically. The steroids injected by the West made Kurti grow from 25 % to over 50 %. Few days ago, a bronze statue of him was erected in a village in Kosovo.
Joe Biden’s Administration failed terribly in Kosovo. Instead of continuing the work that was started during the Trump era, by appointing a special envoy for Kosovo and Serbia, in order to strike while the iron is hot, they handed over the process totally to the hands of the European Union.
Tell me, which is the latest crisis in the world that has been mediated and solved by the European Union, an economic mammoth that is, in a best-case scenario, a backing vocalist of the United States, when it comes to foreign policy.
Four years ago, Kosovo and Serbia appeared to be very close to a historic agreement. Today, Kosovo and Serbia appear to be much closer to a war than to an agreement. The latest efforts of the State Department to convince Prime Minister Kurti to not take unilateral and uncoordinated steps suffered a fiasco. As Undersecretary James O’Brien said, his latest call with Kurti was very short. It feels like a déjà vu. Even another conversation of Kurti with another O’Brien – Robert O’Brien, a former Trump adviser for National Security – had been very short.
Maybe it is not necessary to elaborate in detail what it means in such cases when a phone call “lasts very shortly”.
During these three – four years, Kosovo lost every opportunity to peacefully complete the divorce with Serbia. In addition to that, Kosovo is also losing its Western allies. In the latest meeting of the UN Security Council, Prime Minister Kurti suffered blows by all of the allies of Kosovo, those who helped the birth of our country.
What has happened during all this time is a big defeat for the West, a big defeat for Kosovo. Russia and Serbia are the only winners. Russia hopes to expand the conflict to other hotbeds in Europe, while Serbia is realizing its dream – to turn Kosovo and its people against the West.
