Let the Blame game begin

The situation in Kosovo is "a car wreck about to happen,” it has caused a steady decline in U.N. legitimacy, and, in the end, it’s all Europe’s fault -- at least according to John Bolton.

Bolton, the U.S. representative to the U.N. in 2005 and 2006, spoke on Friday in Washington at an event entitled, “The Implications of Kosovo’s Independence for U.S. Foreign Policy.” And what are those implications, according to him? Little more than a chance for the U.S. to get back at Europe for its criticism of America’s post-9/11 international blunders.

Calling Kosovo’s pending independence a “fundamentally European solution,” he noted that independence for Kosovo came out of not one but two instances in which the authority of the U.N.’s Security Council was largely dismissed -- first in NATO’s 1999 air strike and now in the current failure by the international community to back a change in Kosovo’s status with a U.N. resolution.

And in a moment of bold directness, Bolton told any European citizen sitting in the audience to take this message back to Europe:

“It should be a long time before any of you criticize action without Security Council authorization.”

Wonderful. South Eastern Europe is again on the cusp of destabilization. What democratic headway Serbia had made has been kicked into reverse. Europe must now find a way to incorporate an economic wasteland into its already strained folds.  And all Mr. Bolton -- once America’s voice at the UN -- has to say is America may have F*ck up but we're not alone.  Don't I feel prouder to be an American...