The argument for Kosovar independence, inasmuch as there is one, rests upon a two propositions: first, that ethnic groups per se deserve sovereignty; and second, that Kosovo experienced a unique and sui generis oppression that merits unique and sui generis independence. The second proposition received an explicit endorsement and elaboration from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when she announced the United States’s recognition of Kosovar sovereignty:

The unusual combination of factors found in the Kosovo situation – including the context of Yugoslavia’s breakup, the history of ethnic cleansing and crimes against civilians in Kosovo, and the extended period of UN administration – are not found elsewhere and therefore make Kosovo a special case. Kosovo cannot be seen as a precedent for any other situation in the world today.

This attempt at policy-insurance via rhetoric barely masks the series of awful truths that America’s Kosovo policy seeks to avoid: that both propositions underlying the province’s independence are wholly false; that there is nothing sui generis about Kosovo’s circumstance; that Kosovo is “seen as a precedent for […] other situation[s] in the world today”; and that the application of that precedent is tremendously damaging to Europe as well as to actual American interests abroad. In contemplating these thing, what emerges as tremendously interesting and appalling is the rhetoric on the subject that emanates from the U.S. Department of State.
 
We have already noted Secretary Rice’s rather nonsensical declaration of the total uniqueness of Kosovo in the world and history. Unfortunately, the need for this declaration became swiftly apparent this past Thursday, February 28th, when the State Department’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, delivered a 30-minute briefing to the press on American foreign policy topics. Burns was asked about the possibility that “the Serbian minority in the northern of Kosovo will decided to get the independence from Kosovo [sic],” by which was meant the Serbian-majority enclave north of the Ibar river in Kosovo: which enclave, rather than “get[ting] the independence from Kosovo,” wishes to remain part of Serbia, as it always was, and in the eyes of everyone but the Pristina government and its Western patrons, still is. The Serbs who live there – and, presumably, the Serbs who live in the other remaining enclaves in the province – have not been entirely enthusiastic about Kosovo’s UDI, and are floating the reasonable proposition that if the Albanians get their own state, perhaps the Serbs should have the same privilege. Under Secretary Burns was emphatic in his response:

Well, we’ll be absolutely opposed to partition of Kosovo. And the great majority of countries around the world are not going to stand for that. I know that my colleague, my European Union colleague, Peter Feith, had a very strong statement this morning, as head of the EU mission, saying that we would not support and tolerate any move towards partition, either a de factor partition, or creeping partition by trying to take over the United Nations-administered institutions north of the Ibar River, or de jure partition. We will not support it.

This is, on its face, bizarre. Why not let the Serbs in their enclaves stay united with Serbia, rather than forcing them into a mostly-unrecognized statelet where they will only serve as a source of trouble? (Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci’s boast that “one hundred countries” would swiftly recognize the new state proved false: as of this writing, the total stands at twenty-two, with only thirty-one further reasonable possibilities.) It seems just and pragmatic at first glance: if Kosovo is independent in part because it was oppressed, then the Serbs in Kosovo since the UN/NATO takeover of the province may also claim a history of oppression; and perhaps more compelling, the enforcers of Pristina’s sovereignty in the Serb enclaves won’t be Kosovar Albanians, but American and European soldiers and police. Why put our young men and women in harm’s way to enforce the sovereignty of a state that should, by the very definition of sovereignty, be capable of that enforcement itself? America in particular does indeed have a proud tradition in its foreign policy of defending the sovereignty of allies – but Kosovo is not subject to meaningful external threat, the Serbs north of the Ibar being, according to the Kosovar state’s own self-concept, Kosovars. Of course, they weren’t Kosovars before, and they do not wish to be now. The logic of Kosovo’s independence demands an acquiescence to their own wish to stay Serbians on Serbian soil.
 
Herein is the rationale behind Under Secretary Burns’s denunciation of the very idea of Kosovo’s “partition” (versus Serbia’s partition, which troubled American policymakers not at all): to accede to the wishes of the Serbs in Kosovo – to be Serbian, as such – would mean that Kosovo is a precedent. The determination to avoid this goes beyond a simple wish to validate the American Secretary of State’s pronouncement on the subject. Accepting Kosovo as a precedent would be, and is, a disaster for American interests in nearly every sphere. The potential for Kosovo-model secession-driven conflicts in which America and its interests may be involved range from Iraq, where Kurds and Shi’a all make secessionist noises at times; to Afghanistan, where the Pashtuns have their own nationalist aspirations; to Pakistan, where Pashtuns, Baluchis, and Sindhis all agitate for independence with varying intensity; to Taiwan, where independence-minded politicians could, in a worst-case scenario, provoke a disastrous U.S.-China war; to Canada, whose government is wary of recognizing Kosovo lest Quebecois nationalists find encouragement; to Israel, where Palestinian entities of differing stripes grasp toward their own statehood; to NATO allies Spain, France, and the United Kingdom, all of which contend with secession-minded movements; to Russia, which fights secessionists on the north side of the Caucasus, and encourages them on the south side.
 
America’s foreign policy apparatus could have advised the President to look to these examples (and not just these – Serbia’s now-threatened place in Europe and Russian-American relations are also important, if separate from the secession issue), and act in America’s interest both in not validating Kosovar “independence,” and in refusing to lend the American armed forces to perform what should be the normal functions of a sovereign state. Instead, America’s State Department functionaries tried to have it both ways. They wished to bring to an illusory close the feel-good narrative of America’s last “good war,” in an era were such narratives are pitifully thin; and they simultaneously wished to isolate that narrative from history in toto. Their desire is strong enough that they will lie to the American people and the world as needed: see here, for example, Under Secretary Burns reversing the chronology of the 1999 Kosovo war, and egregiously mischaracterizing the explicit content of U.N. Resolution 1244. The exercise deceives no one but themselves. Kosovo is a fact now, however crippled and un-sovereign it may be – and its lessons are facts as well. The only questions that remain are who will act upon them, and how much we must fight and suffer as a consequence.