Quotes

"The cake has been baked, because the Americans have promised Kosovo independence," a senior European Union official said.

A hundred years of negotiations is better than one day of war.

The Kosovo Albanians don't have much influence on the crisis resolution not only because they are the weakest factor, economically and politically speaking, but also because their stance is too maximalistic. In every situation were the conflict sides are radically opposed, maximalistic options have little chances to win.

Milosevic didn't understand this 20 years ago, Albanian leaders don't understand that today. Serbia has understood from the start of the negotiations that it cannot present maximalistic demands, but that it has to lean towards compromise, and this policy has shown results.

If Kosovo decides to declare independence from Serbia, it could trigger more fighting - or be the inspiration for more provinces and regions to try to make themselves into new micro-states.

Kosovo's arrogance is to assume that, even if it makes itself a new nation in the most provocative of circumstances, someone will defend it, because it cannot defend itself. It is assuming that Europe will find it intolerable to have a new conflict in its backyard. That is probably right, but it is a risky gamble.

Supporting Kosovo's independence from Serbia while concurrently insisting that both have a common European future seems somewhat contradictory and inconsistent.

There is no pressing need for de facto autonomy to become de jure independence. Pristina has as much autonomy as it can use and should be ordered to tone down its senseless confrontation and leave Serbia a shred of pride.

Asking Serbs whether they would choose Kosovo or Europe is a stupid question. It is like asking whether I want to lose my right or my left leg.

Western negotiating efforts have been arbitrary and capricious, blind to the realities on the ground and offering solutions that serve their own interests rather than those of the people in Serbia and Kosovo.

"Ahtisaari's supervised independence plan for Kosovo proves that different standards are used when demands of various countries are considered. Something is right in Kosovo, in the Basque Country it is the opposite and in Latvia it is the other way around. Do we have Democracy or ten democracies?"

Future diplomatic historians looking back at U.S. policy toward Kosovo are going to be puzzled. In almost every other case where a new democratic state has faced a question of ethnic separatism, Washington has always opted for a compromise solution: ensuring territorial integrity of the country as a whole while promoting maximum autonomy for the disaffected regions in question.