>From the Op-Ed page of the Times, London,
August 2 1999 OPINION
Mick Hume
'What better way could there be for Germany to clean up its history than by waging war against those branded the new Nazis?'
Two months on, who really won the war over Kosovo? On Friday, at a three-hour photo shoot masquerading as the Sarajevo summit, no fewer than 40 smiling heads of state tried to climb on to the Balkan victory rostrum at the same time. But, as in every beauty contest, while they all looked lovely, sadly they cannot all be winners.
In keeping with tradition, here are the results in reverse order. In third place, Prime Minister Tony Blair's new Britain. While the war against the Serbs was largely fought with American hardware, Mr Blair managed the software (politics and propaganda) department. New Labour stamped Nato's war with the politics of emotionalism, where feelings conquer all. The high point came in early May, with a highly charged visit to the refugee camps during which a barefoot "Tonee, Tonee, Tonee" Blair, accompanied by the weeping Cherie, was crowned Crusader King of Kosovo, prompting one US commentator to announce: "This is not just an air war, it's a Blair war."
Mr Blair's success in replacing outdated empire militarism with the new empire of the emotions has enabled him to inflate Britain's international status, further isolate his critics at home, and fire Britain's first cruise missiles from the moral high ground.
In second place, President Clinton's new America. Despite the dithering over invasion that left the general impression of a moral crusade led by moral cowards, the war has proved a good result for America's rulers. Kosovo has enabled the entire Clinton generation finally to shake off the Vietnam syndrome, and to emerge looking robust and rosy-cheeked in a new mood of "national healing". As the 1960s pacifists proclaim themselves red-blooded all-American males after all, the old Cold Warriors have gone into retirement.
A symbolic (and ironic) moment of triumph came last week when the President effectively sacked General Wesley Clark, after the Vietnam veteran was accused of letting down Clinton, the draft-dodging Commander-in-Chief, over Kosovo.
And in first place, Chancellor Schröder's new Germany. Whisper it in Whitehall and Westminster, but it is obvious now that the Germans were the biggest winners in this war. Even more than the Americans, they have used Kosovo as a welcome pretext to rewrite the past. What better way could there be for Germany to clean up its Holocaust-stained history than by waging war once more in Eastern Europe, only this time against those branded "the new Nazis"? Little wonder that Herr Schröder and Joschka Fischer, his gung-ho Green Foreign Minister, have taken every opportunity to draw parallels between President Milosevic's regime and the mighty Third Reich.
By putting itself on the side of the angels over Kosovo, the new Germany has legitimised its role at the heart of Europe. While Herr Schröder pushed through the Sarajevo summit in the face of Anglo-French grumbling, German engineers make plans to rebuild the bombed bridges of Serbia - bridges that were first erected by German PoWs after their defeat in 1945.
So much for the winners. What of the losers, those left standing in the background at the Sarajevo beauty contest with false fixed smiles?
Russia has been exposed as an emperor with few clothes and no empire. The Balkan states who signed up to the war against Serbia have been rewarded with the status of Euro-beggars. Even as Kfor troops advanced into Kosovo, Nato governments were already retreating from their big promises on Balkan reconstruction. Whatever aid Romania, Bulgaria and the rest do get now will come with such stringent conditions attached that they would probably be better off without it.
The ethnic Albanians of Kosovo look like the local winners from the war, yet it remains to be seen how much even they will gain. The only central power in the chaos of Kosovo now lies with Bernard Kouchner, the UN High Representative. He is set to rule by diktat for the foreseeable future, backed by 30,000 Kfor troops and no fewer than 50 outside agencies now running things in the tiny province.
Dr David Chandler, author of Bosnia: Faking Democracy after Dayton, even suggests that "autonomy for Kosovo under the UN and Nato is increasingly looking no more democratic than life under the old Yugoslav regime".
That leaves Serbia, the ugly sister not invited to the Sarajevo ball. Nato leaders might still insist that their argument is only with Mr Milosevic, but in reality the entire Serb nation has now been branded as pariahs. It seems that the division in Europe is no longer between the East and the West, but between the Serbs and all the rest.
The author is editor of LM.
-- Jim heartfield