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This may at first reading by the uninitiated sound
a bit less polarized than the statement on Kosovo and Albania, but
that it is not how it will be read in the Balkans. Some Serbs and
Croats will resent his mention of genocide, his advocacy on behalf
of the Sarajevo government during the war, his support for the NATO
intervention that ended it, his support for sanctioning Bosnian Serb
leader Dodik, and even his call for reform and reconciliation.
Bosnian Americans, in particular Bosniaks, are at
their most concentrated in St. Louis, where they aren’t likely to
help Biden much. Missouri is a lock for Trump. Others live mostly in
Democratic cities and states, but there are some in Florida, which
is a battleground state where even a few votes this way or that can
matter a lot, as Bush and Gore discovered in 2000.
The last line in the the Biden/Harris statement is
the most important. It is a firm rejection of Dodik’s secession
ambition, the likes of which we haven’t heard from the Trump
Administration. Biden is not going to be tempted by moving borders
in the Balkans and will revert the US to its traditional position in
favor of EU membership for all its states. Sounds right to me.
PS: A correspondent claims I undervalued the
Bosnian American populations in Georgia and Iowa. That could make a
difference in both states. |
