Unfortunately, the main political embodiment of Milosevic-style policies, the Serb Radical Party, is still the largest party in Serbia's parliament. Based on the endemic theme of extremist nationalism in Serbian politics and their failure to police up war criminals Karadzic & Mladic, the United States has already ruled out any return of Kosovo to its pre-1999 status under Serbia.
Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, Condi's second man down, laid out the U.S. position on Kosovo in his testimony to Congress a few months ago:
In order to preserve our role as facilitators of a negotiated solution, the United States and our partners in the Contact Group [USA, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Russia] have not advocated any specific outcome for status talks, but we have identified some basic principles that should guide a settlement of Kosovo's final status. We ruled out a return to the situation before March 1999 and made clear that Kosovo's final status must enhance regional stability and contribute to the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Balkans.
Accordingly, Kosovo's final status must:
-- Be based on multi-ethnicity with full respect for human rights including the right of all refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes in safety;
-- Offer effective constitutional guarantees to ensure the protection of minorities;
-- Include specific safeguards for the protection of cultural and religious heritage; and
-- Promote effective mechanisms for fighting organized crime and terrorism. Additionally, the Contact Group told the parties that we believe that Kosovo's final status must:
-- Not be decided by any party unilaterally or result from the use of force;
-- Not change the boundaries of the current territory of Kosovo, either through partition or through a new union of Kosovo with any country or part of any country after the resolution of Kosovo's status;
-- Fully respect the territorial integrity of all other states in the region;
-- Ensure that Kosovo continues to develop in a sustainable way both politically and economically; and
-- Ensure that Kosovo does not pose a military or security threat to its neighbors.