The end of empire

The Belmont Club takes on the question of what the war in Iraq is similar to:

One can make the case that Saddam was to Iraq as Tito was to Yugoslavia; that the ethnic minorities in the Balkans have the counterparts in the Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds of Iraq. One very striking difference between the two ex-Ottomans is that, except for fitful attempts by Russia to intervene in Yugoslavia and the arrival of some Jihadis in Kosovo, there was no foreign intervention to oppose NATO. Had hostile and powerful nations fueled the Yugoslav wars as Syria and Iran are now fueling their clients in Iraq, NATO might have found its task much harder. Indeed, had the United States undermined the European effort in Yugoslavia to the extent that Europe has diplomatically opposed American efforts in Iraq, events in the Balkans since may have been far different. Moreover, the international press never demonized Western efforts in former Yugoslavia to anything like the degree it depicts Iraq.