Jim O’Brien and the new US policy in Bosnia

Jim O’Brien, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, is coming to Bosnia and Herzegovina tomorrow. His predecessor, Karen Donfried, was in our country in April 2022. I attended that meeting as an adviser to a member of the BiH Presidency.

It seemed to me that Donfried neither knows nor wants to know much about our country. This claim could be supported by the fact that during her mandate (from September 2021 to March 2023) she did not issued statements about the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. None of this is surprising, because during her career, Donfried was in no way connected to BiH, and the State Department’s dealings with our country have long been downgraded to lower levels (deputy assistant secretary of state).

With O’Brien there was a change. In the past few weeks, he has spoken about the situation in our country more than Donfried did in her one and a half year in office. It can even be concluded that O’Brien completely overshadowed the special envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, who previously, along with Derek Chollet, Antony Blinken’s general counselor, was a leading figure in this administration when it comes to BiH and the region.

Does O’Brien’s more intensive involvement mean a new course of American policy in the region and Bosnia and Herzegovina?

The strategy of Chollet and Escobar

The key act of American policy in BiH, during Escobar’s mandate, was the suspension of the Constitution of the Federation, in order to form a new government, led by Troika and HDZ. Before that move, the Americans were repeatedly saying that it was necessary to “unblock the Federation”, which in a formal sense meant — to appoint a new Government, and in essence — to improve relations between Bosniaks and Croats.

The functionality of the “Bosniak-Croat Federation” has always been the cornerstone of the Dayton Agreement and stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aforementioned Chollet wrote in his book The Road to the Dayton Accords that the conflict between Bosniaks and Croats, during the war, “fueled Serbian aggression”.

“With a divided adversary, the Bosnian Serbs had little incentive to negotiate,” concludes Chollet. He also adds that inside the Clinton administration the belief prevailed that “the Muslim–Croat alliance was the only chance for the Muslims in Bosnia to develop the resources to balance Serb power”.

In his study Blinken’s counselor recalls the words of Clinton’s top diplomat Warren Christopher, that Bosniaks and Croats must join forces against the Serbs. Chollet added that Clinton himself gave a similar message to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the dawn of the Dayton.

When Chollet and Escobar, in 2021, took over the mandate in the State Department, they could see that the situation in BiH was neglected due to the inaction of the Trump administration and the EU. The political conflict between leading Bosniak and Croat parties, SDA and HDZ was raging in the Federation, which in their eyes fueled Dodik’s secessionism. Chollet and Escobar had reason to fear that the turbulence produced by the war in Ukraine could even lead to a war conflict in BiH and the collapse of Dayton, which would be disastrous for the American reputation.

I no longer have any doubts that Chollet and Escobar, as well as others who participated in the discussion at the State Department in the fall and winter of 2021 (Matthew Palmer and probably Karen Donfried) made the decision that it is necessary to follow the war schedule, which means that the first step to solve the problem in BiH is to stop the Bosniak-Croat political conflict.

At the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, when the Americans already know what will happen in Ukraine, Palmer tried to renew the Federation through negotiations in Neum. After negotiations failed, the Americans intervened in the constitutional system with the help of the OHR. First, in October 2022, in order to appease the Croats and remove the reasons for their fear that they will be completely eliminated from the government in the Federation; and then in April 2023, in order to remove from power the SDA, which they undoubtedly identified as the culprit for the failure of the negotiations in Neum.

Whether the SDA was the main culprit for the collapse of the negotiations in Neum is no longer important. The Biden administration gained such an impression, and — “beyond good and evil” — pounced on the leading Bosniak party, imposing sanctions on its officials and encouraging their criminal prosecution (Novalić, Mehmedagić, Cikotić, Skaka).

The result of all this was the establishment of a new ruling coalition in the Federation (Troika-HDZ). Through the aforementioned action of the Biden administration, a truce was reached, but not a Bosniak-Croat alliance against Dodik.

The head of the HDZ, Dragan Čović, not only didn’t team up with the Troika against Dodik, but on the contrary, he is ganging up with Dodik against the Troika. He demonstrated this at the recent negotiations in Bakinci/Laktasi.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken himself confirmed that agile American policy in Bosnia was not efficient, or at least efficient enough. A few months ago, at a press conference with the head of German diplomacy Annalena Baerbock, speaking about the security situation in Europe, he said that Milorad Dodik exposes Bosnia and Herzegovina to a great risk.

“We talked about how the European Union can maintain pressure on actors who are putting BiH at great risk. Notably, Mr Dodik,” said Blinken.

How can the EU put pressure on Dodik, if Croatia, as an EU member, which is most interested in the situation in BiH, does not put any pressure on the leader of Republika Srpska?

How can Croatia support the pressure on Dodik, if the HDZ BiH does not agree with it?

Can HDZ BiH determine Zagreb’s position, or should it be the other way around?

What have the Americans even been doing in Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2021 if peace is still under threat?

A few days ago, Blinken’s letter to the Croatian and BiH Minister of Foreign Affairs was published in which US State Secretary accuses the head of the BiH HDZ, Dragan Čović, of blocking the strategic project of the Southern Gas Interconnection, and also mentions corruption as a possible motive.

Čović dismissed Blinken’s criticism. Not long after that, US Ambassador Michael Murphy further criticized Čović in an interview with Bloomberg Adria, threatening him almost openly with sanctions.

Blinken’s letter and Murphy’s interview are more than an indication of a new American policy in BiH. It would be wrong to ignore these signs. Given that the Americans have issued an open ultimatum to Čović, I think the chances are minimal, almost non-existent, that they will withdraw.

My impression is that the essence of the problem is not in the gas pipeline at all, but in Čović’s refusal to cooperate with the Americans in containing Dodik.

In September 2023, a few days after Blinken’s conference with the German minister, the American ambassador held a meeting with state Prime Minister Borjana Krišto (HDZ), in order to “discuss the vital importance of defending BiH and its state institutions from efforts to undermine them, particularly by the RS ruling coalition”, as he wrote on Twitter. In other words, he invited the HDZ to join the efforts to restrain Dodik, but the HDZ did not respond.

It has been confirmed that there is no Bosniak-Croat alliance.

O’Brien’s strategy

In Chollet’s book, Jim O’Brien is mentioned in only one place.

On the eve of Dayton, on October 28, 1995, O’Brien traveled with Richard Holbrooke to New York, where he met with the delegation of the Government of the Republic of BiH, led by Muhamed Šaćirbegović. The key topic of discussion, along with constitutional arrangements, was the functioning of the Federation.

Saćirbegović said that the Bosniak-Croat alliance is in a “sorry state”. Holbrooke and O’Brien knew that a good number of their colleagues in the State Department, as well as the Pentagon, believed that the Bosniak-Croat entity had no chance, and that its creation was a “fundamental conceptual error”.

“The peace being brokered by the Americans”, wrote Chollet, “relied upon a healthy, fully functioning Federation. Yet at that point, no such entity existed. From Izetbegovic and Tudjman on down, the Muslims and Croats simply did not trust each other. Holbrooke understood that they would have to work immediately at Dayton to rebuild this fractured yet vital relationship.”

The first ten days of negotiations in Dayton were marked by painstaking negotiations on the Federation. They were concluded on November 10, 1995, with the signing of the Dayton Agreement on the Implementation of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main provisions of the agreement divide competencies between the state and entity levels, and set deadlines for the dissolution of the “existing civil authorities in areas controlled by the HVO”, so that their functions will be taken over by the bodies of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with the Federation army. This was a clear message to the Serb side that, if the Republika Srpska rejects the Dayton peace, she will have to continue fighting with the united Bosnian-Croatian forces.

Although the Federation negotiations were on the verge of collapse several times, Krešimir Zubak played a crucial role in their success. This moderate Bosnian Croat leader a year earlier replaced Mate Boban, as the president of Herceg-Bosna, after the latter refused to accept peace with Bosniaks and the idea of ​​establishing a Federation. Unlike Boban, who from the beginning of the war advocated an alliance with the Serbian side and the division of BiH, Zubak supported the idea of ​​a Bosniak-Croat alliance as the basis for the survival of BiH.

Tuđman demanded that the Dayton agreement on the Federation include a provision that one of the three main positions in the RBiH Government (President of the Presidency, Prime Minister or Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RBiH) will be occupied by a Croat. As Chollet writes, Alija Izetbegović suggested that the issue be resolved later, so that the agreement would not come into question because of just one item, to which Zubak agreed. Ultimately, the Dayton Agreement established a three-member Presidency, and in the first elections in 1996, Zubak was elected as the Croatian member of the Presidency. Although they could, Bosniak voters did not vote for his then opponent Ivo Komšić (SDP-HSS), appreciating, among other things, that Zubak helped establish the Federation and broke with Boban’s policy of the Serb-Croat alliance with the aim of dissolving the state.

Jim O’Brien knows very well that a strong Bosniak-Croat federation, as the basis of Dayton, would never have had a chance if Boban had not been removed. O’Brien surely knows that Bosniak-Croat cooperation has no chance, despite all the efforts of the Troika (sometimes desperate), if Dragan Čović continues to be in a firm alliance with Dodik. Given that in the past year, despite everything the Americans have done for Zagreb and the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Čović shows no desire to cooperate, the solution lies in his removal and the arrival of a more moderate leader, who, like Zubak, would help to stability is maintained and BiH moves towards the EU, and in return it could count on American support.

Just as Washington held Tuđman responsible for Boban’s behavior, the Americans, it seems, will hold Plenković’s government responsible for Čović’s destructive behavior. In this context, I see the fact that Blinken wrote to the Croatian Minister of Foreign Affairs about the blockade of the Southern Interconnection, which is being carried out by the head of the HDZ of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

If it turns out that Čović has more influence on Plenković than Plenković has on Čović, then Croatia can no longer play the role of a reliable American partner in BiH. Given that the Americans have already started a conflict with Čović, there is little chance that they will withdraw. There is even less chance that the HDZ leader will be able to fight back, if they go after him with all their might.

The new American policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina would actually mean finishing the job, which was started in 2021. In this sense, O’Brien’s strategy differs from Escobar’s and Chollet’s just as the second phase differs from the first.

If Biden’s people remove Čović and, instead of the fragile truce that we currently have, manage to restore the Bosniak-Croat alliance, which would stand against Serbian secessionism, they would do a really good job in BiH. If they back down and don’t finish the job, their reputation in BiH will remain damaged, and the US Secretary of State will have to be ashamed, admitting at meetings with his European counterparts that his administration is failing to protect the Dayton Agreement, as a cornerstone of security in this part of Europe.