Getting Karadzic

The decision of the new Serbian government to 'bring in' Radovan Karadzic is long-overdue but welcome. A former psychiatrist turned ethnic cleanser, Karadzic headed the Bosnian Serb entity during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. He more than earned his reputation as a war criminal and butcher, most notably for the decision to massacre thousands of Muslim men at Srebrenica in 1995.

Karadzic will presumably be put on trial, either in Serbia or at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. One more major-league bad guy, Ratko Mladic, still needs to be rounded up. Then the Serbian government can emerge from the shadows of its disgrace. In several months, it will likely enter the process that leads to eventual EU membership. Who knows, maybe Serbia will join NATO one day, although many Serbs still remember quite clearly who bombed them during the 1999 Kosovo crisis.

Karadzic and Mladic have much to answer for - some of it not what you'd think. Their despicable behavior (and that of their subordinates) masked the fact that many Serbs had a legitimate concern about the potential spread of radical Islam through an independent Bosnia headed by Alija Izetbegovic. That threat still exists, by the way, even though Izetbegovic is dead. Remember that next time you hear someone saying how brilliantly the West succeeded in Bosnia.