Almost two decades of war in Europe came closer than ever to ending in the last week, as two enemies sat across a table from each other and agreed to what many thought was impossible: peace in the Balkans.

In particular, peace between the region’s final holdouts: Serbia, the successor state of Yugoslavia, and Kosovo, a province of Serbia that declared its independence in 2008. Kosovo’s proclamation marked the climax of a struggle that included Serbian forces conducting ethnic cleansing of the region. NATO intervened on the side of the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo, launching a bombing campaign in 1999 that ultimately led to then-President Slobadan Milosevic’s ouster.

Despite the complex history at play, the stakes for the two nations were high enough to engender giving peace a chance. The ultimate goal for both: Membership in the European Union. It’s with that in mind that Lady Catherine Ashton, the E.U.’s foreign policy chief, drew the two into talks and managed to keep them there over ten rounds of negotiations.

Under the terms of the deal, Serbia will not recognize Kosovo’s independence just yet, but will yield to the Kosovo government’s control over the entirety of the Kosovo region. In exchange, ethnic Serbs remaining in Kosovo’s northern region, long a source of tension, will have some degree of autonomy. That will include having their own police force, while recognizing the central authority of Pristina, Kosovo’s capital.

However, the outcome was never a complete certainty. Serbian Prime Minister Ivica Dacic served as spokesperson to Milosevic during the height of the Balkan’s wars, promoting his party’s ultra-nationalistic propaganda. Across from him, Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hacim Thaci, a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Nicknamed “The Snake” during his warfighting days, Thaci has been accused of committing multiple crimes throughout the struggle, including acts of terrorism and smuggling of human organs.

Dacic, still known as a Serbian nationalist, defended the agreement to the Serbian Parliament on Friday as a break from Serbia’s past history:

“Today our country is devastated. And only if we have courage, if we do not lie to ourselves and others, and only if we have a clear vision, then we, our generation, will be able to build a country so that our children don’t have to clean up the ruins,” he said. “This is why we negotiated: to put a stop to the past, to the poverty, and to never-ending defeats. Someone had to do this so that out of nothing, we could make something.”

All parts of Serbia’s ruling coalition agreed to the terms of the deal before today’s debate began, making the agreement likely to be approved shortly. The signs of Serbia wanting to put its past behind it don’t end there. In addition to the deal with Kosovo, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic, also a nationalist, apologized to Bosnia-Herzegovina for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the first time he had done so. However, there are still doubts that Prime Minister Dacic won’t change his tune when speaking before a more nationalistic Serbian audience. Hundreds protested the deal in Belgrade on Friday, highlighting the difficulty Serbian society has had in confronting its role in starting multiple wars within the span of a decade.

So why is all of this important? Because in coming to an accord, Kosovo and Serbia are closing the door on one of the most destructive periods of the late 20th century and showcasing the continuing ability of diplomacy to end long-standing conflicts. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the agreement “important not just for their ability to move into the EU, which is technically critical, but very important in terms of ending a conflict, in terms of moving people to the future.” Kerry went on to hold up the Serbia-Kosovo agreement as an example that many of the last century’s conflicts — including Cyprus, the Mideast peace process, and North Korea — still have a chance of being solved today.

(Photo: Prime Minister Dacic, Lady Ashton, and Prime Minister Thaci in Brussels on April 19. Credit: Reuters)

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is sticking with his claims that the United States and Taliban are working together to lengthen the former’s occupation of Afghanistan, even as negotiations to get Western forces out continue.

On Sunday, Karzai first voiced the accusation that the two enemies were working together to achieve the same goals while delivering a nationally televised speech. Karzai doubled down on that rhetoric in a speech on Tuesday to tribal leaders in the Helmand Province, rebuking a recent Taliban attack while still suggesting cooperation between foreign forces and the former Afghan government:

“You announce that you show your power to America by killing an 8-year-old Muslim child and civilians,” Mr. Karzai said. “I don’t think so. You are serving for them.”

He also suggested that recent Taliban propaganda footage of attacks in the strategic Wardak province near Kabul was likely filmed by foreign helicopters, and distributed by foreigners in order to exaggerate the insurgency’s strength and justify a continued foreign presence.

The new spate of sharp rhetoric from Karzai comes as the United States and other NATO countries are negotiating the withdrawal of their combat forces from Afghanistan, currently due to be completed by the end of 2014. In his Helmand speech, Karzai insisted that he would not be in favor of any foreign troops remaining within Afghanistan post-2014, encouraging them to provide financial aid instead. Gen. James Mattis, head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate last week that he envisioned a remainder force of 20,000 troops after the pullout, a number that has yet to be made official by the Obama administration.

What is clear, however, is that the vast majority of foreign forces will be gone from Afghanistan in 2015, leaving Karzai in need of domestic support and desiring to shore-up his legacy as President:

Interviews with tribal elders, business leaders, political analysts and diplomats here paint an image of a leader who is desperately trying to shake his widely held image as an American lackey by appealing to nationalist sentiments and invoking Afghanistan’s sovereignty. [...]

Many Afghan observers say that Mr. Karzai is trying to keep himself politically potent during the last year of his term by playing to at least three Afghan constituencies: his ethnic Pashtun base; ethnic Tajik and Hazara leaders in his government; and, notably, the Taliban, who have rejected negotiations with him.

Inflammatory statements against the West have become a staple of Karzai’s at key times during his Presidency. Amid questions of corruption following the 2009 Presidential election, Karzai lashed out at “foreign interference” in the balloting. When under pressure in 2010 to institute reforms in his government, he threatened to join the Taliban himself.

Karzai’s original statements were met with shock and anger by U.S. officials, having come during a visit by U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, and served to highlight tensions between Afghanistan and the United States despite twelve years and billions of dollars spent in the country. Taliban officials also did not take kindly to the linkage, issuing a statement reminding Karzai of the inglorious fate of Afghan leaders who worked with the Soviet Union.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan warned that the attacks by Afghan soldiers on coalition forces will not be ending anytime soon. Speaking with Laura Logan, General John Allen said that he was “mad as hell” about the deaths of allied soldiers at the hands of Afghans — so-called “green on blue” attacks in military parlance:

ALLEN: You know, we’re — we’re willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign. But we’re not willing to be murdered for it.

General Allen also compared green on blue attacks to the use of improvised explosive devices (IED) in the Iraq War, labeling these insider attacks as the “signature attack” of the Afghanistan conflict. Watch the interview here:

Allen’s statements reflect the allied frustration with the current situation in Afghanistan. A recent halt in training operations between U.S. forces and the Afghan National Army as a result of the insider attacks has not fully been lifted. The airing of the 60 Minutes interview comes as American forces recorded the 2,000th death in Afghanistan since the war began almost eleven years ago. In all, more than 50 allied troops have been killed in green on blue attacks so far this year.

The surge in Afghans turning on trainers and mentors has prompted NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rassmussen to float the possibility that members of the alliance may withdraw their military forces from Afghanistan earlier than agreed upon. Such a move would impact current planning for the end of U.S. combat operations by 2013 and a full withdrawal of NATO forces by 2014.

In an interview with CNN, one of the top officials that recently defected from embattled president Bashar al-Assad’s regime said he favors a military intervention to dislodge the government there. The Syrian ambassador to Iraq, Nawaf al Fares defected last week and, since, appeared in the press to denounce his Assad’s 17-month crackdown against anti-government demonstrators — a conflict the Red Cross declared a full-blown civil war.

On CNN, Fares said Assad held sole power to make decions in a “totalitarian regime and a dictatorship.” He served the Assad family for 34 years but turned against them when his hopes for reform were dashed by “what happened in the last year during the holy revolution, all of the killing, the massacres, the refugees, and the declaration of war by Bashar al Assad against the Syrian people.”

Asked by CNN if he favored foreign military intervention, Fares said only force could topple Assad:

CNN: Do you want a military intervention in Syria by foreign powers?

FARES: This regime will not go without force. the suffering of the Syrian people is very great. And they want it to end by any way possible. I support military intervention because I know the nature of this regime. This regime will only go with force.

Watch the interview here:

His call came after reports last week of another massacre (some of the details have been called into question). Another army defector called for NATO airstrikes to assassinate Assad, but NATO seems to still be deferring to U.N. processes that are largely blocked by Syria’s ally Russia.

While the exiled representatives of the political opposition have been unable to unite, defections bolster their cause. In addition to Fares, a top general and Assad confidant defected two weeks ago, but failed to surface. Other generals, however, have joined the rebel leadership in Turkey, and, according to reports, “virtually none” of the 80,000 conscripts due to join the army this year reported for duty.

While Assad’s minority Allawite sect rules Syria, the military depends on the Sunni majority to fill its ranks. But many Sunnis are joining the opposition. Its strength was on display today with increased fighting in the once quiet capital, Damascus.

Former Defense Secretary William Cohen said in an interview with CNN last night that the U.S. doesn’t want to go to war in Syria, but with tensions mounting between Turkey — a NATO ally — and Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad’s embattled government over a downed Turkish plane, the U.S.’s alliance may require it to:

COHEN: I think that [Assad] wants to be careful. Russia wants to be careful. NATO wants to be careful that we don’t see this spin out of control that suddenly there’s a war declared against Syria by NATO, which I think doesn’t have the power to declare war, but has the power to declare we’re with Turkey if Turkey should respond from a military point of view… We have to be very careful there. We want to avoid that.

I think the shot that’s been fired is a verbal one, saying that Syria, you’re on notice. If you so much as fire one of our aircraft again, we’re going to retaliate, and it won’t be a very low level. So, I think Syria is on notice.

The United States, the other NATO countries, are saying we’re with you politically. We hope we don’t have to be involved in a war, but if war comes, it’s one nation of NATO, it’s all of us.

Watch the video:

Cohen is referring to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty which states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all members, and each “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

Turkey’s stance toward Syria’s brutal crackdown on Arab Spring demonstrations last year and, now, military assaults against civilian areas in its civil war with various rebel factions has grown more aggressive. Turkey hosts the main exiled Syrian opposition group, the Syrian National Council, and leadership of the largest rebel faction, the Free Syrian Army. According to reports, Turkey sold anti-tank missiles to the rebels, purchased with Saudia Arabian and Qatari money.

Rasmussen has a new poll out today finding that a slim majority of American “likely voters” think the United States should withdrawal all American troops from Europe:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters now believe the United States should remove all its troops from Western Europe and let the Europeans defend themselves. Only 29% disagree, but another 20% are undecided.

Part of President Obama’s plan to cut nearly $500 billion in military spending over the next decade (DOD’s budget will still grow over that same period) includes cutting two Army brigades in Europe.

Back in February, CAP’s Lawrence Korb, Alex Rothman and Max Hoffman praised the Obama plan to scale back from Europe, adding that there is “no reason” to maintain such a large American presence there:

[T]he Obama administration’s plan to remove two brigades from Europe will focus U.S. military resources where they are most needed. There is no reason for the United States to continue stationing 70,000 troops on a stable continent that has more than enough resources to provide for its own defense.

The CAP report notes that the 2010 Sustainable Defense Task Force found the United States can reduce its troop presence in Europe and Asia by one-third without harming American security or interests.” Moreover, “withdrawing 33,000 troops from Europe and 17,000 from Asia — far more than Panetta’s proposed withdrawal of two brigades — would enable savings $80 billion over the next decade.”