It hasn't taken long, if you count from the first Nato bombing runs on Serbia in March 1999, to deliver Slobodan Milosevic up to The Hague. That's the jaunty Foreign Office view, at any rate, and typical of Jack Straw, the new man at the helm: it's all a bit like his asylum legislation - firm and fast, and maybe if Milosevic is very lucky, it'll be fair. But if you count from the beginning of the wars in Yugoslavia, there's less to celebrate, even though the West has got its man.

LRB 19 July 2001 | PDF Download