OPINION:
Prominently displayed on the outer wall of the Iranian Embassy in Sarajevo is a sign that reads, “In memory of Iranian men who sacrificed their lives for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
These words might surprise Americans, many of whom likely don’t know about the long history of the Islamist world’s inroads in the Balkans.
To Serbs in Republika Srpska — which, along with the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has composed the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina since the 1995 Dayton Accords — the region’s ties to extremism are well-known.
Today, those radical tentacles are solidifying.
“Churches are being taken [over] by Muslims,” Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik told The Washington Times in a recent exclusive interview. “Radicalized groups are being fostered.”
This summer, Mr. Dodik was given a one-year prison sentence (later commuted to a fine) and banned by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina from holding office in the republic for six years.
None of the seven current judges on the court is from Republika Srpska.
Mr. Dodik’s transgression? Refusing to implement rulings handed down by Christian Schmidt, the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Mr. Schmidt is the German national appointed by the Peace Implementation Council in 2021 to run Bosnia and Herzegovina. (Yes, you read that right. A Western European bureaucrat installed by other bureaucrats gets to tell the republic’s government what to do. Chew on that for a minute.)
The radical Muslims in the region, Mr. Dodik said, “are funded by the same people funding the Islamic State: Iran, Saudi Arabia, others.”
Here’s something else most Americans might not know: In the early 2010s, hundreds of Bosnian Muslims joined the Islamic State group, recruited by a well-oiled propaganda machine. Many later returned to the Balkans.
“Returning foreign fighters from Syria and Iraq — battle-hardened, skilled in handling arms and explosives, and ideologically radicali[z]ed — pose a direct threat not only to the security of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also of the region and beyond,” said a 2015 Atlantic Initiative report.
Mr. Dodik told us: “Some of them were [even] trained in Sarajevo” before going to the Middle East.
Iran, per the inscription on the outer embassy wall in Sarajevo, sent fighters and weapons to aid the Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs during the war in Bosnia after the 1991 dissolution of Yugoslavia.
As UPI reported in 1993, “Several thousand Iranian Revolutionary Guards are fighting alongside Bosnian Muslims in an attempt by Tehran to establish a fundamentalist foothold in Europe.”
Now Srpska is having to reap what the “true believers” never stopped sowing.
In January, the federation simply claimed as “state property” two Serbian Orthodox Church cemeteries, a chapel and church associated with the cemeteries, and another church. Serbs in the area, including the Serbian Orthodox Church parish, learned of the move from media reports.
The move is consistent with a growing extremism and an equally growing deference to that extremism in the region. “In predominantly Muslim areas [of Srpska], local police cannot even enter,” Mr. Dodik said. “They are not allowed to pick up these extremists.”
It’s a primary reason, Mr. Dodik said, that independence for Republika Srpska must arrive soon.
“Things are getting worse. That’s why we came here now,” he said. His recent trip to Washington was preceded by a visit to Israel and a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We have lost too much to rely on any kind of dialogue. … So we will soon make an important assessment with our friends [regarding independence]. Without a state, there is no freedom.”
Mr. Dodik and his allies seek the recognition of three countries in Bosnia and Herzegovina: one for the Serbs, another for the Croats and a third for the Bosnians.
“Bosnia and Herzegovina is a broken society,” Mr. Dodik said. “It has always been divided; it was a failed state from its inception.”
Nothing good lies ahead for Western values under the current setup, he said. Young people are leaving. The birth rate is in decline. Under Presidents Obama and Biden, Srpska lost many of the rights granted to it under the Dayton Accords, Mr. Dodik said.
“Our army was taken, our border police were taken, our property is being taken,” he said.
The time for the republic to assert its right to self-determination is at hand, he told us.
“A moment comes in international relations when [talks] no longer work,” he said. “With independence, everyone would be at peace. No one would be able to impose anything on the others. We’ve never tried to live next to one another. Let us make our own decisions. President Trump’s [tenure] is our chance for independence.”
• Anath Hartmann is deputy commentary editor for The Washington Times.
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