Zagreb’s push for segregation puts the future of democratic Bosnia at risk.
You would be hard-pressed to find a country where a random midsized city in the American Midwest is mentioned more often than New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago combined—unless you’re in Bosnia. Ever since November 1995, when the Clinton administration corralled Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian leaders at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, to negotiate an end to the war against Bosnia and the genocide of its Muslim population, “Dayton” has become etched into the nation’s collective memory. For Bosnians, Dayton is more than just a place—it’s an agreement that brought peace but also saddled Bosnia with a flawed and dysfunctional governing political system that continues to shape the country’s destiny.
This May, nearly 30 years after the original peace talks, former Dayton Mayor and current U.S. Rep. Mike Turner hosted the Dayton Dialogue conference during the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s spring session. Billed as a forward-looking discussion on Bosnia, U.S. leadership, and the future of U.S.-Bosnia relations, the event quietly turned into a stage for Croatian nationalist talking points.