Here Robert Wright talks a bit about the problems with our recognition of Kosovo independence:
Meanwhile, whatever one thinks this all says about the liberal hawk movement, it just reflects a staggering incompetence on the part of the Bush administration. At the end of the day, recognizing Kosovo independent was probably the best choice to make, but it's a very problematic path. It's the kind of thing that, before you do it, you need to lay the most groundwork possible and also have plans in place for dealing with the fallout. Instead, the administration seems to have kind of wandered into it as a kind of afterthought. In part it just illustrates that Bush is a crappy president, but it also highlights one of the highest prices of the Iraq War -- it's an enormous drain on the attention of senior policymakers. Many aspects of US foreign policy, however, can't be left on autopilot. Senior political leaders need to be involved and engaged or else nobody's around to keep things on track.