Is Dodik's Insulting of Murphy and the US Embassy Agreed Upon: Who Can Endure So Many Insults Without Reacting?

By: Rasim Belko

I remember him from the time when he was a persistent lackey of his former bosses. Today he tries to act like someone important and thinks he still lives in a time when he built his career through servile subservience. (December 2022)

We did not break off cooperation with America, but with the American Embassy and the ambassador. I don't listen to music like the American ambassador. Everything he said is absurd. I think he and the embassy staff are against the Serbian people. When he talks about defamation laws, he is talking about bodies that control the courts, and they control them. He tried to remedy the situation he caused himself. When he claims that property belongs to Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is a blow to our sovereignty, the property belongs to Republika Srpska and so it will remain, whether that ambassador likes it or not. We respect the American people and America, but we do not respect such meddlers. Property will not be on the agenda. The property belongs to us. (March 2023)

The question is when he lies and when he tells the truth. Who values him and his story more? He has shown himself to be a fan of the "Muslims" in BiH, and there is no doubt about that. He is not someone whose remarks can be heard and respected (June 2023).

President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik has directed a barrage of insults and mocking threats at the US Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, a key power, Michael Murphy.

One such instance came today: "He is a common evil guy who is trying to vent his frustration here. Inadequate and immature, whatever he is, politically immature. He is the one who today gathers judges and prosecutors and is the only one who supported (High Representative in BiH, Christian) Schmidt."

And if one were to write this without knowing who it is from and to whom it is addressed, at first glance it would seem that Putin is talking about some mid-level official of the American administration, not the president of a small entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the American ambassador.

There has been no better response to Dodik's numerous statements, perhaps a statement or two, and that's it. And there is no doubt that from the position Murphy holds, he can "twist Dodik's neck" to such an extent that he starts cheering for America instead of Russia.

But he won't, and the answer to why he won't lies at the heart of the continuity of crises in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik has insulted Murphy's predecessors as well, but there was no reaction then either.

Therefore, either the US Embassy and the State Department fear Dodik, so they observe him as an equal out of fear, and he is not an equal, or something much bigger is at play.

In the past, the American Embassy easily disciplined separatists, so few dared to launch a frontal attack on both the ambassador and the embassy. Admittedly, Murphy has now shown, when he started dismantling SDA so that his project would enter government with Dodik.

And in that fact, perhaps, the reason for his silence in the face of Dodik's increasing "barking" can be glimpsed.

And the agreement could be in the direction that Dodik attacks and insults as much as he wants as long as he works in a direction that was created and signed far from public eyes. It is almost no longer a secret that the Americans would most prefer to resolve Bosnia and Herzegovina by partitioning it, as this would resolve the post-Yugoslav, Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosniak (Muslim) question.

And Dodik is acting more and more vigorously in that direction, and no one, except for statements in the style of Denis Bećirović, is trying to stop him anymore. The separatists from Laktaši have spread their wings, and it is as if Murphy, by approving the barking at the world's leading power, is giving serious wind to those wings.

Because when someone publicly calls you a stench, you feel at least that human discomfort, unless it's an agreed-upon insult, and you're aware that he doesn't mean it that way!