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Merkel doesn’t really care whether Kosovo is partitioned or not, but by framing his actions as going against the German Chancellor’s position, Vucic is employing “reverse-psychology” in a bid to exploit Serbs’ predisposition to opposing Berlin on principle, which he consequently hopes will shore up support for his unpopular plan to sell out Kosovo.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic is at it again spinning another manufactured drama around himself in an attempt to score political points at home, this time publicly pouting about how German Chancellor Angela Merkel is supposedly opposed to his plan to partition Kosovo as part of a formal political settlement to the conflict and one of his country’s preconditions for joining the EU. Merkel doesn’t really care how the Kosovo issue is resolved so long as it results in Serbia’s official recognition of the NATO-backed breakaway territory as a so-called “independent country”, but she could very well just be putting on a show and playing along with Vucic because she understands how important it is to secure as much public support for his partition plot as possible.

As it stands, Serbs are firmly opposed to their leader’s unconstitutional scheme to surrender the cradle of their civilization and perhaps even three Albanian-inhabited but Belgrade-controlled border territories beyond the frontier of this separatist entity, but it can’t be ruled out that Vucic’s “obsession” with Kosovo could see him committing political suicide like he earlier foreshadowed if he takes unilateral anti-constitutional action to settle this dispute in NATO’s favor. Even so, for his ego’s sake, he’d prefer to perversely frame his actions in as “patriotic” of a light as possible so that his ruling party – which he envisions remaining the single most-powerful one for the indefinite future (whether by hook or by crook) – can enforce historical revisionism on the next generation and “absolve” him of his sins.

For that to happen, however, then he must stick to the weaponized infowar narrative that his government’s rolling out for use against its own people in order to make this perception engineering operation as convincing as possible, hence the elementary use of “reverse-psychology”. Vucic knows just how predisposed his people are to opposing Berlin on principle no matter what the issue is after having suffered under its fascist yoke in World War II and experienced the catastrophic fallout of its joint American plan to dismember the former Yugoslavia, which is why he’s condescendingly utilizing this approach in a bid to shore up support for his partition plan. That said, what Vucic is doing is so obvious that it might even backfire on him.

Nobody wants to feel like they’re being manipulated, especially about an issue as emotionally significant as Kosovo is to the Serbs, and sometimes it’s easier just to openly say what someone’s doing no matter how shocking it is than to go to great lengths to hide it. It wouldn’t make it any “better” but at least it would be the most “sincere” approach, though the Serbian President is so worried about his historical legacy if he succeeds with his sell-out scheme that he’s not willing to forever face the music for what he’s about to do. Instead, he wants to make it seem like he’s standing toe-to-toe with a geopolitical giant like Germany and spiting it in a 21^st-century replay of David vs Goliath, notwithstanding the fact that he’s actually doing Germany’s bidding.

The EU leader, like its US master, wants to “legitimize” the brutal removal of Serbia’s civilizational heart from the rest of its national body, and that’s why both Berlin and Washington need Belgrade to finally get on board with what they did and openly endorse it, albeit after first receiving a tiny territorial “concession” that it can show off to its people as “proof” of a “diplomatic victory” in order to distract from the likely surrendering of three Albanian-inhabited border regions that will probably be linked to this foreign-imposed “deal”. Agreeing to this demand is akin to Serbia castrating itself by chopping off its most historically virile part even though it had already been rendered functionally impotent by NATO at the turn of the century.

Still, the symbolism of what Vucic is about to do is so strong that it will lead to the eternal humiliation of the Serbian people. They’re so experienced with his tricks that they can easily see through his charade, but sadly for them there isn’t much that they can do to stop what’s about to happen, with this entire process being completely out of their hands despite the smokescreen of a possible referendum that Vucic has proposed on the issue. Left without any realistic political recourse, the best that the Serbs might be able to do is resist the historical revisionism that Vucic is presently trying to advance by exposing his false narratives and ensuring that future generations correctly judge him for selling out Kosovo.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.