Following the signing of the Dayton Accords, the United States returned to the stance it had adopted at the start of the Yugoslavia conflict. Milošević was the source of evil in the Balkans. There could be no peace until he was gone. This was an extraordinary turnaround. The Americans were well aware that it was Milošević, more than any other leader, who ensured agreement at Dayton. During the signing ceremony in Paris, Clinton himself had told Milošević, “I know this agreement would not have been possible without you. Whatever our differences in the past, you made Dayton possible.” Clinton also said that he was counting on him “to keep the Bosnian Serbs from derailing implementation.”

As usual, the media followed the government's lead. They stopped referring to Milošević as president of Serbia or Yugoslavia; he reclaimed the sobriquet of Serbia's “strongman” or Serbia's “dictator.” However, it wasn't their oft-professed commitment to peace and stability that made U.S. officials so keen to be rid of Milošević. Their hostility to Milošević was rooted in more basic fears. Milošević had rejected nato membership as well as the “shock therapy” economic program that member countries of the former Soviet bloc had enthusiastically embraced. The issue at the end of the 1990s was what it had been at its start: was the liberal, capitalist “market democracy” sociopolitical model the last stage of human development? Milošević's continuing survival and popularity suggested that the answer might be no. John Norris, former communications director to Strobe Talbott, deputy secretary of state during the Clinton administration, disclosed the real reason for the u.s. hostility toward Milošević. What stuck in Washington's craw, Norris wrote, was: