Kosovo provoked the irreversible fall of President Milosevic. And it will be an ironic twist of fate if the Serb dictator takes the Kosovan Albanians' hopes of an independent Kosovo down with him.
Some Albanians confessed to having voted for Mr Milosevic on September 24th. Of course they hate the man who tried to drive them out of Kosovo, but his continued grip on power in Serbia represented the Albanians' best argument for demanding independence.
In months to come, the fundamental contradiction of United Nations Security Council's Resolution 1244, which ended the NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia, could create havoc in the Balkans. The West refused to give Kosovo independence outright because of the legal precedent it would set. Regional separatists all over the world could demand independence on the grounds that they, like the Kosovars, suffer repression.
So the Security Council invented "substantial autonomy" - an ill-defined status that, 15 months after the war ended, has left Kosovo a NATO and UN protectorate virtually independent from Belgrade.
Except in the Serb enclaves, the Albanians and their Western mentors have erased almost every sign of Serbian rule. Dr Bernard Kouchner, the province's UN administrator, replaced the Serbian dinar with the deutschmark as Kosovo's legal tender. The red-and-black Albanian flag flies from many buildings - often alongside the Stars and Stripes. Kosovo today more resembles the 51st state of the US than Serbia's southern province. Dr Kouchner even talks of levying taxes at the crossing point between Kosovo and "Serbia proper".
But if Mr Milosevic is replaced by Dr Vojislav Kostunica, on what ground can the West justify giving the Albanians the independence they clamour for? To do so would be tantamount to saying: "You Serbs did what we wanted. You rose up against your dictator and embraced democracy, so now we are going to dismember your country."
At the same time, it is difficult to imagine the West attempting to force the Albanians back into marriage with Belgrade. Kosovo must linger in limbo; to sever it from Serbia violates international law. To return it to Serb rule violates morality and reason. It is politically impossible for Dr Kostunica to give it up, and politically unthinkable for any Albanian leader to accept less than full independence.
More than half of Kosovo's Serbs have fled or been "ethnically cleansed" by the Albanians since June 1999. Under a new President Kostunica, attempts may be made to negotiate at least a partial return. But, ultimately, Kosovo's UN and NATO guardians privately say they believe the Kosovo Serbs are doomed. It is enough to compare the thriving markets of Pristina and Albanian southern Mitrovica with the bare shelves of Belgrade-supplied Serb northern Mitrovica to see that the Albanians are much richer.
And when the last Serbs in Kosovo have died, been murdered or fled north to "Serbia proper", Mr Milosevic, wherever he ends up, will have got what he wanted: all Serbs united within an "ethnically pure" - albeit shrunken - Serbia.