Reflecting on the absurdity of ever newer claims around the world for self-determination and separate statehood, novelist Salman Rushdie wrote sarcastically in Shalimar the Clown, “Why don’t we just draw a circle around our own two feet and call it Selfistan?” The recent Western-backed declaration of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia and its ramifications are making Rushdie sound prophetic. Despite Washington’s assertion that Kosovo is an exceptional case that does not set precedents, demands for self-rule have received a shot in the arm from this latest act of dissecting the Balkans. Sensing that the international climate is favorable, fresh demands based on reinvented identities may also crop up in the future among populations that feel alienated from their respective nation-states.