Contrary to war apologia spread by Clinton, Wesley Clark et al, Milošević was actually temporarily strenghtened during the war. This was natural, it happened so before and after elsewhere, but the advocates of air war never learn: people will pull together when bombs are falling. So Milo could actually step up his hunt for oppositionaries, some of whom had to go in hiding, and even lost popularity for doing so.

Furthermore, the West did have a role in Milošević's overthrow, but not via the war: it was the concerted effort to get the opposition to organise itself and unite (this went along two main routes, financial and material support in the form of sister city help to local governments under opposition control, and organising conferences -- the most important here in Budapest -- to get the different factions to cooperate).

And the long-term consequences for Serbia proper (they never consider the long-term consequences) were even worse than you describe. That chief propagandist of 'liberal' interventionism, Thomas "Let war give a chance!" Friedman, infamously wrote: "Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389 too." 'They' did 1950. Sane people realise that the country doesn't consist of Milošević, and realise that throwing a country back decades means poverty and resentment lasting for decades. Especially if once pro-Western forces get into government, and start reforms (including neoliberal "reforms"), yet the West won't send the promised financial aid, resentment will turn into hate and into support of demagogues of various dangerous kinds. This is exactly what happened. The air war killed any possibility of a genuine development towards Western-style democracy.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}