Day: February 16, 2011
Wasting your money, Tomislav?
This is inside baseball, but for those of you who might be interested: former U.S. Ambassador William Montgomery’s September 2010 registration with the Justice Department as an agent for Tomislav Nikolic, President of the Serbian Progressive Party.
I would be the last to deny a retired Foreign Service officer whatever income he can find, and 7500 euros a month is not pocket change, but I would also want to know whom he represents when he gives interviews calling for the dissolution of Bosnia. To be fair he was doing this even before the date of his registration, and he is of course entitled to his views, which are contrary to mine.
The partitions Montgomery proposes are sure formulas for re-igniting conflict in the Balkans, with devastating results, including the formation of an Islamic Republic in central Bosnia. Remember Bill? We called that the “non-viable, rump Islamic Republic that would be a platform for Iranian terrorism in Europe.” Hard for me to see how that is in the U.S. or Serbian interest. But there is of course no longer a need for Bill to worry about that. He works for Nikolic.
The bigger problem may be for Nikolic: he is going to have a hard time being welcomed in Washington unless he takes a pro-Europe, One Bosnia line. Associating himself with Bill Montgomery’s advocacy of partition of Bosnia and Kosovo is no way to overcome Nikolic’s past association with the hard-line, anti-European ethnic nationalism of the Serb Radical Party, from which he split in 2008.
What does Montgomery do for Nikolic’s money? He’ll call his old friends at State, the National Security Council and Congress to get appointments. This is something that the head of a party in the Serbian parliament could and should have done by his own secretary, or by the Serbian embassy.
If that doesn’t work, I’ll help him, for free. I am vigorously in favor of Washington hearing from all parts of the political spectrum in Serbia. But it is simply outrageous that people get paid to make appointments in Washington–our public servants should all be told to tell paid agents that appointments can only be made directly, not through intermediaries.
If Nikolic wants to pay Montgomery to write his talking points, that’s fine with me. But they’ll have to say something different from what Montgomery has been saying in public.
Wasting your money, Tomislav?
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Oldtime revolutionary lore
As Tunisian flu has now spread from Egypt to Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, with a touch also in Algeria and now Libya, it might be wise to review what an old hand views as a few crucial points (I first sat down in front of the bayonet-armed and gas-masked Maryland National Guard in 1964 and got teargassed by the U.S. Army at Fort Dix in 1968, so I am claiming some seniority here). I was also an early and strong supporter of the Serb uprising that forced Slobodan Milosevic out.
One key point is nonviolent discipline, not because of the moral requirement but because it will make the demonstrations more effective. Another is clarity–and simplicity–of objectives.
Why is nonviolence important? Because you want the security forces to hesitate to crack down–they won’t hesitate if you are throwing rocks at them–they’ll fight back, and by definition they have greater firepower. Only if the security forces hesitate to crack down is autocracy in trouble, because it rules by fear. No crackdown, no fear, no autocrat.
The problem is that the security forces often use violence first, or maybe it will be the thugs allied with the regime (the basij in Iran, the club-wielders in Sanaa). The use of these people is already a good sign: it means the regime has doubts about the willingness of the regular security forces to do the dirty deed. The trouble of course is that the thugs can cause a lot of damage.
They will hesitate to use violence only if confronted with a great mass of disciplined people. Going out in groups of twenty to do pitched battle with thugs is no way to make a revolution–it only gets your head cracked. People often suffer the most harm when there were few demonstrators, and at night.
That is another reason for keeping things nonviolent–many people won’t come out for a riot. The attack on camels and horses in Cairo was a turning point: Egyptians were disgusted by a blatant attack on large numbers of ordinary, peaceful people. Had it looked as if the attack had been provoked by violent demonstrators, the effect would have been much less salutary from the protesters’ perspective.
What about objectives? Clarity and simplicity are important. The protesters in Egypt were clearly aiming ultimately for democracy, but the crowds rallied around the call for Mubarak to step down.
Now that he has, there are emerging differences among the many factions that united in the demonstrations–that is only natural. Some will think a constitutional route to democracy is best, others a non-constitutional route. Some will want higher wages, better treatment for workers, rights for minorities–only by suppressing for the moment these differences and focusing on a common objective can a motley crew be forged into a powerful mass movement. There will be time enough after the goal is reached for the protesters to fall out with each other and sow confusion by going their own ways.
Keeping people together, across secular/sectarian and religious or ethnic divides, sends a very powerful message and rallies more people to the cause.
One last note: Obama’s soft approach is the right one. Hillary Clinton’s more strident advocacy is not a good idea.
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