Month: July 2011
Congratulations! What now?
Independence happened at midnight. Statehood and sovereignty will take decades more.
For South Sudan this is as much opportunity as it is challenge. Sudan was not working for the South, which is fortunate indeed to have an opportunity now to make its own future. The development challenges are obvious: Africa’s newest country is also one of its poorest and most illiterate. Oil, which it has in abundance, is not necessarily a cure–more resource-rich countries fail at serious development than succeed.
But in addition to its development problems, South Sudan faces serious challenges to its statehood and sovereignty:
- Abyei: Ethiopian peacekeepers will be arriving, but twice the North has failed to observe the outcome of arbitrations. There is still a long way to go before the border is agreed and demarcated.
- South Kordofan and Blue Nile: The agreement on these two Northern areas where Southern sympathies are strong reads well enough, but will it be implemented?
- Citizenship: The North seems determined to deprive Southerners living in the North of citizenship there. This could lead to massive displacement.
- Oil transport: So far as I can tell, there is still no agreement on transport of oil produced in the South through the North so that it can exported from Port Sudan.
- Debts: no division has yet been agreed. This often takes some time, and it may also be a way of sweetening other deals.
- South/South conflicts: various militias and tribes in the South feel excluded, are unhappy with their slices of the political pie and could challenge the state’s monopoly on the legitimate means of violence. That spells trouble.
No new country is born without challenges. South Sudan may have more than its share, but it also has great advantages: most of its population is delighted with independence, it has oil, and quick recognition and admission to the UN seem assured. It also has the good wishes of most of the world, most especially the United States, which has provided a lot of support.
Time to get on with the hard part: achieving sovereignty and building the state. Maybe that’s the answer to “what is the what?”
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Where are the diplomats?
In Libya and Yemen, presidents are hanging on way past their “use by” date. Ali Abdullah Saleh appeared today on TV, both defeated and defiant. Muammar Gaddafi is defiant and seemingly delusional. In Syria, Bashar al Assad may not be quite as far along to perdition as the other two, but he seems to have chosen their path: hang on until physically removed from the scene (and in Saleh’s case even after being transferred to a hospital in Saudi Arabia).
Military means are not working well against Gaddafi or Saleh. This is not entirely surprising: Gaddafi obviously prides himself on personal resistance to the use of force and doesn’t give a hoot what happens to his country. Saleh seems like-minded. I wouldn’t even want to imagine what Bashar al Assad thinks: he no doubt was brought up to believe the use of force is vital to a ruler, and he is well on his way to imitating his father’s use of it. What is needed in all three cases is a stronger diplomatic effort.
It is hard to believe that the Saudis can’t deprive Saleh of enough money and other support to make him choose retirement over an attempt to return to Yemen. The question is why they don’t use the leverage they’ve got, and what can we do to get them to use it? The American Ambassador reportedly threw his support behind the Gulf Cooperation Council plan for transition in Yemen. My hope is that he is working assiduously to get it implemented.
Gaddafi seems to have stockpiled enough cash and gold to survive a long time, but he too should be realizing about now that the cause is lost. The British, African Union and maybe others have been sporadically engaged in trying to devise a plan to get Gaddafi out. They need to redouble those efforts, making it clear that any sweeteners will soon be irrevocably lost if he doesn’t grab hold tight now.
Republicans in Congress are asking for the recall from Damascus of Ambassador Robert Ford, certainly among the State Department’s finest Arabists. This is wrong-headed. They should be asking the Ambassador to do more, not less. His visit to Hama in support of the demonstrators today was a step in the right direction. Far better that he do enough of this kind of thing to get expelled rather than be withdrawn by Washington.
We should keep the lines of communication open to all these miscreant presidents. But there should be no doubt whose side Washington is on: the people of these three beknighted countries are asking their presidents to make way for more democratic societies. That’s what the diplomats should be helping to make happen.
PS: Here is the greeting Ambassador Ford got in Hama:
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A Political Solution to the Afghan War
My piece, as published this morning at theatlantic.com:
The U.S. wants a negotiated peace with the Taliban. Here are the issues we’ll face, and how they might be resolved
The timeline for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is now clear: 10,000 troops out by the end of this year and 23,000 more out by the end of next summer. That will leave 67,000 troops, who, if all goes according to plan, will be withdrawn before the end of 2014, with a possible residual assistance force of unspecified size thereafter. That solves the military equation. But what about the political formula? How will Afghanistan be governed after we leave? Will it remain under its current constitution? What role will there be for the Taliban? How will power be shared between Kabul and the provinces? How about the most troublesome neighbor, Pakistan? What will its role be? And what can the United States do to make the answers these questions come out in a direction that does as little harm to our interests as possible?
President Obama in his withdrawal announcement last month was remarkably silent on these issues. While clear as usual that our primary interest in Afghanistan is to defeat Al Qaeda, on governance in Afghanistan he said only that it won’t be “perfect.” That is not much guidance for our diplomats and aid workers, who are looking ahead to an end-of-year international conference in Bonn expected to set the course for our coalition partners as well as the Afghans for the three years then remaining before completion of the withdrawal process.
The governments of Europe and of other coalition partners want to see political reconciliation, which has become a popular notion in the U.S. as well. Retiring Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested that the end of this year is a reasonable timeframe for negotiations with the Taliban to begin yielding results. What can we hope for by way of a political settlement? What are the options? President Obama, in his June announcement on Afghanistan, reiterated his goals for reconciliation negotiations with the Taliban: they must break with Al Qaeda, foreswear violence, and accept the Afghan constitution. The insurgent leaderships — most importantly the Haqqani network and Mullah Omar’s Taliban Quetta Shura — show little sign of feeling compelled to comply. A few days after the speech, and presumably in response, Taliban members attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, targeting Afghan politicians gathered to discuss the impending turnover of security responsibility for Kabul and several provinces to the Afghan National Security Forces. It’s clear that at least some of the Taliban will fight on for a long time, as insurgents in Iraq have done.
Some Taliban, however, may want a deal, and the German government has been hosting talks aimed at one. What might the Taliban hope to get in return for meeting something like the President’s redlines? So far, the focus seems to have been on confidence-building measures like freeing prisoners and removing Taliban from terrorist lists. Washington does not like to discuss it, but an overall political settlement will only be possible if the Taliban get something more substantial in return for whatever we get.
The options are few (and not mutually exclusive): a share of political power in Kabul, control over territory, economic benefits, and guarantees of U.S. withdrawal.
Sharing political power in Kabul is not an easy fix. The Taliban fought a ferocious civil war against Northern Alliance and other politicians who today govern in Kabul, having thrown the Taliban out of Kabul with U.S. assistance in 2001. The Islamist Taliban would want to reintroduce their version of strict religious practices, a move many in Kabul would resist. Northern Alliance, many women, secularists, and others would not want to see the Taliban back in power in Kabul. Former presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah and former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh have become the leaders of this rejectionist front. It won’t be enough for the U.S. to approve Taliban political involvement — these Afghan groups would also need to go along.
Another option would be sharing power at the provincial level, especially in the more Pashtun provinces of the south and east. Afghanistan has only rarely been effectively ruled from Kabul. The Taliban could dominate politics in Helmand, Kandahar, and other provinces along the border with Pakistan, thus allowing the group its long-desired role in government without handing over all of Afghanistan. This could, however, lead to a virtual partition of the country, with the Taliban-dominated provinces becoming a de facto part of Pakistan. Some might even say this is good: it would give Pakistan the strategic depth it seeks in Afghanistan — reducing its incentives to continue meddling and promoting militancy — and prevent New Delhi from exploiting its relationship with Kabul to the detriment of Islamabad, at least in the border provinces.
There are only three economic assets of real value in Afghanistan: control over drug production and trade, control over mineral resources, and control of border crossings and transport. The Taliban already exercise a good deal of control over all three in parts of the countryside where they are dominant. We are not likely to gain enough control over drugs to interest the Taliban, who know we would not want to return any control we do gain to them. Mineral resources, to be effectively exploited, require a national mining and export framework and guarantees to foreign investors that only the government in Kabul can provide. If Afghanistan is to prosper, border crossings and transport will also need to be mainly under national control.
Finally, the Taliban have sought withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. This is a problem. President Karzai has made it clear that he would like one or more American bases to remain in Afghanistan after 2014, and talks have begun on a strategic framework that would enable American forces to stay, provided the Afghan government asks them to do so. Washington wants such bases so that it will have the capability to strike against Al Qaeda, either in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Taliban will fear that the Americans will use any residual presence to strike them as well as to shore up Karzai’s government.
Bottom line: the Taliban may well feel that they can get more by fighting on than by negotiating, but if they get serious about negotiations they will likely seek a share of power in the south and east, along with some representation in Kabul. Political power is likely to bring some economic benefits as well, in particular control over border crossings and transport. The Taliban would also continue to control at least some drug production and trade where they are politically dominant.
This is an unattractive proposition, especially to Afghan women and the Northern Alliance. It would most likely resemble Hizbollah’s role in Lebanon, which has been a source of regional instability in the Middle East for many years. Is there anything that could be done that would amount to more than putting lipstick on this pig?
The answer is “yes,” but it requires the United States to worry about something it has studiously ignored for many years: the Durand line, which is the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan that Afghanistan accepts but Pakistan has not.
I don’t know of any two countries without an agreed and demarcated border that live happily side by side. When I called on a national security advisor in Kabul years ago and asked why Afghanistan had not recognized the Durand line, he responded: “I wouldn’t want to foreclose options for future generations.” Pakistan is a country that lives with what it considers an “existential” threat from India to the south and east. It surely does not need another threat, however remote, on its western border. Ethnic Pashtun irredentism — the Pashtuns live on both sides of the Durand line — greatly complicates Islamabad’s challenges.
Afghan recognition of the Durand line as part of a broader deal with the Taliban would provide Pakistan with an important benefit, without depriving it of “strategic depth” inside Afghanistan. This would have to be done in a way that allows a good deal of free movement across the border, since otherwise the Taliban and other locals, who have enjoyed relatively free movement for decades, would object. But agreeing to and demarcating the Durand line would markedly improve relations between Kabul and Islamabad, enabling them to collaborate on what really counts for the United States: ensuring that their border area does not become a haven for international terrorists.
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Porcelain unicorn
Winner of the 3-minute, six-line film competition, Tell It Your Way, and worth every second:
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All about Serbia
From one perspective, the news this morning seems all about Serbia: Novak Đoković won Wimbledon, Ratko Mladić got tossed out of court in The Hague for being disruptive, and Belgrade reached some agreements with Pristina. These are apparently only on freedom of movement and civil registries, not on other items under discussion.
This represents serious, if agonizingly slow, progress. Mladić would surprise me only if he accepted responsibility for the murders he is alleged to have ordered at Srebrenica. Denying it is nothing new, but his having to deny it in The Hague is certainly progress.
The minimal agreements between Belgrade and Pristina are significantly less than what was hoped for and even expected, and so far as I can tell they haven’t yet been published. While the press is saying the agreements were “signed” or “inked,” I’ll be surprised if that is the case. More likely, the EU will issue them. Still, kudos to EU facilitator Robert Cooper as well as Serbia and Kosovo negotiators Borko Stefanović and Edita Tahiri for getting at least a few things done.
Nor do the agreements reached so far seem sufficient to justify EU serving up its “big potatoes” to Serbia: candidacy and a date for starting membership negotiations. I trust the EU will insist on most of the other items under discussion being resolved before moving ahead on the membership front. I hope it will also be prepared to meet Pristina’s desire for a “contractual” relationship with the EU and a roadmap for the visa waiver.
So far as I can tell, Đoković’s victory has nothing whatsoever to do with Serbian or Balkan politics. It is the result of a sterling rise to the professional forefront of a talented and disciplined athlete. How refreshing!
That said, politics will not shrivel up and die any time soon. Serbian President Tadić is thought to be planning an official visit to Bosnia this month. I’ve got to hope that he uses the occasion to make it clear that Serbia supports a Bosnia and Herzegovina that can enter the European Union. This will require significant changes to Bosnia’s Dayton constitution, which has already been ruled out of line with the European Convention on Human Rights. Don’t be fooled if Tadic merely declares Serbia committed to “One Bosnia.” That is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for Bosnia to qualify for the EU.
Serbia is on its way to becoming a normal European country, albeit one with residual issues stemming from the Milošević period, which is now more than 10 years in the past. The faster it establishes normal state-to-state relations with Bosnia and Kosovo, the better.
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Independence is over-rated
Yes, that’s what I said: over-rated. Despite the inspirational words, the declaration of July 4, 1776 didn’t change much. Seven years of war ensued. That didn’t settle it either: the British continued to interfere with American shipping, so we fought another war in 1812 (-15). Friendship with Britain did not begin until late in the 19th century, and the “special relationship” is a product of the 20th.
My Kosovar and Southern Sudanese friends are discovering that things haven’t changed much.
The NATO/Yugoslavia war over Kosovo ended in June 1999. Seventy-six countries have recognized Kosovo since its independence in February 2008, but Belgrade is using Russia to block Kosovo’s entry into the United Nations General Assembly, which is the modern world’s equivalent of universal recognition. Pristina is now engaged in discussions of practical issues with Belgrade, with modest results, but good neighborly relations are still far off. The promise of eventual EU membership–much sooner for Belgrade and much later for Pristina–may keep things on track, but there are no guarantees.
Sudan’s independence will be declared July 9. Despite extensive arrangements for this eventuality in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed between Khartoum and Juba in 2005, things are not going smoothly. The Abyei region is still contested, despite two arbitration decisions. Ethiopian peacekeepers are now being deployed there, after Khartoum’s army displaced more than 100,000 people last month. There is instability in two northern states, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan, where southern sympathies are strong (and some of the sympathizers armed). There are still no agreements on crucial issues: citizenship for northerners in the South and southerners in the North, division of assets and debt, as well as oil revenue and oil transport from the South through the North.
Independence can be declared, but it is sovereignty and statehood that really count. Neither is a function of saying, only of doing. They are acquired through practice, not expression. The three concepts are often confused, and in a well-established state they in fact are congruent. But they are three distinct concepts: statehood depends on the existence of an organized distribution of political power, sovereignty on the state having a monopoly on the legitimate means of violence, and independence–a relative term–on the sovereign state being able to make its own decisions without seeking the approval of others. Neither Southern Sudan nor Kosovo is yet a fully independent sovereign state, though I trust both will make it in due course.
There will be a lot of ups and downs along the way. There certainly were in the United States. The Washington, DC I visited as a child was a segregated city, not by law but by preference of the white majority. Many times while I served abroad in the U.S. Foreign Service I was asked whether a black president was possible. I always said “yes,” but I wasn’t at all sure it would happen in my lifetime. It did, and a lot of people had to change their conception of what it means to be American for it to happen (which is why I’m not surprised that some haven’t changed and are still worrying themselves about the President’s birth certificate).
This process of infusing new meaning into old concepts is important to acquiring statehood and sovereignty: an inclusive concept of what it means to be Southern Sudanese or “Kosovan” is vital to organizing political life and exercising a monopoly on the legitimate means of violence. If some people are excluded, or demoted to second class citizenship, the state will be less than worthy and sovereignty less than complete. So I conclude with Marvin Gaye’s effort to infuse new meaning into an old German drinking song, not so much because I like the results, but because I like the process:
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