Month: September 2011
Where is the Security Council?
Thursday’s meeting in Paris of 63 countries to launch the reconstruction phase of the Libyan revolution went well. Money is starting to flow (including a big shipment of Libyan cash) and the Transitional National Council (TNC) continues to say all the right things: no revenge, contracts will be respected, democracy and rule of law should prevail. Elections within 18 months, which is more reasonable than the 12 months previously mooted.
The trick now is implementation. Even at yesterday’s meeting, there was friction over contracts. The French foreign minister made it clear he thought Paris deserved a lion’s share because of its role in the NATO military action. This friction and many others will grow. It is important that too much money not flow too fast into Libya: I’ve never seen a post-war reconstruction effort that would not have benefitted from less funding, which forces decisions on priorities and gives decent people incentives to block corrupt practices.
What the international community needs is a common script: a United Nations Security Council resolution that sets out strategic goals for Libya, as defined by the Libyans and agreed with the international community. The ideal vehicle for this is the new resolution needed to lift sanctions. This should state the main goals, which I might summarize something like this: Libya will be a single, united country with its capital in Tripoli governed by democratic processes under the rule of law. It will use its natural resources transparently and accountably to benefit all its citizens, live in peace with its neighbors and fulfill its obligations under international agreements it has signed as well as the UN charter.
This would not eliminate all frictions in the international community: a country as rich as Libya is bound to create rivalries among oil and gas consumers as well as suppliers of good and services. But it would help to frame the international effort and provide some touchstones to guide reconstruction efforts.
Libya is not the only country needing a Security Council resolution. None has yet passed denouncing the regime’s violence against its citizens in Syria, because Moscow is blocking it. The Secretary of State rightly spent some time yesterday cajoling the Europeans to block oil and oil product imports from Syria, which would deprive Damascus of something like one quarter or one third of its normal revenue. But we should not lose sight of the need for the UNSC to speak up against the blatant violations of human rights Bashar al Assad is indulging in.
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice has done incredible things this year–Qaddafi would still be sitting pretty in Tripoli but for UN Security Council resolution 1973. She has also gotten the Human Rights Council, that much-criticized body, to play a positive role on Syria, denouncing the regime violence there. But there is no rest for the weary. A strong UNSC resolution is out of the question–there won’t be any authorization to use “all necessary means,” which is the kind of thing needed to implement military options. The Russians are nowhere near going along with it, because of their long friendship with Syria and their use of port facilities at Latakia.
But it is hard for me to believe that the UNSC can allow what Damascus is doing to pass in silence. The Russians should now be worried about their own long-term relationship with a regime that is looking shaky, even if no one expects it to fall soon. Bashar al Assad does not have a lot of friends left. Most of them are in Tehran, which has recently been urging Bashar to reform. Moscow also needs to make sure it is, as President Obama likes to put it, on the right side of history.
PS: The EU went ahead with the oil ban on Syria today. Bravo to both the Europeans and the Secretary of State, who pressed the case hard!
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Only time will tell
I’ve been busy lately reading articles about how dumb various (but mostly American) negotiators are. If only the diplomats would do some pretty simple things, serious conflicts would be readily resolved.
A former Iranian nuclear negotiator suggests the Americans and Iranians just have to put aside the threats and pressure, then talk nicer about issues of common interest and things will improve. Ahmed Rashid wants us to listen more carefully to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who says he does not intend to monopolize power in Afghanistan. And we could achieve peace in Israel and Palestine if the Palestinians would just recognize Israel, and Israel would provide a few factories to the Palestinians.
This last one is the easiest to debunk. There hasn’t been a problem with Palestinian recognition of Israel since Arafat did it almost twenty years ago. The problem is that Israel is now demanding recognition as a Jewish state, something that the UN General Assembly already did in its partition resolution. And of course Israel has not recognized Palestine, or allowed it to establish clear borders. The notion that economic development will satisfy the Palestinians in the absence of a political solution is nonsense.
Listening carefully to Mullah Omar is a good idea, but I confess his Eid message did not fill me with hope. Here is what he actually says about negotiation:
The Islamic Emirate considers the presence of the foreign invading troops in the country; their blind-bombardment, night raids, their brutalities; tortures and tyranny as the main cause of the current imbroglio in the country. The issue would come to an end when the said brutalities are meted out. Similarly, IE [Islamic Emirate] considers [the] establishment of an independent Islamic regime as a conducive mechanism for sustainability of religious and worldly interests of the country and the countrymen. For this purpose, every legitimate option can be considered in order to reach this goal. The contacts which have been made with some parties for the release of prisoners can’t be called as a comprehensive negotiation for the solution of the current imbroglio of the country. However, the Islamic Emirate, as an efficient political and military entity, has a specific and independent agenda in this regard which has been elucidated time and again.
Yes, he leaves the door open to future talks, but he also goes on to make it clear that the Taliban will only stop fighting when the occupation has ended. We can be certain Mullah Omar’s message was carefully parsed inside the State Department and the U.S. intelligence community, where its ambiguous character will not have excited too much enthusiasm.
As for Iran, it makes sense to reduce the trash talking and to focus on issues where there may be some common interest, but the hard kernel of disagreement is over nuclear weapons. Making nice and solving some other issues isn’t going to make that one go away, and the time delay could even make it more difficult to solve.
So yes, we do need to make sure we understand our adversaries, deal in a pragmatic way with them and leave no stone unturned in the search for peaceful resolutions of these issues. But it is a whole lot easier to kibbitz from the sidelines than to play the game for real. When the guys calling for more stridency are also the people deciding your budget, there is an inclination to go strident. When the Taliban are as ambiguous as Mullah Omar in his Eid message, listening really does get hard. And when your critics are misunderstanding the problem, it is easy to write them off.
There is one sign of hope in all these cases: the Americans are maintaining radio silence. Iran guru Dennis Ross, Afghanistan lead Marc Grossman and whoever is acting in George Mitchell’s place (Hoff? Feltman?) on Israel/Palestine are suspiciously quiet. Maybe that’s because there is nothing to say. Or maybe it’s because negotiations are quietly producing fruit. Only time will tell.
PS: I’m not the only one less impressed with Mullah Omar’s message than Ahmed Rashid.
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