Month: October 2011
Washington Journal today
I did C Span’s Washington Journal this morning. They don’t seem to allow embedding, so you’ll have to go to their website to watch. We dealt with Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Also Condi Rice. Don’t miss it!
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Stop! in the name of what?
Serbs are continuing to block roads in northern Kosovo, while several Serbs have been killed in the Albanian-majority area south of the Ibar in the last few weeks. Continuing in these directions will push Kosovo in the direction of partition, which is what nationalist Serbs and Albanians intend. What can stop this drift?
Not, certainly, love, or even mutual understanding. One of the Serb mayors in northern Kosovo is quoted as saying
This can be easily solved if KFOR and EULEX say that they will not transport Kosovo police and customs officers and if they take back those people from the crossings, then a space for free movement of everybody and for normal talks will be opened.
This is what the Serbs of northern Kosovo claim is a “status-neutral” solution: a complete surrender by the international community and Pristina to Serb demands, in advance of negotiations.
Belgrade, concerned about the impact of the Serb resistance in northern Kosovo on its own hopes for approval of EU candidacy and a date for accession talks to begin, is trying to leave everything up to the Serbs in northern Kosovo. No one should be fooled. The northern Kosovo Serbs are heavily subsidized by Belgrade, which could bring them into line if it really wanted.
It is difficult to say the same about the Albanians south of the Ibar, especially as the murders seem to be unconnected. But Pristina needs to try harder. There has to be strict accountability for crimes against Serbs if Kosovo is to gain high ground in its international tug of war with Belgrade. The murders in recent weeks have to be made the object of serious investigations leading to arrests and prosecutions. And those who perpetrate these crimes, or who intimidate witnesses, should be viewed as what they are: enemies of a Kosovo state seeking to gain international recognition as a willing and capable defender of the rights of all its citizens.
It is always difficult to get individuals who stand to lose something in line in order to serve a broader, societal interest. But that is precisely what is needed both among the Serbs and the Albanians. They need to stop the violence against Serbs south of the Ibar and the barricades north of the Ibar in the name of the broader interests at stake for their respective groups. Both communities are cohesive enough to do this.
Albanians need to stop in the name of Kosovar interests. Serbs need to stop in the name of Serbian interests.
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Mr. Dodik came to Washington too
The President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, is careful. Unlike Slobodan Petrovic, the Kosovo Serb deputy prime minister who spoke in public to a group at Johns Hopkins/SAIS that included people who do not agree with him, Dodik declined an invitation to do a public event and instead talked to a SAIS class taught by David Kanin, a retired CIA analyst for whom I have a lot of respect. But he is also a sympathizer with ethnic separation in the Balkans. The message is clear.
I was not invited to the class, or to last night’s reception for Dodik. The reception was held at an institution run by retired Foreign Service officers, presumably in order to give it the air of an official diplomatic reception and avoid using the Bosnian Embassy, which belongs to an institution (the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina) that Dodik wants to weaken.
I’m particularly amused by the effort to restrict exposure to those who might disagree with Dodik because Obrad Kesic, one of his Washington handlers, is someone whom I invited to speak repeatedly during my years at the United States Institute of Peace though he espoused views I do not agree with. When he wanted, I published a dissent from a USIP paper on Bosnia he prepared with colleagues.
Dodik had trouble getting good meetings on the Hill but was supposed to see Senator Inhofe (R-Oklahoma). At the State Department, Phil Gordon was unable to see him due to a family matter, so he talked with Deputy Assistant Secretary Phil Reeker. Dodik forgot to push Republika Srspka independence there. It was all about Dayton and EU membership, without any mention of the now well-established incompatibility between the Dayton constitution and a state capable of meeting EU requirements. I am pleased to report that this charade fools no one at State.
Dodik doesn’t owe me anything. I’ve got more than enough lectures and diplomatic receptions to attend. He can appear or not in front of any audience he chooses in this open society, and invite or not invite to his liking. But someone who chooses to avoid rather than engage his critics and tries to give the impression of engaging in public discourse at a university when he really hasn’t is not my kind of guy. I trust he’ll impress his carefully chosen audiences in Chicago more.
PS, November 3: A Bosnian visitor called this video from Dodik’s Columbia event to my attention yesterday. He discusses Russia, Srebrenica and other interesting topics:
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The witch is dead
Reuters published this piece today, under the heading “Libya’s Democracy Has a Real Chance”:
Libyans will be getting up late tomorrow morning, having enjoyed a spectacular celebration tonight. “The Wizard of Oz” comes to mind: “The witch is dead, the wicked witch is dead!”
Now begins the hard work of building a more open and democratic society with some distinct advantages, and Libya has vast resources—not only the oil and gas in the ground, but also cash in foreign bank accounts. Qaddafi’s ironic legacy is that his ill-gotten gains will fund Libya’s reconstruction.
The population is small (about 6.5 million) and more or less homogenous. There are tribal and geographic distinctions, there are Berbers as well as Arabs, there are blacker people and whiter people and there are rich and poor. But none of these differences has yet emerged as a source of widespread violence.
All the Libyans I talked with during a visit to Benghazi and Tripoli last month showed confidence in the National Transitional Council (NTC), which has drawn a roadmap for preparation of a constitution and elections that is widely accepted as reasonable and legitimate. Much criticized by the Western press for bungling a few public announcements, the NTC has managed to continue paying social security benefits and subsidizing bread. In Benghazi and Tripoli, the water and electricity are flowing, markets are open and well stocked, police are on the street and at least some of the garbage is being collected. For most Libyans, that counts for a lot more than whether an announcement of Saif al Islam’s capture was true or not.
Most of Libya was rid of Qaddafi regime more than a month ago. The main sources of friction so far have been two: fighters, mainly from the Nafusa Mountains in the west, who have not wanted to leave Tripoli; and Islamists who seem ready to push for a less secular society than many Libyans would like. Islam is already pervasive in Libya—most women cover their hair, alcohol is prohibited (and not generally available), mosques are ubiquitous and, I am told, well attended. Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood is relatively moderate, as are its secularists.
But there will have to be political differentiation: left and right, Islamists and secularists will begin soon to form political parties. That process will not be an easy or smooth one for people with no democratic experience and a lot of guns, including surface to air missiles looted from Qaddafi’s armories. There is a real risk of revenge killing by militias and of insurgency by Qaddafi loyalists.
But Libya has better prospects than much larger and poorer Egypt, where the protesters handed power to a military that is now reluctant to surrender it. Nothing is guaranteed, but a democratic Libya that enjoys good relations with Europe and the United States is a real possibility.
PS: The details of how Qaddafi came to his end are still unclear, but disturbing. There are videos circulating on the internet that show mistreatment, even cruelty. He was evil, but that does not justify evil treatment. Libyans need to demonstrate much greater discipline and restraint if they want to improve their chances of installing a real democracy.
PPS: NPR is reporting that burial has been delayed to allow the International Criminal Court to investigate the circumstances of Qaddafi’s death. That sounds like a good idea to me, though I wouldn’t bet on the odds of a prosecution.
PPPS: Qaddafi’s motorcade, in an AP video:
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Mr. Petrović comes to Washington
Slobodan Petrović, the leader of the largest Serb political bloc in the Kosovo parliament and a deputy prime minister in the Albanian-majority country, has visited us previously in DC, but this is the first time we’ve had him as a solo act at Johns Hopkins. He appeared previously with then Finance Minister Ahmet Shala. Petrović outperformed, as they say on Wall Street (when it isn’t occupied).
He starts from a simple premise: he can do more to protect his constituency, attract Serbs back to Kosovo (or keep them from leaving) and improve their economic and social conditions by political participation than by isolating the Serbs and refusing to vote or serve in parliament, which is what Belgrade prefers. This is a marvelously simple, even self-evident, but decidedly non-Balkan notion.
It has worked reasonably well for Serbs south of the Ibar river, where most of them live. Forty per cent of them voted in the last Kosovo election. They are less isolated than five years ago, when Petrovic launched his Serb Liberal Party, and their rights are more widely respected. The Pristina government has funded housing and infrastructure for Serb communities, and the international community has pitched in as well. Decentralization, in accordance with the Ahtisaari peace plan that Belgrade rejected, has provided Serb-majority municipalities with a wide degree of autonomy. Freedom of movement has improved. I won’t say all Albanians have learned to embrace the Serbs, but they are certainly far more accepting of them today than in the immediate aftermath of the 1999 NATO/Yugoslavia war, when something like half the Albanian population of Kosovo returned from having been expelled by Serbian forces.
There is lots more to be done for the Serbs south of the Ibar, but the big problem is northern Kosovo, where Belgrade has not permitted Pristina’s institutions to be established, even those that are guaranteed autonomy by the Ahtisaari plan. As Petrović recounted, Belgrade instead maintains barely functioning municipal governments with large payrolls. Nationalist Serbs from all over Kosovo have retreated to the north, including some Croatian Serbs relocated to Kosovo in 1995. The result is a lawless area where courts don’t function, services are poor and extremists are determined to resist not only Pristina’s authority but also the UN, EULEX, NATO and the EU.
Ultimately, this is a European Union problem. The EU Commission has recommended candidacy status for Serbia, provided it improves cooperation with Pristina. The question is how far Belgrade will go. The smart money is betting not far, since Serbia has elections early next year and the EU is believed to have set a low bar, apparently in the hope that will boost Serbian President Boris Tadić’s reelection prospects.
Some believe things are moving in the right direction and we just need to patiently keep them on track. Eventually, Serbia will have to accept Kosovo independence as a reality. Some even believe that Tadić, if reelected, will bring nationalist Tomislav Nikolić into the government as prime minster, reducing Kosovo’s salience as a competitive issue in Serbian politics and enabling both to accept reality sooner rather than later.
I’m not ready to sign up to optimism on Serbia’s acceptance of the Kosovo reality. I’ve been disappointed too many times. But I am optimistic about the prospects for the Serb communities south of the Ibar. Petrović is leading them in a good direction, one I hope the Albanians of Kosovo will appreciate and reward. Pristina’s fate still depends, as it has since 1999, on how fairly it is prepared to treat Kosovo’s Serb population. That is also the key to the north, where it is not going to be easy to gain the confidence of the population.
One note of appreciation: to the Kosovo embassy in Washington, which handled its deputy prime minister’s visit well. As those of us who deal with the Balkans in Washington know only too well, Washington embassies sometimes provide support that depends all too obviously on the ethnic background of the visitor. Thank you, Ambassador Spahiu, for showing that Kosovo knows better!
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Tehran’s options
While the world debates the significance of the Hamas/Israel prisoner exchange, let me turn back to something that really counts for the United States: Iran’s nuclear program. In the aftermath of the Iran(Car)Tel plot, friend Rashad Mahmood, formerly of Cairo, asks “What would be reasonable Iranian policy to having their nuclear scientists killed (by admittedly much finer spycraft since they haven’t aired any proof of who has done it)?”
This is a reasonable question with some scary answers. Let’s look at some of the (not mutually exclusive) options:
1. They can respond by killing the nuclear scientists of those countries they think responsible for the attacks on their own (presumably Israel, but as Rashad says there is no proof in the public domain). I assume they’ve tried this and haven’t succeeded, or at least we haven’t heard about it.
2. They can accelerate their nuclear program, hide it better, protect the people who work in it and try to get nuclear weapons as soon as possible. They may be trying, but they appear to be failing.
3. They can begin to wonder whether the nuclear program is worth the trouble it is causing and reach an arrangement that reassures friends and foe alike that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons even if it acquires the “fuel cycle” technology required to do so. President Ahmedinejad has proposed something along these lines, but no one is taking him seriously yet, so far as I can tell.
4. They can kill diplomats or citizens of third countries, say Saudi Arabia, that may have little to do with the killing of the Iranians but are hated enemies anyway.
My impression is that they’ve tried at one time or another Nos. 1-3, so far without success. No. 4 doesn’t make any sense to me, but maybe it does to someone in Tehran (and certainly it does to some in DC). The jury is still out on the extent of official Iranian involvement in the IranTel plot.
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration seems to me to be doing the right thing: keeping the focus on the nuclear program and ratcheting up sanctions implementation. This may not bring immediate results, but at least it provides some incentive for no. 3. The trick is knowing when to take Ahmedinejad’s proposition seriously. It is really difficult for outsiders to judge when the right moment comes–we are going to have to trust the White House to call that shot.
Here is the version of what Ahmedinejad has said about limiting uranium enrichment published by the Washington Post:
Q: I understand that you were in favor of the deal you had reached with the United States in 2009, according to which the U.S. would sell you 20-percent-enriched uranium in exchange for Iran exporting low-enriched uranium. But you were attacked by your critics and came under assault and people here could not reach a consensus and the deal fell apart.
Ahmedinejad: In Iran, people are free to express their views. Every day some people criticize the policies of the government. This doesn’t mean that the government is going to abandon their policies. We felt that they wouldn’t give us the fuel required here for our reactor. There were some political leaders who gave interviews in the United States and Europe and they said they want to keep Iran from having access to such fuel. So we realized that they wouldn’t give us that fuel so we had to do it ourselves. Even if they gave us now uranium grade 20 percent, we would not continue with the production of this fuel.
Q: So if the United States sold you the enriched uranium, would you stop enriching yourselves?
Ahmedinejad: Yes. We don’t want to produce uranium of 20 percent. Because they did not give us that uranium, we had to make our own investments. If they start to give us that uranium today, we will stop production.
Q: You reached a deal in Geneva in 2009, and you came back here and the deal fell apart here, and now people in Washington don’t believe a deal is possible.
Ahmedinejad: If they give us uranium grade 20 percent, we would stop production. Those negotiations took place in Vienna. Apparently they know everything. I repeat: If you give us uranium grade 20 percent now, we will stop production. Because uranium grade 20 percent can only be used for such reactors, nothing else.
This is the proposition some commentators think worth considering. Many think it a mirage, but time is on Tehran’s side: even if their nuclear program has slowed, they will eventually get there if there is no verifiable agreement for them to stop.
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