Day: April 19, 2012
Syria can get worse
NATO preparations for military intervention in Syria are again in the news. The Obama Administration is looking for Plan B. Even my former colleagues at US Institute of Peace are calling for suppression of Syrian air defenses. That’s spelled W-A-R.
I am feeling the need to repeat what I’ve said before: half measures won’t work and could make things worse. If removal of Bashar al Assad from power is your objective, and you propose to achieve it by military means, don’t trick yourself into thinking it will necessarily be easy or quick. Certainly a humanitarian corridor is not an obvious or direct means of getting rid of Bashar. It is a target-rich environment that is only safe if military force makes it so.
It would be folly for NATO to waste its resources on such a half-baked non-solution. That is certainly one of the lessons of the Libya experience, when a humanitarian intervention had to refocus on Qaddafi in order to bring about the desired, but not stated, result.
If you want Bashar al Assad out, the thing to do is take him out. A massive attack on Syria’s command and control facilities would force him underground–as a lesser effort eventually did to Qaddafi–and all but guarantee that the regime changes, though in which direction is unpredictable. To control that, you’ve got to put boots on the ground. But you will also need to write off any prospect of Russian or Chinese support for action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are certainly a greater threat to U.S. national security than Bashar al Assad.
Arming the opposition is another option. There is lots of mumbling from Senators McCain and Lieberman about how the Free Syria Army (FSA) hasn’t gotten any help from anyone and are running out of ammo. The French call that de la blague. The Turkish and Iraqi borders have seen lots of arms flowing. Others want to manage the process despite the chaotic conditions. The FSA is not a threat to the Syrian regime in the short-term. It is an insurgency that will be difficult to defeat entirely but offers little immediate prospect of displacing Bashar al Assad, whose army is stronger than the Libyan one and notably more loyal.
A long, violent, drawn-out and increasingly sectarian conflict in Syria is not a good outcome for the United States. I am second to none in wishing Bashar al Assad gone from a country in which I studied Arabic and enjoyed remarkable hospitality from people who have suffered a half century of privation, economic and political. Yes, we should certainly support the on-the-ground opposition and do everything possible to protect their right to protest and determine their own political future.
But the best bet for now is to play out Annan plan and the UN observer scenario for what it is worth: either it will lead to a serious reduction in violence, and I hope a corresponding increase in peaceful protest, or the observers will give up like the Arab League observers before them and abandon the field. If the former, we’ll all be able to celebrate, as nonviolent protest will provide by far the best foundation for a successful transition to something like democracy. If the latter, we should not be surprised to find that things get worse, much worse, as they did after the Arab League observers withdrew.
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What good are UN observers?
That was my title for a piece The Guardian published this morning as UN observers in Syria must show courage in their actions and words:
By insisting on moving freely, and reporting what they see, the observers can deter violence and help to restore stability in Syria
As Kofi Annan rushes to deploy the first 30 UN observers to Syria, it is important to ask what good they might do. How can a few dozen unarmed soldiers monitor a ceasefire in a country of more than 22 million? Even at their anticipated full strength of 250, what can they really accomplish? Won’t government minders lead them around by the nose, showing them only what President Bashar al-Assad wants them to see? How can they possibly understand what is going on in a situation that is chaotic at best, homicidal at worst?
These doubts are well-founded, especially in today’s Syria. Observers are most useful where there is a peace to keep. If both sides in a conflict conclude that they cannot make further gains by fighting, then observers can increase mutual confidence in a ceasefire and reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings or miscommunications leading to violence.
Those conditions do not exist today in much of Syria, where the government is still purposefully attacking its own population. Violence has declined in some places, but fighting continues in others. The government has already made it clear it wants the observers to go where and when it is safe, as determined by Damascus. On Sunday, Assad’s spokeswoman said: “Syria cannot be responsible for the security of these observers unless it co-ordinates and participates in all steps on the ground.” This is as much threat as warning. The government security forces have always tried to focus on one major community at a time. Damascus will try to take the observers to those communities where relative peace prevails.
To be effective in this situation, the observers will need to take a proactive stance, reaching out to the Syrian opposition, insisting on going where they want when they want, and reporting amply on what they find. This takes courage. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is providing the top cover. “It is the Syrian government’s responsibility to guarantee freedom of access, freedom of movement within the country,” he said. The observers will need to focus their attention on the violence, report on its origins and course, and demand that it stop.
Liaison with the opposition, while desirable, is also problematic. Anyone the UN observers contact may be tracked and monitored by the Syrian security forces. Arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial killings are common in Assad’s Syria. Some courageous individuals will speak up no matter what. Others, who are prepared to talk with the observers, will need to move quickly to protect themselves thereafter, changing residences, cell phones and even identities. This will make it difficult for the observers to maintain continuity.
Despite these very real problems, the presence and persistence of the observers can deter violence and encourage non-violent protest. The opposition will become less bold in provoking the security forces, fearing provocations will be visible internationally. Peaceful demonstrations, which are already common, will become larger and more frequent. The security forces will gradually realise that the observers cannot be intimidated and that they will return to check and re-check what is going on, reporting their findings in ways that will embarrass anyone who is continuing the violence. The commanders may begin to behave with less abandon.
The UN observers, in addition to doing whatever they can to report on violations of the Annan plan, need to keep in mind their own broader significance. They are the living symbols of international community engagement, the only token so far of the UN security council’s commitment to restoring peace and stability in Syria. They will need to try to maintain a good working relationship with the Syrian government, but they also have to insist on their own independence. This includes the freedom to meet with the Syrian and foreign media and report fully what they have found.
The ceasefire, already fraying, cannot, however, succeed for long on its own. The UN security council resolution requires humanitarian and media access as well as the start of a political dialogue. This is where Annan’s job gets really hard. Even though the security council was silent on the future of Assad, he has to be convinced to step aside, because there can be no serious transition if he remains in place. The ceasefire can only be a bridge to a broader political solution, not an end in itself.
If the observers come to the conclusion that current conditions do not permit them to do their work effectively, or if they determine that one side or the other is primarily responsible for the violence and mayhem, then they need to say so plainly. Failure is a possibility, but even failure can sometimes have a positive impact. The Arab League observers, whose mission failed during the winter, played a useful role despite their pro-Assad Sudanese leader. They talked with the opposition, their presence encouraged peaceful demonstrations, some reported accurately on what was going on, and others resigned in protest over the restrictions the Syrian government put on them. In the end, it was the withdrawal of the Arab League mission that escalated the Syrian situation to the UN and ultimately forced the security council to act.
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Droning on
The Washington Post reports today that the CIA wants to expand drone attacks in Yemen:
Securing permission to use these “signature strikes” would allow the agency to hit targets based solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior, such as imagery showing militants gathering at known al-Qaeda compounds or unloading explosives.
The United States has long used this less discriminating approach in Pakistan, where I am told we killed a lot of tall guys in long white robes before finding Osama bin Ladin holed up in his Abbottabad villa.
This is not an easy policy choice, but the right course is to err on the side of caution. The Post article emphasizes the risk of drone strikes putting the U.S. on the government side in Yemen’s wars with several groups of insurgents. I don’t see that as the main issue. After all, we recognize and support the government in Sanaa, even if we don’t intend to get involved in Yemen’s internecine battles. None of the insurgents are going to think we are not on the government’s side.
The Post also emphasizes that the drone strikes have killed a lot of the “right” people, more than are killed in strikes based on specific intelligence about their whereabouts. That, too, is not pertinent to the decision-making. We’d kill a lot of the “right” people by mowing down whole villages too, but it wouldn’t be morally correct or wise.
The issue is the impact of the strikes. Do they work, or do they not? Do they reduce risks to the United States or American forces? A recent quantitative analysis of the drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan suggests that they have reduced militant violence, BUT:
Finally, it is important to reiterate that any reduction in terrorist activity associated with the drone campaign appears modest in scope. Although a decline in violence in FATA in 2010 coincided with the peak of the drone campaign, FATA militants remain active and violence remains high. To the extent drone strikes ”work,” their effectiveness is more likely to lie in disrupting militant operations at the tactical level than as a silver bullet that will reverse the course of the war and singlehandedly defeat al Qaeda.
Others find more ambiguous results.
The bigger question is the impact on the population in areas where drones strike, and on the broader political context . This is where things get dicey, in particular if you hit the wrong people (no matter how many “right” ones you kill). Joshua Foust warned about these consequences earlier in the year. While some Pakistanis and Yemenis may celebrate the deaths of particular militants, there will always be collateral damage, the more so if the “rules of engagement” are loosened. It is difficult to imagine that most Pakistanis and Yemenis will welcome the deaths of innocent countrymen in U.S. drone attacks intended to protect Americans. How long will their governments put up with us? We’ve seen in President Karzai the negative consequences of too many mistaken strikes (not only by drones) and night raids.
General Petraeus, whom I know and respect, needs to repeat the question he asked himself about detention facilities when he took over in Iraq and later in Afghanistan: are we creating more terrorists than we are taking out of circulation? No RAND study will likely answer this question. We’ll have to rely on good judgment, which is in short supply as Washington gears up for its quadrennial blood-letting between Democrats and Republicans. There isn’t much mileage for an American politician in not doing the max to get the terrorists in Yemen, but restraint might in the end save more American lives.
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