Day: April 21, 2012
Youtube peace?
I guess this is worth the try:
Of course it won’t work without other efforts. ICG suggests that what is needed is a commitment to comprehensive reform in Khartoum:
To encourage reforms in Khartoum, a united international community, particularly the African Union (AU), Arab League and UN, should put pressure on the NCP to accept a free and unhindered national dialogue aimed at creating a national stabilisation program that includes defined principles for establishing an inclusive constitutional arrangement accepted by all. A national reform agenda should include a program that accommodates all the people of Sudan and supports inclusive governance. The NCP must make genuine efforts to end impunity in Darfur, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile and allow humanitarian agencies unhindered access, as well as support the efforts of the AU-UN Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) and UNISFA to protect civilians.
Wishing won’t make it so, and it is unlikely to happen any time soon.
American Special Envoy Princeton Lyman claims all concerned want to avoid all out war, but in the meanwhile Khartoum is celebrating the supposed reconquest of the Heglig oil field, which South Sudan had captured but also agreed to vacate.
At this point, President Obama should be satisfied if Khartoum and Juba come to the table to resolve their differences on oil, which is the issue that has caused the recent dustup and the one both sides think most worth fighting about. ICG’s comprehensive reform may have to wait.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
The 90 day ultimatum
United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice used today’s passage of UNSC Security Council resolution 2043 authorizing deployment of 300 UN observers to Syria to issue an ultimatum: the Syrian government needs to fully comply with the six-point Annan plan or else.
Or else what? The explicit threat was not to renew the observer mission. But Rice was trying to imply more than that:
…let there be no doubt: we, our allies and others in this body are planning and preparing for those actions that will be required of us all, if the Asad regime persists in the slaughter of the Syrian people.
There are not a lot of good options out there. A Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday revealed few. Tightening sanctions is one, but the Russians resisted including that in the resolution. Maybe they will be willing to do it if Damascus continues to defy the Security Council for another 90 days. An arms embargo is another. But arms embargoes are normally enforced against a country, not only a government. The Russians are unlikely to allow one to pass that applies to Damascus but not the Free Syria Army. While I am not in favor of a violent uprising, it would be profoundly unjust to deny Syrians the means to defend themselves.
Then there is the option Rice was presumably trying to imply: military action, by NATO and/or a coalition of the willing. I still see little prospect of this happening, though three more months of Syrian government defiance could change the picture.
Unfortunately what the 90-day ultimatum does in the meanwhile is to give Bashar al Assad a three-month hunting license. It is now in his interest to get the observers in as quickly as possible, since no military action can be taken while they are deployed in Syria. He’ll try to use the 90 days to bag as many protesters as possible. It would have been far better to deploy them with no fixed time limit, or with a shorter one requiring re-authorization by the Security Council. The reports the Secretary General is required to make every 15 days are a useful mechanism to keep international attention focused on implementation of the Annan plan, but they don’t provide the same leverage that a shorter authorization would have done.
That said, the key is to get the Syrian army out of artillery range of population centers. Randa Slim wisely reminds us that local leaders in Syria have the capacity to put hundreds of thousands–maybe millions–into the streets if peace protests are permitted, as required by the Annan plan. This she suggests would be a game changer.
I agree. Syria needs no more than a couple of days of relative peace for the people to show unequivocally and peacefully their preference for Bashar al Assad’s departure. If the observers can help to give them those days, their deployment will be worthwhile. If not, withdrawal in 90 days will be the right move. But then it will be incumbent on the Obama Administration to have a plan for what comes next.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
A deal not to make a deal?
Eric Shu, jack of all trades around peacefare.net, offers another write-up, this time of Monday’s Carnegie Endowment event on Negotiating with Iran: Istanbul and Its Aftermath. Eric becomes available next month when his Middle East Institute internship expires. Anyone out there need a fine Mandarin-speaking assistant with an excellent Brown education?
Over the weekend of April 14-15, Istanbul hosted negotiations between the P5+1 (United States, China, Russia, France, Britain, and Germany) and Iran, the first official meeting since the talks broke down in January 2011. Catherine Ashton, EU foreign policy chief and lead representative of the P5+1, stated afterwards that the talks were “constructive and useful.” No concrete agreements were reached other than to schedule another meeting on May 23 in Baghdad.
What does this mean for the players involved? Is this a success or another ploy by Iran to drag out the negotiations, giving itself more time to enrich uranium?
At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Monday, April 16, Karim Sadjadpour, associate at Carnegie and author of Reading Khamenei, moderated a discussion that focused on the nuclear negotiations with Iran and the political ramifications of the meeting.
Vali Nasr, newly appointed Dean of JHU-SAIS and former senior advisor in the State Department, began the discussion with an argument for “maintaining the status quo.” He viewed negotiations with Iran as an issue that the Obama Administration should not deal with until after the November elections. Obama’s supposedly off-mic comment to Medvedev last month regarding missiles is also relevant here: “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Nasr then pointed out that it would be difficult to justify a war with Iran, especially during this election season. He closed his opening remarks with a question: can they make a deal about not making a deal?
Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and former State Department official, provided a similar evaluation of the recent negotiations. Takeyh argued that inconclusive diplomacy is beneficial as it provides space for diplomatic conversations to continue. In this case, the talks led to a scheduled meeting at the end of May for more serious negotiations. Takeyh also pointed to the difficulty Iran has in giving up its nuclear weapons aspirations. As a country with multiple adversaries in the region, it is in its own strategic interests to acquire these nuclear weapons capabilities.
As the director of the Nuclear Policy Program at Carnegie, George Perkovich focused his statements on Iran’s nuclear program. He opened with a description of how Iran pursued multiple pathways to developing the capacities needed for a nuclear program, rather than committing at the start for a weapons program. Perkovich also pointed out that Ayatollah Khamenei recently stated that “the Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons” and considers it a “big sin.” Regardless of how much truth is in the statement, it provides space for a negotiated compromise.
At the end of the discussion, the panelists were asked for historical templates that might be applicable to Iran. The speakers all mentioned North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, but agreed that historical frameworks were unlikely to work. The context, leaders, and factors of each situation are different. Deals and negotiations are “living organisms.”
The Istanbul meeting was essentially a talk about talks. The speakers expect the status quo to hold through November, but the Baghdad meeting in May provides some possibility for positive developments.
RSS - Posts
