Month: June 2012
The road to Damascus still runs through Moscow
Michelle Dunne and Dimitri Simes got it wrong in yesterday’s discussion on the PBS Newshour of Russia’s role in Syria. They failed to understand the main reason the Obama Administration hesitates to buck Moscow and offered a precedent–the 1999 Kosovo intervention–that can’t be mechanically applied in today’s conditions.
If only Syria were at stake and the Russians were tacitly on board, it would be foolish, as Simes suggested, for the Americans to hesitate to act without UN Security Council (UNSC) approval. They acted without approval in Kosovo without any serious backlash from Russia, which in 1999 was in no position to offer much resistance.
But that is not the current situation. Iran is also on the chess board. If the United States attacks Syria without Moscow’s concurrence, it will lose Russian participation in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. Your top national security priority for the moment is stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but you would put that goal at risk for the sake of Syria? Whether you believe stopping Iran can be done by diplomatic means or you think that military action will be required, you want to keep your powder dry and the Russians on side as much as possible.
Russia to boot is not the basket case it was in 1999, when it winked and nodded at NATO’s attack on Serbia, which after several months ended Belgrade’s repression and the expulsion of the Albanians from Kosovo. Simes conveniently forgot that Kosovo briefly threatened real problems between the United States and Russia, when Moscow seized the Pristina airport before NATO forces arrived there. But Russia was too weak and too broke to do anything more than putter around the runways. Moscow today is far better equipped with armed forces, hard cash and diplomatic support to respond than it was in 1999.
The key to solving the Syria problem is convincing Moscow that it risks losing everything when the Assad regime comes down. Diplomatic persuasion, not military action, is what is needed. At some point, Russia will realize that protecting its port access in the Mediterranean and its arms sales to Syria requires support to the successor regime. If Moscow fails to jump ship in time, the Russians will go down with it.
Moscow sounded a bit desperate yesterday underlining that its arms sales to Bashar al Assad violate no UN resolution or international law. True enough. What they violate is common sense and human decency. No one should be surprised that this is difficult for Vladimir Putin to understand. He is after all having his own problems with demonstrators. But even he by now understands that helicopter gunships are not the right way to deal with dissent.
When President Obama sees President Putin at the G-20 meeting in Mexico next week, Syria should be high on the agenda. The road to Damascus still runs through Moscow.
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What does civil war meme?
Yesterday UN peacekeeping under secretary general Herve Ladsous suggested that Syria is indeed in a civil war:
Yes, I think we can say that. Clearly what is happening is that the government of Syria lost some large chunks of territory, several cities to the opposition, and wants to retake control.
The Syrian government denies it, insisting that its operations are aimed at suppressing terrorists.
What is the significance of the “civil war” meme? The conflict in Syria appears to meet the formal definition of civil war:
a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies
There may be some doubt as to how “organized” the Free Syria Army really is, but it seems, as Ladsous suggested, to be organized enough to control at least some territory. The Syria conflict certainly meets the threshold of 1000 casualties the academics require to label a conflict “war.”
The Syrian government prefers the counter-terrorism meme because it puts the conflict in a context that justifies vigorous state action. President Obama abandoned the “war on terror” metaphor long ago, but it continues to fight extremism with all the means at its disposal. Why shouldn’t Bashar al Assad do likewise?
If the conflict in Syria is a civil war, it does not follow that international intervention is appropriate. The United Nations will generally avoid engagement in such situations until the “warring parties” offer their consent. Consent in Syria so far is certainly nominal: the government allows the UN observers in and permits them to move around a bit, but it has not implemented the six-point Annan plan. The Free Syria Army has renounced the ceasefire that never really took effect.
During the Bosnian conflict, the label “civil war” was used mainly by those who opposed international intervention. While intervention in civil wars by neighbors, super powers and other interested parties has often occurred, in the American political lexicon “civil war” has usually been used to justify a wait and see attitude. If they are fighting among themselves, why should we get involved? It’s dangerous and potentially counterproductive if we prolong a conflict that might just burn itself out.
The meme that works in favor of intervention in the U.S. is a liberation meme, provided the government of the country in which the conflict occurs is not a friendly one. The Kosovo Liberation Army was an example, as was the NATO-led intervention in favor of the Libyan National Transitional Council. Not for nothing was the war in Iraq termed Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The Free Syria Army would like to be seen as part of such a liberation meme. So far, that has not gotten it direct American assistance. But yesterday’s revelation that Russia is providing attack helicopters to the Syrian army will likely open the spigot of clandestine transfers by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the Free Syria Army a bit wider.
That won’t necessarily bring an end to a war that already threatens to destabilize Lebanon and in due course other neighbors. International intervention can lengthen and spread wars, whether they be termed anti-terrorist, civil or liberation.
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Credit the observers
The UN Supervision Mission in Syria has started posting its own Youtube videos (apologies if this is old news–it has just come to my attention):
The caption reads:
In Homs where increased and intensified fighting is taking place, smoke drift into the sky from buildings and houses hit by shelling. Next the observers traveled to Talbiseh and al-Rastan, north of Homs city. The roads were empty and all shops, garages, health centers were closed. The bridge on the highway between Talbiseh and al-Rastan appeared shelled.
A Syrian opposition flag – with three stars – draped from the bridge as the smoke and fire continued to burn. UN military observers on patrol to these towns noticed helicopters firing. There was fresh blood on corridors and outside some of the houses.The UN patrol team spoke with both side – Syrian army soldiers and oppositions free Syrian army – to try and ascertain the extent of this increased heavy weapons and attacks.Copyright UNSMIS 2012
This will not stop the Syrian government from committing atrocities, and it doesn’t even clearly asign responsibility. But it certainly improves the visibility of what is going on and generates both internal and external pressure against the regime. Unless you think the opposition is flying those helicopters and using artillery.
Does anyone doubt that the international observers, restricted and abused though they may be, are serving a useful purpose? I salute their courage, and their use of Youtube.
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Measuring peace
It is hard for me to know what to make of the Global Peace Index (GPI), the 2012 version of which was presented at CSIS this morning by Michael Shank of the Institute for Economics and Peace. I was originally trained as a scientist (through a master’s degree in physical chemistry at the University of Chicago). I take measurement and numbers seriously, which means I am skeptical of hodge-podge agglomerations of numbers based on implicit models not well articulated.
It is difficult to reduce a lot of things to numbers, and when you do the results aren’t always interesting. Thus it is with aspects of the GPI. Western Europe is the most peaceful region, followed by North America as well as Central and Eastern Europe. Asia Pacific comes in fourth. Latin America fifth. The laggards are sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Duh.
The individual country numbers and the changes from last year aren’t any more interesting: sure the Arab Spring pushed the MENA numbers down a bit. Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq and Democratic Republic of the Congo are at the bottom of the heap. Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe moved in the more peaceful direction. Syria, Egypt and Tunisia went the other way.
This suggests one big problem with the GPI. It counts countries undergoing revolutions as less peaceful, even if the overall direction from the perspective of their inhabitants may be positive. And it perceives the end of war in Sri Lanka and the power-sharing arrangement in Zimbabwe as positive developments, despite the real possibility that they are merely prelude to new violence.
The GPI has a big problem with the United States, which it ranks as middling in peacefulness because of its large military expenditures and arms exports. But as Lawrence Wilkerson pointed out during the presentation, these are a necessary concomitant of any country with global security responsibilities. If you play the role of world policeman, whether wisely or unwisely, you are going to need the power projection capabilities required as well as well-equipped allies. And some of the things you do are likely to contribute positively to peace. Emily Cadei, speaking from a Congressional perspective, confirmed that America’s politicians certainly do not see defense expenditure or arms exports as negative for American security.
Far more interesting than the country and regional numbers are the twenty-year trends and correlations for components of the GPI, which itself is remarkably unchanged in each region except the Middle East and North Africa since 2007, when it was first calculated. Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP are down everywhere except the United States, battle-related deaths are generally down too, with the notable exceptions of the Balkans in the 1990s, the Rwandan genocide and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Where things really get interesting, as pointed out by Anne-Marie Slaughter in her introduction, is in correlation trends. To avoid getting it wrong, let me quote:
Both the Corruption Perception Index and per capita GDP have a similar looking relationship with the Global Peace Index. There appears to be a ‘tipping point’ for countries with a score of around 2 on the GPI. This meant that at a score of 2 on the peace index, small positive changes in peace had large positive impacts on corruption or per capital GDP. Similarly once past the score of 2 on the GPI small negative changes in corruption or per capita GDP were associated with large decreases in peace.
The data likewise confirms the relative peacefulness of full democracies. Of course these are correlations that confirm our fondest beliefs. There are still big questions about the direction and mechanism of causality.
New this year is the Positive Peace Index (PPI), whicch is intended to measure attitudes, institutions and structures that determine capacity to create and maintain a peaceful society. It is based on factors like well-functioning government, sound business environment, equitable distribution of resources, acceptance of the rights of others, good relations with neighbors, free flow of information, high levels of education and low levels of corruption. The difference between GPI and PPI is the “peace gap”:
A surplus means that the institutions, structures and attidudes of the country can support a higher level of peace than is being experienced, while the inverse, a deficit, signifies that the country may be fragile due to weaker than expected institutional capacity.
This is where the U.S. (as well as Israel and Bahrain) are shown to have more potential than they have realized. On the deficit side, there are relatively peaceful countries (mostly in sub-Saharan Africa) that seem to lack the institutions needed to manage “external shocks.” The PPI will presumably offer more interesting results in the future as trends emerge with time.
I’m not less skeptical of hodge-podge quantification than at breakfast this morning. But the GPI report is worth a look.
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Nikolic starts well, now let’s have fun
Tomislav Nikolic’s inauguration as President of Serbia went well: he pledged Serbia to a European future, committed himself to resolving regional problems through dialogue and promised future prosperity in return for hard work. He did not of course repeat his controversial remarks of recent days seeming to justify the Serb assault in the early 1990s on the Croatian town of Vukovar and his denial of genocide at the Bosnian town of Srebrenica.
He did however necessarily commit himself to
protect the Constitution, respect and safeguard the territorial integrity of Serbia and try to unite all political forces in the country in order to identify and implement a common policy on the issue of Kosovo-Metohija.
This means that he maintains Serbia’s claim to all of Kosovo, despite loss of control over 89% of its territory and more or less the same percentage of its population. As required by the constitution, he denies the validity of the 2008 declaration of independence and recognition by 90 sovereign states.
The key question for today’s Serbia is whether and how Nikolic resolves the contradiction between his commitment to a European future for his country and his commitment to holding on to Kosovo. No Serb politician wants to admit that this contradiction exists, but it does and they all know it. Twenty-two European Union members have recognized Kosovo’s independence. They will be unwilling to accept Serbia into their club unless it accepts Kosovo’s sovereignty and establishes “good neighborly relations” with the democratically validated authorities in Pristina.
Belgrade has been inclined to put off any resolution of this contradiction for as long as possible. That is understandable. It involves a trade-off that is unappetizing: either give up Kosovo, or give up the EU.
But the failure to make a clear choice distorts judgment on other issues important to Serbia’s future: relationships with Russia, the United States and NATO as well as Serbia’s relationship with Kosovo’s Albanian citizens (Kosovo’s Serb citizens will presumably choose to remain Serbian citizens, though some have also accepted Kosovo citizenship).
The United States and the EU have been reluctant to press Serbia hard on its choice between the EU and Kosovo, for fear of undermining former President Boris Tadic and strengthening Nikolic’s more nationalist forces. It might appear that there is no longer need for that reluctance with Nikolic in the presidency. But there is a real possibility that Tadic will become prime minister and lead the first government of Nikolic’s mandate. That would enable Serbia to renew its diplomatic manipulation of the West on the Kosovo vs. EU issue.
Nikolic in the past has been more inclined to advocate partition of Kosovo than to give up all claim to it. This proposition won’t go anywhere. The Americans and the Europeans are solidly against it, because it would precipitate a domino-effect of partitions in Macedonia, Bosnia, Cyprus and perhaps farther afield. The Kosovars would ask for the Albanian-majority area of southern Serbia in trade, something Belgrade would not want to offer. More importantly: it is not in the interest of most Serbs who live in Kosovo (outside the northern area Serbia would hope to claim). The Serbian church, whose important sites are all in the south, is solidly opposed.
I’ll hope that Nikolic defies the odds and gets courageous about Kosovo: it is lost to Serbian sovereignty. All politicians in Belgrade, including Nikolic, understand that, but no one wants to accept responsibility for it. Some of my Serb Twitter followers and email correspondents assure me there is not a chance in hell Nikolic will: that’s why they voted for him. They want him to choose Kosovo over the tarnished EU.
They may well be correct, but I’ll wait to see what Nikolic does. His first test will be implementation of the agreements already reached with Pristina. Tadic did precious little to make them operational. If Nikolic wants to stick his predecessor with responsibility for them, he’ll demand that they be implemented by a newly named prime minister, whether it be Tadic or someone else from his Democratic Party.
Nikolic could also change Serbia’s policy on United Nations membership for Kosovo, thus forcing Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic to preside in his new position as General Assembly president over Pristina’s acceptance into the UN. Watching that would be worth almost any admission price.
I’m not holding my breath for any of this to happen. Just saying it would be fun.
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Observe the observers observing
I won’t even try to link to the multitudes who have declared the Annan plan for Syria a failure and the UN observers useless. It is easy to prove the first proposition: Bashar al Assad’s regime has not even withdrawn its heavy weapons, never mind fulfilled the five other points of the Annan plan.
But that does not make the UN observers useless. To the contrary, what would we know about the massacre at Mazraat al-Qubeir if the UN observers had not gone in? Even a visit two days later, after a thorough cleanup by the regime, was sufficient to conclude that something dreadful had happened. It is vitally important that the UN observers continue their efforts and get the word out on what they find quickly and widely. This is what makes current events in Syria so dramatically different from the massacre Bashar al Assad’s father committed twenty years ago in Hama, which remains even today less than fully documented. It is still unknown how many thousands, or maybe tens of thousands, were killed.
Ground truth concerning what is going on in Syria is not only important for the international community but also for Syrians. Last weekend’s “general” strikes (more like “souk closures”) in Damascus and Aleppo were reactions to the al-Houla massacre, also disclosed because of the post facto presence of the UN observers. Symbolic bazaari resistance undermines an important pillar of the regime–heretofore it was feeling little pressure from the merchant class to stop the crackdown.
The lot of the observers is not a happy one: they are being shot at, blocked at checkpoints, threatened and likely worse. But they are going about their work with determination and, it seems from afar, considerable skill and courage. Will this end the parade of horrors the Syrian regime is committing? Not likely. Bashar al Assad has driven himself and his regime into a cul-de-sac. His only hope of remaining in power is to escalate the violence further, in the hope of restoring the fear that is vital to the survival of autocracy.
The observers are however important. They are revealing the facts of what is happening. They are witnessing what otherwise might go unreported. They are helping to keep up international pressure on the Assad regime. They are inducing Syrians who previously supported the regime to reexamine their position. They are embarrassing the Russians and Iranians, whose support for Bashar al Assad seems to be weakening.
None of this makes a resolution of the conflict in Syria imminent. It could go on for a long time. What we’ve got now is an insurgency that falls more or less in the civil war category. Such conflicts are rarely settled quickly. Only if Bashar al Assad can be persuaded to step aside, or if someone gets lucky and steps him aside, will it be possible to start the post-Assad political process that is the real purpose of the Annan plan.
Anne-Marie Slaughter argues against regime change as the international community objective. Instead, she proposes that the international community should, in accordance with the “responsibility to protect” doctrine, create safe areas in Syria, where civilians will be protected by military means from the regime’s security forces. This in my view is wrong: it would leave Bashar al Assad in place, ruling over and abusing a large portion of the population and likely causing partition of Syria, an outcome inimical to peace and stability throughout the region.
Bashar al Assad is the problem. Removing him is the solution. Diplomatic means are likely to be far more effective in achieving that objective than military ones. But that is not the purpose of the UN observers, who are there to observe. They are doing a good job under difficult circumstances. Let’s applaud their courage and determination.
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