Month: August 2012
Quicker is better, but use the delay well
“Impractical, unenforceable and unwise” are the labels I gave yesterday to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s proposal for highly conditional military aid to the Syrian revolutionaries aimed at creating safe areas.
Today, Kofi Annan resigned as the UN/Arab League negotiator, having failed to make progress on the peace plan that bears his name. This likely dooms the UN observer mission, which has been useful in providing the international community with some objective data on what is going on and in assigning responsibility. It could prove helpful in the future in identifying who is emerging within the on-the-ground leadership. We’ll miss them when they are gone.
So what do I think should be done now?
There are two criteria I would ideally like to meet:
- Get it over quickly
- Empower people who will take post-Asad Syria in a democratic direction
The first is important because the Syrian war is starting to overflow the country’s borders to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. This could precipitate a nightmare scenario of widespread sectarian war that will open opportunities for extremists (including from Al Qaeda) and reshape the Levant in ways that are likely to be inimical to U.S. interests.
The second is important because only an inclusive democratic regime in Syria will be able to re-establish stability and reduce risks to the region. The last thing we need in Syria is what its history suggests is most likely: a series of coups and narrowly based, unstable governments that mistreat Syria’s minorities, destabilizing the region and prolonging the agony.
Or worse: a break-up of the country along ethnic and sectarian lines, with Alawites establishing a homeland along the Mediterranean coast and Kurds trying to carve out something like Iraqi Kurdistan (even though the Kurdish population is not nearly as concentrated as in Iraq).
The big question on Washington’s mind yesterday was whether military action, either direct or through proxies, would speed the denouement. Andrew Tabler testified at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
Washington should lead its allies in the “Core Group” of the Friends of the Syrian People gathering—Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—in issuing a stark warning to Assad that mass atrocities in Syria will be met with an immediate military response.
Jim Dobbins was more circumspect:
I do not believe the United States should become the standard bearer for such an intervention. I do believe, however, that the United States should up its assistance to the rebels; quietly let those on the front lines, particularly Turkey and Saudi Arabia, know that it will back initiatives they may wish to take toward more direct military engagement; and provided the earlier mentioned conditions can be met, America should provide those military assets needed for success that only the United States possesses in adequate number.
Martin Indyk, more concerned with speed, nevertheless focused on political and diplomatic measures and recommended no military action. Less concerned about how long it takes for Bashar to fall, Aaron David Miller, writing on foreignpolicy.com, was unequivocally against direct intervention:
The time for guilting the United States into expensive and ill-thought-out military interventions has passed. Indeed, the reasons to intervene in Syria — the hope of defusing a bloody religious and political conflict and dealing the Iranian mullahs a mortal blow — are just not compelling enough to offset the risks and the unknowns.
My own view is that U.S. (aerial) military intervention might accelerate the fall of Bashar, but only if it is direct and massive. If the Arab League and the Syrian opposition request it, the United States and whatever allies are willing to join could take direct action against Syria’s command, control and communications, aiming not to create safe areas but rather to decapitate the regime and render the Syrian army harmless. This would not necessarily work right away, but it has a far better chance of working quickly than a messy operation devoted to creating euphemistic safe areas. First step: move a carrier battle group to the Eastern Med visibly and ostentatiously.
If Washington doesn’t want to take decisive military action, and my reading is that it does not, it is better to follow Miller’s advice: let the natural course of events develop, with proxies arming and training the Syrians, as Dobbins also suggests. This isn’t likely to fulfill my first hope–to get it over quickly–but it is better than the fractious opposition trying to control territory rather than fighting the regime.
Empowering people who will take Syria in a democratic direction is a much more difficult trick. This is where Jim Dobbins put his emphasis. Our best bet is to try to identify people who are emerging as leaders inside Syria, many of them at the local level. Without an embassy in Damascus, we are flying blind.
Ironically, the people who can help us best are the much-maligned UN monitors, who have been engaging at the local level with leaders of the opposition for months now and should have an idea of who is emerging town by town and what their political views are. They will also know everyone in the regime who might be helpful to a transition.
So where I come down is this: short of taking decisive military action from the air targeting the regime’s command, control and communications, we are going to have to live with a painful and unpredictable process of regime collapse. We should use the time to develop a much better understanding of who is who on the ground inside Syria and how things can be nudged in a democratic direction.
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Serbia squeezed
Milan Marinković writes again from Nis:
The period of economic hardship Serbia is entering will afford the country’s new government, named last week, little room for maneuver. The social consequences of budget stringency will likely generate protests. Lay-offs of public-sector employees, whose unions whose unions are stronger and better organized than those in the private sector, could generate massive street demonstrations and even riots leading to broad popular unrest, as in Greece. The ability of Serbian security forces to maintain public safety could be put to a serious test.
The test will be particularly demanding if criminal clans and extremist groups – which already share many members and often collaborate – attempt to take advantage of the situation. Public safety might come to rely entirely on security forces due to chronic inefficacy of the Serbian court system.
Under pressure from Brussels, the previous government started a rather selective battle against organized crime, resulting in arrests and trials of several mob bosses and their close accomplices. But that was far from sufficient. Crime gangs in Serbia are organized like the military. If only the gang’s top leadership are removed, it is just a matter of time before infighting erupts among members of the middle and lower ranks over who will seize the helm. This leads to the division of large gangs into dozens of smaller clans that continue to fight for control of the formerly common territory.
During the clashes, which can last for years, younger members of criminal groups are especially violent. They are eager to do whatever it takes to advance to higher positions within the new hierarchy. The young thugs often belong to football (soccer) hooligan groups. Using football as a screen, these groups actually serve as recruitment centers for future drug dealers. Their capability to wreak havoc must not be underestimated. Not accidentally, football hooligans and far-right political extremists from Serbia also have been spotted in northern Kosovo, where they reputedly operate under the auspices of power structures closely associated with parts of Serbian intelligence services.
No less important, a lack of regulation has enabled private security companies to hire individuals with criminal backgrounds, which makes potential security concerns even bigger. Easy availability of weapons through the black market compounds the threat.
Serbia’s looming troubles will likely require a centralized model of coordination between various departments of the security and intelligence apparatus, as well as tighter control in general. That will not be easy to achieve. Animosity already exists between the state (counter)intelligence agency (BIA) headquarters and the interior ministry. Even inside a single institution tensions occasionally arise, due principally to long-established politicization of the security sector.
Necessary as it might be under the current circumstances, a strong political grip on the security and intelligence apparatus could further cripple an already fragile democracy in Serbia unless proper parliamentary supervision is in place. The instruments of control which the parliamentary committee for defense and security has at its disposal have so far proved to be insufficient. Just as worrisome is that a legislator from a ruling party will preside over it. Rather than carrying out genuine reform of the security sector, the new political leadership will, like their predecessors, likely seek to adapt it for their own interests.
The challenges Serbia is likely to encounter could be of critical importance in the shaping of the relationship between major players in the government, prime minister Ivica Dačić and his deputy Aleksandar Vučić, since the two will be practically in charge of the entire security sector. The “Socialist” Dačić is minister of the interior. The “Progressive” Vučić is defense minister, and also the future secretary of the National Security Council.
Control over security and especially intelligence services is traditionally seen by Serbian politicians as a most effective way to secure and fortify political dominance. Multiple factors will determine how the balance of power shared between Dačić and Vučić is going to work in practice. While in the early stages of the government’s term they should be expected to develop good cooperation out of necessity, a rivalry may emerge later in the process, when their powers begin increasingly to overlap. The possible power struggle could have a significant impact on dynamics within the security sector.
The Gendarmerie is of particular importance. While nominally part of the Interior Ministry, the Gendarmerie has its own separate headquarters. Its robust equipment, training procedures and organizational structure make it look more like a military unit than a police one. It is no secret that the Gendarmerie is the strongest individual force within the entire defense and security system. Some even claim that in terms of combat capability the Gendarmerie alone is stronger than the army, even though the army’s manpower is about ten times larger.
But apart from its high professional competence, the Gendarmerie is not free of ideological leanings. If intra-governmental political strife takes place, the Gendarmerie could prove crucial for gaining the upper hand.
Serbia faces a paradox. While overall public expenditure will have to be sharply reduced if the government is to avoid financial disaster, the costs of financing security forces may well increase. This will put a dramatic squeeze on budgetary resources, lead to social instability, or both.
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Impractical, unenforceable and unwise
A Free Syrian Army (FSA) leader (the Guardian says he is Mustafa al-Sheikh, identified as head of the FSA supreme military council) says:
The fighting is like hit and run, we are not aiming to get control of any city in Syria, but we want to exhaust the regime and speed up its collapse.
This is the most sensible thing I’ve heard out of the FSA, which is still vastly outgunned and outmanned by the Syrian Army. Unfortunately, English-language press coverage seems to focus almost exclusively on the question of territorial control, which not only changes rapidly but is also irrelevant to the outcome of the civil war.
The ebb and flow of control over territory creates enormous risks for civilians who can’t escape to other areas. Collaboration–even if forced or unavoidable–with one side brings retaliation by the other, even as civilians find themselves unable to obtain adequate food and water, not to mention electricity, cooking fuel and health services. We are in the midst of a major humanitarian disaster in Aleppo and other population centers in Syria.
The international response is thoroughly insufficient. Anne-Marie Slaughter proposes a major escalation:
It is time for bold action, of the kind Mr Obama took in deciding to go after Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad and to intervene in Libya. In Syria this would mean putting together a coalition of countries that would commit to providing heavy weapons (and possibly air cover) to all commanders on the ground who sign the “Declaration of Values” supporting a democratic and pluralist Syria put forward by the nine commanding generals of the military council of the FSA. To receive weapons, these commanders must show they control safe zones and admit foreign journalists, civil society activists and the UN to monitor the implementing of the declaration’s principles. They must also allow citizen journalists to upload photographs of what they witness to an official website maintained by the coalition.
The problem is this: the escalation Slaughter proposes could well make things worse rather than better.
Heavy weapons are not going to reduce the intensity or likely even the duration of an increasingly sectarian war. Nor will a “declaration of values” from revolutionaries who are already carrying out summary battlefield executions. The Asad regime will treat the “safe zones” she insists upon as target-rich environments and subject them to intense shelling. The logistics of food and other supplies in these zones will burden the rebellion with responsibilities it will find hard to discharge.
What about our relationship with Qatar and Saudi Arabia suggests that we could constrain their arms supplies in the way Slaughter suggests? They are far more likely to impose their own conditions: arms only to Sunnis, preferably religious ones.
The escalation Slaughter proposes will likely also make Russia abandon the P5+1 talks with Iran. Moscow could also make life more difficult for the U.S. by squeezing the northern distribution network for supplies into Afghanistan, though that option would be far less effective now that Pakistan has reopened its roads and border crossing points.
Some stable liberated areas may well emerge–a number of Kurdish towns along Syria’s border with Turkey seem already to fall in that category. But requiring that the rebellion give up its “hit and run” tactics is not wise. As Bashar al Asad seems to have declared in his latest statement from unknown whereabouts, Syria’s fate will be determined on the battlefield. I would have wished it otherwise, not least because the military forces are likely to dominate Syria’s post-Asad transition.
But best now to leave the military tactics to military people to decide. The highly conditioned transfer of weapons Slaughter proposes is impractical, unenforceable and unwise.
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