Month: November 2012
Yemen isn’t working
Daniel Byman, Brookings fellow and the moderator of Tuesday’s event about “Yemen and the Fight Against a Resurgent al-Qaeda,” noted that Yemen has become increasingly important in Washington over the past decade. Despite this, few understand Yemen. American political leaders have not found a successful strategy to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” al-Qaeda in Yemen. Ibrahim Sharqieh of Brookings Doha and Gregory Johnsen, Ph.D. candidate at Princeton, did not claim the expertise to address moral or legal questions about drone strikes, but they questioned their effectiveness in achieving U.S. objectives.
Sharqieh noted the fluctuations of U.S. interest in Yemen over the past 14 or 15 years. Until the Yemeni people elected a new president in parallel with “Arab Spring” reformation movements across the Middle East, the U.S. cooperated with the Ali Abdullah Saleh regime. When the al Qaeda threat was high, the U.S. gave Yemen more assistance, attention, and aid money. When the threat was low, the Yemen issue would be replaced with other more pressing foreign concerns. This approach makes it in Yemen’s interest to have some al Qaeda presence. Johnsen agreed that a mutually dependent relationship has formed between new President Hadi and the U.S. Hadi needs the U.S. because he lacks domestic support and the U.S. needs Hadi to continue its drone strikes. Sharqieh explained that this relationship excludes the Yemeni people from the discussion of fighting al Qaeda increasing a sense of alienation.
Sharqieh proposed a new approach focused on political settlement, development and local ownership of the conflict against al Qaeda. First, the Yemeni political transition must be successful in order to provide hope for the people and reinforce the nonviolence of the Yemeni uprising. The Iran-backed north, separatist south and influence of the old regime are barriers to the success of the political settlement. Second, the U.S. should adopt a sustainable assistance program to combat the serious challenges to stability: the 46% unemployment rate, 56% of people under the poverty line, 300,000 suffering from malnutrition, and significant illegal immigration. Third, Yemenis need to feel ownership of the al Qaeda threat. Many resent the U.S. drone attacks as a violation of national sovereignty.
Johnsen agreed that the “Yemen Model” for fighting terrorism has not been effective. It was on the day of President Obama’s inauguration in 2009 that Said Ali al-Shihri announced the joining of al Qaeda‘s Saudi branch with a Yemeni contingent to form al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In December 2009, Secretary of State Clinton added the organization to the list of known terrorist groups and the U.S. carried out its first drone attack in Yemen. Days later al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula placed a suicide bomber on a plane to Detroit. From the Christmas Day failed attack to today, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has grown from 200 or 300 to anywhere from 1,000 to 6,000 members.
How has the organization grown so quickly? Civilian deaths in drone attacks are partly to blame, Johnsen believes, in addition to economic and humanitarian challenges. The U.S. views Yemenis as terrorists and non-terrorists, but al Qaeda members in Yemen might also be tribal figures, community leaders, friends or family. Yemen is not like Afghanistan where al Qaeda members are often easily identifiable foreigners.
“Yemen is a broken country,” Johnsen said, and the path forward for the U.S. will not be easy. The U.S. cannot win the fight against al Qaeda alone. Yemeni tribes and Saudi Arabia are well-positioned to help, if they want to do so. The Obama administration has never explicitly defined for a foreign or domestic audience the moral or legal framework in which the drone strikes operate. It is possible that the U.S. has burned all bridges that could have encouraged tribal allies to take up the fight against al Qaeda, but Washington could improve the prospects with an apology for past civilian deaths and an honest effort to find a better strategy.
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Serbia and Kosovo have a unique opportunity
In less than a month, Serbian prime minister Ivica Dačić and his Kosovo counterpart Hashim Thaci have met twice in Brussels. The meetings are mediated by Baroness Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy. According to Dačić, the dialogue has been constructive. The two sides have agreed to put Integrated Border Management (IBM) of two disputed checkpoints into effect by December 10. Even the possibility of Serbia and Kosovo jointly constructing a highway connecting Priština and Niš, a town in southeastern Serbia, has been discussed.
The ongoing round of talks between Belgrade and Priština was preceded by a few weeks of aggressive, at moments even anti-European, rhetoric on the part of Dačić and Serbian president Tomislav Nikolić, leading a number of domestic observers to assume that the new Serbian government was about to renounce the process of European integration. Now that the negotiations have resumed, the contentious statements apparently served as a tactic to pacify hardline nationalists before taking bolder steps towards normalization of the relationship with Kosovo.
This time there is more reason for optimism. The elevation of the negotiations to a higher political level raises hope that more concrete results will be achieved. Besides, without tangible improvement in its relations with Kosovo, Serbia will no doubt fail to get a date for accession talks with EU. And without the date, the government in Belgrade cannot count on money from European pre-accession funds, which it badly needs in order to put its struggling economy and public finances in order. Russia might provide a temporary lifeline, but that by no means would suffice.
It is too early to speculate on how far is Serbia prepared to go in these negotiations, except that it will not officially recognize Kosovo’s independence. But beyond the formal recognition, there is plenty of room for Belgrade to operate within. Dačić’s government is at the beginning of its term, which is an opportune moment to take on most challenging issues. As proven nationalists, Dačić and his coalition partners from the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) are generally in a more favorable position to make substantial concessions to Priština than former president Boris Tadić was. A relatively weak opposition in parliament could also prove beneficial to the government.
Even more encouraging is the impression that Dačić has finally abandoned his idea of ethnic-based territorial partition of Kosovo. Instead, Belgrade will likely try to secure special autonomy for the Serb-dominated area north of the Ibar river, which basically comes down to some sort of “Ahtisaari plus.” Such a solution is far from ideal, not least because it would disfavor other Kosovo Serbs. But in situations like this, no solution is ideal. For that matter, Priština would do a great job if it managed to improve the safety of local Serbs from enclaves. It would help Kosovo not only refute Serbia’s accusations of deliberately failing to protect the Serb minority, but also earn credibility among countries that have not yet recognized its statehood, including the five EU members. A long history of inter-ethnic violence certainly makes things difficult for Kosovo authorities, but not impossible, provided that independent professional institutions, as well as instruments of civilian control, are strengthened.
Serbia, for its part, needs to dismantle parallel Serb institutions in four municipalities of northern Kosovo, as a sine qua non for the beginning of accession talks with EU. It will be anything but easy to do. To what extent hese parallel institutions’ activities are actually under control of the Serbian government is unclear. Theoretically, Belgrade might consider a total cutoff of financial support to the disobedient Serb leaders, but there is a danger that such an effort would be blocked by more nationalist elements within the ruling coalition. Serbia’s efforts to rein in the north could be further undermined by intra-governmental competition between Dačić and his first deputy Aleksandar Vučić for control over the security sector, which already, earlier than was expected, seems to be under way.
Meanwhile, public sentiment in Serbia has significantly changed regarding Kosovo, at least in one respect. Today, unlike a few years ago, most of the population does not count the former province even among top five political priorities. But while a majority of the Serbian people admit that Kosovo is a de facto independent state, they nonetheless insist that the government should never recognize it. A recent opinon poll, conducted by Ipsos Strategic Marketing and B92, has shown that two thirds of those surveyed would choose Kosovo over Serbia’s EU membership in a potential referendum. This attitude is obviously a result of defiance rather than rationality. Even if Serbia withdrew from European integration, Kosovo would still remain its neighbor.
Most important for Dačić’s government is that whatever it eventually decides to do about Kosovo, including even formal recognition, is unlikely to spark major protest. Oddly, people in Serbia have become largely indifferent to their government’s Kosovo policy. While obstacles to the establishment of neighborly relations still exist, they are getting both fewer and smaller going forward. After years of seemingly insolvable dispute, Serbia and Kosovo have a unique opportunity to make a huge step forward. It is now up to the two governments to do the right thing for the sake of their people’s brighter future.
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Jus post bellum?
Just war tradition includes questions of jus ad bellum, reasons for going to war, and jus in bello, rules of war, but what about jus post bellum? This question motivated Eric Patterson to write Ending Wars Well: Order, Justice, and Conciliation. Patterson summarized the argument of his book at last week’s event at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs. He wrote the book to provide all parties involved in post-war reconstruction with a basic framework: order, justice and conciliation. It is meant to transcend the divisions between just war and peace theories, political science and philosophy/ethics, and theory and practice.
For Patterson, war is not linear but cyclical. Post-war peace and state-building efforts are part of this cycle. He cited conflict in Rwanda as an example. The genocide sparked in 1994 by the assassination of the president came in the aftermath of the civil war initiated by the invasion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a group of Tutsi rebels, in 1990. Countries should think of the whole cycle of the war before they get involved and while they are fighting.
How is the war cycle broken? Patterson suggested a focus on establishing order by privileging security and the functioning of basic government institutions. Order is the foundation of work to “end wars well.”
Patterson acknowledged that many think order is not enough, but it is better than what many face. In some conflicts, maybe 20-30%, justice is also possible. He defines justice as “incurring what one deserves.” This is a narrow definition, which is ideal because one must be modest in demands for justice, and it implies that justice must be targeted. In 1991 Iraq, America sought justice through sanctions, an effort that punished the citizens without targeting the political leaders at fault. In 2003 Iraq, the people punished their former leader with targeted justice in a trial that was legal by the laws of their own country.
In rare cases, about 10%, conciliation is also achievable. Conciliation means that enemies put aside their animosity and imagine a shared future, if not a warm one. This is rare because it only happens when it is in the interest of all parties. For this reason, Patterson believes conciliation is not possible with the Taliban. It is not in their interest to work for a shared future with other Afghans. The peace deal between Israeli Prime Minister Begin and Egyptian President Sadat in 1979 exemplifies conciliation because of a shared interest in peace.
After Patterson presented, John Gallagher, assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, raised an important question: what if order is not possible? Patterson acknowledged that a shared interest is essential for conciliation, but the same might be true for order. When violence is based on a narrative that equates fighting with a struggle for moral superiority, achieving order (ending killing, establishing a single legitimate authority, strengthening basic government institutions) may not be achievable. A new narrative is required, but how do you get to the point that those involved in the violence are exhausted enough to change to a narrative of peace?
Patterson responded with what he called “raw pragmatism”: there must be a decisive victory. An audience member pressed Patterson on this point in the question and answer period. If the victors successfully “crush” their opponents, might that push both parties past the point where conciliation is possible and, in the case of warfare that is not force on force, only strengthen the narrative of a losing side, enabling it to recruit new adherents to the cause? Patterson cited David Kilcullen’s The Accidental Guerrilla: only a few fighters are adherents to a vision or narrative. Most fighters are involved in the conflict for other reasons and will respond reasonably when it is in their interest to make peace.
Patterson’s book is another call for a clear, simple, and cohesive strategy for all, but the debate suggests it may not fulfill its promise.
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Balkan lessons
I spoke at a European Council on Foreign Relations/Ministry of Foreign Affairs conference last week here in Pristina, Kosovo about lessons learned in the Balkans interventions. Bosnia and Kosovo were by no means model efforts, and the first lesson of intervention is that context matters. It would be a mistake to think what worked and did not would necessarily be the same in, say Syria, as in the Balkans.
But I do think there are some things worth thinking about when contemplating intervention in other parts of the world. There are three at the top of my list:
1. Act together. When the United States and Europe, which are the major players in Balkans interventions, act together, things often go better. Note that this is not a matter of shared values, which is what diplomats often emphasize, but rather common enterprise.
Europe and the U.S. in fact do not always share values that are relevant to the Balkans. Europe believes in group (minority) rights that do not exist in the U.S. and are in fact antithetical to American (and French) thinking. But this did not prevent the U.S. and Europe from cooperating in implementation of the Dayton agreements (based on group rights principles). There was also good cooperation in negotiating the Ohrid agreement that saved Macedonia from an interethnic war in 2001. Most recently, the joint trip of Lady Ashton and Secretary of State Clinton to the Balkans sent strong messages to Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo.
2. Do the right things. It is not enough to act together with other major intervenors. You also have to be doing the right things.
The U.S. and Europe acted together to allow Greece to block Macedonia’s entry into NATO, which is a bad thing to have done together. Likewise, the EU and the U.S. ganged up together to push badly formulated amendments to the Bosnian constitution (the Butmir process, as it was known) in 2009. By the same token, if the five EU countries that have not recognized Kosovo would do so, thus joining the 22 that have (as well as the U.S.), it would make an enormous difference to eliminating the remaining risks to peace and stability in the Balkans. The EU’s recent “progress report” on Bosnia’s accession prospects aligns the Union more closely with the U.S. view that the central government in Bosnia is not strong enough to implement the obligations of EU membership. That could change the calculus of Bosnian politicians in important ways.
3. Use all the instruments, civilian and military. If you are going to bother intervening, it would seem natural to use all the instruments of national power pointing in the same directions, but that is in fact the exception rather than the rule.
This is where Dick Holbrooke made his real contribution in the Balkans, because he gained control of all the levers of American power and pointed them in the same direction. The EU is particularly inept at this: witness the distribution of its troops in militarily meaningless small units all over Bosnia, and the lackadaisical use of its massive rule of law mission in northern Kosovo, with European troops more interested preventing trouble than in clamping down on organized crime there. Admittedly, getting 27 countries to agree to use civilian and military instruments with vigor to achieve clear and compelling goals is not easy. But it is what is needed if Europe is to pretend to be a serious international intervenor in the future. It isn’t easy to get the State Department and the Defense Department to point in the same direction at the same time either.
These to me are useful lessons for future international intervention, if there is to be any. Both Europe and the U.S. are trying assiduously to avoid it if possible. But every president of the United States since the fall of the Berlin wall has tried to avoid state-building missions. Each has found he cannot without leaving behind a mess that is inimical to American interests. I have no reason to believe the pattern will change, so a few lessons are in order.
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The next great hope
It is easy to applaud the formation of the “National Coalition of Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition” in Doha yesterday. It claims to unite 90% of the civilian and military opposition to Bashar al Asad, including America’s last great hope, the Syrian National Council. Particularly important is its claim to represent both military and civilians inside Syria. If this turns out to be the case, it will soon gain credibility as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, perhaps even occupying Damascus’ seat at the Arab League.
But the Coalition is only the beginning. It is essentially a representative body. The failures of the Syrian opposition so far have been executive, not legislative. The newly named leader of the Coalition is Ahmad Mouaz Al-Khatib Al-Hasani, a former Imam of the Grand Umayyad mosque in Damascus:
This semi-slick Youtube video tells us something of al-Khatib’s relatively moderate Islamist views, but little of his executive abilities.
That is the vital ingredient now. What the Syrian opposition needs is a relatively small executive group that can take charge of political, military and humanitarian strategy, gaining credibility with donors by moving resources to where that strategy dictates and limiting extraneous efforts. The key people appear to be secularist Riad Seif, who is credited with laying the groundwork for the Doha success, and human rights activist Suhair Atassi, who were elected vice presidents of the National Coalition, while Syrian National Council member Mustafa Sabbagh was elected the Secretary General.
The U.S. government, while hailing creation of the National Coalition, still seems unready to provide direct military support and is committed to a secularist vision of Syria outlined in documents prepared last summer. How this will dovetail with Qatari and Saudi military support is not clear, since they are unlikely to be as committed to a secular outcome. Nor is it clear whether the new entity will be prepared to negotiate with the regime before Asad steps down, something Syrians inside the country have been more inclined to consider doing than those outside Syria.
Still, the National Coalition is the next great hope. Would that it will work better than the last one.
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No patriot
I enjoyed a pleasant Sunday afternoon walk through Pristina yesterday. Its alleys are crowded. But it also boasts vistas. Variety is one of the things that makes a place interesting. And with variety comes the unexpected, both good and bad.
Normally I wouldn’t comment on what amounts to an individual criminal act. The bad is inevitable. But the wounding Saturday evening of a Serb traveling south of the Ibar river just a few miles from where I am spending a couple of days merits a blog post, because it has broader significance.
The country I am enjoying on my third visit this year is a peaceful one that has established institutions rating a positive EU report suggesting it is ready to negotiate a Stabilization and Association Agreement. This is a big deal, not only for the benefits that will accrue to Kosovo once the agreement is signed but also for the seal of approval “contractual relations” (i.e. signing an agreement) with the EU will give to Pristina’s still young institutions, which are now more or less at the half-way point of recognition as sovereign by other UN member states.
The safety of Serbs is one of the key ingredients in determining EU attitudes on contractual relations. Brussels wants to know that the Pristina institutions are committed to protecting everyone who lives in or visits the territory under their control, without regard to ethnicity.
Of course 100% security is not possible, and I’ll admit that I am a bit surprised that a former Serb police chief felt free to travel after dark in Kosovo. And there is of course no knowing the ethnicity of his attacker, who was reportedly masked. We’ll have to await the results of the police investigation.
But that is just the point. There should be a serious police investigation and some results, which are far too infrequent in such cases in Kosovo. Too many crimes against Serbs and other minorities go unsolved.
Whoever perpetrated the attack Saturday evening is putting at risk Kosovo’s claim to be ready to negotiate an important first step in its eventual accession to the EU. I don’t know the person’s identity or ethnicity, but this much I do know: he is no Kosovo patriot.
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