Day: January 6, 2013
This week’s peace picks
A light week as Washington gets back into the swing of things after the holidays.
1. Crux of Asia Conference, Thursday January 10, 9:30 AM – 4:15 PM, Carnegie Endowment
Venue: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036
Speakers: Jessica Matthews, Kurt Campbell, David Shambaugh, Frederic Grare, Ashley Tellis, Xia Liping, Srikanth Kondapalli, Daniel Blumenthal, Shen Dingli, Bharath Gopalaswamy, Kevin Pollpeter, Zha Daojiong, Sunjoy Joshi, Sean Mirski
The rise of China and India as major world powers promises to test the established global order in the coming decades. If history is any indication, Beijing, New Delhi, and Washington may all have different visions for this new international system. China and India’s many developmental similarities belie their deep strategic rivalry, which shapes their competing priorities on major global issues. As both states grow, their views on the international system will become increasingly relevant for their relationship, for the United States, and for the world as a whole.
Register for this event here.
2. Discussion with Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction on Challenges Facing the US, Thursday January 10, 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM, Stimson Center
Venue: Stimson Center, 1111 19th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036, 12th Floor
Speakers: John Sopko, Ellen Laipson
In light of plans to transfer security responsibility for Afghanistan to its government by the end of 2014, the United States has a two year window of opportunity to overcome challenges presently facing its reconstruction efforts. Many of those challenges have been identified by audits and investigations conducted by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Most recently its contributions include chronicling “persistent delays in instituting basic anti-money laundering procedures” at the Kabul Airport, detailing the Afghanistan National Security Forces’ difficulties in assuming responsibility for their operations and maintenance costs, and auditing the US’ Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund in response to schedule slips and inadequate sustainability plans.
Afghanistan’s struggles with insecurity and corruption are likely to continue well past the 2014 transition. Meanwhile the US has entered an era of fiscal austerity that will limit resources available to the Pentagon, State Department, and other government agencies involved in reconstruction. Sustainability has become one of the foremost issues for reconstruction investments as a consequence.
Mr. John Sopko’s address at the Stimson Center is his first on-the-record, public speech since taking office in July 2012, and he will use it to comment on the factors that underpin these challenges. Ellen Laipson, Stimson’s President and CEO, will moderate a panel discussion to follow, adding some additional perspectives about reconstruction efforts. We hope this event will provide a useful public forum to consider the US role in Afghanistan’s reconstruction, through 2014 and beyond.
Register for this event here.
3. Overkill: The Case for Reevaluating the U.S. Nuclear Strategy, Thursday January 10, 6:30 PM – 10:00 PM, Cato Institute
Venue: Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC 20001
Speaker: Christopher Preble
The United States has far more nuclear weapons and delivery systems than deterrence requires. The triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and bomber aircraft reflects bureaucratic Cold War planning, not strategic vision. Can the United States achieve an effective nuclear program which makes us safer, while adapting to the need for a smaller defense budget? Join us as Christopher Preble, the Vice President of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, discusses U.S. nuclear strategy, and the need to bring it into the 21st century.
Register for this event here.
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Alas, poor Bashar
Today’s “sermon” by President Asad, delivered it is said at the Damascus Opera House, is worth a glance. It tells us something about the mindset and current thinking of a man who has led his country into the slaughter of more than 60,000 of its citizens.
Bashar views Syria–which he implicitly identifies with himself–as the victim of foreign intervention. Takfiris and the Western powers are together attacking his country. Sure some Syrians have joined those efforts, but basically this is an international conspiracy against Syria’s independence and territorial integrity.
He continues to imagine that reforms he initiates will meet the legitimate demands of Syrians:
Such war is confronted through defending the homeland in parallel with a reform that is necessary to all of us, which may not change the reality of war, yet it strengthens us and reinforces our unity in the face of the war…Reforms without security is like security without reform. No one will be successful without the other…Those who keep parroting that Syria has opted for a security solution do not see or hear…We have repeatedly said that reforms and politics go in one hand and eliminating terrorism in the other.
He then presents a confusing (at least in English) series of numbered steps focused on national dialogue to produce a new constitution approved in a referendum, followed by elections and formation of a broadened government.
Of course something like this is precisely what the opposition in Syria is asking, but it will not accept doing it with Bashar al Asad still in power. Therein lies the giant anomaly. By his use of the security forces to try to repress the rebellion, Bashar has made himself the main issue in Syria. Of this he seems unaware, though he clearly is not feeling cheerful:
…out of the womb of pain, hope should be begotten and from the bottom of suffering the most important solutions rise, as the dark cloud in the sky conceals the sun light, but it also carries in its layers rain, purity and hope of welfare and giving….These feelings of agony, sadness, challenge and intention are huge energy that will not get Syria out of its crisis unless it turns this energy into a comprehensive national move that saves the homeland from the unprecedented campaign hatched against it.
The notion that Syrians will accept him as the leader of a “comprehensive national move” is so far-fetched that it hardly bears notice, except as evidence of the self-delusion still ensconced at the top of the regime.
Bashar’s appeal to Syrian nationalism is, I think, as sincere as it is delusional. He imagines that the war he is fighting will strengthen Syria:
The blood of martyrs protected and will protect the homeland and the region, and will protect our territorial integrity and reinforce accord among us, while at the same time purify our society of disloyalty and treason, and keep us from moral, human and cultural downfall, which is the strongest victory…When the homeland triumphs, it does not forget those who sacrificed for its sake.
There follows after this the requisite thanks to his armed forces.
So this is the thinking of the Syrian president after nearly two years of using his military and security services to kill his citizens and destroy their homes: we are purifying our society and will be stronger for it. He will not compromise, but if his opponents will lay down their arms he offers to lead a process of reform that will broaden political participation, but implicitly not so far as to affect his powers.
I don’t expect the opposition, which is doing well militarily, to agree to anything except Bashar al Asad’s departure from power. He is not only a dead man walking, but one unlikely to walk much farther. Alas, poor Bashar:
a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy….now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
PS: State Department was no more impressed with the speech than I was, though they failed to quote Shakespeare in response.
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