Month: January 2013
War with Iran in 2013?
Reuters published this piece today, under what I regard as the misleading title “Will this be the year that Israel goes to war with Iran?”
Israel did not bomb Iran last year. Why should it happen this year?
Because it did not happen last year. The Iranians are proceeding apace with their nuclear program. The Americans are determined to stop them. Sanctions are biting, but the diplomatic process produced nothing visible in 2012. Knowledgeable observers believe there is no “zone of possible agreement.” Both the United States and Iran may believe that they have viable alternatives to a negotiated agreement.
While Israel has signaled that its “red line” (no nuclear weapons capability) won’t be reached before mid-2013, it seems likely it will be reached before the end of the year. President Barack Obama has refused to specify his red line, but he has made it amply clear that he prefers intensified sanctions and eventual military action to a nuclear Iran that needs to be contained and provides incentives for other countries to go nuclear. If and when he takes the decision for war, there is little doubt about a bipartisan majority in Congress supporting the effort.
Still, attitudes on the subject have shifted in the past year. Some have concluded that the consequences of war with Iran are so bad and uncertain that every attempt should be made to avoid it. Most have also concluded that Israel could do relatively little damage to the Iranian nuclear program. It might even be counter-productive, as the Iranians would redouble their efforts. The military responsibility lies with President Obama.
There has been a recent flurry of hope that the Iranians are preparing to come clean on their past nuclear weapons activities, which could be a prelude to progress on the diplomatic track. The issue is allegedly one of timing and sequencing: the Iranians want sanctions relief up front. The Americans want to see enrichment to 20 percent stopped and the enriched material shipped out of the country, as well as a full accounting for past activities, before considering any but minor sanctions relief. Some would also like to see dismantling of the hardened enrichment plant at Fordow.
But the fundamental issue is whether Iran is prepared to give up its nuclear weapon ambitions, or whether it is determined to forge ahead. Iranian behavior in the last year suggests no let-up in the country’s regional (and wider) pretensions. It has supported Bashar al-Assad to the hilt in Syria, armed Hamas for its confrontation with Israel, continued to support Hezbollah in Lebanon, assisted North Korea’s ballistic missile satellite launch and made trouble in Iraq. Why would it not also seek nuclear weapons, which would make it immune (or so many in the Iranian regime seem to think) from American regime change efforts?
There are not a lot of good answers to that question, except this: a reasonable man in Tehran might well conclude that Iranian national security is better served by stopping the nuclear program before it actually produces weapons. Once Iran acquires nuclear weapons, the United States will target it. Israel will launch on warning. This hair trigger situation will be more perilous than the nuclear confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, when each side assumed the rationality of the other and communications between them were good. Neither Iran nor Israel assumes the other will behave rationally, making deterrence unreliable, and communications between the two governments are virtually non-existent. The distance between Tehran and Jerusalem makes quick decisions necessary.
Two big political uncertainties loom over the nuclear issue next year: Iran is scheduled to hold presidential elections in June and the Supreme Leader is thought to be ill. The identity of neither Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s successor as president nor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s as Supreme Leader is clear. While it may be too much to hope that the successors will be any better than the incumbents, any transition introduces diplomatic delays and uncertainties, even though the nuclear program should be expected to proceed. But will the transitions be orderly, or will the Greens who roiled Iran’s political sphere last time around revive? Iran’s regime has deep roots in revolutionary fervor, which has made it more resilient than Egypt’s. But that does not mean it will last forever.
There is still a slim hope for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. The prospects are not good, but the consequences of failure are dreadful. The Obama Administration has managed to avoid overt commentary on Iran in the last couple of months. Candidate Romney was cautious during the campaign. The door is clearly open to the Iranians, if they want to come in from the cold of sanctions and isolation. If they fail to do so, and continue to buck the international community, war in 2013 is likely. Not because it is a good solution, but because President Obama might regard it as the only solution, albeit a temporary and highly uncertain one.
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What is to be done
Hashem Alshamy, a Syrian reader, criticized peacefare.net today:
Sincerely, I have been disappointed with your overtly focus on “post-conflict” suggestions, solutions and suggestions, while taking the events of the past 22 months for granted. It seems that the crimes committed by the regime, military and militia should be taken as fait accompli, while the world should be watching out until the hotheads take over and start their witch hunt against regime henchmen and the minorities who supported them.
He goes on to suggest:
I still appreciate your interest in following up the Syrian “conflict” and writing about it, but my suggestion is to read more about its history and its composition to provide pragmatic solutions to your followers, including me.
Thank you, Hashem, you are precisely correct. I should be thinking more about what the regime is doing and how to prevent it from generating a negative reaction that will haunt the transition period.
I’ve already pointed in one direction: a UN or Arab League peacekeeping force that would seek to establish a safe and secure environment in which the new authorities can begin to establish the justice mechanisms required to assign accountability for past crimes.
But I’ve also pointed out that it will be difficult to find and deploy an international force of the size and capability required. So what else can be done?
The Day After report prepared by Syrian opposition representatives recommends beginning the transitional justice efforts before the fall of the regime:
- establishing a Preparatory Committee to begin to map a strategy of transitional justice;
- preparing to safeguard records and documentation;
- beginning public messaging and outreach to avoid revenge attacks and raise awareness of transitional justice mechanisms;
- anticipating international interest;considering appropriate frameworks to coordinate and integrate the variety of transitional justice mechanisms; and
- preparing personnel who will be engaged in transitional justice institutions.
I see some sign of effort to document abuses and to safeguard records. I imagine there has been some public messaging against revenge attacks, but I’ll be glad if others would enlighten me further on that. To my knowledge, little else of this has happened so far, but I would be happy for an update.
The Day After report also recommended immediate measures for the security sector:
- building trust between the political leadership of opposition groups and the Free Syrian Army;
- initiating efforts to improve command and control among armed opposition groups, ensure their compliance with human rights standards, and secure their acceptance of civilian authority;
- creating an oversight committee to manage the process of SSR in the transitional period;
- preparing for the establishment of a transitional security force based on the Syrian National Police and other resources, including by providing the police with appropriate training; and
- conducting a preliminary vetting of retired and active high-ranking officers in the army and police to identify trustworthy individuals who might take leadership roles in security sector reform.
I see some effort to build trust and coordinate between the political leadership (the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces) and the Free Syrian Army, which itself is more unified than in the past. But I don’t see a lot of the rest of this happening. Again, I’ll be happy to be proven wrong.
What is missing from the Day After report is something I would consider vital: efforts at the local level to establish a safe and secure environment and begin to deliver services to all citizens. I am hoping that organizations like the Civil Administration Councils will make this effort. Syrians are naturally more concerned with their current circumstances than with some abstract future enterprise that the internationals call “transitional justice.” Yes, preparation now for the post-war period can help, as the Day After suggests, but so too can cooperation now to meet immediate human needs in areas that have already been liberated. There is a lot of evidence that cooperation on providing services and enabling economic activity helps to prevent sectarian and ethnic violence when the usual forces of law and order break down.
This is the opposite of the answer Lenin gave to the question “What Is To Be Done?” What Syria needs urgently is not central direction by Lenin’s revolutionary vanguard. The Ba’ath party has arguably provided that to no good effect for many years. Syria needs grassroots efforts by its citizens to establish locally the kind of inclusivity and participation that will prevent future bloodletting.
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War’s end can be deadly too
My Twitterfeed this morning is full of references to a video of Syria’s thugs finishing off rebels with knives and concrete blocks. Fortunately for you, the video did not work for me, so I am not even tempted to post it.
The behavior is, however, worth noting, as it is precisely what makes revenge killing highly likely. How would you feel if one of Asad’s thugs bludgeoned to death your brother, uncle, cousin? Of course you might not know precisely who did it, but you might suspect, or you might know someone working for the Shabiha whom you suspect of doing such things, or you might just feel someone needs to be taught a lesson. If a law and order vacuum follows the fall of Asad, it will be tempting to teach these people a lesson, prevent them from disappearing into the woodwork, or just satisfy the thirst for justice. Once it starts, tit for tat violence is difficult to stop. Police are no longer on the streets, courts have ceased to function as judges flee, prosecutors are seek refuge from infuriated relatives of people they sent to prison.
Most of the Syrian opposition will say it does not seek revenge. They will proclaim loudly that anyone who does not have Syrian blood on their hands can remain in their jobs and continue to provide public services. We have nothing against the Syrian state, they will say, only against those individuals who abused power and mistreated its citizens.
But who does not have Syrian blood on their hands? How do they prove it? It is notoriously difficult to prove a negative, and very hard to respond to accusations outside the neutral space of a serious justice system. It will take years to determine who was responsible for the killing of 45,000 or so opposition victims. Why should perpetrators be allowed to get away with their crimes in the meanwhile?
These are some of the issues that lead me to conclude that Syria is going to need an international peacekeeping force to prevent the worst from happening after the fall of the Asad regime. Such a force cannot bring justice or prevent all abuses, but it can–properly mandated, resourced and led–create what the military refers to as a “safe and secure environment,” provided the warring parties reach at least a temporary political accommodation against further bloodshed. There will still be incidents and reprisals, but if they can be kept below the level of mass atrocity it will give Syria a much better chance to move in a more democratic direction.
A commenter on a previous post suggested Indonesia and Malaysia might be able to contribute several thousand troops. That’s a start, though it seems likely Syria will require tens of thousands. The UN and Arab League–the two most likely leaders of such a peacekeeping force–should be developing the plans, not only for the peacekeeping forces but also for meeting other urgent requirements: humanitarian relief (food, water, shelter and sanitation), macroeconomic stabilization to prevent the currency from collapsing altogether, and support to whatever political process the Syrians can agree on.
America’s luminaries are still focused on a no-fly zone and arms for the rebels. We are past the point where either makes much sense. The rebels have obtained sufficient arms to contest the Syrian security forces throughout most of the country, and they are quickly downing most of the Syrian air force. The death toll is way up–around 400 per day recently–as Asad unleashes what little he has left that he hasn’t already used. I’ve got to hope that UN Envoy Brahimi is successful in getting the Russians to pressure Asad to step aside. Nothing short of that will open the door to a negotiated outcome, which is far more likely to reduce the death toll than continuation of the fighting.
War is deadly, but post-war can be deadly too. It is time to be thinking about how to end this war and begin the peace in an orderly way.
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