Day: October 18, 2013
The Syrian Coalition speaks
University of Arkansas Professor Najib Ghadbian, the Syrian Opposition Coalition representative to the United States, stopped by SAIS today for an all too rare public presentation, followed by Q and A. I moderated, though I confess both speaker and audience distinguished themselves in moderation. Revolutionaries should always be so reasonable. The event should be up on C-Span soon.
Najib outlined the main problems the Coalition faces in its effort to create an inclusive, secular and free democracy:
- The humanitarian catastrophe: 2.5 million Syrians are refugees, 5 million are internally displaced. Opposition funding has gone predominantly to meet their needs. Access is a major issue, as liberated areas are under frequent attack. But the Coalition’s Assistance Coordination Unit is now functioning well after some initial difficulties.
- Radicalization: Regime killing and weak support from outside Syria for moderates has strengthened extremists, who have proven effective on the battlefield. Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the former more Syrian and the latter more closely affiliated with Al Qaeda, are big and growing problems. ISIS in particular is responsible for mass atrocities attributed to the opposition.
- Governance: In liberated areas, local revolutionary councils are trying to fill the vacuum left by withdrawal of state institutions, some more successfully than others. The Coalition is expected to form and approve an interim government at its next meeting in Istanbul in early November. This will be a technocratic stopgap until the transitional government called for in the June 2012 Geneva communique is formed.
- Ending the conflict: The Coalition favors a political end to the conflict, but it must be one that leads to a democratic outcome. This is not possible with Bashar al Asad still in the presidency. The idea of his conducting elections next year is completely unacceptable. In order to go to a Geneva 2 conference next month or whenever it is scheduled, the Coalition will need the support not only of the US but also Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Coalition will also want to see the withdrawal of Hizbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, both of which are fighting inside Syria.
The Coalition needs to meet these challenges by providing humanitarian assistance, isolating and countering extremists, delivering government services and uniting to negotiate an end to the conflict. It is unlikely any negotiation can be successful unless there is a change in the military situation on the ground. The Coalition-linked Supreme Military Council needs increased resources, training and professionalization. Funding to extremists should be blocked. The Coalition will not try to expand in their direction.
Asked about protection for minorities, in particular Alawites, after Bashar al Asad is gone, Najib suggested that international peacekeepers or some form of elite units might be required. In any event, it is clear that the Asad regime is not protecting Alawites so much as it is putting them at risk. There are prominent Alawites within the opposition. Security sector reform, including consolidation of Syria’s 16 existing security agencies into a single internal and a single external service, will be a priority. The Day After report and ongoing project will be helpful, especially on security sector reform and rule of law.
Syria is not nearly as divided ethnically (or in sectarian terms) as Bosnia at the end of its war. Most Kurds are with the opposition. Administrative decentralization will be important in the post-Asad era, but federalization of the Iraqi variety is not in the cards because the Kurdish population is not as concentrated in one geographic area.
From the United States, the Coalition is looking for strong and more consistent support. While the Coalition supports US/Russia agreement, Washington made a mistake to embark on dismantling the regime’s chemical weapons capability without also doing something about Asad’s ferocious use of the Syrian air force against liberated areas. Conventional weapons have killed many more Syrians than chemical weapons. The military training being conducted in Jordan for the opposition should not be secret. It should be taken over by the Defense Department and enlarged to a much grander scale. US leadership and coordination is needed to ensure that the disparate supporters of the Coalition are all working in the same direction, as recommended in the recent International Crisis Group report.
I spent a summer in Damascus not too many years ago studying Arabic. The desire of ordinary Syrians, and even those close the regime, for freedom and democracy was palpable. The people I talked with would be pleased to hear what the Coalition representative had to say. But they would ask how much longer the killing will last.
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Blast from the past
Revisiting peacemaking in history, Professor Bill Quandt yesterday discussed the Camp David peace process at American University.
Quandt opened his remarks on the Egypt-Israeli peace by offering a timeless key to peacemaking. In order to have a successful peacemaking process, there must be more peacemaking and less process. The parties involved should see change that would convince them that the old ways and tensions can be put away and new ways adopted. It is not enough to have parties come to the negotiation table.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is often seen as an insoluble conflict, one that cannot be addressed by diplomacy. But there is one aspect of the conflict that was resolved with diplomacy, between Egypt and Israel. Egypt and Israel fought four wars that gave Israel the military upper hand. But how come diplomacy ultimately worked?
Quandt attributes the success of the 1978 Camp David Accords to four things:
Change of leadership in Egypt. When Anwar Sadat succeeded Gamal Abdel Nasser, he was determined to try a different path. He wanted to shift his international relationship from the Soviet Union to the US and knew that he would not be able to do that without making peace with Israel. Sadat began sending costly signals to the US by expelling Soviet advisers in Egypt and using backchannel messages to Nixon. Because Sadat saw no movement towards peace talks, he launched the 1973 war with Israel in order to break the status quo. Thus, it was not simply Sadat coming to power that changed things; rather, there was a gradual change over a few years. Sadat’s constant signaling, and his willingness to travel to Tel Aviv, made him able to change the course of Egyptian-Israeli relations.
Global context. This was a period of détente between the US and Soviet Union. It looked as if the US and Soviet Union could resolve some of their issues. This was no longer an international environment in which one superpower or the other was giving unconditional support to countries such as Israel and Egypt. Quandt sees a parallel to the present day global context, in which the US and Russia were able to work together in order to come to a chemical weapons deal with Syria.
Role of the mediator. Sadat asked the US to be the mediator between Egypt and Israel in the peace negotiations. Israel could explain to its public that the US pressured it into signing a peace treaty. The US could guarantee Egypt that Israel would return land in exchange for peace. President Carter was important to the ultimate success of the Camp David Accords. As mediator, he invited Sadat and Begin to Camp David for the summit. When the meeting started poorly, he presented the US plan for peace between the two countries and discussed it separately with both parties. The US maintained control of the drafting process. Carter’s personal relationship with Sadat was important in convincing Sadat to carry on with the negotiations.
Clear and mutual understanding of the end game. Israel and Egypt understood what they wanted and what the other country wanted. Israel wanted peace and was willing to return Sinai to Egypt for a guarantee of that peace.
Ultimately, Sadat got peace with Israel, the Sinai Peninsula back and a relationship with US. Begin was able to achieve peace with Egypt without making concessions on the Palestinian issue. The US gained strategic position in the region.
Quandt does not see these same factors present in the current Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. In order for these talks to be more serious, Secretary Kerry needs to do more of the “heavy lifting.” There is also currently no common point between the Israelis and Palestinians. That needs to be established in order to have a starting point for negotiations.
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The new good news from Afghanistan
I’m not talking about the old good news, which focuses on progress in Afghan society: declining infant mortality and maternal mortality, rising life expectancy, more girls in school, lots of cell phones, expanded electricity production and availability, economic growth. It has been apparent for some time that Afghanistan isn’t what it was under the Taliban and there will be serious resistance, especially in major cities and the north, to returning to that unhappy Islamist rule. Women and their rights are especially at risk.
A State Department official told me years ago that the best thing going for us in Afghanistan is that the population hates the Taliban more. Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless.
Today I’m talking about a more recent spate of good news: near agreement on the rules governing the status of US forces after 2014, relative hardiness of the Afghan security forces, decent preparations for next April’s elections, and even a poll showing two reasonable presidential candidates in the lead.
It’s all relative of course. There is still the important issue of jurisdiction over US troops to be resolved, apparently in the loya jirga Karzai is convening (next month?) to discuss the status of forces agreement. The Afghan security forces haven’t made any real progress against the Taliban–they just haven’t lost a great deal. Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani are certainly better than many of the other candidates, but there is still a long time before April. President Karzai’s brother Qayum polls in third place. Election preparations are one thing. We’ll need to wait to see how things really work.
Of course the Taliban are planning to have their say about all these things. They oppose the status of forces agreement, the loya jirga at which it is to be discussed, and the elections. As Mullah Omar puts it:
…the invaders and their allies should understand that the strategic agreement will accompany grave consequences for them. Though they may get these documents rubberstamped by a fake Loya Jirga but it will not be acceptable to the Afghans. Throughout the history, the real representatives and Loya Jirgas of the country have never signed documents of slavery. So those who would sign this (document), could not be called a representative Loya Jirga of the country. Their decisions are not acceptable. The invaders should know that their limited bases will never be accepted. The current armed Jihad will continue against them with more momentum…
The votes of the people have no value in the elections nor will participation benefit. Therefore, the Islamic Emirate rejects these elections and urge the people to avoid participation in them because this is only a drama being played by the invaders to attain their goals.
So a lot now depends on the military balance. The Americans are continuing to reduce their presence, now down to 52,000 and slated to go to 34,000 by next February. The Afghan security forces are going to have a hard time stepping into the breach.
News of the negotiations with the Taliban has been scarce. Given the dismal record, I’d say news coverage correlates with failure, not success. I really don’t know whether no news coverage indicates that something good is happening. Certainly Mullah Omar doesn’t seem to think so. The enthusiasm he evinced in August for negotiations seems to have faded with progress on the status of forces agreement.
As cold weather sets in, the fighting season will be ending in Afghanistan. We can expect terrorist activity in major cities, with the goal of disrupting election preparations. This will weight in favor of the agreement with the US, which will be vital to training and equipping Afghan forces as well as continuing strikes against terrorist groups. President Karzi isn’t convening a loya jirga to reject the agreement but rather to spread the responsibility for approving it.
As the snow melts, the real crunch will come. Will security be sufficient to allow Afghans from all parts of the country to vote? Will there be an agreement that somehow brings at least part of the Taliban into the political process and weakens its military efforts? Will today’s frontrunners fade as candidates with more warlord backing and clearer ethnic appeals rise in popularity, as has happened in previous Afghan elections? Will financial resources stay in the country and seek investments, or will they leave Afghanistan with the foreign troops?
I don’t know whether to believe the new good news from Afghanistan. We’ll just have to wait and see.
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