Month: November 2013
Maliki makes his case
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was in Washington last week to talk about Iraq’s problems and the future of US-Iraq relations. Maliki’s trip culminated on Friday, with a visit to the White House to meet with President Obama and Vice President Biden. On Thursday, Maliki spoke to a large audience at the United States Institute of Peace.
Iraq has experienced significant change since the United States withdrew its troops from the country in 2011. The economy has improved over the last few years, according to Maliki’s op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday, with an overall expansion of 9.6 percent in 2011 and 10.5 percent in 2012. The nation’s oil production has increased by 50 percent since 2005. Iraq is on pace to become the world’s second largest energy exporter by 2030.
But the security situation is dire. The presence of extremist groups like Al-Qaeda in Iraq has increased with the seemingly interminable and volatile situation in Syria. Sectarian tension is on the rise, with increased instances of violence. Read more
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The quickest way out of the Balkans
It doesn’t rank high in the annals of Balkan history, but the apparent Greek suggestion that Macedonia be renamed “Slavo-Albanian Macedonia” is certainly one of the more offensive and revealing maneuvers of recent times. Greeks know that Macedonians don’t like to be characterized as Slavs, even though their language is a Slavic one. It’s a bit like the term “redskins”: offensive despite the veneer of descriptiveness.
The proposal is also calculated to cause trouble between Macedonians and Albanians, the two most populous ethnic groups in the country. Never mind the other minorities the country counts among its citizens, including Turks, Roma, Serbs and Vlachs. They won’t be pleased either. There is a reason the French call a fruit salad une macédoine.
The Greek suggestion is calculated to irritate Skopje, but it ought also to annoy the international community, which has been hoping for two decades that Macedonia and Greece would come to a compromise solution on the “name” issue. Greece has simply confirmed what should have been obvious: there will be no solution based on the free will of Athens and Skopje. Greek Prime Minister Samaras has wanted the collapse of his northern neighbor. Better to increase the chances of that than solve the problem. Conversely, Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevski sees no possibility of a negotiated solution better than the one he already has: the entire world calls Macedonia Macedonia, except for Greece. He is not blameless in the failure to reach a negotiated solution. Read more
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Tomorrow’s Kosovo elections
| Milan Marinkovic writes from Nis, about Sunday’s municipal elections in Kosovo:Given the importance of the forthcoming local elections in Kosovo for the ongoing normalization between Kosovo and Serbia and, consequently, both countries’ European perspective, it is clear that Brussels, Priština and Belgrade all want the process to succeed. One measure of success will be voter turnout, which all sides hope to be as high as possible. Another measure relates to whether the elections will pass in a peaceful atmosphere.
As for voter turnout, politicians can do their best to encourage people to vote, but cannot force them to do so. Everyone has their own right to decide for themselves whether or not to cast a ballot. In the case of those who will eventually boycott the vote, the key question is how many of them will abstain because they really don’t want to participate in the election (regardless of anyone’s personal reasons), and how many due to fear of Serb extremists like those seen in the Youtube video below. The latter concern logically raises the question of what kind of and how large security presence will be needed to avoid any possible incident during the elections and thus keep the voters safe. Read more |
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The other North Korean challenge
I don’t write much about North Korea, because I don’t know a lot about it. But I’m convinced it poses a potentially enormous challenge on two fronts:
- as a nuclear power
- as a collapsed state
Bruce Bennett’s presentation on the second challenge at Heritage Foundation October 17 strikes me as generally well-informed, even if might quarrel on details (I don’t much like the idea of airdropping humanitarian assistance, for example). So I’m posting it here, along with a link to his RAND study on Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse. Those who think the United States doesn’t need a capacity to plan for and deal with weak, fragile or collapsed states–in this case in cooperation with South Korea–should take note:
As Bennett points out, the issue is not whether we would want to intervene, but whether we would have to in order to avoid serious risks to our own national security as a result of North Korean collapse. It is clear that any intervention would have to be a combined military/civilian operation.
I am hoping to have a post up soon on the UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Public Hearing, held here at SAIS this week. Human rights violations are a clear warning sign of state collapse.
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My morning mail from Belgrade
My morning mail brought this from the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade, in reference to the upcoming municipal elections in Kosovo, including for the first time under Pristina authority in the north:
CEAS POLICY BRIEF
YOUR FACE SOUNDS FAMILIAR
REGARDING THE USE OF PUBLIC PROPERTY IN THE “CLEANSING” OF NORTHERN KOSOVO OF ELECTION MATERIAL, AND SOME OTHER SECURITY CHALLENGES AND THREATS TO THE UPCOMING LOCAL ELECTIONS IN KOSOVO
CENTER FOR EURO – ATLANTIC STUDIES, NOVEMBER 2013.
The Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies (CEAS) calls upon Serbian officials to pay attention and state their position on the use of public property in the action of “cleansing Northern Kosovo” from election materials for the upcoming local elections in Kosovo, which has been carried out on October 28, 2013 by “self-organized citizens”, as stated in the video available now for a couple of days already on the internet channel YouTube:
In the video, among other, the use of cranes for trimming trees and repairing traffic lights is obvious, both of which are hardly private property. The speed and professionalism in which individuals in the video are painting over the election materials with spray paint is also worrying. Read more
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