Month: May 2014
Between Iraq and a hard place
I’ve been too busy with meetings in New York yesterday and moderating a panel on the Iraq elections this morning to write much (not to mention my visit with grandson Ethan Isaac in Atlanta over the weekend). So I’m grateful for this quickly produced Middle East Institute podcast of the Iraq panel. I was joined for the occasion by former Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, now businessman (formerly Iraqi civil servant) Saif Abdul-Rahman, SAIS scholar Abbas Kadhim and National Defense University professor Denise Natali.
It seemed to me the bottom lines were these:
- The electoral process so far has gone better than expected, with strong turnout (60%) and relatively few complaints (854);
- The anticipated good but not overwhelming results for Prime Minister Maliki do not ensure the hat trick he seeks, but they make him the man to beat, in particular in intra-Shia negotiations;
- The government formation process will be difficult and possibly prolonged, leaving Maliki in power with the advantages of incumbency;
- The security conditions under which the process will unfold are precarious in several central provinces, including not only Anbar but also Saladin and Diyala;
- The regional conditions are also precarious, with Syria unraveling and high tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia;
- Because of its internal fault lines, Iraq is highly vulnerable to external pressures (mainly from Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia), including some that could lead in the direction of state failure.
Iraqis have still not created a state that all its sects and ethnicities feel comfortable in. It needs a stronger political compact. The Kurds are on the fiscal ropes and need a deal with Baghdad, but independence sentiment is growing. Some Sunni-majority provinces are seeking “region” status; why shouldn’t they have it, consistent with the constitution?
Extremists are taking advantage of the tense internal situation in ways that pose real threats to US interests. Washington should pay more attention than it does, not only to Iraq’s immediate military and intelligence requirements but also to fulfilling civilian aspects of the strategic framework agreement, which remains far short of the implementation it merits.
Those are the points that stick in my mind. There is much more of merit where that came from. Listening to the whole thing won’t be the worst 90 minutes you’ve indulged in lately. I commend it to you!
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Peace picks May 12 – 16
1. Morocco’s Approach to Countering Violent Extremism
Monday, May 12 | 12:30pm
Webcast only
Morocco’s traditionally strong counterterrorism efforts are now being challenged by the spread of terrorism to even the most stable parts of the region. At a time when al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is posing a formidable threat to the neighborhood, the crisis in Syria continues to serve as a magnet for aspiring jihadists, including Moroccans. Meanwhile, prisons in the region often facilitate radicalization rather than deter it, raising questions about how best to prevent and counter extremism and terrorism.
To discuss these and other aspects of Morocco’s threat environment, The Washington Institute is pleased to host a Policy Forum with Mohamed Salah Tamek.
Mohamed Salah Tamek is the delegate-general of Morocco’s Penitentiary and Reintegration Administration. Previously, he served as governor of the Oued Eddahab province, chief of staff to the interior minister, ambassador to Norway, and head of the security portion of the U.S.-Morocco Strategic Dialogue.
2. Meet the Syria Opposition
Monday, May 12 | 3 – 4pm
New America Foundation, 1899 L Street NW Suite 400
The Syrian conflict just entered its fourth year and according to some estimates the death toll is approaching 150,000 killed. A revolution that began peacefully has morphed into one of the most violent wars in recent memory, creating not just bloodshed but an unparalleled humanitarian crisis. “Victory” for any party remains elusive, the Geneva talks proved fruitless and the UN’s Syria envoy is preparing to leave the task for someone else. So what possible solutions exist for Syria? After years of fighting, a fractured society, unspeakable brutality and a lack of commitment from the international community, is Syria’s future anything but bleak?
Join us for a conversation with members of the Syrian opposition delegation currently visiting Washington, DC for meetings with senior U.S. officials. They will discuss the opposition’s vision for a new Syria and what solutions, if any, exist for the current impasse. In addition, they will address the growing global concern over the rising power of extremists and what efforts are currently underway to counter these trends. Finally, the delegation will provide the latest updates and developments from the field as well as a blueprint for the future.
PARTICIPANTS
Hadi al-Bahra
Chief Negotiator and Secretary General of Political Committee
Monzer Akbik
Chief of Staff, Office of the President of the Syrian Coalition
Rime Allaf
Advisor to the President of the Syrian Coalition
Moderator:
Adnan Zulfiqar
Fellow, Truman National Security Project
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Belgrade starts down a difficult path
After weeks of post-election negotiations, Serbia has a new government. Except for the addition of an ethnic Hungarian minority party – the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) – the ruling coalition essentially consists of the two major parties that formed the previous one: Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and Ivica Dačić’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). The most visible difference is that Vučić has replaced Dačić as prime minister, while Dačić will hold the positions of vice-premier and foreign minister.
While Vučić was de facto the most powerful figure in the previous government as well, the acquisition of almost two thirds of parliamentary seats through a sweeping electoral victory by his party allows him to formalize his status and continue the consolidation of power more freely. This has caused many to wonder why he nevertheless chose to incorporate SPS into the government even though SNS could have comfortably ruled alone.
Part of the explanation lies in the severity of proposed economic reforms. Vučić wants to reach as broad a political consensus as possible in order to neutralize potential opposition once the reforms start to hurt large portions of people. SPS would be a far more dangerous opponent than the Democratic Party (DS) or the New Democratic Party (NDS), not only because it enjoys considerably greater public support but also because DS and NDS are deeply embroiled in mutual rivalry, as they compete for more or less the same voters.
Despite his current popularity, Vučić is aware that he will be blamed if reforms fail to yield expected results. He also knows his popularity will inevitably decline with the implementation of each new unpopular measure. The only question is how much. The success of reforms does not depend solely on Vučić’s or anyone’s individual will but rather on a variety of impersonal factors, both internal and external.
In order for structural reforms to succeed, they have to be both comprehensive and carefully timed. Partial implementation, with too many compromises in the process, will not suffice. Positive effects will not be felt in the near term. It will take years before people see tangible improvement in their quality of life, and only on condition that the government does not give up in the meantime in the face of strong public resistance.
The government plans to execute two sets of reforms. The first and more urgent pertain to fiscal consolidation aimed at preventing a looming financial default. The second, and in the long term more important, includes a radical change in business philosophy to make it much more friendly to private entrepreneurship. Adding to the complexity, economic reforms will have to be accompanied by a complete institutional overhaul, with emphasis on the judicial system.
On the foreign policy front, Kosovo will remain a top priority for Serbia’s European partners. In one way or another, the Brussels agreement will reverberate throughout the accession talks. With EU membership years away, Serbia’s formal recognition of its former province should not be expected any time soon. For one thing, Belgrade sees Kosovo as a useful lever in shaping its broader relationship with the West. The pace of Serbia’s EU integration will also hinge on how the lingering European crisis affects general sentiment within member states regarding enlargement policy.
On Ukraine, the government has tried to remain neutral. While analysts are warning that Serbia will not be able to maintain such a position for long, that may not necessarily be the case. The West is unlikely to place too much pressure on Belgrade for fear that it could undermine cooperativeness in dealing with Kosovo. Furthermore, even EU countries are divided on how to respond to Moscow’s latest actions. Last but not least, the EU understands Serbia’s vast energy dependence on Russia. Belgrade is particularly worried about the potential impact of the dispute between Russia and the West on the future of South Stream. Vučić’s government is pinning great hopes on the project, expecting the pipeline construction to boost economic activity and thus facilitate critically important job creation. However, if the crisis over Ukraine escalates further, pressure on Belgrade to take sides will grow accordingly.
The new government has chosen the path of serious reform. But given the challenges lying ahead, nothing can be taken for granted.
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Why Putin maybe blinked
It is easy to predict how many babies will be born next year. It is hard to predict who the individual mothers will be. That’s one of the important lessons in international affairs, where the decisions of unique individuals often matter.
Forty-eight hours after I posted that we should expect worse in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin decided to lower the tension. He claims to have withdrawn Russian troops from the Ukrainian border and to have asked the Russian-speaking insurgents in eastern and southern Ukraine not to conduct a May 11 referendum on independence. The US and NATO are saying they’ve seen no evidence of either claim. He is also sounding amiable about the May 25 presidential election that Kiev is organizing.
What made Putin blink? I don’t know. Maybe the significant declines in Russia’s credit rating, stock market and currency since he started up the Ukraine crisis. Maybe some of the sanctions are starting to bite. Maybe the withdrawals from his St. Petersburg economic forum weighed heavily. Maybe the Swiss President, who met with Putin just before he made his comments about Ukraine, said something about personal or institutional finance that gave the Russian President pause. Maybe it’s all a ruse to catch the West off balance and tomorrow he’ll invade.
Whatever his tactical maneuvers, Putin will not lose sight of his strategic goal: to dominate the Russian-speaking areas of eastern and southern Ukraine and deprive Kiev of the authority it needs to counter Moscow’s preferences, including its opposition to Ukrainian membership in NATO and a closer relationship with the EU. The cheapest and easiest way to achieve his purposes is autonomy for the Russian-speaking provinces, and some sort of “entity” binding them together. He is all too familiar with recent precedents for this: Republika Srpska in Bosnia and the Association of Serb Municipalities in Kosovo.
No doubt some degree of decentralization will be part of the solution in Ukraine. It is not only American communities that want to run their own schools, provide services, maintain their own infrastructure and manage their own revenues. The Federal government has little to say about my daily life. I interact far more often with the District of Columbia, which collects much of its own revenue and in many respects governs itself, despite the residue of Congressional oversight that no state has to put up with.
What Kiev has to be careful about is to maintain its authority over foreign affairs, defense, the judiciary and at least some of the forces of law and order. It also needs a supremacy clause, like the one in the existing constitution, that enables it to override local decisions that threaten the integrity of the state, including the holding of referenda on independence.
Putin is not going to be interested in decentralization, which would block him from the kind of dominant position in Ukraine that he seeks. Decentralization to provincial administrations will make it more difficult for Russian-speakers to unify and fight Kiev, even if it enables them a wide margin of control over the services provided within the provinces.
My best guess is that Putin blinked to provide some time for negotiations to produce the result he wants. President Obama is not the only one who prefers not to use military force but instead accomplish his ends by diplomatic means.
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What the Syrian opposition wants
Yesterday morning the US Institute of Peace hosted President Ahmad Jarba, head of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, for his first public address in DC. Ambassador William B. Taylor moderated.
President Jarba described the Syrian crisis as one of the most dramatic human catastrophes in modern times. It is more than Syrians can handle. Originally Syrians had gone out to demand the dignity that was taken away from them more than 40 years ago. The Assad family has ruled Syria with an iron fist and deprived its people of human rights and political dignity. “Have you ever heard of a ruler who would bombard his own people with Scud missiles, chemical weapons, and torture detainees in prison?” President Jarba asked. Syrians have experienced all sorts of violence and degradation. All efforts must come together to save Syrians from this bloody chain of events, which worsens every day. The Syrian opposition opposes terrorism and extremism. But there is a distinction to be made between Jabhat al Nusra, an extremist group of mostly Syrians that fights the regime, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which includes a lot of non-Syrians and does not fight the regime. Assad’s forces never attack ISIS because it is in league with the regime. The opposition seeks a political solution. They went to Geneva with a positive attitude. As Lakhdar Brahimi said, the Assad regime was responsible for the failure of the political process. The opposition will always strive to reach a political solution. Geneva failed but even now a political solution is what the opposition seeks. This will not happen by nominating the criminal Assad again for the presidency. He wants to run for office on the dead bodies of Syrians. If this succeeds, it will be an international license for Assad to kill more of his people for many years to come. There must be a strong stance against this bloodthirsty tyrant. The opposition is trying to establish an interim government to operate in liberated areas. But Assad’s air force burns and attacks Syrians on a daily basis. This blocks progress in liberated areas. The opposition needs weapons to eliminate the burning barrels that fall on residential buildings and kill civilians. The balance of power must be changed on the ground for real political progress in Syria to take place.
Ambassador Taylor asked if the regime was winning. What can the opposition do to reverse this? The Homs agreement is on people’s minds. What are the opposition’s plans for the immediate future? President Jarba replied that Homs is important for the Syrian revolution. Many consider it the core of opposition. However, the war is not just about gaining or losing a city. It’s about the whole conflict. Even if Homs is completely controlled by the opposition, no one will be secure because of the air raids and barrel bombs. The main goal is to end the conflict. One of the best ways of doing this is to have a weapon that can respond to the air raids. The opposition is gaining ground in a lot of cities. On a humanitarian level the situation is horrible, but the military situation on the ground is not as bad as some believe. The opposition is losing and gaining ground, just like in other conflicts. The opposition can defeat the regime, but the main problem is the air force.
Ambassador Taylor: What specifically do you want the US to do or not do? Are there specific things you want the US to do to end conflict?
President Jarba answered that Syrians do not want the US to send in troops to fight. He thanked the US for politically supporting the opposition at the UN Security Council. The US has always supported any resolution emanating from the Security Council, despite Russian veto. The US has also supported Syria at a humanitarian level, which hopefully it will continue to do. The opposition has a problem with air raids and barrel bombs. The opposition wants weapons that would be able to neutralize Assad’s air force. The opposition needs effective, efficient weapons in the right hands. The opposition is committed to keeping them in the right hands. Also, the opposition wants political resolution towards a transitional government. This is the only solution to bring back stability and to allow for Assad to leave country.
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Success is not built on lies
Ron Neumann joined CSIS’s Gerry Hyman and Tony Cordesman this morning for a presentation of Gerry’s “Afghanistan after the Drawdown: US Civilian Engagement in Afghanistan Post-2014.”
Gerry’s focus is on defining limited, feasible objectives and deploying the resources needed to achieve them after the US draws down its forces by the end of the year. As things stand today, both we and the Afghans have too many objectives that are too ambitious. We need to rethink and make difficult choices. He proposes we focus on three critical areas: security, governance and economic growth, in that order of priority. Civilians should focus on governance and economic growth.
He lays out three scenarios: optimistic, muddling through and pessimistic. In all three, he throws health, education, infrastructure, civil society and women’s empowerment overboard. He anticipates funding will decline in all the scenarios, but what can be achieved is obviously less difficult in the optimistic scenario and more difficult in the pessimistic scenario. Muddling through is the best a reasonable observer would hope for.
But it won’t be easy. The report says:
It is hard to see any scenario in which the A[fghan] N[ational] S[ecurity] F[orces] will maintain their ground let alone defeat the insurgency.
The war will continue in Afghanistan, even if the US is no longer a daily participant. Prospects for a negotiated solution with the Taliban are minimal. US forces at the level anticipated (below 9000) will be able to do little. The security environment for civilians working on governance and the economy will be perilous.
Governance in Afghanistan “remains troubled.” The government
is weak, ineffective, and accountable (if at all) mostly through payments and concessions to the demands of rapacious power-holders. Corruption is rampant. Public positions are…bought and sold….Performance is modest. Public suspicion and animosity is high.
The centralized state that Karzai and the internationals have sought to impose lacks legitimacy with the people. It does not reflect the complexity of social and political reality in Afghanistan. The country needs more local governance, including through traditional communal mechanisms. The presidential election, currently between its first and second rounds, represents the best near-term hope for improving the situation.
The Afghan economy, as Tony illustrated in his commentary, is currently dependent on the foreign military presence, aid, drugs and–this one surprised me–abundant rain. Recent good growing seasons, he said, account for a good deal of the economic growth that AID and the State Department try to take credit for. The CSIS report suggests that minerals are a likely future source of economic growth, but mining will not provide the numbers of jobs required (500,000 new workers enter the labor force each year). Carpets are not going to soak up the rest.
Cordesman added his usual dose of well-documented negativity. We face three threats in Afghanistan as elsewhere: the enemy, the host government and ourselves. The US government has done no decent planning. The surge did not work. Things are getting worse. The much-vaunted improvements in education and life expectancy have little statistical basis. Budget execution has been miserable. Revenues are dropping. The funding gap is growing. The commitments made at the 2012 Tokyo conference have amounted to zero. There is a big increase in opium cultivation. Success is never built on lies.
Poor Ron. He was presumably there to counter-balance Tony (Marc Grossman couldn’t make it due to illness). He tried, with the kind of good-humored anecdata diplomats employ well: Afghans are optimistic, election security was good, twice as many people voted as last time around, Kandahar is improved. No, the war is not ending, just the heavy American participation. But what we do still matters. It is time for us to be steady, not make big strategic choices.* Governance and economic growth are difficult. They have long lead times. We should not be too pessimistic about the ANSF. They can hold territory.
That’s when I got a phone call. I didn’t stay for the Q and A. Too much of a downer already. I went off to enjoy Syrian Opposition Coalition President Jarba. Not a proper antidote, obviously.
*Ron Neumann informs me that I missed some key points. He does not want avoid strategy indefinitely but to build it in consultation with next Afghan government and president when we can make reasonable estimation of we can expect from him. We also need to know what our troop decision will be. At that point we will have most elements necessary for a strategy. I don’t think that can be well done only on a scenario basis that excludes key participants and decisions.
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