Day: September 23, 2014
Peace picks, September 23-26
- Religious Peacebuilding: The Approach of the U.S. Institute of Peace Tuesday, September 23 | 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Rumi Forum; 750 First Street NE, Suite 1120, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND The Religion and Peacebuilding Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace was launched in July 2000 to analyze religious dynamics in conflict and to advance the peace-building roles of religious actors and organizations in conflict zones. For the past 14 years, the U.S. Institute of Peace has been organizing programs to address zones of conflict from a religious perspective. This presentation will present some of the lessons learned from this effort. Speakers include David Smock, director of the Religion and Peacebuilding Center and vice-president, Governance, Law & Society; Palwasha Kakar, Senior Program Officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace; and Susan Hayward, Senior Program Officer focussing on conflict prevention, resolution, and reconciliation.
- Libya’s Civil War Wednesday, September 24 | 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Frederic Wehrey will present the findings of a new paper on the institutional roots of Libya’s violence and present options for how the United States and the international community can assist. Wolfram Lacher, associate in the Middle East and Africa research division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Faraj Najem, director of Salam Centre for African Research in Tripoli, Libya, and a professor of public administration at Benghazi University, and Dirk Vandewalle professor of Government at Dartmouth College and the Carter Center’s field office director in Libya, will act as discussants and share their own insights. Michele Dunne, senior associate in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, will moderate.
- Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance Wednesday, September 24 | 12:15 pm – 1:45 pm New America Foundation; 1899 L St., NW, Suite 400, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND US Army Col. Joel Rayburn will discuss his book, Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance. In it, he notes that the authoritarianism, sectarianism, and Islamist resistance that dominate Iraq’s post-U.S. political order have created a toxic political and social brew, preventing Iraq’s political elite from resolving the fundamental roots of conflict that have wracked the country before and since 2003. Rayburn will examine key aspects of the US legacy in Iraq, analyzing what it means for the United States and others that, after more than a decade of conflict, Iraq’s communities have not yet found a way to live together in peace.
- The Legal Basis for Military Action against ISIS Thursday, September 25 | 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium; 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Charles Stimson, Manager of the National Security Law Program will host a conversation concerning the legality of the Obama Administration’s strategic plan to degrade and destroy the Islamic State. Key to the discussion will be whether the President should request a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) specific to ISIS, or whether the administration can rely either on AUMFs issued previously in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, or on the President’s Article II powers alone. Joining the discussion will be Steven Bradbury, Partner at Dechert LLP, Robert Chesney, Charles I. Francis Professor of Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law, and Steven Vladeck, Professor of Law at The Washington College of Law, American University.
- Is There a Role for Religious Actors in Countering Radicalization and Violent Extremism? Friday, September 26 | 10:30 am – 12:00 pm US Institute of Peace; 2301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND USIP will host an event featuring three panelists from its recent Symposium, who will present insights drawn from the workshop and their own experiences of combatting extremism. Violent extremism is a pressing issue today, affecting many regions and the wider global community, and efforts to counter such extremism require strategic and sensitive approaches. While civil society has an important role to play in countering extremism, religious actors are well positioned to address some of its root causes, particularly in areas in which extremism is couched in religious terms. Moderating the discussion is Georgia Holmer, Deputer Director, Rule of Law Center. She will be joined by H. E. Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, President of Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, Pastor Esther Ibanga, President, Women Without Walls Initiative, and Vinya Ariyaratne, the General Secretary at Sarvodaya.
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Why now and what next
Today’s big story is the American-led air attack on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) installations, mainly in and around Raqqa in eastern Syria, and on Khorasan, an Al Qaeda alumni group thought to be plotting attacks on the US homeland. As usual, there is an air of triumphalism in the press coverage, which derives mainly from the Pentagon: this and that were hit, little collateral damage was done, ISIL will have suffered serious losses. Five Arab countries are said to have pitched in to help.
But it is important to ask why this attack came now and what comes next.
The last few days have seen major ISIL advances against Syrian Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria. More than one hundred thousand thirty thousand Kurds are reported to have entered Turkey. This is a colossal number in a short time, even for a country that has already absorbed ten times that number and prides itself on being well-prepared and generous to refugees. Another 400,000 may be on the move. The attack on ISIL in Raqqa is likely an effort to stem its advances against the Kurds, protect Turkey and prevent further losses of territory. In other words, it came now because the military situation is desperate.
It is not at all clear what comes next. The Free Syrian Army and its supporters are not strong in eastern Syria and likely will be unable to take advantage of the air strikes. The Kurdish forces may be in a better position, though they will have been weakened and scattered by recent ISIL advances. ISIL will quickly embed its forces with the civilian population, making it difficult to strike further from the air without major collateral damage.
Unfortunately this means is that the air strikes may be creating ungoverned spaces in which we have no means to prevent radicalization and haven for international terrorists. While perhaps necessary to save the Syrian Kurds from mass atrocities, there is no reason to believe we have the capacity to follow up with serious efforts to fill the vacuum we create.
The Administration has been slow to recognize the emerging problems in Syria and Iraq. Now it is acting more quickly than its allies can consolidate the gains. ISIL may not be a state, but it is more than a small terrorist group. Best to regard it as an insurgency against both the Syrian and Iraqi states. Winning will require a counter-insurgency strategy (clear, hold and build), not just a counter-terrorism strategy (kill, chase or capture them). You can begin to clear insurgents with air attacks, but finishing the job and moving on to holding and building will require capacities on the ground that we appear still to lack.
PS: Here is today’s related panel on the occasion of the Bipartisan Policy Center threat assessment of “Jihadist Terrorism” with Peter Bergen, Mary Habeck and Will McCants:
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
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Yemen and Afghanistan
What do Yemen and Afghanistan have in common? They have both reached power sharing agreements in the last couple of days. In Afghanistan, President-elect Ghani has agreed to share power with runner-up Abdullah, who is to be named “chief executive” operating under the President’s authority but sharing the President’s appointment and some other powers. In Yemen, the northern Houthi insurgents are slated to get a bigger slice of power in Sanaa, which they have invested, capturing key installations.
Power sharing is never easy, but sometimes necessary.
In Afghanistan, it will deprive the electorate of what it apparently voted for, which is Ashraf Ghani as president. At the same time, it will avoid a clash that might have become violent, or paralyzing. Abdullah and his supporters are convinced that only fraud could have caused his first-round lead to evaporate. They prevailed on the election commission not to release the final tally, which apparently had the margin as 55/45. Ghani, while insisting on the chief executive reporting to the president will be delegating implementation of government policy to someone he has been criticizing for many months.
In Yemen, the gap is even wider. The Houthi, who are Shia, are expected to share power with the Sunni Islah party. The rivalries among President Hadi, former President Saleh and various military warlords are intricate. Saleh notoriously described governing Yemen as dancing on the heads of snakes. Now Hadi will be dancing with partners on the heads of snakes. But there was no alternative: the surprising military success of the Houthi, who descended on Sanaa from their northern enclave, made it imperative to negotiate a power sharing arrangement, which UN envoy Jamal Benomar obligingly did.
In Ghani’s case, we know in surprising detail what he will try to accomplish. He literally wrote the book on Fixing Failed States. There he put rule of law, a monopoly on the legitimate means of violence and administrative control at the top of the list. Next comes sound management of public finances (he is a former finance minister) and investments in human capital (he is also a former chancellor of Kabul University). Social policy, market formation, management of public assets and effective public borrowing complete his “framework for rebuilding a fractured world.” While I imagine as president Ghani will concentrate his own efforts on the justice and security priorities, he will be an exigent taskmaster in the other areas as well.
No Houthis are writing textbooks in English to my knowledge. The best guidance we have on what is supposed to happen in Yemen is the detailed power sharing agreement itself, which sets out specific deadlines and a detailed process for naming a new, more inclusive, government. It also dictates a series of priority economic, social and electoral reforms as well as security arrangements in Sanaa and other areas of Houthi military activity. The agreement is even more specific than Ghani’s book, which as a generally applicable text needed to maintain a higher level of abstraction. But already the Houthis are said to have refused to sign the annex providing for their own disarmament, demobilization and reintegration.
So what are the odds that these agreements will be implemented as written and hold past the next six months or so? Not good. Experience suggests that they will be renegotiated, perhaps repeatedly. But that is the good news. Their purpose is to avoid or end violence. So long as the protagonists are engaged in trying to ensure implementation of an agreement by peaceful means, we should be satisfied that the agreements are serving their main purpose. And in Africa it has been shown that peaceful outcomes after elections correlate not with successful power sharing but rather with repeated renegotiation of power sharing agreements!
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