Month: October 2014
Not doing something is also doing something
Tuesday’s Bipartisan Policy Center event – ISIS, the Kurds and Turkey: A Messy Triangle – was a timely discussion of the difficulties facing coalition efforts in Syria, while shedding light on Turkey’s reluctance to become involved in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) raging along its southern border. BPC’s Foreign Policy Director Blaise Misztal moderated the panel of Eric Edelman, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and former Ambassador to Turkey, and Henri Barkey of BPC’s Turkey Initiative.
The problems surrounding provision of Western support to the Kurds in the north of Syria stem from tensions between the Turkish government and Turkish Kurds – particularly supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Though Turkey under Prime Minister Erdogan has developed good ties with the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, Barkey believes that the possibility of a second autonomous Kurdish statelet in Syria on Turkey’s border is too much to bear for the Turks.
The Democratic Union Party (PYD) is the strongest Syrian-Kurdish player in the conflict today. The PYD has close links with the YPG (People’s Protection Units), which are the militia that are so effectively holding off ISIS against the odds in Kobani and earlier this year helped rescue Iraqi Yazidis from the siege on Mount Sinjar. The strength of the PYD in Syria is troubling for Ankara, because in the event of Syria fracturing it could form a new Kurdish state. This would provide further impetus to Kurds within Turkey calling for independence.
The PYD’s links to the PKK help explain Turkish inaction in the ongoing current fighting in Kobani. Last week a former Turkish Deputy Prime Minister went as far as to label the PKK worse than ISIS on Twitter. Although the PKK’s long running guerrilla campaign against the Turks was suspended with a ceasefire in 2013, the subsequent peace process is looking increasingly fragile. Turkey yesterday again bombed the PKK.
Edelman believes Turkey wants to ensure the ongoing negotiations with the Turkish government are the only option the Kurds have for meeting any of their demands. Ankara fears military success in Syria might provide impetus for stronger calls for independence from Kurds inside Turkey. By not aiding the PKK, Turkey hopes to cut the group and its offshoots down to size. But as recent violent riots in response to the government’s inaction have shown, this strategy may well produce unintended consequences.
Perhaps more concerning to the coalition, Turkey is allowing its concerns about the Kurds to permit the spread of the Islamic State. Because Turkey is not intervening or aiding Kurdish fighters in Kobani, ISIS has gained repeated opportunities to take the town. ISIS success would open the border further to foreign jihadist hopefuls, who already use Turkey as a final staging point before entering to join extremist groups.
That porous border – and the networks designed to funnel recruits from Istanbul airport to the Syrian border – are yet more examples of Turkey’s attempts at realpolitik throughout the Syrian civil war. Edelman notes that while Erdogan’s government was initially supportive of Assad, once Damascus turned to bloody repression the Turkish government, embarrassed by its choice of friends, decided to topple the Syrian regime as quickly as possible.
This led to a period of tacit Turkish support for jihadist groups (notably Jabhat al-Nusra) for two reasons. First, the Free Syrian Army, which Turkey trained and supported, proved unable to deliver quick victories. Second, Turkish policy became increasingly oriented towards Sunni majoritarianism. The desire for a quick toppling of Assad led to Turkish aid and arms – at least for a time – for groups like Jabhat al-Nusra.
Neither Edelman nor Barkley believe Turkey’s government has intentionally or directly supported ISIS itself. According to Edelman, the current inaction against ISIS is not just rooted in a wariness of the Kurds, but also a realization that actions against ISIS will have direct consequences for Turkey’s security. The kidnap of 47 Turkish diplomatic personnel after the fall of Mosul exemplifies this reason for caution. The hostages were released last month, but the details of the negotiations are murky. It remains unclear what prisoner exchanges or promises were involved.
Turkey’s priorities are fundamentally different from those laid out by the Obama administration in forming a coalition to degrade and destroy ISIS. Turkey was willing to topple Assad as fast as possible, even at the expense of aiding jihadis. Now with ISIS on the border, Ankara is worried about the possibility of a Kurdish state in Syria. It is more interested in countering the PKK and PYD than in fighting ISIS.
But if Turkey allows ISIS to take Kobani, the result may yet strengthen the Kurdish movement. Barkey compared the siege to Iraqi Kurdistan’s Halabja. The Iraqi town Saddam Hussein gassed has become a potent symbol, complete with folkloric defenders. Both speakers believe Kobani will be a defining moment regardless of the outcome. Turkey is hoping by its inaction to prevent an unfavorable future. But that inaction may be making it more likely that it will eventually have such an unfavorable future forced upon it.
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Peace picks October 14-17
I’ll be in Istanbul, but the week in DC will be a busy one after a welcome but gray three-day weekend:
- Conflict Prevention and Resolution: Ebola, Health Security, Conflict and Peacebuilding Tuesday 14 | 9:30 am – 11:00 am Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies; Rome Building 1619 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Richard Garfield, emergency response and recovery team lead for Assessment, Surveillance, and Information Management at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Deborah Rosenblum, executive vice president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, will discuss this topic. There will be a live webcast of this event.
- Boko Haram, ISIS and the Caliphate Today Tuesday 14 | 9:30 am – 10:45 am Georgetown University, 37 St NW and O St NW, Washington DC, Edward B. Bunn, S.J. Intercultural Center, 270 REGISTER TO ATTEND ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and Boko Haram in northern Nigeria continue to use an overlapping language of political Islam and references to the caliphate and the Shariah. This event brings together Brookings fellow Shadi Hamid, visiting professor at Georgetown University Emad Shahin, and visiting assistant professor at Georgetown, Alex Thurston, to discuss these complex issues.
- ISIS, the Kurds and Turkey: A Messy Triangle Tuesday 14 | 10:00 am – 11:30 am Bipartisan Policy Center; 1225 I Street, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND The Kurds have been on the front lines against ISIS for the better part of two years. During recent fighting in Kobani, Turkey has tried to block Syrian Kurdish refugees escaping ISIS from crossing the border, and fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party from entering Syria to join the fight. Eric Edelman, former ambassador to Turkey, and members of BPC’s Turkey Initiative Henri Barkey and Svante Cornell will discuss the complicated relations between ISIS, the Kurds, and Turkey. They will also consider the role that the Kurds and Turkey might be able to play in confronting ISIS and what US policy towards each group should be.
- The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Has the US Failed? Wednesday 15 | 9:30 am – 12:00 pm Middle East Policy Council; The Phoenix Park Hotel, 520 North Capitol St NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Speakers at this conference will include Daniel Kurtzer, former Ambassador to Israel and Egypt and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs; Matthew Duss, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace; Natan Sachs, Fellow at the Brookings Institution; and Yousef Munayyer, Executive Director of the Jerusalem Fund and the Palestine Center. Omar Kader, Chairman of the Board at MEPC will moderate, and the discussant will be Thomas Mattair, Executive Director at MEPC.
- Fighting ISIS: The Future of American Foreign Policy in the Middle East Wednesday 15 | 3:00 pm – 5:00pm American University; 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC EVENT WEBSITE Moderated by David Gregory of AU’s School of International Service. The panel will consist of David Ignatius, Washington Post; Susan Glasser, Politico; and Akbar Ahmed, Professor at SIS.
- Terrorist Financing Networks in the Middle East and South Asia: A Comparative Assessment Thursday 16 | 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Middle East Institute; 1761 N Street NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND The ascent of the Islamic State has raised critical questions about how terrorist organizations are being financed. A comparison of terrorist financing networks in South Asia and the Middle East can offer insights into the differences and similarities in the funding of global terrorist efforts and how money is making its way into the hands of violent terrorist groups. Amit Kumar, fellow of the Center of National Policy at Georgetown University will discuss the methods, motivations, and efficacy of terrorist financing networks. He will also examine implications for policy, and will consider whether current countermeasures effectively prevent the funding of terrorist networks, or whether there are other strategies that can better curb this global threat. Marvin Weinbaum, scholar at MEI, will moderate.
- Parliamentary Elections 2014: Tunisia’s Political Landscape Thursday 16 | 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Atlantic Council; 1030 15th St NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND On October 26, Tunisians will cast their ballots to choose a parliament, marking the first major step out of the interim phase of the democratic transition. However questions remain as to the leading political parties’ ability to translate rhetoric into action and address serious security and economic challenges. To discuss this, and the importance of the elections to Tunisia’s progress, Atlantic Council will hold a conversation with representatives from the two main political parties in Tunisia: Zied Mhirsi of Nidaa Tounes and Osama Al-Saghir of Ennahda. They will offer insights about their respective parties’ platforms. Joining them will be Scott Mastic, director for Middle East and North Africa programs at the International Republican Institute. Karim Mezran, Senior Fellow at Atlantic Council will moderate.
- Stabilizing Iraq: Lessons for the Next Chapter Thursday 16 | 4:45 pm – 6:30 pm Center for Strategic and International Studies; 1616 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Bob Schieffer, Chief Washington Correspondent at CBS News will host a discussion between Kathleen Hicks, Senior Vice President of CSIS, Stuart Bowen Jr. Senior Adviser at CSIS and former Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, and Karen DeYoung, Senior National Security Correspondent at The Washington Post.
- Can the Obama Administration’s ISIS Strategy Work? Friday 17 | 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Hudson Institute; 1015 15th Street NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Criticism of the Obama administration’s Middle East strategy is growing, and many believe current actions to curb ISIS are not enough. Will a strategy limited to aerial bombardment and ancillary assistance to local fighters be sufficient to defeat ISIS, or are US military officials and regional allies arguing for ground troops correct? In either case, to what extent are longstanding, region-wide issues a fundamental obstacle to complete success against ISIS? To address these questions Hudson Institute will host a discussion with Lee Smith, Hudson Institute Senior Fellow, Andrew Tabler, Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute, Faysal Itani, Fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, and Hussain Abdul-Hussain of the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper.
- A Citizens’ Coalition for Peace – US/Jordan Valley Sister Cities Friday 17 | 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Eco Peace/Friends of the Earth Middle East’s Good Water Neighbors (GWN) project has brought together Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians to cooperate over trans-boundary water resources and jointly advance sustainable development in the region, notably in the Lower Jordan Valley. The project has led to common problem solving and peace building among cross-border communities, even in the midst of conflict. EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East has recently worked to create sister city partnerships between American cities and the partnering communities of the GWN project. These will build on the previous successes of GWN to create and empower a broad, international citizen coalition for peace in the region. The Wilson Center will host a discussion on environmental peace-building, the mutual benefits of cross-border cooperation in the midst of conflict, and the role of American citizen diplomats in Middle East grassroots peace-making. The event will feature presentations by the organizations involved in building these international partnerships and a panel discussion with mayors from Jordanian, Israeli, and Palestinian communities in the Lower Jordan Valley.
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How to beat the Islamic State
On Thursday, the Wilson Center hosted Volker Perthes, Executive Chairman and Director of German Institute for International and Security Affairs, to discuss the rise of the Islamic State (IS) and the larger implications of its presence in the Iraq and Syria. Robert Litwak, Vice President for Scholars and Director of International Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center, moderated the event.
Perthes sees a “dissolution of order” in the Middle East, especially in the Levant. IS has proclaimed its disregard for the colonial Sykes-Picot divisions. It wants reversion to pre-state, pre-modern ideologies. Without a clear long-term plan, the international community must simply observe the sociopolitical, socioeconomic and geopolitical dynamics of the region. Politics from North Africa to the Persian Gulf will remain local so it is critical to separate IS in Iraq and IS in Syria. IS’s ideology and identity have strong local backing. In addition, local issues in both Syria and Iraq stem deeper than the over simplified Sunni/Shi’a divide; there is a struggle for hegemony between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The international community has wanted to constrain threats rather than get directly involved. But regional actors should be more involved and more in control. One of the unique aspects of IS is its presence in two states. Unlike previous civil wars fought in Lebanon, Iraq and others, this conflict is spilling across borders and strengthening “quasi-sovereign entities” like the Kurdish regional government.
Perthes begs to differ with President Obama, who has said IS was neither “Islamic or a state.” This underestimates the ability of a “terror militia” to govern and administer effectively. The international community cannot ignore IS’s “state building project,” which has become a threat even to Saudi Arabia due to the support IS has received from the Kingdom. Regional states need to make a more concerted effort to contain and roll back the IS. Local actors must lead. But military power can only “degrade.” It will have no long-term effect on the rebuilding of Syria and Iraq. Perthes applauded President Obama’s effort to stop the expansion of IS in Iraq, build an inclusive government and include regional actors. But without a détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia to de-escalate their struggle of regional hegemony there will continue to be sectarian polarization.
There should also be more focus on Iranian cooperation in combating IS as well as ending the civil war in Syria. The IS problem in Syria cannot be solved without addressing the civil war raging within the country. What needs to be done, Perthes suggested, is to end the war between the regime and the moderate/non-jihadist parties and from this ceasefire create an inclusive government. The attempts to orchestrate local cease-fires need to be done with the help of Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia in conjunction with the United Nations.
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Bosnia needs to get boring
Sead Numanovic of Dnevni Avaz asked me to comment on today’s election in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Here is how I responded this morning, before results were available:
The election is important in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as it has been four years since the last one. It is widely believed that the performance of the national and entity governments has not fulfilled the voters’ expectations. But we have to wait and see how this disappointment manifests itself in the election results. It is vital that not only voting but also counting and tabulation be done in a way that inspires voter confidence. I understand there are a large number of Bosnian observers. That is a good thing.
What B/H politicians do after the election will of course depend on the results. My hope is that Bosnia can undergo the same transition that Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Serbia have already entered: a transition from what [Croatian Foreign Minister] Vesna Pusic calls “heroic” politics of national identity to a “boring” politics of delivering services to citizens, building up the rule of law, and preparing for European Union accession.
The problem in Bosnia is that the Dayton constitution presents barriers to this transition by rewarding politicians who represent only the interests of their own ethnic group and not the interests of Bosnia as a whole or its citizens as individuals. Changing that will require constitutional amendments as well as electoral and other reforms. I can only hope that the election results will be such as to permit those changes to be undertaken. Otherwise I fear Bosnia and Herzegovina will continue to lag other countries in the Balkans and remain at the tail end of the queue for EU accession.
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Does size matter?
This week unexpectedly brought the inevitable news that China’s GNP exceeds US GNP. The sky did not fall. In fact, the crossover likely happened some time ago. No one noticed. Nor does this development make China’s the largest economy on earth. The European Union still holds that trophy, if you count its 28 member states as a single entity. You should, at least for economic purposes.
That gives us a hint of whether size matters. No one even mentions when the EU surpassed the US, because it doesn’t really matter. Europe is still a pygmy in world power rankings. Its economy is large, but for the moment not growing fast (maybe not even growing), and its military capabilities are limited and shrinking. Power is in the eye of the beholder. What the world beholds in Europe is wealth but not power. It projects an image of success but stagnation or even decline. The world admires Europe, but it does not respect it.
The US, some would say, is in danger of falling into that same category. It is important for perspective to remember the last time the US suffered a panic about the growing economic power of a potential rival. That was the 1990s, when Japan loomed large. Clyde Prestowitz’s 1993 bestseller subtitled We Are Giving Our Future to Japan and How to Reclaim It now sells for a penny. The Japanese economy as stagnated for two decades as its population ages and declines.
China matters more than Europe and Japan, because it combines rapid economic growth with expanding military and technological capability. America has little to fear in the coming decade or so, so long as our allies in Asia do not trigger a crisis over some East or South China Sea island or reef. But if China continues to grow and invest as it has in the last ten years it will be a serious rival ten, or certainly twenty, years from now. There is no lack of American commentators warning us of this, the most recent Wes Clark in this morning’s New York Times.
Even then though the US will likely still be its military superior. The US is currently spending more than three times what China spends on its military (not corrected for purchasing power), which is close to twice China’s ratio of military expenditure to GDP. China has a long way to go still if it to catch up.
Military challenge is not however the big problem China poses. China will be far more problematic if it fails to grow and prosper. The Hong Kong “occupy” movement is promising because it opens a crack in China’s one-party autocracy. But it is also a warning that chaos in China is possible. Either slowing economic growth or growth so rapid that it ignites serious inflation could lead to eventual recession and growing unrest. China’s financial institutions are in no better shape than Japan’s were when it took a dive into no growth. No capitalist economy has proven itself immune to the business cycle. Even if growth remains strong, modernization theory predicts that China will face irresistible pressures to democratize. No autocracy has proven itself permanently immune to instability and middle class aspirations.
In any event, China will not grow at 7-8% forever. It is also aging rapidly, a result of its decades of one-child policy. This means real difficulty in meeting future social security needs of its elderly, and real limitations on its future labor force. This on top of structural problems in its financial sector, inefficient state-owned enterprises and other hangovers from the past make it unlikely the world can count on a China as reliable in its growth spurt as it has been for the last decade. And economic failure at home could give an autocratic China incentives to embark on adventurism abroad.
So size does matter, because Chinese economic failure of any sort in coming decades will make a big difference. A much more negative difference from the American perspective than its success.
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Best to err doing too much, not too little
UN envoy Stefano de Mistura appeals for help for Kobane:
The Turks are saying the right thing: there should be a comprehensive, coalition-backed effort. But they are doing the wrong thing by withholding military assistance. They are not even allowing reinforcements, supplies and ammunition to reach the Kurdish fighters. Turkish tanks sit idle just across the border, outside the town.
The differences go beyond Kobane. It is, as Ankara asserts, a mistake for the coalition not to target regime forces in Syria, which continue to bombard civilian populations. But allowing ISIS forces to decimate the Kurdish town is an odd way to object to inadequate action against Bashar al Assad.
Coalition warfare is not pretty. The members often differ in objectives, strategy and tactics. They may even compete for turf. But what is happening right now in Syria is uglier than usual. A NATO ally is refusing to up the ante against ISIS when it can readily do so with few or no losses. Ankara is also failing to come to the aid of people closely related to an important minority community inside Turkey. That isn’t going to help settle issues with Turkey’s own Kurdish insurgents.
America too often loses its wars away from the battlefield. General Allen, the new American envoy for the fight against ISIS, has been in Turkey for two days trying to sort out the situation. Apparently to no avail. That seems extraordinary to me. Either President Erdogan or President Obama needs to bend. Both would be my preference: the Turks at least to allow resupply, the Americans to at least begin to target regime forces that attack civilians.
At least in public, the Obama administration is framing the Kobane situation as a public relations problem. So it is, but it is also more. Failure to save Kobane will leave a long stretch of the Syrian side of the border with Turkey in ISIS hands. It would be surprising if the jihadists didn’t take advantage of that not only to resupply themselves but also to infiltrate Turkey.
Even if Kobane is not militarily strategic, defeating the ISIS effort there could deprive it of manpower and blunt its momentum, which is strong not only in northern Turkey but also in Iraq’s Anbar province, where ISIS forces are expanding their areas of control.
The fight against ISIS, which is proving a capable enemy, can’t be won quickly. But it can be lost in these early stages, when Syrian and Iraqi resistance to ISIS is still weak, poorly trained and inadequately armed. The air attacks can also inadvertently help Bashar al Assad. President Obama should err on the side of doing too much, not too little.
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