Month: October 2015
A small step forward, a big step backwards
Yesterday’s communique after Vienna talks is classically ambiguous. It represents a small step forward, and a big step backward. It raises as many questions as it answers.
The step forward is this: Iran is included in the 19 parties issuing the statement. It had not previously been party to multilateral talks on Syria, even though it plays a vital role in sustaining Bashar al Assad in power. Without Iranian troops, weapons, command and control as well as oil and other assistance, he would be long gone by now.
Much of what Iran has agreed to is not controversial in principle: Syria’s unity, independence, territorial integrity, the continuity of its state, human rights for its citizens and humanitarian access. However difficult to implement in practice, none of Assad’s international opponents has wanted anything else. Nor does Russia, though its concept of human rights might not coincide with ours (Saudi Arabia’s doesn’t either). There is value in getting Iran to sign on to things already agreed in the 2012 communique that until now has been the touchstone of international diplomacy on Syria. It was in fact Iran’s refusal to sign on to that communique that prevented it from attending the January 2014 Geneva 2 conference, which was the last time something resembling the “international community” met on Syria.
But there is a big piece of the 2012 communique missing from yesterday’s document: the provision for a transitional governing body with full executive powers based on mutual consent. This is a big step backwards. In its place, we got this much vaguer promise about the transition:
a political process leading to credible, inclusive, nonsectarian governance, followed by a new constitution and elections. These elections must be administered under U.N. supervision to the satisfaction of the governance [sic] and to the highest international standards of transparency and accountability, free and fair, with all Syrians, including the diaspora, eligible to participate.
Herein lies the devil of all details: what to do about President Assad between now and elections. The Iranians have not signed on to delegation of his authority to a transitional governing body, but only to his fate being decided in UN-supervised elections. And implicitly the Americans and their partners have backed off the demand that he give up power at the start of the transition process, settling instead for his removal at the end, if the voters so decide (or perhaps earlier if the Russians are prepared to prevent him from standing at the elections).
The Americans will argue that this is really not the case because “no credible, inclusive, nonsectarian governance” can be established with Bashar still in place. But they have certainly lost something important in the omission of reference to a transitional governing body with full executive powers established by mutual consent. That was far more explicit than the reference to “a political process.”
Were I in the Syrian opposition, I would be concerned about this step backward. But a lot still depends on whether the Russians are prepared to continue to support Assad, who is costing more in blood and treasure than Moscow can afford. The Americans believe the fight against the Islamic State in Syria can’t succeed with Assad still in place, because his brutality pushes so many Sunnis in the extremists’ direction. They need to convince Moscow that they are correct. Peeling Russia away from Assad and Iran has long been critical to prospects for peace in Syria. It still is.
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If only one person votes, is it democratic?
I tweeted yesterday, in regard to turn-out at the first round of the Egyptian parliamentary elections:
If an election is held and 22% vote, is it democratic?
Those who responded were on the “yes” side:
It is a miracle the Elections were even held! Who said they have to have fair. I bet 22% were family votes Politics
Uhhh ya? What’s the threshold for participatory politics?
shall we cancel it and repeat it and assign minimum turnout ratio?
The 2014 Midterms had only 36.4% turnout. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2014/11/10/voter-turnout-in-2014-was-the-lowest-since-wwii/ … Any different
yes
I assume some of those who retweeted might be implicit “no”s.
So what do I think about this? It was not a rhetorical question.
The answer on the most superficial level does have to be yes. Elections are and should be legally valid even if turnout is low. Some countries do have a threshold for minimum turnout, but in my experience that is not in elections but rather in referenda on important constitutional issues. It would be impractical to have a threshold for an ordinary election. You might end up with no one ever getting elected.
But low turnout still has implications, because elections are a way of conferring legitimacy. If only a single person turned out (which happens occasionally at the local level in the US), surely there would be doubts about the legitimacy of the person elected. Twenty-two per cent is several million more than one in Egypt. But you still have to wonder what the other 78% are thinking.
The question is not so much about the legitimacy of the individuals elected with such a low turnout, but rather about the legitimacy of the political system that manages to attract such a low turnout. That is not only true for Egypt but also for the US, where Josh Klemons is correct to point out the miserable turnout at mid-term polls held two years after the President is elected, usually with much higher turnout.
People vote with their feet. If they fail to turn up, that suggests disillusion, indifference and hostility, not enthusiasm, commitment and engagement. President Sisi certainly has widespread support in Egypt. I observed the constitutional referendum there in January 2014 and saw it with my own eyes. He may have lost some support since then–even the completion of the Suez Canal project does not seem to have roused much enthusiasm–but there are certainly a lot of people who think he is doing well and deserves a parliament that supports him.
The problem is that he has obliterated his opposition. Some but not all the Muslim Brotherhood supporters of 2011/12 have abandoned their cause. Nor have all the civil society activists who sparked the revolution in the first place. They just don’t want to vote because they see no real choices and don’t want to lend legitimacy to a regime that doesn’t offer them. In his understandable zeal to reestablish law and order, Sisi has done more to erase nonviolent dissent than to eliminate criminal violence against the state, which continues to plague the authorities, especially in northern Sinai.
An election can be “democratic” even if the context in which it takes place is autocratic. Slobodan Milosevic held elections often. He won them, often without much cheating at the polls because he had limited dissent to a narrow band of the population. In a democratic system, there has to be a real chance for alternation in power, even if the alternation seldom occurs (remember Japan under the LDK). If the political competition is limited to people and forces that have no chance of winning, or when they win simply switch to side with those already in power, that is not really a democracy.
So yes, the elections in Egypt were “democratic.” The African Union observers found they
…were conducted in a transparent and peaceful manner. The elections provided an opportunity for citizens to freely express their democratic right to vote.
I imagine the procedures at the polling places and in the counting were correct. But the context is not democratic and many Egyptians are therefore not taking advantage of the opportunity. I hope Egypt evolves in a democratic direction, with a vigorous opposition and the real possibility of alternation in power. But for that to happen, President Sisi is going to have to ease up on repression and welcome dissent.
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Iran in the tent
Tomorrow’s meeting on Syria in Vienna will include Iran, until now excluded from multilateral efforts to negotiate a political solution to the multi-sided civil war. Some see this as an innovation that gives Tehran “legitimacy” and strengthens its diplomatic hand in the region.
To the contrary: Iran needs to be at the table because there can be no diplomatic solution in Syria without its contribution. Iran is Bashar al Assad’s mainstay. Tehran provides Damascus with arms, ground troops (mainly through Hizbollah), command and control as well as economic support (largely in the form of oil). Only recently have the Russians come out out of the shadows to provide air attacks, intelligence and some ground capabilities. For the previous four and a half years, Iranian enabled Bashar al Assad to hold Damascus and western Syria as well as a link between those critical areas.
The international community tried to negotiate a political settlement without Iran. The June 2012 Geneva communique’ was the product of a UN-sponsored meeting Tehran did not attend. The Geneva 2 meeting in 2014 likewise kept the Iranians at arms’ length, because Tehran was unwilling to endorse the 2012 communique’. Excluding Iran didn’t work. Neither Geneva conference led to serious progress in ending the Syrian wars, though the communique’ remains what diplomats call an important touchstone or point of reference.
Now Washington has concurred in allowing Tehran into the tent. Foreign Minister Zarif, who led its nuclear negotiating team, will participate. This is a mixed blessing. Zarif and his boss, President Rouhani, do not control Iran’s Syria policy. Supreme Leader Khamenei does. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), not the Foreign Ministry, is the executive agency. It is hard to picture how Zarif could agree to something the IRGC does not want, in particular any plan that involves the removal of Bashar al Assad from power.
The best that can be hoped for in Vienna is a discussion that initiates a struggle over Syria policy inside Iran. The Islamic Republic has long sought a leading role in the Islamic world, not just among Shia. The war in Syria is alienating Sunnis, who are by far the majority in the Islamic world. It is also decimating Hizbollah, killing thousands of Iranian troops and costing Tehran a fortune. While Americans worry that its engagement in Syria will increase Iran’s influence in the Middle East, Iranians worry that it is weakening the Islamic Republic and aligning it with a lost cause.
Iran will be on the spot in Vienna. It has already put forth a plan to end the Syrian wars with a ceasefire, a national unity government, constitutional changes and elections. This is broadly consistent with the 2012 Geneva communique.’ The Russians have reportedly fleshed this out in somewhat more detail. Iranian failure to support the purported Russian plan would risk a serious breach in Assad’s support. But the Russian plan includes an explicit provision for Assad not to run in any new election, raising a serious risk to Iran’s longer-term interests in Syria. This would be unacceptable to the IRGC and the Supreme Leader, if not also to President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif.
So the Vienna meeting is an opportunity for American diplomacy, which is presumably why Secretary of State Kerry has doggedly pursued it and agreed to inviting Iran to the table. It would be a mistake to expect any dramatic breakthroughs. But the meeting could initiate strains between Russia and Iran as well as within Iran that might ultimately produce positive results from Washington’s perspective.
Of course the meeting will also produce strains on the other side of the equation. The Syrian opposition, which is not invited to Vienna, will fear being sold out. Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who will attend, will insist that Iran and Russia abandon Assad. Failing that, they will want to continue and increase arms shipments to the rebels in Syria, shipments that have already proved effective in blocking regime advances on Idlib and Aleppo.
My sense is that at this point the US-led Coalition, despite its notoriously different objectives, has better alternatives to a negotiated solution than Russia, which has already doubled down on a bad bet and risks what President Obama terms “quagmire.” Iran may still be willing to throw good money, supplies and troops after bad, but only because it lacks a viable alternative. He who has a better alternative to a negotiated solution has leverage. The Americans need to use it, by threatening to increase further the quality and quantity of arms shipped to the Syrian opposition. They could also increase their own air engagement and begin to target Hizbollah, which is certainly as much a terrorist organization as its Sunni counterparts.
What is still missing is a way out. The Americans want one that displaces Bashar al Assad from power. The Iranians want one that keeps him in place. I’m not seeing a solution to that problem. Vienna at best will be the beginning of a process, not the end of one. At worst, it will fail and lead to further military escalation, with ever more dreadful consequences for ordinary Syrians until one side or the other “wins.”
Iran inside the tent is better than outside, but no guarantee of a negotiated solution.
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What difference do women make?
For the 15th anniversary of UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, on Tuesday the US Institute of Peace collaborated with five Scandinavian embassies to host the event “Global Security: What Does Gender Have To Do With It?” The event specifically examines what lessons may be learned from Scandinavian successes in gender equality and feminist policies, and comes in the wake of a new global report that explores the continuing – and some new – challenges for gender equality and women’s rights worldwide.
After Ambassador William Taylor, Executive Vice President of the USIP, gave the welcome, His Excellency Geir Haarde, Iceland’s Ambassador to the US, highlighted Scandinavian countries’ successes, including their long history of collaborating and sharing best practices, but also warned that even they must be vigilant against backsliding. This is especially important considering the global climate for gender rights: violent extremism, gender-based violence, systematic rape as a weapon of war, women being formally excluded from peace processes, and many other continuing challenges.
The keynote speaker, Elisabeth Rehn, former Minister of Defense for Finland and instrumental in achieving UNSCR 1325, took a global outlook. Nordic countries have indeed achieved much, but 1325 in particular ‘was born in Africa, in Namibia’. Rehn therefore highlighted the locality of all advancement initiatives. There is a crucial role for the UN, of course, in formalizing and institutionalizing such initiatives, and for world leaders as well, but Rehn pointed out that women the world over – as individuals – have different needs and expectations, and so naturally they need different projects as well.
Rehn also explored one of the central themes of the event: including women in peace negotiations and processes greatly enhances the success of negotiations and the sustainability of peace agreements, and counters violent extremism. Women’s participation can produce creative peace, which pays attention to the psychological aspects of reconstruction as well as the physical, and incorporates social, health, and education issues – especially for girls.
The expert panel featured Brigadier Flemming Kent Vesterby Agerskov of Denmark, who was Director of the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force in Afghanistan; Captain Anna Bjorsson, Gender Advisor at the Swedish Armed Forces Headquarters; Carla Koppell, Chief Strategy Officer at USAID; and Ambassador Dag Halvor Nylander, Norwegian Special Envoy to the Colombian Peace Process.
Agerskov offered insights into how incorporating women into his efforts to fight corruption and increase stability in Afghanistan heightened successes there. Like his fellows on the panel, he emphasized the need for decisive leadership on board with increasing women’s participation in all aspects of peace processes and civil society initiatives. Bjorsson stated that gender equality is a central policy of Sweden’s current government, following the principle that women and men must have the same power to shape society and their own lives. Creating a military with a gender-equal code of conduct and increased female participation makes it more effective in addressing different groups’ security concerns, as well as enhancing its reputation.
Koppell highlighted the relative successes of the USAID agenda on women’s rights in the past three years, with 50,000 women worldwide working for it in some capacity, but also stressed that this program needs to improve. For instance, they are behind on women mediators and dealing with non-state actors in countries where USAID projects are based, as well as in exploring the consequences for gender rights of new threats like climate change.
Nylander concluded with an illuminating overview on how the peace process in Colombia over the past three years has had the most success of any such process in confronting gender issues, such as sexual violence; integrating a gender perspective into all resolutions; and working with numerous women civil society activists and women’s NGOs. Importantly, though at first neither party (the Colombian government and FARC) fully acknowledged the importance of gender issues, they now are both supportive of these steps.
This panel did not have sufficient time to go into detail about local cases, but the speakers agreed on global themes and answered their initial question. UN reports and local experiences have shown that gender-inclusive settings with active participation from both men and women greatly facilitate negotiations and create enduring peace agreements. Women, like men, have roles to play at every level and at every step in the process, even in militaries. Hopefully, the next fifteen years will bring more progress.
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What the Russians are proposing
Friday’s meeting on Syria in Vienna will include everyone but the Syrians: the US, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. I’ll be surprised if the Europeans don’t edge their way in as well. The Egyptians will try too.
A Russian proposal, so far ignored by the English-language press, will be on the table for the occasion. A Syrian source has assured me it is real. I am hoping it is. With gratitude to MEI intern Bridget Gill for the translation from الشرق الأوسط here it is:
- Determining a ‘bank of targets’ shared between the nations which are conducting strikes in Syrian territory, and putting the factions that do not accept a political solution in the ‘target bank.’
- Freezing fighting forces, whether the FSA or the regime forces.
- Putting in motion a conference for dialogue that includes the Syrian regime, the domestic and external opposition, and the FSA. This is a dialogue which must produce:
- A general amnesty
- Release of all prisoners
- Parliamentary elections
- Presidential elections
- Formation of a national unity government in which all parties are represented.
- Conducting constitutional amendments that transfers several of the president’s mandatory powers to the government as an assembly (along the lines of the Lebanese model).
- The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, personally promises that the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad will not stand as a candidate in these elections, but this does not prevent the candidacy of those close to him or other figures in the regime in these elections.
- The creation of a framework to integrate the brigades of the FSA with the regime army after the integration of the Syrian militias supporting the regime into the army.
- Russia assures that the amnesty will include all opposition figures domestically and abroad, even those who have picked up arms, and in exchange the opposition [must] commit not to pursue al-Assad and regime figures legally in the future, whether they choose to remain in Syria or to leave it.
- Breaking the siege in all besieged areas on the part of the regime, in exchange for [the opposition] lifting the siege on the regime’s besieged areas, and the opposition’s cessation of acts of aggression and nations’ freezing their arming of these parties.
- Russia preserves its military bases inside Syria, on the strength of a resolution from the Security Council.
- Russia has stipulated that some of the articles of the agreement be kept secret, among them the issue of al-Assad’s participation in the elections, out of fear of his losing control of the army and other armed forces.
I see lots of things wrong with this proposition, but it is certainly not one that should be dismissed out of hand. Assuming it is real, the Russians are essentially saying that they want out of their current bad bet on Bashar al Assad while preserving their military bases and influence in Syria. They don’t much care about the rest, though we can expect them to back someone in the elections who promises to do what Moscow wants.
The devil is of course in the other details. It wouldn’t be easy to get Moscow and Washington to agree on a target list. How would it be decided who accepts a political solution? Freezing areas of control would be difficult, as they are uncertain and often changing. Quid pro quo ending of sieges has been tried many times and hasn’t worked well so far. Amnesty for war crimes and crimes against humanity is not possible in the 21st century. Who conducts parliamentary and presidential elections? How is the transitional national unity government formed? How is this proposition related to ongoing United Nations-sponsored talks?
Too many people have seen the Russian intervention in Syria as a sign of Moscow’s strength. To the contrary: it was undertaken to prevent the Assad regime from losing vital territory in Latakia. Moscow is spending more than it can afford in blood and treasure on helping the Iranians preserve Assad’s hold on power. This proposal, while unacceptable in many respects, is a clear indication that the Russians are looking for a way out. While bargaining hard for improvements in this still unacceptable proposition, Washington will have to decide whether to give it to them.
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Declining is the right answer
The Middle East is one of the few foreign policy areas other than climate change and trade that will get many electrons during the upcoming election year. Discord will dominate the discourse: President Obama is insufficiently resolute, he needs to stand up more against {you fill in the blank}, we should or should not intervene {here} or {there}. We should support our allies {more} or {less}, we {should} or {should not} condition aid on human rights concerns, and we should {defeat}, {deter} or {contain} one terrorist group or another.
You wouldn’t know that there is wide area of agreement among Americans and their political leaders on what US goals in the Middle East should be. Here they are, more or less in order of their salience to national security:
- Nuclear non-proliferation: no (more) nuclear weapons states in the greater Middle East (which stretches more or less from Mauritania to Pakistan).
- Free flow of energy: oil and gas should flow unimpeded from the Middle East to world markets.
- Counterterrorism: extremist groups in the region should not be able to mount a mass casualty attack against the United States or Europe.
- Support for allies: America’s regional allies should wield the means necessary to confront internal and external adversaries successfully.
- Spreading democratic values: all other things being equal (which they aren’t on most days), Washington prefers to deal with inclusive governments that reflect the will of their people.
If there is agreement on these goals, why so much dissonance on the Middle East?
It comes from two things: different priorities accorded to these generally agreed goals, and differences over the means to achieve them.
Priorities are important. The Obama Administration arguably has prioritized nuclear non-proliferation over support for allies, reaching an agreement with Iran that if implemented fully would prevent it from getting nuclear weapons for a decade or more but giving it relief from sanctions that strengthens Tehran’s position in the region and enables it to confront American allies. Washington would prefer a democratic government in Egypt, but has prioritized support for President Sisi and his fight against what he defines as terrorism. Some argue Washington’s focus on anti-American terrorism is leading us to over-emphasize security cooperation and under-emphasize political reform.
So too are the means to achieve these goals. President Obama has preferred killing terrorists with drones to risking American lives in efforts to build up states in the region capable of confronting the terrorist threat with law enforcement means. He has also followed a long American tradition of keeping oil flowing through Hormuz principally through military means rather than encouraging oil producers to build pipelines to carry oil around the strait. Some still think threatening the use of force is necessary to ensure compliance with the Iran nuclear deal.
So yes, there is discord, but the discord is about priorities and means, not about goals. Basically, all American politicians are singing the same lyrics, even when they strike up different tunes or use an orchestra instead of a rock band.
The bigger question is whether these goals in the Middle East are increasing or declining in importance. Let’s look at the goals one by one.
With the Iran nuclear deal, we have at least postponed the major non-proliferation issue in the Middle East. There are still others: will Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Turkey now be tempted to at least match Iran in nuclear technology? Will Pakistan deploy battlefield nuclear weapons as a deterrent against India? Will Israel’s nuclear weapons generate increasing concern in the region? But on the whole I think we can say the issues are less urgent and less compelling, now that the Iran question is settled for a decade or more.
The US is now far less dependent on Middle East oil than it has been for decades, but energy experts will quickly counter that oil prices are determined in a global market, so a serious supply disruption would be felt economically in the US even if we imported no oil at all. Still, with prices around $50/barrel and Iran soon to regain and eventually expand its export position, there is little to worry about for the moment. The people who should worry most are in China, Japan and elsewhere in Asia, which is increasingly dependent on Middle East oil and gas exports. They should bear the burden of protecting energy flows.
Little can be said about the terrorist threat. An attack can always sneak through. 9/11 was less a probability than a “black swan”–a rare and unpredictable deviation from the norm. Ever since, the number of Americans killed by international terrorists has been less than the number killed by (non-Muslim) domestic ones (even if we don’t always call them terrorists). With Al Qaeda Central much diminished and the Islamic State preoccupied with taking and defending territory in Syria and Iraq, not to mention heightening of counterterrorist defenses worldwide, it is harder to plan and execute a major terrorist plot than it was 15 years ago.
Support for allies is arguably more important in the aftermath of the Iran nuclear deal, but the means we have chosen to achieve it are such that it involves little in-depth engagement with the Middle East. We ship truly gargantuan quantities of advanced armaments to the Gulf and Israel. We have also supported, despite a lot of doubts, the Saudi war against the Houthis in Yemen. The main purpose of our support for allies is to reduce the need for direct American engagement, not increase it.
Apart from guys like me and my friends in the thinktank community who make a living (or not) thinking and writing about the Middle East, there is little support left in the US for spreading democratic values in the region. The positive results of the Arab uprisings are so paltry–a fragile transition in Tunisia and some reforms in Morocco and Jordan–that most Americans (and certainly the presidential candidates) wouldn’t want to waste much taxpayer money or electoral breath on what they regard as a quixotic pursuit.
So declining is the right answer, even without considering the rising threats to the US from China in the Pacific and from Russia in Europe. Those of us who still worry about the Middle East need to figure out more economical and effective ways to achieve the goals that Americans agree on. More about that in future posts.
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