Day: September 14, 2016
In the box can be good too
I enjoyed 90 minutes today with SAIS’s Mike Lampton and CSIS’s Michael Green commenting on Amitai Etzioni’s Foreign Policy: Thinking Outside the Box, a recent Chatham House publication. Here are my speaking notes, though I should note much of the event focused on China, which was not within my remit:
- First let me say it has been a privilege to be required to read this book. It is a model of precision and intelligibility. Professor Ezioni says what he means clearly and concisely, marshaling the evidence with skill and erudition.
- My doubts have to do mainly with the title: it advertises thinking outside the box, but much of the book is devoted to ideas I would regard as well inside the box, even if some of them might be labeled “new normal.”
- Take, for example, the chapter on “defining down sovereignty.” A good deal of it is spent pooh-poohing the Westphalian notion of sovereignty and arguing in favor of a more contemporary alternative: sovereignty as entailing rights as well as responsibilities.
- This leads naturally to Responsibility to Protect, which is well within the box these days, and another, new to me notion, “responsibility to counter terrorism.” If states fail or refuse to do this, intervention might be justified, Professor Etzioni says.
- It’s an interesting idea that even explains some current behavior, in particular the anti-ISIL intervention in Syria, which the host government has not unauthorized.
- The downsides are all too clear: the slippery slope that leads to an unjustified excuse for invasion or other intervention, as in George W.
- The chapter on spheres of influence is not so much outside the box as it is outside the realm of academic discussion, as Professor Etzioni himself documents. Spheres of influence are a well-established practice in international affairs, even if the concept has not attracted much scholarly attention.
- Professor Etzioni sees spheres of influence, Russia’s “near-abroad” for example or Iran’s influence in Iraq, as providing space for rising regional powers and buffer zones that bolster a feeling of security.
- The trouble with that notion is that it discounts the will of those who live in these buffer states. The limits of his approach are all to evident in Ukraine, where Etzioni admits Russia used force to try to prevent the Ukrainians from choosing their alignment with Europe.
- People just aren’t always content to serve the purposes of other powers.
- When it comes to self-determination, I would quibble with Amitai’s characterization of Kurdistan as more democratic than the rest of Iraq, but more importantly he ignores the negative regional and internal political contexts for any independence move by the Iraqi Kurds. I doubt it will happen, or that it will be democratizing if it does.
- I would agree however with Amitai’s main conclusion: decentralization rather than secession is far more likely to produce positive outcomes in democratic societies like Spain, where unfortunately the central government has been unwilling to concede even that. That however is a conclusion well inside the box, not outside it.
- One concluding thought: Professor Etzioni repeatedly doubts the applicability of liberal democratic notions outside the family of liberal democratic states.
- As an American, I feel condemned to believe in universal rights, as our founding documents are all too clear on this subject.
- But I would also say that I’ve virtually never met someone outside the liberal democratic world who didn’t aspire to those rights.
- We don’t need to export the notion that all people are created equal. We only need to help people find ways of institutionalizing equal rights in ways that are appropriate to their particular contexts.
- All in all, a good and interesting read, even if the novelty is overblown.
I made two points in the discussion period worth recalling:
- Liberal democracy is not congruent with secularism, since we have liberal democratic states (where rights are in principle equal) like Italy and the UK with established churches (not to mention the penetration of religion into government in the US).
- Russia’s behavior in Ukraine cannot properly be attributed to NATO expansion. Putin has made it clear that he is trying to re-establish Moscow’s hegemony in what he considers Russia’s near-abroad. That is not a reaction to NATO expansion but rather an aggressive program vital to his view of Russia’s historic and cultural role, as well as to his domestic political standing.
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Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence prospects
Yesterday, the Woodrow Wilson Center convened three experts to discuss the viability of a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq and to critique and elaborate on a report on Iraqi Kurdistan by Amberin Zaman. The panel on “From Tribe To Nation: Iraqi Kurdistan On The Cusp Of Statehood” featured Amberin Zaman, a Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center, Abbas Kadhim, a Foreign Policy Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute, and Aliza Marcus, author of Blood and Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.
Zaman views the Kurds in Iraq as closer to independence than ever before. Their warming relationship with Ankara means that Turkey can assist the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in achieving independence. In exchange for access to Kurdistan’s oil reserves, Turkey would likely be willing to protect the Kurds from Iran’s ire and give them access to trade routes and ports. Though she believes that Iraqi Kurdistan is ready for independence, she noted that the KRG must resolve its internal disputes before any kind of sustainable independence can be achieved.
Kadhim listed four elements that Iraqi Kurdistan needs before independence can be realized. The KRG needs:
- a united front, which means its two main political parties, the KDP and PUK, must resolve their disputes;
- full cooperation from Baghdad, with which it must negotiate borders, financial matters, and future diplomatic relations;
- regional cooperation, since the new state will be short lived if one of their powerful and temperamental neighbors (namely Turkey or Iran) strongly opposes independence.
- reliable international alliances in order to have their statehood approved and recognized by international organizations such as the UN.
Without these four elements, Iraqi Kurdistan cannot achieve true and sustainable independence from Iraq.
More skeptical, Marcus explained that Iraqi Kurdistan’s trouble isn’t rooted in the chaos created by ISIS and the drop in oil prices. Rather, its problems are rooted in the lack of viable civil institutions within the KRG. Kurdistan is experiencing a brain drain, wherein many of the best and brightest are leaving because they see no room for advancement within the confines of the KRG.
She also disagreed with Zaman’s prediction that Turkey will assist the KRG in achieving independence. Ankara is actually quite suspicious of Iraqi Kurdistan due to the PKK’s positions there as well as the PKK’s alliance with the PUK. Given Erdogan’s militant opposition to Kurdish autonomy in Eastern Turkey and Northern Syria, it is unlikely that he would support Kurdish independence in Iraq.
During the Q&A session, Zaman explained that Iraqi Kurdistan has a small window of opportunity for independence, due to the KRG’s warm relationship with Turkish President Erdogan and the respectability of Iraqi Kurdistan’s President Barzani. Once Barzani is no longer in power, the KRG’s ability to achieve independence will be diminished.
Kadhim said that Iran is opposed to the formation of a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq, since Iran does not want to deal with ‘two Iraqs’. They would likely be more amenable to a division of Iraqi Kurdistan into a Shiite region and a Sunni region, wherein Iran would be allied with the Shiite region and focus on keeping the Sunni region and Iraq-proper weakened.
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Syria and the next president
Secretary of State Kerry asked the key question about the Syria ceasefire on NPR this morning: “What’s The Alternative?” He had none, because President Obama is sticking with his determination that vital US interests are not at risk there, apart from the terrorist threat. So the President is doing whatever is necessary–even military cooperation with the Russians that Defense Secretary Carter thinks unwise–to attack the Islamic State and Al Qaeda-affiliate Jabhat al Nusra (JAN), now Jaish al Fateh al Sham (JFS). Everything else–in particular support for the Syrian opposition–is at best half-hearted.
The US media often picture Obama as hesitant in Syria, citing this half-hearted attitude and his decision not to bomb in response to chemical attacks and instead seek removal of Assad’s chemical weapons by diplomatic means. That is incorrect. He has been remarkably decisive and resolute in sticking with his initial decision on what matters and what doesn’t in Syria. All American presidents since 1989 have resisted big interventions abroad. He is the only one who has stuck to his guns (or pin stripes, if you prefer). There is every indication that in doing so he is in tune with majority American sentiment: the electorate wants to go after the extremists but not worry about how Syria is governed.
The result is that Secretary Kerry had no leverage in dealing with Moscow. Leverage comes from having a better alternative to a negotiated agreement. You know this from bargaining with car salesmen. If you are willing to walk out, you are going to get a better deal. Kerry couldn’t walk out because doing so would have left the situation entirely in the hands of the Russians and Iranians, who were doing serious harm to civilians and helping the extremists to recruit. He also was unable to threaten action against the Syrian government or the many Shia armed groups Iran has put onto the battlefield in defense of Assad. Obama won’t go there.
For the moment, the ceasefire seems to be holding, with some exceptions. Humanitarian aid so far as I can tell has not started flowing into besieged opposition areas. That is supposed to happen consistently before the military cooperation with the Russians to target the ISIS and JAN/JFS starts on Monday. I’d bet on limited humanitarian aid deliveries, if only because Assad does not want to risk displeasing the Russians too much. But it will be surprising if this unsupervised, unobserved, unmonitored ceasefire lasts more than a few weeks.
All sides in the Syrian conflict will want to use the ceasefire–however long it lasts–to rest, regroup, and rearm. It would be a mistake, in the absence of a firmer and longer-term political solution, for them not to do so. No political solution appears on the horizon. The High Negotiation Commission of the Syrian opposition has published its concept for a transition to a democratic society, but Bashar al Assad is showing no interest. The Iranians and Russians, having doubled down on their support for him, can see no alternative that would be even half as friendly to their interests as Bashar. They can no longer back up without losing their privileges in Syria sooner rather than later.
Later it may be, but strategically Moscow and Tehran have lost. They have linked the fate of their interests in Syria to a dictator who has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed the country. The day will come when Syrians will throw out Bashar and his allies. But there is no guarantee the successor government that does that will be a democratic one. It could just as well be a new, Sunni Islamist one, led by the likes of JAN/JFS or some version of ISIS. President Obama has studiously avoided worrying about how Syria is governed, but his successor will have to.
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