Day: August 7, 2019
A skimpy breakthrough
Today’s announcement of an agreement between Turkey and the US on a “safe zone” inside northeastern Syria is being described as a breakthrough. But skimpy would also be accurate:
From August 5-7, 2019, U.S. and Turkish military delegations met at the Turkish Ministry of Defense to discuss plans to coordinate the establishment of a safe zone in northern Syria.
The delegations agreed on the following:
a) the rapid implementation of initial measures to address Turkey’s security concerns;
b) to stand-up a joint operations center in Turkey as soon as possible in order to coordinate and manage the establishment of the safe zone together;
c) that the safe zone shall become a peace corridor, and every effort shall be made so that displaced Syrians can return to their country.
It is not clear what this really means. At the least, it suggests President Erdogan will not risk a unilateral Turkish intervention inside Syria, with the attendant risk of clashes that injure or kill American troops. That is no small thing.
But it is not clear whether the months of quarreling over how wide the “safe zone” should be and how it will be protected and managed have ended. It sounds more like the issues have been delegated to a joint operations center. No harm in that if it succeeds, but why should it if higher level officials are still at odds? Particularly important is the question of who will be in charge: Turkey, the US, or some sort of consortium? Turkish/American cooperation at Manbij, just on the other side of the Eurphrates from the proposed safe zone, has not been easy, not to mention the bigger issues (F35s, Russian air defenses, Gulen) roiling he relationship between Washington and Ankara.
The third point–the safe zone or peace corridor–is enormously problematic. Will Ankara, under pressure from Turks to reduce the gigantic refugee population, be forcing people back into Syria to populate that area? How will the Kurds who live there–and have their own armed forces–react to Arab returnees, many of whom may never have lived in the now supposedly safe zone? How will security be maintained? How will people who move there be fed, sheltered, clothed, and provided with health care? How will the territory be governed? Under what laws? What will happen with the Kurdish-led governing institutions already established in that area?
The history of safe zones is spotty. Sometimes, as in northern Iraq in the 1990s, they have been successful. Iraqi Kurdistan grew to maturity under a no-fly zone that protected it from Saddam Hussein. At other times they have been unsuccessful: witness the safe zones in Bosnia that suffered attacks from Serb forces that led to the NATO military intervention there.
In Syria, the odds are not good. The Americans have only about a thousand troops left in the northeast. President Trump is not going to want to increase their number. So the safe zone will be under the protection mainly of Turkish and Turkey-allied forces that are hostile to the governing authorities the Kurds have established there. The Kurds reciprocate: they are hostile to Turkey, where their PKK confreres have been in violent rebellion for decades. The Islamic State, while not holding territory in northeast Syria, is still present and conducting terrorist attacks. It will of course seek to aggravate any frictions between Kurds and Arabs as well as Kurds and Turks, which shouldn’t be difficult.
So yes, a breakthrough of sorts but still a skimpy one that will require a great deal of time, manpower, money, and effort to merit the “peace corridor” label. At this point, it is just as likely it will make that appellation the subject of future derision.
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Stevenson’s army, August 7
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
– I agree with Dan Drezner that Trump’s trade war is likely to go out of control.
– It’s even affecting US relations with Israel.
– Lawfare writers prove right on predicting radicalization.
– Libertarian author review 2 new books on covert wars.
To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Trump’s radical foreign policy fails
Time for a roundup on where President Trump stands on his promise to deliver great deals for America. Spoiler alert: there are no surprises and only one modest success.
Every administration chooses its priorities. Trump has chosen Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela, NAFTA, and immigration.
The “maximum pressure” program on Iran has caused economic distress but no willingness to renegotiate the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA), from which the United States withdrew. Iran is back to enriching uranium and accumulating quantities above the JCPOA limits, but Tehran is still hoping Europe, Russia, and China will find ways to import its oil. Iran is also flexing its muscles in the strait of Hormuz, signaling its ability to cause an oil supply disruption that would hike oil prices globally.
North Korea is thumbing its nose at Trump’s effort to portray Kim Jong-un as his best friend. His short-range missile launches are a clear signal of defiance. There is no progress to report in the nuclear negotiations, and it is increasingly clear that the US will need to settle for an agreement that falls way short of the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization it has sought. Some sort of freeze is the best that can be hoped for.
The trade war with China is going badly: it is costing both Americans and Chinese a lot, slowing economic growth worldwide, and undermining global norms for trade and investment that the Trump Administration claims to be defending. There is little hope it will end soon. Trump seems to be committed to making the tariffs permanent, but it is hard to picture how he can face the electorate in 2020 if the tariffs have led the world and the US into recession.
Trump promised improved relations with Russia, and he has not retreated from his effort to befriend President Putin and hold him blameless. But Moscow has made life difficult: its documented interference in the 2016 election, its continued efforts worldwide to counter US interests, its occupation of part of Ukraine, its repression of domestic dissent, and a Congress determined to hold Putin accountable has forced Trump to tighten and expand sanctions. Relations with Russia are not improving (and shouldn’t).
Trump is ratcheting up sanctions on Venezuela, trying to force out President Maduro. But so far shock and awe has not shocked or awed the Venezuelans, as Harold Trinkunas put it in today’s New York Times. President Maduro is still in power. Juan Guaidó and his supporters are still in the streets, where enthusiasm has flagged. Most of Latin America would like a negotiated settlement, but John Bolton is not up for that. He wants Maduro to flee.
The NAFTA renegotiation was an apparent success so far, as it generated a new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement with modest updating and improvements. But the negotiation with Ottawa and Mexico City was only half the challenge. The new agreement faces serious challenges to its approval in September in a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives that President Trump has done little or nothing to court. Will the House really approve NAFTA 2.0 while it is conducting investigations that could lead to impeachment?
Immigration is the one area of actual success for Trump, if you buy into the need to reduce it: illegal entries and asylum seekers are said to be down. Refugee entries are definitely down. But the price has been astronomical: separating children from parents, inhumane and even deadly conditions in detention facilities, denial of refugee resettlement to people in danger of their lives, and inspiration to white supremacists to commit violence. And for those who think the wall is important: little of it is being built.
The Trump Administration is a radical one: it has tried in all these areas to achieve goals that are extreme. The failures are obvious. The question is whether enough Americans will care. Certainly people worldwide do: America is not popular these days, especially but not only with its European allies. Trump is a white supremacist, but the Nordics he so much admires don’t like him.
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