Category: Daniel Serwer
A war the military alone can’t win
Ashley Augsburger, a master’s student in my post-war reconstruction and transition class at SAIS, writes:
With the Administration’s submission to Congress of an Authorization for Use of Military Force against ISIS, debate is likely to continue regarding the nature, extent, and strategy of the conflict in Iraq and the region. Thursday’s panel discussion of these issues, “The Battle Against the Islamic State: Where Do We Go From Here?,” at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace featured Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily, Former Ambassador and visiting fellow at the Washington Institute James Jeffery, and Marwan Muasher, Vice President of Studies at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The discussion focused on Iraq’s challenges in facing ISIS, the larger public perception of ISIS in the region, actions that regional actors can take to address the larger ideological battle, and the necessary components of addressing the root causes of ISIS’s emergence and success over the past six months.
Faily addressed the question “where do we go from here” with an initial outline of the advances the Iraqi government has made in achieving a more inclusive and unified government, followed by three specific needs to create a more predictable and coherent policy to combat ISIS:
• Humanitarian concerns: With over 2.1 million displaced persons, primarily in the Kurdish region, affected communities need basic service provision and support.
• Military preparedness: The military requires appropriate training and equipment, complemented by allied forces intelligence sharing and technological support.
• Reconstruction assistance: Iraq is struggling with the “day after scenario” in liberated areas and needs to address governance and service provision for their populations.
While there must be a zero-tolerance policy toward ISIS in Iraq domestically, Faily said regional stability and the battle against ISIS also require a predictable and comprehensive policy towards Syria.
Jeffery focused on American involvement in the battle against ISIS and the challenges of defining a goal and appropriate methods moving forward. While uncomfortable, America has no choice but involve itself militarily in Iraq yet again. The challenge looking forward is to outline a strategy of engagement: “who will dig these guys out?” Jeffery asserted that a policy of containment is not sufficient, as ISIS is an extraordinary movement that is dangerous to the entire region.
Having just returned from six months in Amman, Muasher discussed the Jordanian perspective. He emphasized the broader context of the ISIS threat and the larger agenda needed to address underlying causes of ISIS’s emergence and appeal. While there is no public support for ISIS, many Jordanians are struggling with the question whether this is a war on their own values. While the murder of the Jordanian pilot has sparked demands for revenge, much like the US post 9/11, the larger commitment to a fundamental, values-based war is undecided. Regardless, regional stability is contingent upon a larger solution that includes a nonmilitary strategy alongside military engagements. Without addressing issues of economic opportunity and political inclusion, ISIS will not be defeated.
Questions and panel discussion focused primarily on how to combat the ideology behind ISIS and the extent to which the US should be involved. Jeffery emphasized the need for security first, but he was clear that an ideology will not be defeated militarily. Panelists agreed that it is the region’s responsibility to fight ISIS’s ideology. The United States should not wage an ideological war. Prompted with a question by Carnegie Fellow Jessica Matthews, Muasher highlighted the lack of “ground troops” to speak out against ISIS ideology, as so many of the governments fighting ISIS also suppress legitimate, liberal voices in their own countries.
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Sources of fragility in West Africa
Min Kyung Yoo, a master’s student in my post-war stabilization and transition class, writes about a presentation yesterday on drivers of violence in West Africa by Alexandre Marc, Chief Technical Specialist of Fragility, Conflict, and Violence at the World Bank:
West African countries have experienced robust economic growth in the past decade. Since 1990, there has also been improvement in democratic consolidation, which seems to hold better than in other parts of Africa. Most governments in the region are elected and many people resist constitutional changes. In addition, West Africa has one of the most mobile populations in the world, hosting 7.5 million intra-regional migrants, and demonstrates strong regional cooperation through the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Despite these positive signs, the Ebola crisis, the Nigerian war with Boko Haram, Mali’s fragility and the Burkina Faso revolt show the region is still fragile. Intra-state civil wars dominate in West Africa, including long-standing ethnic conflicts that disrupt national and regional economies. Politics in West Africa is ethnically oriented and political institutions are very weak. Political and election-related violence is a growing challenge. The nature of violence and conflict has shifted in the past decade, with new threats such as illegal trafficking, religious radicalization, and piracy. Piracy is more rampant along the coast of Guinea than off Somalia.
Marc discussed in depth five drivers of conflict and violence in West Africa:
1. Drug trafficking
Protracted conflicts and political instability, corruption, porous borders, and geographic location all contribute to making West Africa attractive to traffickers. While physical drug trafficking takes place in Guinea and Guinea Bissau, Senegal and Ghana are drawn into the business as they have more reliable and functioning banking system in which drug traffickers perform financial transactions. Drug trafficking has potential to compromise officials and security agents, destabilize governments and weaken states, erode the region’s social fabric and damage economic development.
2. Religious extremism
Religious extremism in West Africa is largely home-grown, and has developed in areas with strong grievances—unemployment, corruption, and perceived marginalization. Increasing traditionalization, intergenerational crisis, disillusionment with the state, as well as external factors such as civil wars in Algeria and Libya, have accelerated radicalization.
3. Challenges of youth inclusion
West Africa hosts a rapidly growing population, but lacks capacity to address the needs of youth. Challenges include poor quality education and few employment opportunities. Unemployment is rarely a main or direct cause of conflict. But youth tend to have high expectations and seek to assert themselves outside both traditional and modern institutions. Meeting the expectations of youth has been a big challenge, leading to frustration and alienation. Gender dimensions and rapidly changing gender roles should not be neglected.
4. Migration
Tensions surrounding migratory flows—including discriminatory notions of citizenship and foreigner, political and social marginalization, competition over land, resources, and employment—have contributed to violence and conflict in West Africa in past decades. Rapid urbanization across the region and the influx of migrants into urban center is another source of instability. Informal settlements populated by unemployed and marginalized youth intensify perceptions of inequality and increase the risk of violent crime and gang activity.
5. Fragility of political and land institutions
Competition for control over political processes that guarantee access to resources has been at the core of much conflict and violence in recent decades. The high incidence of military coups in the region reflects this trend. Almost every conflict in the sub-region features land: ambiguities around legal pluralism (customary and statutory land tenure), ineffective land management, and unequal distribution.
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Give, even at the office
Here is Deah Barakat, a dental student murdered with his wife and sister-in-law last night in Chapel Hill, NC appealing for support to help Syrian refugees in Turkey:
His cause has exceeded its modestly stated goal by a long shot, but I’m sure it can use more: Syrian Dental Relief. I gave, here at the office. It’s quick and easier than writing a check.
PS: Try this too, if that wasn’t enough to convince:
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Hobbits will inherit the earth
Eric Rahman, a master’s student in my Post-war Reconstruction and Transition class this term, writes about Srdja Popovic’s appearance at SAIS yesterday:
Srdja Popovic is a Serbian political activist and executive director of the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS). He was a leader of the student movement Otpor!, which helped topple Serbian president Slobodan Milošević. He has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School, NYU, and the University of Colorado, among others.
There are few individuals with a history of working in such close proximity to conflict who exhibit quite the optimism and exuberance as Popovic. In an event held at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on the morning of February 10, the author of the recently published Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World discussed his vision for effective social mobilization to execute non-violent revolution.
He relied on a metaphor drawn from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series:
it is the average individual, the person you would least expect, the hobbits, who
can have the greatest impact and transform their societies through non-violent means. Popovic pointed to the electrician Lech Wałęsa and the camera shop owner Harvey Milk to illustrate that it is not institutional elites who bring about change but rather it is hobbits, who rely on their creativity to build a movement and have a lasting impact.
In spite of humorous analogies and moments of levity, Popovic presented a sober
analysis of which conditions and methods are most conducive to fomenting a social movement that can truly effect change in repressive societies. He advocates non-violence even when pitted against a brutally violent adversary. Non-violence is preferable not because violence is morally unacceptable, but because non-violence is the most effective and efficient means to combat a growing menace, as illustrated by the statistics in Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan’s Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.
The threat of ISIS he likened to a swarm of mosquitos. The temptation is
to swat them. But to combat the infestation, one has to turn attention to the source: wet areas or the swamps. There is a confluence of pernicious factors that coalesced to create permissive conditions for ISIS’s rise, but one fundamental issue is the failure of states to deliver services and the resulting vacuum of credibility and legitimacy. This can only be countered by the actual provision of expected basic
services by governments. Service provision will undercut the ISIS narrative and shrink recruitment.
There is an alarming perception among many Iraqi youth that ISIS is ‘cool.’ This perception is destabilizing and arises from lack of alternatives. There is no Iraqi ‘Batman’ or ‘Superman’ young people can look to for moral-cultural education during their formative years, which leaves them susceptible to the sophisticated propaganda machine of an organization such as ISIS.
The Arab spring and the Ukrainian crisis illustrate in Popovic’s view the consequences when a movement lacks long-term vision. In Egypt for example, the
revolution achieved its expressed goal of unseating Hosni Mubarak within the first month of the protests (four years ago today!). But once the moment came to construct a new model of government and service delivery, there was a dearth of strategic planning and the movement began to disintegrate. A similar situation existed in Ukraine following the Orange Revolution in 2003, causing the intra-Ukrainian conflict to simmer and break out again into crisis last year.
Popovic summed up his argument with an apt analogy: “Non-violent struggles are like video games. They have levels and you need a new set of skills for each level.” Despite the challenges faced and the skills required, it is the hobbits who eventually carry the day.
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Bosnia’s muj
I did this interview yesterday for Amil Ducic of the Sarajevo daily Avaz:
1. What is your perception on the indictment of six Bosnians who have been charged with providing money and equipment to foreign fighters joining al Qaeda, Nusra Front and Islamic State in Syria and Iraq? Two persons were even accused of conspiring to kill and maim persons in a foreign country.
A: Innocent until proven guilty is my first reaction. But if proven it should not be such a big surprise. There are a lot of Bosnians in the U.S. Why would we think none of them would be sympathetic with the Islamic State? There are also non-Muslim Americans who support ISIS. Ours is a big country with many different strands of political thought.
2. Reading the indictment, it’s obvious that the charges are serious. Problem for BiH is that the money is transferred in our country to stimulate the foreign fighters. Your comment?
A: I expect BiH will cooperate as much as it can in trying to block financial transfers to support foreign fighters. That’s something on which all the political leaderships can agree.
3. Again, one of the charged persons Ramiz Hodžić is identified as a person who was radicalized in Bosnia during the war. He was member of the unit “El-Mudjahid”. Do you think this an issue which has to be solved in Bosnia. Radicalization of the Bosnian Army during 1992-1995 is, regarding some opinions, the root of problems…. What is your opinion.
A: I don’t think this is a gigantic problem. At Dayton, a Croat asked that we get rid of the foreign mujahedeen in Bosnia. I asked how many there were. He replied 700, which I took to be a maximum given the source of the information.
At least half of those were forced out after the war, in part due to American pressure. Many of the remainder are living peacefully with their Bosnian families. It is twenty years since the war ended. Some will be well above fighting age (and condition) now.
So yes, Bosnia should do what it can to block them from helping or volunteering for the Islamic State. But let’s not exaggerate the scale of the problem.
4. What about the Bosnian community in USA. Is there is a danger of being labeled?
A: What I’ve seen of the Bosnian community reaction in the US is universal condemnation of any support to the Islamic State or other extremists. There will no doubt be bigots who “label” all Muslims as terrorists. But most Americans know and appreciate that Muslims in the U.S. overwhelmingly oppose extremism.
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The courteous banality of evil
I won’t have much time to write today, due to meetings and my class this evening. But here for your edification is the full BBC interview with Bashar al Asad:
Listen and weep. Note not only the content, but the reasonable and courteous tone combined with incredible lies. The courteous banality of evil.
PS: The Syrian government is proud of this interview and published the text. I assume it is an accurate rendition, but I have checked.
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