Category: Daniel Serwer
Nothing new
President Obama said a lot more about foreign policy in last night’s State of the Union message than many of us expected. But did he say anything new?
His first entry point to international affairs was notable: he got there via exports and trade, pivoting quickly to TTP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and TTIP, the Trade and Investment Partnership with Europe. Though he didn’t name them, that’s what he was referring to when he appealed for Congress to provide him with what is known as trade promotion authority to negotiate deals with Asia and Europe that are “not only free, but fair.” Nothing new here, just an interesting elevation of economic diplomacy to pride of place. Ditto the plea to close tax loopholes that encourage American companies to keep their profits abroad.
But after a detour to the internet and scientific research, the President was soon back on the more familiar territory of national security. He plugged smart leadership that builds coalitions and combines diplomacy and military power. He wants others to do more of the fighting. But there was little or no indication of how collapsed states like Syria, Yemen and Libya might be governed in the future.
Leaving it to their own devices hasn’t worked out well, but this is a president who (like all his predecessors) doesn’t want to do nationbuilding abroad and who (unlike many of his predecessors) has been disciplined enough to resist it. He talks non-military means but uses force frequently and says he wants an authorization from Congress to use it against the Islamic State, which he is doing anyway.
Russia is isolated and its economy in tatters, the President claimed, but it also holds on to Crimea and a large part of Donbas in southeastern Ukraine. He offered no new moves to counter Putin but rather “steady, persistent resolve.” On Cuba, the Administration has already begun to restore diplomatic ties. The President reiterated that he wants Congress to end the embargo, which isn’t in the cards unless Raul Castro gets converted to multi-party democracy in his dotage.
Iran is the big issue. The President naturally vaunted the interim Joint Plan of Action and hopes for a comprehensive one by the end of June. He promised to veto any new sanctions, because they would destroy the international coalition negotiating with Tehran and ruin chances for a peaceful settlement. All options are on the table, the President said, but America will go to war only as a last resort. Nothing new in that either, though I believe he would while many of my colleagues think not.
Trolling on, the President did cybersecurity, Ebola, Asia-Pacific, climate change and values (as in democracy and human rights), stopping briefly at Gitmo and electronic surveillance along the way. Nothing new here either, just more of that steady, persistent resolve.
Notable absences (but correct me if I missed something): any mention of the Israel/Palestine “peace process,” Egypt, Saudi Arabia (or the Gulf), India (where the President will visit starting Sunday), Latin America (other than Cuba), North Korea.
What does it all add up to? It is a foreign policy of bits and pieces, with themes of retrenchment, reduced reliance on US military power (but little sign of increased diplomatic potency), prevention of new threats and support for American values woven in. The President continues to resist pronouncing a doctrine of his own but wants to be seen as a moderate well within the broad parameters of American internationalism. He is wishing to get bipartisan action from Congress on a few things: trade promotion authority, the authorization to use force, dismantling the Cuba embargo, closing Guantanamo. But none of this is new ground.
He is also prepared to forge ahead on his own. As I’ve noted before, this lame duck knows how to fly.
In case you didn’t watch it last night and have more patience than I do, here is the whole thing:
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Producing more enemies than you can kill
No doubt one of the few international issues President Obama will highlight in tonight’s State of the Union speech is the threat of international terrorists associated with the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. He will cite the American military response in Iraq and Syria as vital to our national interests and claim we are making progress, at least in Iraq.
He is unlikely to acknowledge that the problem is spreading and getting worse. In Libya, there are two parliaments and two governments, one of which has ample extremist backing. In Yemen, rebels have laid siege to the government the Washington relies on for cooperation against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In northeastern Nigeria, Boko Haram is wrecking havoc. In Syria, moderates have lost territory and extremists have gained. Taliban violence is up in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Fourteen years ago when the World Trade Center was attacked in New York City Al Qaeda amounted to a few hundred militants hiding out mainly in Afghanistan, with small clandestine cells in Europe and the US. Now estimates of the number of extremists change so rapidly it is hard to know which to cite, but there are surely more than 100 times as many actively engaged in extremist Islamist campaigns or recruitment efforts in close to a dozen countries, including (in addition to the ones cited above) Somalia, Egypt, Niger, Mali, Algeria, Palestine and Tunisia. Counting the numbers of sympathizers in Europe, Russia and the United States is just impossible.
The long war against Islamist extremism is not going well. It can’t, because we are fighting what amounts to an insurgency against the existing state system principally with military means. Drones and air strikes are killing lots of militants, and I am even prepared to believe that the collateral damage to innocents is minimized, whatever that means. But extremist recruitment is more than keeping up with extremist losses. We are making more enemies than we are killing. Insurgencies thrive on that.
The Obama administration is apparently prepared to make things worse, as it now leans towards supporting UN and Russian peace initiatives in Syria that are premised on allowing Bashar al Asad to stay in power. The Islamic State will welcome that, as it will push relative moderates in their direction and weaken the prospects for a democratic transition. Bashar has shown no inclination to fight ISIS and will continue to focus his regime’s efforts against democracy advocates.
President Obama knows what it takes to shrink extremist appeal: states that protect their populations with rule of law and govern inclusively and transparently. This is the opposite of what Bashar al Asad, and his father, have done. But President Obama has no confidence the US or anyone in the international community can build such states in a matter of months or even years. So he does what comes naturally to those whose strongest available means is military power: he uses it to achieve short-term objectives, knowing that its use is counter-productive in the longer term.
But producing more enemies than you can kill is not a strategy that works forever. The Union is recovering from a devastating economic crisis and can now afford to take a fresh look at its foreign policy priorities. I’ll be with the President when he calls tonight for completion of the big new trade and investment agreement with Europe (TTIP) and its counterpart in the Pacific (TTP). These are good things that can find support on both sides of the aisle, among Democrats and Republicans.
I’ll groan when he calls for a new Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) but says little or nothing about building the kind of states in the Greater Middle East that are needed to immunize the region against extremism. Support for restoration of autocracy in Egypt and for Gulf monarchies is not a policy that will counter extremism. We are guaranteeing that things are going to get worse before they get better.
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Martin Luther the King
That’s what my nephew answered when I asked the name of his grade school: Martin Luther the King. It strikes me as consistent with the hagiography of our time. MLK is treated in much of today’s America, especially on today’s holiday, like a latter day Moses: he led us out of the oppression of segregation to a promised land of equal opportunity that he was not allowed to enter.
This narrative distorts two realities. We are still far from the promised land of his dreams. And MLK was no saint. Come to think of it: neither was Moses, who killed an Egyptian to stop him from whipping a Jew and broke the original tablets containing the Ten Commandments in anger.
Our record on equality is far from perfect. The statistical evidence for inequality in outcomes (assets, income, health, jobs, education) is dramatic. So too is the psychological evidence of input bias. We are not talking ancient history here. We are talking today, in post-segregation America, where our housing, schools and churches remain more segregated than most of us like to admit. I’d be the last to deny that lots of things have changed since the 1964 Civil Rights Act made discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin illegal and the 1965 Voting Rights Act sought to end voting discrimination. But we are still a society in which police kill too many black men with impunity and blacks fail to show up in force at the polls.
Nor was MLK perfect. That is one of the messages of Selma, a film noted in recent weeks more for its lack of Academy Award nomination than for those it received. The film conforms to the classic American narrative: good triumphs over evil, but it still offers a nuanced and equivocal portrait of MLK. Hesitant and uncertain in private with his wife, his colleagues in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he is forceful in public and in defying President Johnson. This is no absolute monarch but rather a man who tries to stay in touch with his supporters, listens to his advisers (even if he also overrules them) and suffers from guilt about his sexual exploits as well as the deaths of his supporters.
Today, all American politicians present themselves as supporters of Martin Luther the King. Selma illustrates how that is a snare and a delusion. The real MLK was interested not only in equal rights and opportunity, but also in empowering black people politically and economically. He would be dissatisfied today not only with the bias that affects blacks but also with the skewed economic and social outcomes that tarnish the American dream. MLK’s assassination stopped the movement he led in its tracks. Ralph Abernathy tried to continue the struggle for economic betterment through the Poor People’s Campaign, but he was no MLK and failed to arouse the passion required. Bottom line: we are stuck halfway with supposedly equal opportunity but continuing bias in behavior and sharply contrasting outcomes.
We can and should do better. I suppose beatifying Martin Luther the King may help us, because it makes us seek a more just and equal society. But we need to be clear: the movement he led was rooted in American ideals, but it sought to change American reality. That is happening too slowly for my taste. MLK wouldn’t be pleased either.
So here, via @adamserwer and @jonquilynhill:
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Europe takes a turn
Sead Numanovic of the Bosnian daily Avaz yesterday asked some questions about the visit of Foreign Ministers Hammond (UK) and Steinmeier (Germany) to Sarajevo to press implementation of their initiative to hasten reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I replied:
1. What do you think on Hammond-Steinmeier initiative on Bosnia? What is good, what is bad in it?
A: I think it is good the Europeans are showing interest. But I have doubts an initiative that ignores the defects of the Bosnian constitution will succeed in generating serious reforms. I’ll be happy to be proved wrong though.
2. Is there a willingness among Bosnia’s politicians for reforms?
A: In theory yes. In practice, it depends on which ones. They dislike proposals that weaken their own hold on power and patronage. But only by doing that, in particular with respect to state-controlled companies, can Bosnia begin to function more effectively.
3. Is the request from EU for reform through this initiative modest or far reaching one?
It seems to me modest in conception. Brussels is trying to make these initial steps easy, in order to get Bosnia into the EU accession process faster. It did something similar for Serbia. I wish it would do it for Macedonia, which truly deserves it.
4. What does the US think about the initiative (I was told US are not so happy about it)?
A: I think well-informed Americans would have preferred something more far-reaching, including amendment of the constitution to reduce ethnic vetoes and clarify the central government’s authority to negotiate and implement the acquis communitaire. The Americans are more pro-European than the Europeans, at least right now.
5. Is an idea to reform economy and social sector, without at this stage touching constitutional issues, a wise one?
A: Let’s wait and see. Those of us who have wanted constitutional changes haven’t produced brilliant results. Let someone else try a new trick.
6. What if this initiative fails?
A: I suppose someone will propose something else. Meanwhile, Bosnia and Herzegovina is falling well behind in the regatta to join the EU. That is unfortunate, but its citizens need to find a way to take the helm and get the politicians to row harder.
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Not in the cards
Yesterday I published a piece by Matthew Parrish suggesting that Iraqi Kurdistan (plus some of Syrian Kurdish territory) is headed towards independence. He imagines the path may be a relatively easy one, compared to the painful history Kurdistan has already endured.
I don’t agree.
My objections have nothing to do with the Kurdish case for independence. That is pretty good: they were promised it at the end of World War I, they have been mistreated both within Iraq and Syria for long periods, they were chased from their homes and out of Iraq, and they were gassed by the Baghdad government. This is a history comparable to Kosovo’s (though the Albanians were never gassed).
Unlike that former Serbian province, the Kurds do not have a UN Security Council resolution that promises them an eventual decision on their political status and the UN did not administer their territory for the better part of a decade. But they were protected by a UN-authorized no-fly zone that allowed them to develop substantial and relatively democratic governance. The distinction amounts to little net difference.
The case against Kurdistan’s independence is not based on Kurdistan’s merits but on geopolitical factors. Turkey, as Matthew suggests, has already accepted Iraqi Kurdistan’s de facto independence and deals with it pretty much as an independent state. It remains unclear what its reaction to de jure independence would be, but let’s assume it would accept (though recognition would only come if independent Kurdistan forswore any pretensions whatsoever to Turkish territory, as Matthew suggests).
That is the only good news. Matthew’s presumption that Iran would somehow come around is dubious. Tehran has made it absolutely clear that it fears the irredentist sentiment Kurdistan’s independence would unleash, endangering the peace and stability that has generally reigned in the Iranian province of eastern Kurdistan and uncorking other ethnic resentments throughout a country whose Persian population is likely no more than 60% of the total. Iran is not going to welcome an independent Kurdistan.
Just as important: Arab Iraqis would not accept an independent Kurdistan either. The presence of large oil reserves in territory that the Kurds now control, which Matthew cites as a plus for independence, is one reason. Another is Sunni fear of what would be a large Shia majority in an Iraq without Kurdistan. The Sunnis would be unlikely to secede from Iraq without Kirkuk and Baghdad, which they would fight for. Peaceful separation, like that of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, requires prior agreement on the lines of separation, which doesn’t exist today in Iraq and isn’t likely to exist in the future.
Nor would the international community welcome an independent Kurdistan. The Americans will oppose it because of the precedent it would set for the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The Russians will oppose it because of the implications for its ethnically non-Russian republics. The Europeans will be worried about Catalonia. The Chinese about Tibet. Kosovo, which still is not a UN member, was an exception that proves the rule, not a new rule.
In any event, the Kurds aren’t likely to go for independence anytime soon. At current oil prices and production levels, Kurdistan is not financially viable. While Matthew may imagine peaceful coexistence with the Islamic State (yes, he does), few in Turkey or Kurdistan can. Ankara and Erbil as well as Baghdad all know that they need American, European and Gulf help to defeat the self-declared caliphate. Complicating matters by declaring independence will not improve the Kurds’ prospects for needed assistance.
Could things change? Of course. Certainly oil prices can go up, though likely not as high as they were, because anything above $80 per barrel will open the “tight” oil and gas spigot. Kurdistan will need something like that price (and 10 years or so of drilling) to be better off with 100% of their own oil revenue than 17% of Iraq’s. Kurdistan could come to terms with Baghdad on where to draw its border, which would remove one important casus belli. Turkey could settle its problems with its own Kurds and Syria could throw out the Islamic State. Iran could turn into a cream puff. But little of that is likely to happen in the foreseeable future.
Bottom line: Kurdistan is not headed towards independence anytime soon, despite the merits of its case.
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Towards Kurdistan independence
This piece comes to peacefare.net from Matthew Parish, identified in full at the end.
The Kurds are an atypical people. The geographical area they populate is essentially contiguous, but they have not enjoyed their own state in modern times. Since the early sixteenth century their territory and population has been divided between the Safavid (Persian) and Ottoman Empires. They stayed much that way until the Treaty of Sèvres, a European plan for dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire that anticipated a Kurdish nation amongst several new emergent states at the end of World War I. The existence of such a state was a corollary of Woodrow Wilson’s theme of self-determination for previously colonized peoples. Sèvres anticipated that a Kurdish state would emerge under joint Anglo-French suzerainty, but Ataturk buried the abortive treaty through success in the Turkish War of Independence.
The Kurds remained without autonomy, divided between Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, for some decades afterwards. In the 1950s and 1960, the Kurds took advantage of the chaos surrounding Sunni minority rule in Iraq, and in particular the military coup of And al-Karim Qasim against the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 and his subsequent execution in a Ba’ath party coup in 1963. The First Iraqi-Kurdish war reached a conclusion after nine years in 1970, with establishment of a federal Kurdish entity within Iraqi borders.
The Kurds’ luck ran out with the seizure of absolute power in Iraq by Saddam Hussein in 1979.The humiliation of the Iraqi central authorities by the Kurds would not be forgotten during his totalitarian reign. De jure Kurdish autonomy would be progressively eroded until Iraqi Kurdistan fell entirely under the writ of Baghdad. This course culminated in the 1988-89 Al-Anfal military campaign to defeat the Kurdish Peshmerga (the region’s autonomous military), which involved the widespread massacre of civilians including use of poisonous gas attacks.
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