Category: Daniel Serwer
No loophole
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who has worked at Princeton since 2009, is the moderate voice of the Iranian regime, which lacks an ambassador (other than at the UN), in the United States. He said yesterday, in an interview with Die Welt (Moussavian provided the English translation):
R&D on nuclear weapons is not prohibited by NPT. NPT prohibits building, storage and the use of nuclear weapons. For many years Germany is doing R&D on nuclear weapons under IAEA’s supervision. Because Berlin wants to know the consequences of possible use of nuclear bomb against Germany by other nuclear powers. It is legitimate as long as the nuclear powers maintain thousands of nuclear weapon.
To me, this is one of the most interesting remarks in a lengthy presentation that helpfully and clearly outlines main parameters of a possible nuclear agreement with Iran: limiting Iran’s enrichment and reprocessing capabilities to meeting its practical requirements (and thereby making the time it would take to achieve a nuclear weapons capability at least a year) in exchange for lifting of sanctions, starting with European oil and financial sanctions.
Whereas those parameters may be mostly agreed, as Moussavian suggests, the parties seem far apart on the question of nuclear weapons research and development, if Moussavian’s remarks represent accurately what people in Tehran are thinking.* Germany certainly does conduct research on the impact of ionizing radiation, a subject on which its scholars have been leaders since the discovery of X-rays in 1896 (I should know: I wrote my doctoral thesis at Princeton on the early history of protection against ionizing radiation). That is quite different from conducting research on how to initiate a nuclear detonation, which is what the Americans think Iran was up to at Parchin before 2003.
While a great deal more attention has been paid to the number of centrifuges and the quantity of enriched uranium Iran will retain under a possible nuclear agreement, the issue of clandestine nuclear weapons research is really far more important. I don’t know of a single case of nuclear proliferation due to materials and facilities monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Moussavian is correct in believing that an agreement that limits enrichment and reprocessing and enables the agency to keep tabs on all of Iran’s declared facilities should be adequate to provide at least a year of warning if there is any attempt at diverting material to a nuclear weapons program.
But that is not sufficient, especially if Iran is now claiming a right to conduct nuclear weapons research. I know of no such right in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Nor to my knowledge has the IAEA ever agreed to monitor the nuclear (e.g. initiators) or non-nuclear (e.g. high explosive) research needed to develop nuclear weapons. Such research would be inconsistent with the purposes of the treaty. The IAEA’s interest in Parchin is not in order to monitor the activity but to understand Iran’s intentions. I won’t claim non-nuclear states have never done experiments of the sort Iran is accused of conducting at Parchin, but Iran is not just any non-nuclear state. It can expect no US relief from sanctions if it insists that conducting nuclear weapons research is legitimate. I doubt even the Europeans will fall for that one.
That comes from someone who would very much like to see an agreement within the parameters Moussavian suggests reached by the June deadline. But ending nuclear weapons research in Iran permanently and verifiably has to be part of the deal. Anything less leaves a giant loophole.
*PS: on this point, Moussavian writes: “Iran neither had research on nuclear weapons nor has such agenda. As a scholar, I stated my personal interpretation from NPT which I believe it is correct. It has nothing to do with Iran’s position.”
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Je ne suis pas Charlie
This is what the remaining staff of Charlie Hebdo had to say this morning on the first cover published since the murder of most of its editorial staff:
It’s a mixed message: defiant in asserting Mohammed would identify with the terrorists’ victims and shed a tear for them, but also forgiving in pardoning the assailants.
That second Catholic message, which looks to me like an afterthought, is the more difficult one for me to swallow. Reconciliation needs to be based on mutual acknowledgement of harm. Neither Charlie Hebdo nor its assailants have yet acknowledged any harm they may have done to each other. It is difficult to picture how that can happen, since the harm is so wildly disproportional.
Before evaluating that judgment, it would be wise to read and view this Mohammed Image Archive. The much-vaunted prohibition on depictions of Mohammed is, as demonstrated there, a relatively recent phenomenon. It dates from the 16th and 17th centuries, not earlier, and is not necessarily observed even today, especially among Shia. Of course that does not mean Charlie Hebdo‘s irreverent depictions are not offensive. They certainly were, and were intended to be. But the mere fact of depicting Mohammed is not so unusual as many in the Muslim community today claim.
Charlie Hebdo‘s sense of humor is not mine. Satire is difficult, as it requires exaggeration of some traits over others. It is also risky, because it easily laps over into exceedingly poor taste. A single Saturday Night Live episode is enough to convince most people of that. I prefer sardonic, even snarkey. But can there be any question about the right of others to say and draw whatever they like?
The answer is “yes.” Certainly I object to the use of the pejorative label “Redskins” as the name of the Washington area football team. So do many others. But none of us have seen fit to murder the team owner or staff. We haven’t even tried. We expect lawsuits, demonstrations and popular sentiment to convince the owner to change the name. He has deep pockets, but eventually the costs will exceed whatever benefits he imagines the name brings.
That is the point. Muslims have every right to object to Charlie Hebdo, which would not be doing its self-created job if they did not. Certainly Jews and Christians had their own bones to pick with the magazine. But where did the Kouachi brothers get the notion they could kill the messengers? What leads anyone to murder random people doing their grocery shopping in a Kosher deli?
The terrorists themselves are claiming inspiration by the Islamic State and Al Qaeda (sometimes one, sometimes the other). We should take them at their word. The sad fact is that violent extremism is proving its appeal to some young Muslims, even those who live in democratic societies. Their communities need to find ways of inspiring them in other directions.
And non-Muslims need to help. We won’t be able to catch or kill all those who might find violence an attractive outlet for their feelings of alienation and hostility. Nor should we want to. We should hope that Muslim citizens in the West find dignity and well-being without resorting to murder and suicide. Inclusion, not exclusion, is the right direction.
Je ne suis pas Charlie. Nor am I Muslim. But I want to live in a society in which both Charlie and Muslims can coexist.
PS: more on depictions of Mohammed here and here.
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Squishy is good
It may be a waste of substantial brainpower, but Daniel Byman and Jeremy Shapiro have produced a well-reasoned analysis of the threat of foreign fighters returning from Syria and Iraq as well as measures to counter that threat. Yes, it exists, they suggest, but no we shouldn’t overreact or react in ways that will make it worse.
They take a systemic approach to the problem, defining a series of steps that lead to eventual terrorist attacks in home countries and identifying steps that can be taken at each stage to provide “off ramps.” Their main policy conclusions are eminently doable:
- increasing community engagement efforts to dissuade potential fighters from going to Syria or Iraq;
- working more with Turkey to disrupt transit routes;
- improving de-radicalization programs to “turn” returning fighters into intelligence sources or make them less likely to engage in violence; and
- avoiding blanket prosecution efforts.
Dan and Jeremy usefully underlined a number of related points at their public presentation at Brookings this morning. This is a “small numbers” problem, given the size of the populations from which returning foreign fighters come. It is impossible to guarantee 100% security. We need to triage and play the odds.
They also emphasized that most of the potential terrorists are young males, which does not make them readily accessible to the US or other governments. Counter narratives need to come from sources with greater credibility to the target population. Their families and communities will have much greater influence. Giving them alternative ways in which they can contribute to the welfare of those for whom they might otherwise be tempted to fight may be useful. Putting them in prison may well radicalize them more.
I would underline this from the written report:
Efforts to promote a counter-narrative are valuable, particularly if they involve parents, preachers, and community leaders. Community programs deserve considerable attention.
Jeremy and Dan however focus most of their energy on advocating greater resources for security services, which they view as stretched thin trying to fulfill their responsibilities. Personally I’d rather waste a few more dollars on the softer Danish and Dutch community approach rather than the “identify and punish” French one. We already have in the US a pretty good indication that greater inclusion is itself a substantial barrier to radicalization. The numbers of “foreign fighters” originating here are remarkably small, particularly given the saliency of the US in the Middle East.
The White House will host a conference Feburary 18 on countering violent extremism. Indications are that the softer approach will play a major role. Press secretary Josh Earnest says:
Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) efforts rely heavily on well-informed and resilient local communities. Boston, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-St. Paul have taken the lead in building pilot frameworks integrating a range of social service providers, including education administrators, mental health professionals, and religious leaders, with law enforcement agencies to address violent extremism as part of the broader mandate of community safety and crime prevention.
Sounds squishy, but it is the right approach.
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Here we go again
French Prime Minister Valls declared war Saturday:
It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity.
I guess that was inevitable, but it brings back un-fond memories of George W. Bush declaring war on terror. At least this time the enemy is well-framed: Bush’s war on a means was a lot worse idea than war on the people who use it and the ideas that support it.
But Valls’ is still a bad frame, because declaring “war” makes military and paramilitary means the prime weapons. They are unquestionably necessary, but just as unquestionably insufficient, to deal with the problem. The stand-offs in Paris with three hostage-takers required the French security forces to use their impressive military capabilities. Police vigilance was vital to protecting today’s massive demonstration in Place de la Republique. But countering violent radicalism over the next months and years will entail far more than effectiveness on the part of security forces.
The murders of the Charlie Hebdo staff, several police and four hostages at a Kosher deli were horrendous. But they are still a small percentage of the almost 700 murders per year in France (which has a murder rate one-fourth that of the US). Yes, the numbers are important because of the political purpose and what the incidents may portend for the future. But a crackdown “against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom and solidarity” is far more likely to elicit a violent reaction than to calm the situation.
If you doubt the relevance of this point, read Jonathan Turley’s description in this morning’s Washington Post of the French government crackdown on free speech in recent years. He argues:
Indeed, if the French want to memorialize those killed at Charlie Hebdo, they could start by rescinding their laws criminalizing speech that insults, defames or incites hatred, discrimination or violence on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, sex or sexual orientation. These laws have been used to harass the satirical newspaper and threaten its staff for years. Speech has been conditioned on being used “responsibly” in France, suggesting that it is more of a privilege than a right for those who hold controversial views.
Ironically, Charlie Hebdo was founded in response to a government ban on a predecessor. It is also ironic that today’s demonstration included the presence of such stalwart defenders of freedom of speech as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Queen Rania, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That’s the kind of audience a war on Islamic extremism gets you. It should make us all wonder whether we’ve got the signals right.
Protecting Western societies from violent Islamic extremism is a worthy cause. But it should not be conceived as war. Quite to the contrary. The essential tools are those of peacebuilding: a culture of lawfulness, inclusive governance that ensures wide and non-discriminatory distribution of economic benefits, protection of human rights, integration, good understanding and dialogue among diverse social groups, security forces committed to protection of citizens, and citizens committed to maintaining a society they perceive as just and free. There may still be terrorist incidents in such a society, but they will be far less frequent than in one that discriminates against those who wear the hijab and populates vast suburbs with unemployed Muslim youth.
I imagine that the French security services are among the most capable in the world. But they missed the radicalization of the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher deli murders. Someone in Al Qaeda, or Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, managed to reach deep into French society to find and mobilize extremists. Even in the most alert and just of societies, that could happen. But I don’t know anyone who would suggest that most Muslim youth in France feels it has a fair stake in the success of the country. Making that a reality will be far more important, and far harder, than the war on Islamic extremism.
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Libya at swords’ points
I was going to write up this event, but as my highly efficient colleagues at the Middle East Institute have already got it up on the web, maybe you should look at it:
Then read this at The Economist for the narrative version.
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Who has gas?
President Putin’s cancellation of the South Stream pipeline project leaves parts of the Balkans vulnerable to a supply disruption and without sufficient future gas supplies. This is a rare opportunity for the European Union and the United States. South Stream would have tied Serbia, Bulgaria and others umbilically to a Moscow that is hard to like and unreliable. Sanctions and lower oil and gas prices killed the project. Finance had already killed its Western-backed competitor, Nabucco. Now what is needed is some active diplomacy to ensure that any future projects undermine Russian pretensions in the Balkans.
So where else might the gas come from? The planned TANAP/TAP (Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas/Trans-Adriatic) pipeline will bring gas to the Balkans (Turkey, Greece, Albania and Bulgaria) as well as Italy from Azerbaijan and eventually Turkmenistan. Construction is supposed to begin in 2015. This is a good but partial solution for 2020 and beyond.
There are many additional options, at least in the long term: Croatia and Montenegro have contracted for exploration in the Adriatic, where it is known deposits exist. Libyan gas already enters Europe through the Italian peninsula not far from the Balkans. Eastern Mediterranean gas lies not far away, and Iraqi gas not all that much farther.
Of these options, Libyan gas is in principle the quickest and easiest, not least because it is already flowing close by. Caveat emptor, as always: Libyan gas production has not recovered to prerevolution levels, though ongoing political instability has affected gas supplies less than oil production. Once Libya achieves a modicum of stability, it might be possible to build a pipeline from Italy to the Balkans that could be fed in the future by Adriatic gas, once that is developed. Israeli/Greek/Cypriot gas is a longer shot, but not impossible if the political knots ever get untied. Iraqi gas, shipped either from Kurdistan or the Sunni-majority provinces of Anbar and Ninewa, would be geopolitically a great way to tie Iraq to Europe, but shipment to Turkey may well prove the more economical proposition.
In the meanwhile, the Balkans have quite a bit to worry about if Russian gas is constricted or cut off anytime during the rest of this decade. That is unlikely this year because of lower prices, which increase Moscow’s incentive to export in order to maintain revenue (and commitments have already been made). Liquefied natural gas, which might come from Qatar or eventually even the US, may provide some insurance. The EU is backing a terminal in Croatia,but that option is expensive and won’t be built for years.
For the near term, the EU has been encouraging a market-based approach as well as pipeline interconnections and storage, so that gas can be stored and shipped more readily to and around the Union, including to the Balkans, should the need arise. That is the kind of solution that has worked so well in the US, which has built enough interconnections to make the entire country a single gas market:
Europe isn’t so far off from that, but the Balkans clearly need more connectivity:
There is no one solution to the gas problem in the Balkans. Wise heads should be pondering how to make sure that whatever menu of options is chosen is economically viable and has the kinds of geopolitical impact the US and Western Europe will find beneficial. That means diversification and resilience above all, with reduced dependence on Russia. Moscow would make far less trouble in countries like Bulgaria, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro if the Balkans had alternative sources of gas.
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