Category: Uncategorized
Russia disrespects sovereignty and the Dayton accords
I did an interview yesterday with Aldin Tiro, who published it today at hayat.ba:
Q: You probably heard that [Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Lavrov] met with Milorad Dodik last night in Republika Srpska, where the BiH [Bosnian] flag was not hoisted at all.
Lavrov also praised the RS National Assembly’s decision to be militarily neutral. At the meeting, the state of BiH was degraded and disrespect was expressed, and Dodik said at one point that Lavrov first came to RS last night and that he would come to BiH only [the next day]?
How to comment on such behavior of Russia, that is, Lavrov, who is an experienced politician?
A: Lavrov knows what he is doing: providing support to a secessionist who seeks to do Moscow’s bidding and prevent NATO membership.
Q: How do you view the facts that today Sefik Dzaferovic and Zeljko Komsic (the other two members of the Presidency of BiH) refused to meet with Lavrov?
A: I think they did the right thing. The Sarajevo state institutions need to be respected. Lavrov will be furious.
Q: Has Russia expressed disrespect for BiH? One could constantly hear Lavrov’s statement that Russia respects the territorial integrity of BiH and sends it to Dayton, and it is persistently repeated that it wants the High Representative to leave?
A: Duplicity is Lavrov’s middle name. You can’t respect the territorial integrity of BiH and visit Dodik first in a room without the Bosnian state flag. You can’t respect Dayton and want the High Representative responsible for the interpretation and implementation of Dayton to leave.
Q: How do you view Milorad Dodik’s behavior during these visits?
A: Dodik is Moscow’s puppet. No more, no less.
Q: Who will “profit” the most, that is, who is the manager here?
A: Lavrov is the manager, but no doubt Dodik is profiting.
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Trying to mind read Biden in Tehran
Mohammad Lotfollahi of Iran’s Etemad Newspaper asked questions. I responded:
Q: The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian nuclear scientist, by Israel (according to the New York Times) has greatly changed the political equation and increased tensions. What do you think was the motive of the perpetrators of this assassination?
A: I imagine there are several motives, including setting back the Iranian nuclear program, but the timing seems related to the political situation in the US. The Israelis want to make it hard for President Biden to return to the JCPOA. Iranian retaliation against Israel or the United States would make that difficult.
Q: Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018. He tried to reach a better agreement with maximum pressure and sanctions. Was Trump able to achieve his goals?
A: No, the maximum pressure campaign generated a maximum resistance response, with no visible progress in getting to a better agreement.
Q: With Joe Biden in office, will US policy continue to use sanctions against Iran, or will Washington pursue diplomacy and cooperation?
A: Washington will shift towards diplomacy, but not all the sanctions are nuclear-related. Some derive from support to terrorism and human rights abuses. I don’t expect to see all the sanctions lifted until there is a broader agreement than the JCPOA, and maybe not even then.
Q: The Economist says Joe Biden should drive a hard bargain with Iran. In your opinion, what policy should Biden have towards Iran?
A: I think the JCPOA had adequate restraints on the Iranian nuclear program for the time frame of its validity. The Americans will now want to extend that time frame and the physical scope of IAEA inspections as well as limit Iranian power projection in the region, including its missile program and support to proxies. I don’t know whether Iran will be prepared to discuss those issues or whether agreement on them is possible, but normalization of relations with Washington will require real progress on them.
Q: German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told weekly Der Spiegel that it was in the interest of the US and Europeans to reach a broader agreement with Tehran. Does it make sense to look for a bigger deal when you can’t have a small successful deal?
A: Maybe not, but it is worth a try. The JCPOA was successful so long as the Americans remained committed to it.
Q: A win-win agreement between Iran and the United States should have what characteristics? What role can Europe play in signing this agreement
A: Win-win would mean increased security for the US, Israel, the Arab states of the Gulf, and for Iran. I can picture that, though we are still far from it.
Q: Netanyahu is a staunch opponent of the nuclear deal. He supports a military strike on Iran. He carried out several sabotage operations against Iran during the Trump era. Under Biden, will the US president follow in Obama’s footsteps or prefer to work with Netanyahu?
A: I don’t know precisely what Biden will do. He will certainly be committed to Israel’s security, but he will at the same time try to revive the JCPOA and to restrain Israeli operations in hope of getting Iran to restrain its nuclear program and regional power projection.
Q: “Under a Biden-Harris administration, we will reassess our relationship with the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia], end US support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil,” Biden said in October. What policy will the Biden government have in the Middle East? Do human rights really influence the policies of the future US government?
A: Yes, I think human rights will play a stronger role in the Biden Administration than they have in the Trump Administration, including human rights in Iran as well as in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. There will be no sword dancing in Riyadh. But there are also limits to what can be achieved in societies governed by autocratic regimes. I would guess Biden will initially focus on Saudi women imprisoned for driving and other protests in the Kingdom and Americans imprisoned in the Islamic Republic.
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Stevenson’s army, November 25
There hasn’t been much news about Congress lately, but today there is.
The appropriators have agreed on ceilings for the different bills, making passage likely before the Dec 11 deadline.
HASC chairman says USAF is playing runoff politics in Georgia.
Walter Oleszek, co-author of Congress & Its Members and a longtime CRS analyst, has a long paper explaining why the “regular order” of congressional business has fallen out of favor. FYI, I still favor it. This is a good summary of the reent evolution of lawmaking.
Happy Thanksgiving, wherever and with whomever.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. 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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Stevenson’s army, November 21
The House Majority Leader says earmarks will return next year. [Hooray!][CRS has more background info.]
OMB used same tactic to cut WHO payments it used to block Ukraine aid.
NYT has good explainer of the programs being ended by Treasury despite support from Fed.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. 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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Stevenson’s army, November 19
– The acting SecDef signed an order elevating the Special Forces to a status equal to the Service secretaries. There’s confusion as to what this means in practice.
– A GMU institute has some ideas on the defense industrial base.
– Many voices have criticized the administration’s abrupt drawdown from Afghanistan. Andrew Bacevich offers a contrary view.
Politico offers some wise words on Sen. McConnell:
MCCONNELL HAS A MAXIM, though, and it’s quite easy to discern from watching the Capitol: If you can beat him, beat him. MCCONNELL is driven by power. If you have the votes to stop him from exerting his will, then do it, and if you can’t, then that’s too bad. He doesn’t care for letters urging him to do things, or press conferences calling him the devil. To call it bare-knuckle politics would be kind.
DEMOCRATS ARE EAGER TO REMIND that they don’t play MCCONNELL’S game. And that couldn’t be more evident.
MCCONNELL’S strength is that he has a united Senate GOP Conference at nearly all times. They follow him, and trust him. So, the road map for BIDEN here is quite clear. He has two general options: Can BIDEN create an environment in which he has a governing coalition willing to split with MCCONNELL? Or, more likely, can BIDEN — the self-styled master legislator — act quickly to move on areas in which the two sides have shared legislative priorities: Covid relief and perhaps a government funding deal, if that doesn’t get done this month.
ANOTHER THING THAT WILL DRIVE Republicans is a tough 2022 map. There are a bunch of potentially competitive states Republicans will have to wage races in, including FLORIDA, GEORGIA, IOWA, KANSAS, MISSOURI, NORTH CAROLINA, OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA and WISCONSIN.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. 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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This is not about organ trafficking
I’ve now had a chance to at least skim the charges against Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veseli, and other KLA leaders indicted by the Specialist Chambers in The Hague. While triggered by the Marty report, the Specialist Chambers have adopted an expansive definition of the crimes they were investigating. I can’t even be sure from the redacted indictment whether it includes charges related to the organ-trafficking Marty alleged without, he himself admitted, sufficient evidence to stand up in court. If those crimes at the “yellow house” in northern Albania are included in this indictment, they are a small part of the whole.
What the court has done is to charge the KLA leadership with being a joint criminal enterprise that intentionally committed many and widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity. The victims were non-combatant civilian “opponents,” whose ethnic identity is not specified but clearly include Albanians as well as Serbs.
There will be many people in Serbia and some in Kosovo who rejoice at this indictment. The crimes, sometimes according to the indictment itself committed in the aftermath of Serb abuses against civilians, were apparent at the time of the war and in its aftermath. What the prosecutor seeks to show is that the criminality was not spontaneous or undisciplined behavior but rather an organized, concerted effort directed by the top KLA leadership.
Many of the details are redacted in the public version of the indictment, but some will presumably become public as the court proceeds with witnesses and other evidence. The defense will deny the charges. We’ll then all have a chance to judge for ourselves the validity of the prosecutor’s portrait of the KLA,
But what is already clear is the one-sided character of this judicial effort. Holding people accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity has to be welcomed, but to do it for the KLA and not the Serbian security forces, which killed many more civilians than the KLA, is cockeyed. It is difficult not to see the current charges as part of a dramatic American tilt in Serbia’s direction and against Kosovo. While the Specialist Chambers pre-date President Trump, the current prosecutor was a Trump selection.
There were already three trials of Serbs at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia involving Kosovo. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic died before his was completed. In the two others, six high officials of Yugoslavia and Serbia were convicted. They too were charged with a joint criminal enterprise, one aimed against Kosovo’s Albanians that explicitly sought to change the ethnic composition of the population.
If I read the Specialist Chambers’ mandate correctly, it does have jurisdiction over Serbian perpetrators in Kosovo during the period 1 January 1998-31 December 2000, though the Serbian parliament, unlike the Kosovo Assembly, has not agreed. The prosecutor’s claim to being fair would be much stronger if he had filed charges as well against Serbian commanders active in Kosovo during that time. There are commanders who were directly responsible for war crimes in Kosovo, and for the murder of three American Albanians in Serbia shortly after the war, who are still enjoying prominent positions in Serbian politics and the security forces.
Whether Serb or Albanian, those charged are innocent until proven guilty, at least in court. But in the public mind the KLA will be tarred by these proceedings while the Serbs will be seen in Kosovo as getting off. Even those Albanians who opposed violence at the time–and were potential victims according to this indictment–will feel compelled to defend resistance to Serbian abuses. The political impact in both Serbia and Kosovo could be substantial. Let us hope it will be in favor of greater mutual understanding and reconciliation, but I have my doubts.
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