This is not easy
American Ambassador Robert Ford is returning to Damascus, where violence continues. Security forces and pro-regime militias killed dozens yesterday while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was meeting with opposition Syrian National Council members in Geneva. It is not clear how many the defector-manned Free Syrian Army has killed, but the SNC is claiming its armed partners will only defend Syrians and not undertake offensive operations.
There is no sign of the Arab League observers Bashar al Assad claims to have agreed could be deployed. Syria is now saying that sanctions have to end before observers can be deployed. I guess Damascus forgot to mention that earlier.
What is to be done? More of the same I am afraid. There is no quick solution. Even if Bashar were to exit suddenly, there would still be a regime in place fighting for its life with the resources Iran provides. The effort now has to focus on tightening sanctions, especially those imposed by the European Union and the Arab League as well as Turkey. It is important also to continue to work on the Russians, who have so far blocked any UN Security Council resolution.
Burhan Ghalioun, who leads the SNC, goes over all these issues and more in his Wall Street Journal interview last week. Unfortunately, it attracted attention mainly for what he had to say about Syria being able to recover the Golan Heights and breaking its military alliance with Iran. Much more interesting were his commitment to nonviolence, to a “civil” state, to countering sectarianism, to Arab solidarity and to building a serious democracy with rule of law. The outlines of an SNC program are starting to emerge, including a desire for an orderly transition, maintenance of state institutions and elections within a year. But I found it hard to credit his dismissal of the Muslim Brotherhood. It has long played an important underground role in Syria and is likely to persist as an important political force in the post-Assad period.
The Americans seem to me still focused on hastening Bashar’s removal. That is certainly a worthy goal, but it may not happen. We also need to be worrying about sustaining the nonviolent opposition, which is under enormous pressure every day. Ambassador Ford’s return may give them a boost, but he is unlikely to be able to do much to help them or to communicate effectively with the regime, whose listening skills are minimal.
Getting the observers in would be one important step, but it is unclear to me whether they really exist. If Bashar did agree to them, could the Arab League deploy them within a reasonable time frame? Who are they? How many? How have they been trained? What rules of behavior will they follow? How will they report?
Bluff is not going to win this game. Enforcing sanctions, persuading the Russians to go along with a Security Council resolution, deploying Arab League observers, sustaining the protesters, keeping an exit door open for Bashar: none of it is easy, but together these things may begin slowly to turn the tide.
Here is Bashar al Assad with Barbara Walters: he asks for evidence of brutality, denies that he has given orders for a crackdown and suggests the UN is not credible. He likely also thinks the sun revolves around the earth:
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A step forward, but only one
Here are the agreed conclusions on Integrated B(oundary/order) Management (IBM) reached between Pristina and Belgrade. No question but that these are a step forward: an agreement for joint management of whatever you want to call the line between them. The heart of the matter is this:
4. The joint, integrated, single and secure posts will be located within a ‘common area of IBM crossing points’, jointly delineated, where officials of each party carry out relevant controls. Exceptionally, and limited to the common IBM areas, the parties will not display symbols of their respective jurisdictions;
The EU will chair the implementation group. The arrangement is not intended to decide or influence the question of status, and the agreement does not cover revenue or fiscal questions. It only provides a mechanism through which Belgrade and Pristina will presumably each meet its own revenue and fiscal requirements.
So far, so good. What is the agreement’s broader significance? It is one more step on the way to Belgrade’s acceptance of the Pristina authorities as the legitimate government on the undivided territory of Kosovo, whatever the status of that territory is. It is also a step by Pristina towards problem-solving cooperation with Belgrade.
It is not however more than that. There is still a long way to go in achieving the kind of cooperation, and mutual respect, that will allow both Serbia and Kosovo to proceed in their ambitions to join the European Union.
Is it enough to gain Belgrade candidacy status for the EU? On the merits, I think not: this is far short of Chancellor Merkel’s demand that Belgrade dismantle its parallel structures in northern Kosovo and give up on partition. There may of course be additional assurances on those points, but I would want to hear them said out loudly and unequivocally, if not signed and sealed, before accepting them as dispositive. If the EU decides to go ahead without those assurances, it will only be harder to get them in the future.
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Diplomacy imitates confused reality
Yesterday’s Bonn conference on Afghanistan reflected all too starkly the war. Lots of countries showed up, but Pakistan–certainly among the most important–did not. The Taliban weren’t there either. Iran was, but sounding out of tune with both the Americans and Afghans, who emphasized the need for continuing assistance and foreign military presence. Tehran blames the whole mess on foreign intervention. Afghanistan was looking for long-term commitment, not specific pledges. There was no progress on the country’s confusing current reality.
The best I can say for the event is that Hillary Clinton knows what is important: she emphasized rule of law, including the fight against corruption, and underlined the importance of being realistic about what can be achieved. Some might claim that these two points are mutually contradictory, but that’s the confusing reality.
I am surprised that the pressures for withdrawal from Afghanistan are not stronger than they are. I guess having an opposition devoted to “winning” gives a Democratic president a free hand to remain longer, if he wants to do so and can keep his own party in line. But it is hard to see how we’ll make it to 2014, when most of the U.S. troops are supposed to be on their way home, unless there is progress in negotiating with the Taliban.
No one seems to think that is happening, but I admit it would be hard to tell from outside. Negotiations of this sort go slowly and badly until suddenly they go well. It is worth trying, if only because success in is so important to rescuing the overall effort from failure.
Today’s sectarian attacks on Shia targets, which are unusual in Afghanistan, can be interpreted at least two ways: either there is a Taliban splinter group (or Al Qaeda) that is trying to wreck ongoing negotiations, or the Taliban have decided to widen their war in a sectarian direction, hoping to bring more chaos to Kabul and Afghanistan generally (one of the attacks took place in the usually quiet northern town Mazar-i-Sharif). More confused reality.
PS: The Taliban have joined in condemnation of the attacks. A Pakistani group with ties to al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami, has now claimed responsibility.
PPS: Those asking for the U.S. to complete the job in Afghanistan seem to me to be asking for more than we are likely to give.
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Please, Athens, prove me wrong
Is Greece in the Balkans? Of course the answer geographically is yes. But its leaders now have to decide whether it is still culturally part of the Balkans–where many games are zero sum, with one side’s loss being the other’s gain. Or whether Greece has really become part of Europe, where at least in good times a rising tide is expected to lift all boats.
The occasion is today’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision that Athens violated a 1995 “interim accord” when it blocked Skopje’s entry into NATO at the Bucharest summit in 2008 under the awkward name “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.” The court went on to decline to order Athens not to do it again, saying:
As the Court previously explained, “[a]s a general rule, there is no reason to suppose that a State whose act or conduct has been declared wrongful by the Court will repeat that act or conduct in the future, since its good faith must be presumed”
How I wish that such presumption were justified!
These are not good times for Europe in general, but especially not for Greece. It is paying a high price for fiscal profligacy. Many in Europe are still expecting a formal default on its sovereign debt, followed by who knows what: exit from the euro? German receivership? Greeks are furious at their government for the austerity it has been forced to impose and what many regard as the unfair distribution of the burdens of fiscal adjustment. The kind of growth that might lift Greece out of its debt trap seems nowhere in the forecasts.
I’m afraid this will not put Athens in a mood to do the right thing by Macedonia: accept it for NATO membership as The FYROM and go back to the negotiating table with renewed determination to find a more permanent solution. We have the unfortunate and recent precedent of Serbia, which also recently lost its case when the ICJ advised that Kosovo’s declaration of independence breached no international prohibition. Did Serbia change its tune? No. It simply said the ICJ had answered the wrong question (a question posed, yes, by Belgrade).
Please, Athens, prove me wrong: show us all that you have left behind the beggar-thy-neighbor politics of the Balkans and instead want to demonstrate truly European credentials by unblocking membership in NATO for The FYROM. That in turn would allow Montenegro an invitation to enter as well, giving renewed vitality to the Alliance and reenergizing the Balkans to proceed with the many reforms the Euro-Atlantic institutions require.
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Montenegro, shield of the West
That is, of course, super-hyperbole: Montenegro is a tiny country of fewer than 620,000 people whose virtues include a beautiful coastline along the Adriatic and willingness since the late 1990s to be counted in the growing pro-democracy, pro-Europe camp in the Balkans. It can lay reasonable claim to being the most ethnically integrated (and varied) country in the region (only 45% of the population self-identifies as “Montenegrin” tout court).
The postage-stamp sized country gained independence from its union with Serbia, the last remnant of Yugoslavia, in 2006 and has since made good progress. It is now a candidate for membership in the European Union but will not complete the 35 chapters of the membership process for some years.
Montenegro’s leadership would like to bring it into NATO, even if only 40% of the population is currently in favor (30% are undecided). But the Montenegrins hesitate: the Americans are telling them it will be difficult to do this in May at the NATO summit in Chicago. They are excessively respectful of American advice. Neither NATO nor the EU is in an expansive mood in this era of euro-schlerosis (or worse) and difficulties pursuing the Alliance war in Afghanistan. That is unfortunate for the NATO, which has so far benefited from its investment in enlargement.
The Montenegrin military numbers a bit over 3000. A couple of dozen participated in NATO’s Afghanistan mission and others have joined UN mission in Liberia and Cyprus as well as the EU naval mission off Somalia. Podgorica (that’s the charming capital, once known as Titograd) is well-intentioned, but its capacities are miniscule.
Still, it would be a good idea for Montenegro to get fully read and to press for NATO membership, and for NATO to think about opening the door. Why? First, as one keen Balkan-watcher notes, Montenegro is first in line, so if it is shut out none of the other candidates can come in. This would be particularly problematic if Macedonia, which is fully qualified for NATO membership but blocked by Greek objections to its name, were to manage somehow to get itself unblocked. That could happen: either because Athens and Skopje come to an agreement on the name (unlikely) or because the International Court of Justice decides that Skopje–under an agreement with Greece signed in 1995–is entitled to come into NATO under its awkward UN designation: The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (The FYROM).
The ICJ decision on that question issued today may, or may not, open the door for Macedonia to enter NATO as The FYROM. The court decided that Greece had violated the agreement but said it could not order Greece to allow The FYROM into NATO. Such respect for sovereignty seems almost quaint. But what it does is to leave the issue, once again, up to Athens, which so far has shown no inclination to put this issue behind it. Let’s hope Greece makes a wiser decision this time around.
There are more than tactical reasons for admitting Montenegro to NATO. It would help to convince all the non-NATO, non-EU members in the Balkans that they really do have an opportunity to join the West, even if they may have years more of preparation before they fully qualify. It would raise the ante with Serbia, where the majority of the population opposes NATO membership. And it would help to insulate Montenegro against any instability that arises in either Bosnia or Kosovo, where things are still not fully settled.
With an active push, NATO membership is at least possible for all of these countries far sooner than EU membership is likely for any of them. Chicago is an opportunity to keep the Balkans and NATO moving forward at minimal cost in these uncertain times.
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Next week’s “peace picks”
1. Looking to the Future of Pakistan
Event Information
When
Monday, December 05, 2011
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Where
Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map
Email: events@brookings.edu
Phone: 202.797.6105
RELATED CONTENT
Out of the Nuclear Loop
Stephen P. Cohen
The New York Times
February 16, 2004
Armageddon in Islamabad
Bruce Riedel
The National Interest
July/August 2009
The Pakistan Time Bomb
Stephen P. Cohen
The Washington Post
July 3, 2007
2:00 PM — Opening Remarks
Stephen P. Cohen
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, 21st Century Defense Initiative
2:10 PM — Panel 1 – Paradoxical Pakistan
Moderator: Teresita C. Schaffer
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, 21st Century Defense Initiative
C. Christine Fair
Assistant Professor
Georgetown University
William Milam
Senior Scholar
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Shuja Nawaz
Director, South Asia Center
The Atlantic Council
Moeed Yusuf
South Asia Adviser
U.S. Institute of Peace
3:10 PM — Panel 2 – Pakistan: Where To?
Moderator: John R. Schmidt
Professorial Lecturer
The George Washington University
Pamela Constable
Staff Writer
The Washington Post
Bruce Riedel
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
Marvin Weinbaum
Scholar-in-Residence
Middle East Institute
Joshua T. White
Ph.D. Candidate
Johns Hopkins University, SAIS
2. Which Way Forward for Egypt?
New America Foundation
Washington, DC 20036
Egypt’s first parliamentary elections since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak began on November 28th. The vote for the People’s Assembly will stretch over six weeks into January 2012.
An outpouring of enthusiastic voters has for the moment raised a note of optimism in Egypt. Yet following days of mass protest over the military’s continued rule, state violence, and deepening political and social polarization, it appears that Egypt’s transition will be long and rocky.
Join us for a conversation co-hosted by the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association about the election’s impact, transitional prospects, and implications for the wider MENA region and U.S. foreign policy.
A light lunch will be served.
Participants
Featured Speakers
Randa Fahmy
Vice President, Egyptian American Rule of Law Association
Nathan Brown
Professor, Political Science & International Affairs, George Washington University
Nonresident Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Michael Wahid Hanna
Fellow, The Century Foundation (will have just returned from Egypt)
Moderator
Leila Hilal
Co-Director, Middle East Task Force
New America Foundation
3. Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East
A Book Launch for a USIP-funded study by Katerina Dalacoura
Wednesday, December 7 from 3:00-4:30
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Choate Room
1779 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC 20036
The putative relationship between political repression and terrorism remains a matter of active debate in scholarly and policymaking circles. Based on investigations into individual Islamist movements and the political environments in which they operate, this study assesses whether the emergence of Islamist terrorism is linked to the absence of political participation and repression.
The U.S. Institute of Peace is pleased to sponsor an in-depth discussion with Dalacoura centered on her recently-published work.
Funded by a grant from USIP, the volume draws on a series of case studies that include al Qa’eda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Groupe Islamique Armé, Gamaa Islamiyya, the Jordanian and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhoods, the Tunisian Nahda Movement, the Turkish Justice and Development Party, and Iranian Islamist movements.
“Drawing on her deep knowledge of Middle East politics, Dalacoura powerfully challenges past assumptions about a simple link between democratic deficits and the spread of Islamist terrorism,” said Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Conceptually rigorous, empirically rich, incisive and searching, this is a major study.”
Speakers
- Daniel Brumberg, Chair
U.S. Institute of Peace - Katerina Dalacoura, Author
London School of Economics and Political Science - Dafna Rand
Department of State - Eric Goldstein
Human Rights Watch
4. The Arab Spring: Implications for US Policy and Interests
A publication launch and discussion featuring
Allen Keiswetter
Charles Dunne
Amb. Art Hughes
Thursday, December 8, 2011
12:00pm-1:30pm
SEIU Building, Room 2600
2nd Floor
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
*Please note that this event is not being held at MEI. An ID is required for entrance into the building.*
Thursday, December 8, 2011
9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Grand Ballroom, 3rd Floor
Marvin Center, 800 21st Street, NW
To mark International Human Rights Day 2011, George Washington University, the UN Global Compact US Network, and the US Institute of Peace will host a one day conference on the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These principles, approved by the UN Human Rights Council in June, are designed to help business monitor its human rights impact. These guidelines clarified both the human rights responsibilities of states and firms and made them clear and actionable. Our speakers, representing business, civil society, the US Government, and academia, will focus on practical approaches to implementing the Guiding Principles (the GPs).
9:00-9:10 – Welcoming Remarks
Stephen C. Smith, Professor of Economics and International Affairs; Director, Institute for International Economic Policy, GW
Dave Berdish, Manager of Sustainable Business Development, Ford Motor Company
9:10-9:45 – “Why Firms Should Advance Human Rights: Manpower’s Approach”
David Arkless, President, Corporate and Government Affairs, ManpowerGroup
9:45-11:15 – Panel 1 – “Addressing the Problems of Slavery and Human Trafficking”
Brenda Schultz, Manager of Responsible Business, Carlson Hotels Worldwide Samir Goswami, Director of Corporate Responsibility, Rule of Law, Lexis Nexis
Jean Baderscheider, Vice President, Global Procurement, Exxon Mobil
Indika Samarawickreme, Executive Director, Free the Slaves
Moderator:
Pamela Passman, President and CEO, CREATe
11:15-11:30 – Coffee Break
11:30-1:00 – Panel 2 – “How Business Should Operate in Conflict Zones”
Bennett Freeman, Senior Vice President for Social research and Policy, Calvert Group
Charlotte Wolff, Corporate Responsibility Manager, Arcellor Mittal
Olav Ljosne, Regional Director of Communications, Africa, Shell Corporation
Moderator:
Raymond Gilpin, Director, Center for Sustainable Economies, U.S. Institute of Peace
1:00-2:15 – Luncheon Keynote
Ursula Wynhoven, General Counsel, UN Global Compact
Gerald Pachoud, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary General, UN and former Senior Advisor, Special Representative on Business and Human Rights
2:15-3:45 – Panel 3: General Implementation of the Guiding Principles Is it difficult to get buy in? Is it costly? What recommendations or roadblocks have you found?
Mark Nordstrom, Senior Labor & Employment Counsel, General Electric
Dave Berdish, Manager of Sustainable Business
Brenda Erskine, Director of Stakeholder and Community Relationships, Suncor
Meg Roggensack, Senior Advisor for Business and Human Rights, Human Rights First
Moderator:
Susan Aaronson, Associate Research Professor of International Affairs, GW
3:45-4:30 – General Discussion: What should policymakers do to encourage adoption of the GPs?
RSVP at: http://tiny.cc/guidingprinciples
Sponsored by Institute for International Economic Policy, U.S. Institute for Peace, U.N. Global Compact, and the U.S. Network
- Start: Friday, December 9, 2011 4:30 PM
End: Friday, December 9, 2011 6:00 - You are cordially invited to a book lecture with author Daniel R. Green for his new book
The Valley’s Edge: A Year with the Pashtuns in the Heartland of the Taliban Friday, December 9
4:30 PMThe Institute of World Politics
1521 16th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036 - Please RSVP to kbridges@iwp.edu.This event is sponsored by IWP’s Center for Culture and Security.
About the author
Daniel R. Green is a Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is pursuing a PhD in political science at the George Washington University. For his work in Afghanistan in 2005-2006, he received the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award, the U.S. Army’s Superior Civilian Honor Award, and a personal letter of commendation from then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace. He has also received the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Exceptional Public Service Award and in 2007 served with the U.S. military in Fallujah, Iraq. He lives in Washington, D.C.
About the book
In this gripping, firsthand account, Daniel Green tells the story of U.S. efforts to oust the Taliban insurgency from the desolate southern Afghan province of Uruzgan. Nestled between the Hindu Kush mountains and the sprawling wasteland of the Margow and Khash Deserts, Uruzgan is a microcosm of U.S. efforts to prevent Afghanistan from falling to the Taliban insurgency and Islamic radicalism.
Green, who served in Uruzgan from 2005 to 2006 as a U.S. Department of State political adviser to a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), reveals how unrealistic expectations, a superficial understanding of the Afghans, and a lack of resources contributed to the Taliban’s resurgence in the area. He discusses the PRT’s good-governance efforts, its reconstruction and development projects, the violence of the insurgency, and the PRT’s attempts to manage its complex relationship with the local warlord cum governor of the province.
Upon returning to Afghanistan in 2009 with the U.S. military and while working at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul until 2010, Green discovered that although many improvements had been made since he had last served in the country, the problems he had experienced in Uruzgan continued despite the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration.
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