Or else what?
On Twitter, I mocked the Administration’s renewed effort to get Pakistan to act against the Taliban, suggesting that it amounted to doing the same thing over and over expecting to get a different result (one definition of madness). But here on the blog I should be a bit more analytical.
SecState Clinton was in Islamabad last week with a high powered delegation. The Guardian reported:
US officials are demanding that Pakistan either deliver the Haqqani network to peace talks, kill its leaders, or pave the way for the Americans to eliminate them.
The question is, or else what? what is America’s leverage? If the Pakistanis don’t do these things, what will the United States do? In the negotiation business, this is called “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA). I reviewed America’s broad policy options in July, leading to the conclusion that this is the damndest problem.
But there are “courses of action” for the United States:
1. Amp up drone attacks, aiming deeper into Pakistan. Hard to do without Islamabad’s cooperation, sure to create a negative reaction in Pakistan.
2. Reduce assistance to the Pakistani military. Drives them into the arms of the Chinese and reduces further the likelihood of cooperation on drone attacks.
3. Help the Pakistan civilian government to gain better control over the military and intelligence service. The civilians are less reserved in denouncing the drone attacks than the military, which isn’t going to like this idea and won’t sit still while it goes on.
4. Align the United States more with India (and Afghanistan) against Pakistan. Also drives Pakistan into the arms of the Chinese.
I was tempted to add a fifth: target the Inter Services Intelligence headquarters, or other elements of the Pakistani government that support the Taliban, but that is pretty near unthinkable unless we really are prepared to go to war with Pakistan. It is the kind of thing we’ve done elsewhere and may not remain unthinkable forever. Maybe this is what Karzai was referring to when he said Afghanistan would be on Pakistan’s side in a war with the United States.
Pakistan’s “BATNA,” which gives it leverage over the U.S., includes blocking or delaying military supplies to American troops in Afghanistan. As Jackie Northam notes this morning on NPR, Hillary Clinton’s post-Islamabad stops in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan presumably aimed at strengthening the “northern distribution network” supply route, thus reducing vulnerability to a Pakistani squeeze on Afghanistan supplies.
So, yes, there are things we can do, but they’ve got distinct downsides. For the moment, I remain wanting a thorough reassessment of our relationship with Pakistan, taking into account whatever we learned last week in Islamabad. It will likely come out in the direction of no. 3 above, but let’s try the reassessment and see.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Next week’s “peace picks”
Relatively slim pickings this week, at least in numbers. Not sure why.
1. In the Eye of the Storm: Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Domestic Realignment, Brookings, October 25, 2:30-3:30 pm
Panelists
Ümit Boyner
Chair
Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD)
Soli Özel
Professor
Kadir Has University, Istanbul
2. A Roadmap for Effective Economic Reconstruction in Conflict-Affected Areas, USIP, October 26, 9 am-1 pm
The event will include two panels which will address structural as well as programmatic aspects of economic reconstruction, including: risk-aversion in donor institutions, inter-agency and international collaboration and cooperation, monitoring and evaluation, and the role of entrepreneurship and public/private partnerships.
Panelists will glean lessons from relevant case-studies and begin to chart the roadmap to peace and prosperity that World Bank President Robert Zoellick called for with the launch of the 2011 World Development Report.
Speakers
- Fred Tipson, Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow
U.S. Institute of Peace - Basel Saleh, Assistant Professor of Economics
Radford University - Jomana Amara, Assistant Professor of Economics
Naval Postgraduate School - Sharon Morris, Director of the Conflict Management Group
Mercy Corps - Robert Aten, Senior International Economics
Ret. U. S. Agency for International Development - Gary Milante, World Development Report Core Team Member
World Bank - Graciana del Castillo, Co-founding Partner
Macroeconomic Advisory Group - John Simon, Founding Partner
Total Impact Advisors - Del Fitchett
Independent Economics Consultant - Raymond Gilpin, Director of the Center for Sustainable Economies
U.S. Institute of Peace
The Carnegie Endowment and the North-South Institute will host a discussion on the complexities of electoral support in conflict contexts and examine two compelling case studies—the recent elections in Afghanistan and Kenya. The event will also mark the launch of a new book by the North-South Institute, Elections in Dangerous Places.
Radwan Ziadeh, director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies, and Ammar Abdulhamid, founder of the Tharwa Foundation and a human rights activist, will discuss this topic. For more information and to RSVP, contact katarina@jhu.edu.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Washington Journal today
I did C Span’s Washington Journal this morning. They don’t seem to allow embedding, so you’ll have to go to their website to watch. We dealt with Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Also Condi Rice. Don’t miss it!
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Stop! in the name of what?
Serbs are continuing to block roads in northern Kosovo, while several Serbs have been killed in the Albanian-majority area south of the Ibar in the last few weeks. Continuing in these directions will push Kosovo in the direction of partition, which is what nationalist Serbs and Albanians intend. What can stop this drift?
Not, certainly, love, or even mutual understanding. One of the Serb mayors in northern Kosovo is quoted as saying
This can be easily solved if KFOR and EULEX say that they will not transport Kosovo police and customs officers and if they take back those people from the crossings, then a space for free movement of everybody and for normal talks will be opened.
This is what the Serbs of northern Kosovo claim is a “status-neutral” solution: a complete surrender by the international community and Pristina to Serb demands, in advance of negotiations.
Belgrade, concerned about the impact of the Serb resistance in northern Kosovo on its own hopes for approval of EU candidacy and a date for accession talks to begin, is trying to leave everything up to the Serbs in northern Kosovo. No one should be fooled. The northern Kosovo Serbs are heavily subsidized by Belgrade, which could bring them into line if it really wanted.
It is difficult to say the same about the Albanians south of the Ibar, especially as the murders seem to be unconnected. But Pristina needs to try harder. There has to be strict accountability for crimes against Serbs if Kosovo is to gain high ground in its international tug of war with Belgrade. The murders in recent weeks have to be made the object of serious investigations leading to arrests and prosecutions. And those who perpetrate these crimes, or who intimidate witnesses, should be viewed as what they are: enemies of a Kosovo state seeking to gain international recognition as a willing and capable defender of the rights of all its citizens.
It is always difficult to get individuals who stand to lose something in line in order to serve a broader, societal interest. But that is precisely what is needed both among the Serbs and the Albanians. They need to stop the violence against Serbs south of the Ibar and the barricades north of the Ibar in the name of the broader interests at stake for their respective groups. Both communities are cohesive enough to do this.
Albanians need to stop in the name of Kosovar interests. Serbs need to stop in the name of Serbian interests.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Mr. Dodik came to Washington too
The President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, is careful. Unlike Slobodan Petrovic, the Kosovo Serb deputy prime minister who spoke in public to a group at Johns Hopkins/SAIS that included people who do not agree with him, Dodik declined an invitation to do a public event and instead talked to a SAIS class taught by David Kanin, a retired CIA analyst for whom I have a lot of respect. But he is also a sympathizer with ethnic separation in the Balkans. The message is clear.
I was not invited to the class, or to last night’s reception for Dodik. The reception was held at an institution run by retired Foreign Service officers, presumably in order to give it the air of an official diplomatic reception and avoid using the Bosnian Embassy, which belongs to an institution (the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina) that Dodik wants to weaken.
I’m particularly amused by the effort to restrict exposure to those who might disagree with Dodik because Obrad Kesic, one of his Washington handlers, is someone whom I invited to speak repeatedly during my years at the United States Institute of Peace though he espoused views I do not agree with. When he wanted, I published a dissent from a USIP paper on Bosnia he prepared with colleagues.
Dodik had trouble getting good meetings on the Hill but was supposed to see Senator Inhofe (R-Oklahoma). At the State Department, Phil Gordon was unable to see him due to a family matter, so he talked with Deputy Assistant Secretary Phil Reeker. Dodik forgot to push Republika Srspka independence there. It was all about Dayton and EU membership, without any mention of the now well-established incompatibility between the Dayton constitution and a state capable of meeting EU requirements. I am pleased to report that this charade fools no one at State.
Dodik doesn’t owe me anything. I’ve got more than enough lectures and diplomatic receptions to attend. He can appear or not in front of any audience he chooses in this open society, and invite or not invite to his liking. But someone who chooses to avoid rather than engage his critics and tries to give the impression of engaging in public discourse at a university when he really hasn’t is not my kind of guy. I trust he’ll impress his carefully chosen audiences in Chicago more.
PS, November 3: A Bosnian visitor called this video from Dodik’s Columbia event to my attention yesterday. He discusses Russia, Srebrenica and other interesting topics:
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
The witch is dead
Reuters published this piece today, under the heading “Libya’s Democracy Has a Real Chance”:
Libyans will be getting up late tomorrow morning, having enjoyed a spectacular celebration tonight. “The Wizard of Oz” comes to mind: “The witch is dead, the wicked witch is dead!”
Now begins the hard work of building a more open and democratic society with some distinct advantages, and Libya has vast resources—not only the oil and gas in the ground, but also cash in foreign bank accounts. Qaddafi’s ironic legacy is that his ill-gotten gains will fund Libya’s reconstruction.
The population is small (about 6.5 million) and more or less homogenous. There are tribal and geographic distinctions, there are Berbers as well as Arabs, there are blacker people and whiter people and there are rich and poor. But none of these differences has yet emerged as a source of widespread violence.
All the Libyans I talked with during a visit to Benghazi and Tripoli last month showed confidence in the National Transitional Council (NTC), which has drawn a roadmap for preparation of a constitution and elections that is widely accepted as reasonable and legitimate. Much criticized by the Western press for bungling a few public announcements, the NTC has managed to continue paying social security benefits and subsidizing bread. In Benghazi and Tripoli, the water and electricity are flowing, markets are open and well stocked, police are on the street and at least some of the garbage is being collected. For most Libyans, that counts for a lot more than whether an announcement of Saif al Islam’s capture was true or not.
Most of Libya was rid of Qaddafi regime more than a month ago. The main sources of friction so far have been two: fighters, mainly from the Nafusa Mountains in the west, who have not wanted to leave Tripoli; and Islamists who seem ready to push for a less secular society than many Libyans would like. Islam is already pervasive in Libya—most women cover their hair, alcohol is prohibited (and not generally available), mosques are ubiquitous and, I am told, well attended. Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood is relatively moderate, as are its secularists.
But there will have to be political differentiation: left and right, Islamists and secularists will begin soon to form political parties. That process will not be an easy or smooth one for people with no democratic experience and a lot of guns, including surface to air missiles looted from Qaddafi’s armories. There is a real risk of revenge killing by militias and of insurgency by Qaddafi loyalists.
But Libya has better prospects than much larger and poorer Egypt, where the protesters handed power to a military that is now reluctant to surrender it. Nothing is guaranteed, but a democratic Libya that enjoys good relations with Europe and the United States is a real possibility.
PS: The details of how Qaddafi came to his end are still unclear, but disturbing. There are videos circulating on the internet that show mistreatment, even cruelty. He was evil, but that does not justify evil treatment. Libyans need to demonstrate much greater discipline and restraint if they want to improve their chances of installing a real democracy.
PPS: NPR is reporting that burial has been delayed to allow the International Criminal Court to investigate the circumstances of Qaddafi’s death. That sounds like a good idea to me, though I wouldn’t bet on the odds of a prosecution.
PPPS: Qaddafi’s motorcade, in an AP video:
RSS - Posts
