Norway has voted, but outcome is in doubt
With thanks to Adam Kaplan at Sister Cities International, here is the best I’ve seen on the political situation in Liberia: “Feted on the international stage, but accused of hollow promises at home,” from The Independent. It is a sad commentary on the American press that until yesterday it had produced nothing comparable, even in anticipation of tomorrow’s elections. And they wonder why so many of us are turning to Twitter and the web for our news?
On the economic side, the IMF has put up two progress reports on Liberia’s poverty reduction strategy, one that covers April 2008-March 2009 and a second that covers April 2009-March 2010. The message from both is good progress, accelerating. That’s the message from the latest UN Security Council resolution as well, even if it saw fit to err on the side of caution and extend UNMIL to September 2012.
PBS Newhour did come to the rescue of American media’s honor with a piece on the elections last Tuesday evening:
But this is also blatantly pro-Johnson Sirleaf and mentions only one of her several competitors. And why can’t they adjust their cameras so that black peoples’ faces can be seen better? Gwen Ifill would also benefit.
All the international approbation for Johnson Sirleaf does not guarantee her a victory in Tuesday’s election or the November 8 runoff (if no one gets 50% in the first round, which seems likely with 16 candidates). She is compromised by an early gesture of support for Charles Taylor and other complicated legal issues ably discussed by Colin Waugh, as well as the perception that she has done little about corruption in the Liberian government. But I confess it is a sign of progress that Liberians are worrying about corruption rather than about political violence.
There will be time enough to discuss Johnson Sirleaf’s main challenger if there is a second round of the elections. This first round is a kind of referendum on her first term. Her chances will improve if she comes out a strong first, the electoral mechanism operates reasonably well and election day is peaceful.
The Nobel Prize is not likely to hurt her prospects.
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This week’s “peace picks”
Fewer this week than last. I’m trying to be more selective, and maybe there is less out there. Remember some of these may require registration and/or early arrival. Writeups for publication on www.peacefare.net are welcome:
1. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels Of Our Nature, Politics and Prose, October 11, 7 pm
In his new book, the cognitive scientist, author of How the Mind Works, and professor of psychology at Harvard, uses his broad expertise—plus some history and sociology—to examine the human propensity for violence. While we’ve always been a violent species, Pinker finds that we have been growing less so in recent decades.
2. Yemen After the Arab Spring: From Revolution to Disintegration? Root Conference Room, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 13, 2011 9 am-3:45 pm,
Lots of interesting people appearing during the day at this Jamestown Foundation event.
3. Voices from the Front Lines: Update on the Syrian Opposition, United States Institute of Peace, October 13, 10 am-12 noon
Since March, Syrians have taken to the streets calling for an end to the regime of Bashar al-Assad and a transition to democracy. The Syrian government has responded with massive force, killing some 3,000 Syrians and arresting tens of thousands more. Despite government repression, the Syrian uprising has given rise to an active and increasingly capable opposition movement, both inside Syria and among Syrians living abroad.
However, the Syrian opposition has struggled to establish a unified leadership. Now, following an intensive process of negotiations among diverse opposition groups, a Syrian National Council (SNC) has been established to represent the Syrian opposition. The formation of the SNC is an important and positive step in the opposition’s development. Yet significant challenges still must still be overcome for the SNC to secure international recognition, broaden its support within Syria, and acquire the legitimacy it will need to establish itself as a viable alternative to the Assad regime.
4. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Pivotal 2011 National Elections, Brookings, October 14, 10 am-12 noon
Much is at stake as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) prepares for a pivotal round of national elections on November 28. While violence and security issues have marred the country’s recent history, multi-party elections in 2006 produced democratic gains and this round of elections may push the DRC even closer to becoming a vibrant democracy. However, questions remain as to how the elections will affect the country’s major challenges, including a rapidly growing population, low job growth, and the lingering threat of authoritarianism.
Panelists:
Mvemba P. Dizolele
Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellow
Stanford University’s Hoover Institution
Anthony W. Gambino
Independent Consultant and Former USAID
Mission Director to the DRC
John Mukum Mbaku
Nonresident Senior Fellow
The Brookings Institution
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Good facts, lousy policy
It wasn’t easy, but I managed to plow, or at least skim, my way through the 37 pages of ICG’s report on the 49% of Bosnia that constitutes Republika Srpska (RS), since I know you are all waiting for my verdict.
It’s mixed. The report seems to me clear and compelling in portraying the profound corruption and extreme nationalism that dominate the RS as well the difficulties in the relationship between the RS and the governments in Sarajevo (both Federation and “state,” as Bosnians call what Americans would term the Federal government). There are few better sources than this report, if any, for a comprehensive account of how RS has sought to weaken the state government and establish its own control over as many state functions as possible. And the section towards the end on “The War: Facts” is a useful compilation.
But when it comes to policy, the report treats the RS as if neither corruption nor extreme nationalism is really a serious problem. RS President Dodik’s efforts to block transfer of competences to the state are treated as mistakes from which it might be convinced to back off, not as a concerted effort to wreck any real prospect for a functional state government. Dodik’s push for referendums on issues that clearly are intended to weaken the state are viewed as quixotic and erratic, when they are all too clearly purposeful and consistent. Even the hope for independence is described as “vague”, when it in fact is clear and explicit.
Here’s a sample of ICG perceiving ambiguity:
The government in Banja Luka plays a strange game when it comes to independence – shifting from advocating a referendum on independence to reforms to return Bosnia to its
Dayton roots. While Dodik constantly publicly threatens secession,and the RS leadership continues to harden its positions, Dodik’s aides explain that his statements are meant for internal RS consumption and complain that Federation officials and internationals take them seriously. Yet,even far from the public and in bilateral meetings, Dodik and his closest advisers say they do not believe Bosnia has a future.
I am at a complete loss how anyone can think this “strange game” is anything but the usual one in which internationals are led around by aides who have placed a figurative ring in their nostrils. Dodik has publicly and repeatedly told his electorate that he intends to deliver them to freedom from Sarajevo. There is no ambiguity. The only thing that prevents him from doing this is the international community.
ICG can’t admit this because it has committed itself to dismantling the main international community barrier to Dodik’s secessionist ambition: the Office of the High Representative (OHR). Instead, ICG thinks the EU will solve all. Somehow this view creeps into the Executive Summary, though I looked in vain for any detailed discussion of the issues involved in the main text of the report:
The EU’s response, aided by the U.S. and others, to the political and legal challenge the RS posed in June offers a non-coercive alternative from which it will be difficult for any party to walk away.
This is almost comic: I can’t remember the last time I heard American diplomats angrier at their European colleagues than over Catherine Ashton’s ill-conceived and poorly executed maneuver to create this “non-coercive alternative,” a maneuver in which she managed not only to side-line the OHR but blind-side the Sarajevo government and provide a gigantic boost to Dodik’s claims of RS sovereignty. The only good thing about it was that it ended Dodik’s hope of an early dissolution of the OHR, because it stiffened American spines and gave even Europeans second thoughts.
I won’t grace the recommendations with a detailed critique, though it is notable that they lack any for Belgrade even though the report itself highlights its role in supporting Dodik’s last electoral campaign. The recommendations that do exist amount to asking everyone in the RS to do good things without providing any real reason why they should do so other than the goodness of their hearts. I think we all know how that will work out. But there is one recommendation that is downright pernicious:
Declare that neither partition nor greater centralisation is compatible with Bosnia’s early progress toward EU membership.
This is neither true nor wise. The Bosnian state is clearly incapable of EU membership without greater centralization, which is unquestionably compatible with early progress in that direction. Centralization of some functions is not the same as eliminating the RS, a canard that ICG should be savvy enough not to believe. I am a strong proponent of decentralization and subsidiarity for those issues that can be handled at an entity or municipal level, but EU membership will require more functionality in Sarajevo than currently exists there. ICG’s effort at balance, falsely equating centralization with partition as two polar evils, has led it to err more than its fine leadership should allow.
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Who is right?
When it comes to vital American interests, little trumps stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Bruce Riedel may be right that we need to begin to imagine how we can live with the prospect, but most of those who worry about these issues would want to maximize at least the non-military effort to prevent it from happening. Ken Pollack and Ray Takeyh think we need first to “double down.” Stephen Walt says that would be counterproductive. Instead we should ease up and try to get an agreement that Iran will not weaponize its nuclear technology. Who is right?
Walt starts from the obvious: pressuring the Iranians hasn’t worked. Regime survival is Tehran’s primary concern. Increasing the pressure implicitly or explicitly threatens the regime, which sees nuclear weapons as a guarantee of regime survival. Pressure will only solidify Tehran’s determination to get them. So why would redoubling work?
Pollack and Takeyh agree that regime survival is Tehran’s primary concern. They propose that we threaten it. Doing so, they argue, will require that we support the Green Movement–Iran’s so far failed popular uprising–as well as ethnic opponents of the regime, try to block (mostly Chinese) investment in the energy sector, target the Revolutionary Guards in ways they claim we have been reluctant to do, and increase criticism of Iran’s human rights record.
I’ll be accused of straddling, or maybe of mixing and matching, but it seems to me the sweet spot lies somewhere in between these stark perspectives. Yes, the United States should talk with the Green Movement and the ethnic groups in Iran and provide what support they think will be productive, so long as they remain nonviolent (violence, especially from the Baloch and Kurds, gives the regime the excuse it needs to crack down). It should certainly be focusing global attention on Iranian human rights abuses.
But it is unlikely that the Chinese are going to pass on energy investment in Iran unless there is a broad international agreement (read Security Council resolution) that asks them to do so, and we’ve got to be cautious about the ways and means used to support the Greens and other oppositions. American support, especially in covert form, can do more to harm them than to help.
Walt may be correct in his analysis of the failure of current policy. But it does not follow that if we ease up now the Iranians will be interested in accommodating our interest in seeing them stop their nuclear program short of weaponization. Why wouldn’t they just plow ahead if there is no clear cost associated with doing so? If making the benefits of stopping clear would help, why wouldn’t it also help to make the costs of plowing ahead clear?
Walt concludes his piece with his “real concern”:
…by falsely portraying the United States as having made numerous generous offers, by dismissing Iran’s security concerns as unfounded reflections of innate suspiciousness or radical ideology, and by prescribing a course of action that hasn’t worked in the past and is likely to fail now, Pollack and Takeyh may be setting the stage for a future article where they admit that “doubling down” didn’t work, and then tell us — with great reluctance, of course — that we have no choice but to go to war again.
That is a separate issue, perhaps the most important of war and peace question of this decade.
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A Belgrade voice that should be heard
Jelena Milic, Executive Director of Serbia’s Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, takes a hard look at reform of the security/justice sector and finds it still lacking (in a speech in Dublin to the Institute of International and European Affairs):
Note her criticism of U.S. cooperation with the military starting around minute 23.
She also testified two days later at the Joint Committee on European Affairs:
if Serbia meets other E[uropean] C[ommission] expectations from last year’s progress report, which will be evaluated in Commission findings and its recommendations to be announced on 12 October, and if the situation in Kosovo does not deteriorate and dialogue with Prishtina resumes, and if the state demonstrates that it can provide for the protection of the constitutional rights of the participants in the Pride Parade, Serbia should be given candidacy status.
This will provide some support for genuine pro-EU forces within Serbia and preempt a drop in public support for the EU integration process in advance of the 2012 general election in Serbia. The date of the EU negotiations should then be announced and organized as quickly as is feasible, but be firmly and clearly conditioned. Continued Serbian progress towards EU membership, if predicated on the strengthening of institutions and regulatory bodies within Serbia would weaken the principal opponents of the pro-EU agenda.
I’m less keen than Jelena on doing things based on their presumed impact on Serbian politics, but hers is a voice that should be heard.
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Karzai may have it right, but it will cost him
It isn’t common or popular in Washington to say nice things about Hamid Karzai, but I confess I find his statement yesterday that he intends to refocus peace talks on Pakistan rather than trying to negotiate with the Taliban refreshing. Afghans have long believed that they are really at war with Pakistan, which uses the Taliban as a proxy. I first heard this perspective from a national security advisor to Karzai the better part of a decade ago. Is it realistic to negotiate with Pakistan, reaching an agreement that would then require Kabul and Islamabad to impose the consequences on the Taliban who remain in their respective countries?
Of course we won’t really know until it is tried, but the proposition is reasonable. Administration sources are now claiming that outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs Mike Mullen exaggerated the degree of Pakistani control over the Haqqani network. But there is no doubt but that the Haqqani network harbors in Pakistan’s North Waziristan. The Pakistani Army has certainly not done all it could do to pressure them there or to chase them out into Afghanistan, where it could be hoped the Americans and Afghans would deal with them.
Can Karzai do anything to convince Pakistan to undertake an operation to oust the Haqqani network from North Waziristan? I think he can, but it will require that he do something no Afghan leader for the past 100 odd years has been willing to do: recognize the Durand line that is the ostensible border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, established in 1893 between British India and an Afghan Amir.
Talking to another national security advisor in Kabul some years ago, I asked why Afghanistan would not do this. The answer was chilling: Afghanistan did not want to close off options for future generations. In other words, someone in Afghanistan harbors irredentist ambitions in the Pashtun-populated parts of Pakistan. I’ve told this story before, but somehow the Durand line never gets any attention in DC, so I’m telling it again.
Giving up the vanishingly small hope of reuniting the Pashtun population within a greater Afghanistan would appear to cost Kabul little at this point. It should be much more worried about whether the Pashtuns might be reunited in a greater Pakistan, or even in an independent Pashtunistan. Pakistan claims to have accepted the Durand line. Afghan acceptance of it, and a bilateral agreement to demarcate it, would go a long way to removing one serious irritant and give the Pakistanis good reason to try to tidy up their side of the border.
PS: Those who doubt the importance of the Durand line might want to read what the “tribal elder from Paktika has to say to the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN).
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