Where are the patriots?
If nothing else, these weeks of protest and repression are demonstrating how tenaciously autocrats cling to power. This is not surprising, since for the three currently in question–Gaddafi, Assad and Saleh–there really is no role for them if they leave power. Worse, they fear for their livelihoods, their families and their lives.
This occurs to me as I am in Ljubljana (Slovenia) for meetings, one of which will be with a former president. As is all too apparent in the U.S., former presidents play useful roles in democratic societies, whether in talking with the North Koreans (or me), raising support for earthquake-ravaged Haiti, or just as living examples of the possibility of losing power without losing your life. The U.S. even pays and protects them well, as I imagine Slovenia does too.
The problem with our Middle Eastern chiefs of state is of course that they did things during their time in power that might merit justice once they are out of it and available to the courts. Saleh was offered immunity but refused to sign the agreement that would have provided it. The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has already asked for an arrest warrant for Gaddafi. It is hard to see how Assad is less criminal, though he may have succeeded in preventing much hard evidence getting into the hands of the ICC.
So what we’ve got is four–I’d like to throw in ICC indictee President Bashir of Sudan as well–blatantly criminal chiefs of state (or the equivalent, since Gaddafi claims not to have any official position in what he terms the “republic of the masses”). Military force isn’t yet working against Gaddafi, sanctions aren’t working against Bashir, and protests aren’t working against Assad. Only Saleh seems out of the picture, and that because of an artillery strike that was luckier than the many missiles thrown at Gaddafi.
We shouldn’t expect much better from these four. What I’m waiting for is someone in their respective entourages to take up the cudgels (admittedly something like that has happened in Yemen). All four seem determined not only to stay in power but to take their countries down with them. That’s what should embolden some of their followers: loyalty to their own country and people. Is that too much to ask?
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How do you say serendipity in Arabic?
Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh has gone to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment, due to injuries suffered Friday in an attack by rebellious tribal forces on the presidential palace. This is an extraordinary bit of good luck for Yemen, but the country will need a lot more serendipity if this story is to end well.
Vice President Abd Al-Rab Mansur Hadi, in office since 1994, is the constitutional successor. Who knows what he will do, but the right thing is to implement the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreement that Saleh never signed. It calls for an opposition-led government of national unity to prepare free and fair elections. If the attack on the palace leads in this direction, without further violence, we can all thank our lucky stars (and the Saudi princes who fund Yemeni bigwigs).
What could go wrong? Just about everything: tribes or the protesters could refuse to go along, someone in the military could try to seize power, Saleh’s family and cronies could balk, the Vice President could decide to crack down hard on the protesters, the Saudis could decide to back someone else, Saleh could try to return to Yemen…my imagination runs amuck. Yemen is one of the most fragile states on earth, more like neighboring Somalia than like the GCC rich guys who live on the other side of the Arabian peninsula. Its oil and water are running low, the population is very poor and very young, it faces an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south, and its institutions are weak enough to attract Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to take up residence.
That abused word, stability, is what Yemen needs now. A constitutional succession that follows the path outlined by the GCC is likely to be the best deal on offer. Anything else bodes ill not only for Yemenis but also for the United States. Can we get lucky again?
PS: I took down the video originally posted with this, because it was starting up automatically.
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Marvel the Syrians!
From Hama, yesterday:
You’ve got to admire the fortitude and organizational capability of the Syrians. Josh Landis has the most complete coverage I’ve seen of both the “Friday of the Children of Freedom” and the opposition conclave Wednesday and Thursday in Antalya, Turkey.
The demonstrators inside Syria managed to turn out in good numbers to protest the torture and murder by security forces of a 13-year-old boy as well as other atrocities against children, despite shut-down of a large part of the internet and cell phone systems. Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two biggest cities, are still not turning out big numbers, but yesterday’s demonstrations were widespread and energetic according to the reports that have leaked out. Several dozen people appear to have been killed.
The opposition meeting in Antalya that ended Thursday not only reached agreement on a statement (not yet available in its entirety) but also elected an executive board. So far as I can tell, the program focuses on getting rid of Bashar al Assad in favor of his vice president and holding free and fair elections within a year. There is talk as well of maintaining separation of state and religion as well as Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (Kurdish representation in Antalya was strong, so this is significant). The Washington Post reported:
The statement also called for the creation of a democratic, secular Syrian state, in which freedom of worship would be guaranteed, but religion would play no role, and the rights of the country’s minorities would be respected.
All of this is fine, but of course the big problem is the regime’s determination to hold on to power. My understanding is that the protesters are not promising amnesty to Bashar al Assad, who therefore has a choice of using maximum repression to stay in power or expatriating himself to some safe haven. All indicators are that he is determined to hold on.
The protesters now have the challenge of maintaining nonviolent discipline and unity while under enormous pressure from the security forces. They also need eventually to spread their mass mobilization efforts into the centers of Damascus and Aleppo. Only when some of the security forces begin to hesitate–when they refuse to fire on protesters or even join them–will the revolution in Syria begin to see the fruits of its labors. Connecting with the army, some units of which are believed to be less committed to Bashar al Assad than others, needs to be a priority objective. This is likely to happen earlier in the provinces than in the major cities, where Assad will station the most loyal troops.
The international community is still proving ineffective on Syria. No UN Security Council resolution has emerged, despite expectations earlier in the week. Washington is sounding a bit more stentorian, but nevertheless holding on to the slim hope that Assad will institute reforms. The Wall Street Journal had a good article Friday detailing Obama Administration efforts to win Assad over to a settlement with Israel and a break with Hizbollah, Hamas and Iran. The odds of that now seem vanishingly small, but I suppose someone in the White House (and in Senator Kerry’s office) may still harbor hopes.
The die is cast. Either Assad will succeed, as his father did, in repressing the protests with state violence or he will have to yield to what is beginning to look like a more or less united, determined and focused revolution.
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Preparing for the Balkans
I confess I haven’t done a lot to prepare for my next two weeks in the Balkans, apart from one or two subjects I need to be up to date on, but maybe my fans there will find it interesting to know what I’ll be reading to get ready. I’ll also be delighted if they would make some suggestions.
I was inspired to this blogpost by reading Ted Galen Carpenter’s piece in The National Interest. Ted does not quite merit the “Srebrenica denier” category, because he doesn’t really deny it–he just doesn’t mention it, preferring instead to refer to Ratko Mladic as “repulsive” and responsible for “repulsive” acts.
Instead he attacks inflated figures for overall civilian deaths in the Bosnian war and claims the Muslim/Croat fighting has been ignored. The civilian casualty figures were corrected many years ago, but that correction really has no bearing on the issue Ted raises of whether genocide was committed, which depends more on intent than numbers. I don’t use the G-word myself except for Srbrenica, where the Hague Tribunal has made the determination. I hardly need mention that the United States paid a good deal of attention to the Croat/Muslim fighting and was instrumental in bringing it to an end–I was the special envoy responsible for maintaining that peace from October 1994 to June 1996.
That short, disappointing piece was just an accidental read, but it reminded me of how polarized opinion on the Balkans can be. No one ever wants to let anything rest, even the Americans.
My more intentional reads are these:
- B92 (English service), which I use regularly to stay up to date with regional events–my hat is off to Veran Matic and his team for their decades of hard work;
- Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, which is a bit less every day events and more broader issues and commentary–a tip of the hat to them as well;
- Foreign Policy Initiative papers, especially their recent piece on the “myth” of closure of the Office of the High Representative;
- Matthew Parrish’s latest tirade against what the “international community” has done in Kosovo and Bosnia, published in the Journal of Eurasian Law;
- Anything interesting I find on the website of the Kosovar Stability Initiative;
- The Coordinator’s Office for Strategy Regarding the North of Kosovo, “Report on Parallel Institutions: Belgrade – with a foot on the north and an open hand in Brussels”;
- My own “Albanians in the Balkans” published more than 10 years ago (!);
- Ditto Bosnia’s Next Five Years: Dayton and Beyond;
- As an antidote, whatever strikes my fantasy on the TransConflict website;
- Everything Tim Judah has published lately;
- Anything friends–some unnameable, so I won’t name any–in the Balkans send me.
ICG’s stuff is the obvious omission, but unless they put out something new before I get to the region, I think I’ve read it all.
Some people will see obvious bias in my reading material. I like to think that I am reading broadly and gathering diverse perspectives. And I’ll welcome more if you send me links or attachments! Best to do that to daniel@serwer.org, since daniel@peacefare.net does not see to be working perfectly these days. With appreciation for those who respond,
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A brighter view of the Arab spring
I wrote yesterday about the pessimistic views of the Arab spring prevalent among experts at a Harvard/Carnegie Endowment event. They know a whole lot more about the Middle East than I do–that’s why I go to their events and write them up. But I think they are overly pessimistic. Why?
First, because I’ve seen things come out all right. I am not just talking South Africa, where admittedly Nelson Mandela’s leadership and stature counted for a lot, as did F.W. de Klerk’s. I am not seeing any Mandelas or de Klerks in the Middle East. Nor do there seem to be any Vaclav Havels or Lech Walesas. But in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia protest leaderships that were notably lacking in vision and stature had at least temporary success and left their countries better off than they would otherwise have been.
Second, because it seems to me the protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Yemen have shown a combination of nonviolent restraint and persistence that is laudable, and likely to lead in good directions. I am less convinced of the wisdom of the demonstrators in Libya and Bahrain, where it seems to me they fell victim to the temptations of violence and recalcitrance, respectively. But the Libyan Transitional Council shows at least some signs of promise. We’ll see if the Bahrainis can do better in the next “dialogue” phase.
Third, because I have more confidence in a bottom-up process than a top-down one. Here I disagree with Marwan Muasher, who explicitly prefers to see top-down reform. I don’t really know any place where that has worked terribly well in the transition from dictatorship to democracy, though obviously there are leaders like Gorbachev (or de Klerk for that matter) who made the process easier than it might otherwise have been. But people have to want democracy and freedom–it really can’t be given to them.
Nor do I think the consequences of the Arab spring will be quite as negative for U.S. interests as many of the experts say. Middle Eastern leaders who have to be more responsive to public opinion may be more supportive of the Palestinians, but they would be foolish to take their countries to war when the people they lead are looking for prosperity. So, okay, we’ll get Egypt opening the border with Gaza, but closing it was an approach that wasn’t worth a damn anyway. Hamas is likely to need to cut its margins on smuggled goods when they can enter more freely. Maybe an open border will serve American purposes better than the closed one.
I admit that it is hard to see how Yemen comes out of this anything but a basket case, which is where it was headed under Saleh anyway. Certainly it will be a while before any future government in Sanaa gets a grip on the provinces. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula may have a field day in the meanwhile, but they don’t appear so far to have been particularly effective at exploiting the chaos.
That said, the Arab spring is not about American interests, which will have to take a back seat for a while throughout the Middle East. It is however about American values. We should be happy to see them spreading among young Arabs willing to demand their rights. Let’s see where things go before we get too pessimistic.
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The Johns Hopkins SAIS Center on Politics & Foreign Relations (CPFR)
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University of California Washington Center
The Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Governmental Studies
Financial Times
Invite you to a discussion on
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With
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Wednesday, June 8
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The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)
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