Preventing political violence
My problem with the second of my lunch time events yesterday at Brookings, “Defusing the Bomb: Reversing the Process of Radicalization and Preventing Political Violence,” was not so much what was said but the need to continue saying it. The study, undertaken for the Qatar International Academy for Security Studies by the Soufan Group (as in Ali Soufan, formerly of the FBI), looked at strategic counter-terrorism approaches in France, Indonesia, Northern Ireland, Singapore and Great Britain.
While none of the programs “had systematic ‘outcome’ data that could be used to evaluate them,” the takeaway was clear enough: comprehensive (psychological, social, religious) community-based approaches that rely on former militants work better than law enforcement alone, especially if the law enforcement is not of the community policing variety. The French approach was the exemplar in this study.
Why? Because it is not really about theology or ideology. Recruitment is about identity and relies for its effectiveness on finding (mostly) young people who feel stereotyped, marginalized, misunderstood and unfairly stigmatized. Countering this requires offering a new narrative that enables people to re-engage their critical thinking skills and disengage from a narrative that they have found highly compelling in the past.
The process of recruitment is similar to recruitment into gangs in the U.S.–no one yesterday was parepared to say exactly how it differs. Of course we have largely failed to prevent gang recruitment, and the prospects for preventing radicalization don’t seem much better, at least in the U.S. Singapore has powers to detain and treat that don’t exist here, and it is difficult, especially at the local level, for the U.S. to mobilize the kind of comprehensive approach that even the UK and Indonesia are able to mount. Particularly notable in Indonesia is the individual and respectful treatment of detainees, which the Indonesians believe elicits more and more reliable intelligence information.
That said, it seems to me more than time that we start to do what Soufan Group, Quilliam Foundation and others suggest: engage in a comprehensive way, preferably using at least in part former radicals, with people and communities for whom political violence is a way of asserting identity with a bang. This will not be easy either at home or abroad, but it is what is needed to reduce a threat against which military force has proven ineffective and law enforcement is essential but not sufficient.
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America the exceptional
Lunch today was another double header, but a somewhat disappointing one. The Center for American Progress event on American exceptionalism and the Brookings event on preventing political violence were solid reminders that American analysts do not always get it right.
At CAP, the issue was not so much whether America is exceptional–Bruce Jentleson, Robert Kagan and Nina Hachigian agreed it is–but what that should mean in today’s world. Jentleson was at pains to emphasize that American exceptionalism should not be an anesthetic, as he implied the Republicans use it, but a stimulant. We need less boasting (an “end to arrogance”) and more “besting,” that is less glorification of the past and more effort to compete in a more multipolar context.
Kagan, in the strangest statement of the event, said America is the only country whose nationalism is based only on ideology–in particular the ideology of the Declaration of Independence. That may be true in the Foreign Service I served in, but not in a country where birthers question where the president was born and patriots fly the Confederate flag. The question, he suggested, was not so much whether America is exceptional but whether it wants to continue to play the central role in the world order that we took on after World War II.
Hachigian, whose unflagging optimism is on good display in the book she wrote with Mona Sutphen, also asserted that America is exceptional geographically, economically and in the realm of ideas, but it is not infallible. It has to find new ways to lead, getting others to take on more responsibility and divising ways in which rivalry can lead to positive sum outcomes.
The panel gave the Obama administration a B in its efforts to find a new form of American exceptionalism, under the slogan “winning the future.” Jentleson thought the aspirations to get cooperation from others have been often disappointed, and that Washington is still not listening to others enough. Kagan thought it a big challenge to get cooperation in a period in which we are returning to greater nationalism and interstate conflict. Hachigian gave the Adminiistration credit for learning as they go.
Why was I disappointed in all this? I confess I left early and maybe it got better. I personally am strongly attached to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, but I don’t really think America is in any absolute sense exceptional. We need to remember that the document was written by a slave owner who didn’t even free his mistress on his death. We are imperfect practitioners of our fabulous ideals.
And sometimes other people are practitioners of them. Kagan was comfortable asserting that nothing in the world really happens without us. I think he must be living in a universe different from mine. The only Arab rebellion going really badly at the moment is the one we are engaged in.
The fact is that much of the world is adopting our ideals and even practicing them. And other parts of the world are doing well without adopting American ideals. We are in relative economic, political and likely military decline. Our geographic advantages mean less than they did 200 years ago, and our cultural and educational supremacy is long gone, if it ever existed. No presidential candidate can talk that way, but any president will have to deal with the consequences, which have broad policy and budgetary implications. More on that when I get to the Defense Department budget, hopefully tomorrow.
Read the next piece up for my second lunchtime event on preventing political violence.
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Sweet Mickey comes to Washington
It is always a mistake to forget Haiti, which never forgets to pose big questions for the United States. President-elect Michel Martelly, getting ready for inauguration May 14, has already shocked human rights advocates by suggesting he is inclined to amnesty for former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, provided the victims don’t object too much. He has invited both Baby Doc and former President Bertrand Aristide to the inauguration.
Sweet Mickey, as he is known from his days as a pop singer, had serious thoughts on his mind while visiting Washington last week: cholera, tent cities and fuel costs in the short term, education, agriculture and rule of law in the longer term. He wasn’t bad on the need for partnership with Haitian citizens and the international community either. And he has been making nice with incumbent President Rene’ Preval, whose votes in parliament he will need to get much done.
But he won’t please everyone in this serious guise. Click here if you prefer the oulala version. And for the version without pants, click here.
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Overdue
Two things are overdue: a forceful international community reaction to the violent repression in Syria, and an agreement for President Saleh of Yemen to leave power.
The Syrian situation is getting downright ugly, with the regime claiming it is fighting terrorists. Tanks, machine guns and random sniper killings were the weapons of choice yesterday in Deraa, the epicenter of the protests so far. We can expect similar action to be taken elsewhere, if the regime has the military resources to deploy. Lots of protesters have been rounded up for interrogation. The pattern book here is Gaddafi’s, with echoes of Saddam Hussein: random violence to reinstate fear, which then keeps most people in line.
The State Department has urged all Americans to leave Syria. This may seem pro forma and irrelevant, but it isn’t: we saw in Libya how Washington hesitates to take vigorous action until U.S. citizens and embassy staff are safe. So far as I know, essential embassy staff are remaining in Damascus. The U.S. citizens in Syria will include not only tourists and Syrian Americans, but notably also Defense Department scholarship students studying Arabic at Damascus University.
The key to success for the protesters in Syria is their relationship with the security forces. The large army is mostly conscripts with short tours of duty. If they can get the security forces to hesitate in using violence, there is real hope of success. This will require a level of mass mobilization and nonviolent discipline that will be difficult to achieve. Protesters in small numbers are easy prey to regime violence, and attacks against the security forces will only bring massive violence in reprisal.
Washington is said to be working on “targeted” sanctions against individuals in the Syrian regime responsible for ordering the attacks on demonstrators. There are also signs of a condemnatory UN Security Council resolution in the works. Both are good ideas, even if late in the game. An International Criminal Court threat of indictment against the regime leadership seems to me less than credible, since Bashar al Assad will certainly not allow investigators into the country. More useful would be frank talk from Turkey, which has improved its relations with Syria of late and wants to play a peacemaker role in the Middle East.
The real game though is Iran, which now appears to be encouraging and assisting the crackdown in Syria. The day Tehran becomes convinced that the crackdown is counterproductive is the day it will end. We may have to wait for a long time for that day, or the day Bashar agrees to step aside, so the protesters need to get ready for a long and difficult haul.
In Yemen, the now negotiated agreement appears to provide for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down within 30 days, turning power over to a handpicked vice president while the president’s family members remain in their jobs, in exchange for immunity from prosecution for the president and his family. The most detail I’ve seen includes this:
The two-page draft deal, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, doesn’t mention defense or counterterrorism issues. People familiar with the document say the U.S. and Gulf Arabs expect that Mr. Saleh’s son and nephews—who run the country’s intelligence service, Republican Guard and elite Interior Ministry forces and are key counterterrorism liaisons for American officials—would remain in their positions until new elections….
According to the proposed plan, a vice president chosen by Mr. Saleh would take over after the 30-day period, running the country along with a parliament in which 50% of seats are controlled by the ruling party, 40% are controlled by the opposition, and the rest are reserved for undefined “others.”
This is the smooth transition the U.S. seeks to protect its interests in maintaining the counterterrorism campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It sounds to me as if it more than adequately protects Saleh.
The protesters are now said to have agreed with the plan, which the political party opposition negotiated. The remaining question is when it will be announced officially, setting the 30-day clock in motion. That will require a push from the international community–Saleh won’t jump on his own. If this is the plan everyone accepts, best to get on with it.
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Embracing Solomon’s baby
As the Americans prepare to leave Iraq, most of the journalistic focus–insofar as it exists at all–is on the security situation there, which is far from completely calm. But that is not what most people who know Iraq well are most concerned about. They worry mainly about Kurdish-Arab disputes, which take many forms: quarrels about distribution of oil revenue, the authority of Baghdad’s government and courts, the degree of Kurdish control over oil development and the extent of the territory under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government, a sub-national entity with a wide degree of autonomy. It is all inter-connected. Whichever one you start with, you’ll end up discussing the others in due course.
Sean Kane at the United States Institute of Peace has chosen to take up Iraq’s “disputed territories,” arguably the toughest of the Arab-Kurdish issues, first. In a long and detailed disquisition, he demonstrates assiduously that quite a few of the territorial disputes are resolvable on the basis of voting patterns since 2005 as well as historical/cultural antecedents. The report will be presented and discussed at a webcast event this morning featuring also Emma Sky and Joost Hiltermann. One unusual feature of the report is the posting online of several Iraqi reactions to it. They make interesting reading.
Having disposed of some of the “easier” problems, Sean comes to the difficult core issue: Solomon’s baby in this context is Kirkuk, which is the object of Arab, Kurdish and Turkomen ambitions that appear irreconcilable. Here he proposes that either the entire province be given a “special” status (allowed under the Iraqi constitution) and shared between Erbil and Baghdad, or that much of the province be divided between the two and only Kirkuk City become a “common” city. These solutions bear a distinct resemblance to the so far successful effort to share the town and county (opstina) of Brcko in Bosnia between the two constituent entities of the Bosnian state. In practice, this has meant a special status now recognized in the Bosnian constitution. Something like this for either all of Kirkuk province or the town of Kirkuk would allow both sides to claim victory and neither to enjoy all of the spoils. In due course, the solution might be ratified, along with mutually agreed divisions of territory, in a referendum provided for in the Iraqi constitution.
All of this is eminently reasonable and notably helpful. Where things get more problematic is in drawing conclusions for American policy. There is the great temptation to condition American security assistance to the Kurds and Arabs on their respective good behavior with regard to their dispute. On some level, this will surely be the case: the United States will not want its materiel deployed in an intra-Iraqi dispute and will likely tie some strings to the relevant agreements to try to prevent that from happening. But it would be hard for the U.S. to yank its training of the Iraqi army, navy or air force in response to developments between Erbil and Baghdad. Washington sees that training–and the ample armament that goes with it–as vital to Iraq’s regional role, especially vis-a-vis Tehran. Washington is not going to cut off its nose to spite its face, or throw Baghdad into Tehran’s arms.
More promising is the positive incentive approach Emma Sky says has been used in the past to encourage peshmerga integration. She has proposed in the same paper (also published by USIP) conflict resolution, management and prevention mechanisms that merit more attention than they have so far gotten. As Emma knows better than most civilians, wishful thinking is not a plan.
But that does not mean the internationals necessarily need to keep their hands on this problem either–it could be that leaving the Kurds and Arabs to manage it themselves is not only feasible but preferable. What I haven’t seen is a careful, independent assessment of the different options. The U.S., UN and Iraqis need to get their heads together sooner rather than later on how to handle Arab-Kurdish disputes, especially as resistance to a continuing U.S. troop presence after the end of this year seems to be strengthening.
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Peace, justice or both?
President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen has reportedly accepted a Gulf Cooperation Council proposal that he step down within 30 days and turn over power to his vice president, in return for immunity from prosecution. While the opposition political parties seem inclined to accept, the protesters in the streets do not.
This is a classic peace or justice choice for the protesters. I’d be the last to suggest which way they ought to go. But it is not wrong to suggest that they consider carefully the question of maintaining unity. Saleh is wily. If he can split the opposition and the protesters, he may well still be around 30 days from now, bemoaning the lack of alternative to his continuing rule. He is already on BBC claiming that the protests are a “coup.” He sounds far from resigned to his fate. The worst outcome would be neither peace nor justice.
Is there any possibility of the best: peace and justice? I imagine so, but strategic patience and unity will be required to get there. If either one is lacking, it might be better to accept half a loaf.
Can half a loaf be satisfactory? It really depends on the circumstances. In Egypt, the protesters relied on an army that had been in many respects the mainstay of the Mubarak regime to guide the transition. Yet Mubarak is under arrest and being questioned, because the demonstrators maintained the pressure (and Mubarak did not negotiate immunity). Where Egypt will end up is still anyone’s guess, but at least restoration of the old regime looks impossible.
Yemen is in many ways a much more broken country than Egypt. It is running out of both oil and water even as it faces rebellions north and south as well as a desperately poor population addicted to qat. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is finding it a relatively welcome refuge, despite the American military campaign against it. There is certainly an argument for a transition that maintains whatever integrity the state may still possess.
But there is no reason for people who have put their lives on the line in the streets to go home thoroughly dissatisfied. The choice is theirs, provided they can maintain the unity and massive presence that have brought the situation to its present juncture.
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