Tag: Al Qaeda
Unhappy allies need to carry more burdens
Everyone’s favorite subject this weekend is America’s allies, who are unhappy for many reasons:
- France and Germany don’t like their phones bugged, and Brazil is also in a lather;
- Saudi Arabia wants the Americans to push harder against Syria’s Bashar al Asad and Iran’s nuclear program;
- Israel concurs on Iran and would rather President Obama didn’t insist it talk to the Palestinians;
- the Egyptian military didn’t like the cutoff of some major military equipment;
- President Karzai has not yet agreed to U.S. jurisdiction for troops who commit criminal acts in Afghanistan post-2014.
Everyone found the US government shutdown disconcerting. No one is looking forward to the January budgetary showdown, except maybe Russian President Putin. He likes anything that brings America down a peg.
There are solutions for each of these issues. We’ll no doubt reach some sort of modus vivendi with the Europeans, who won’t want to shut down either their own eavesdropping or America’s. More likely they’ll want us to share, while swearing off Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande’s cell phones. The Brazilians will be harder to satisfy, but they aren’t exactly what I would call an ally either. The Saudis may go off on their own to arm whomever they like in Syria, thus deepening the sectarian conflict there. That could, ironically, increase the prospects for some sort of political settlement at the much discussed but never convened Geneva 2 conference. It is hard to find anyone at this point who seriously opposes the effort to negotiate a settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue. The alternatives (war or containment) are worse. Even Netanyahu has toned down his objections, while unleashing Sheldon Adelson to advocate nuclear war. The Egyptian military doesn’t actually need more Abrams tanks; it has lots in storage. Karzai has convened a loya jirga to approve the continuing American presence in Afghanistan and to share the rap for agreeing to American jurisdiction. Read more
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When nothing fails so much as success
The New York Times front page yesterday featured reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticizing US drone attacks in Pakistan (in particular North Waziristan) and Yemen, respectively. At the same time, the Washington Post published Linda Robinson’s op/ed claiming that they will be used relatively less in the future. It seems we have come to prefer on-the-ground special forces raids, whether we conduct them or our partners do.
It is nice to know that after hundreds of drone strikes abroad we’ve come to realize that there is nothing antiseptic about them. No matter how precise, they cannot be 100% accurate. They kill people we don’t intend to kill. That is what the Amnesty and HRW reports are focused on: the immediate threat to civilian non-combatants. The two reports document meticulously that we are not only hitting our intended terrorist targets. We are hitting other people too, sometimes in ways that breach the laws of war and declared US policy. Those are major concerns for Amnesty and HRW, which argue their case–as one would expect–mainly on legal and human rights grounds.
Those are not my major concerns, much as I deplore the loss of innocent lives. Conventional military means would also kill people other than those targeted, likely many more than drones do. Nor can I regret that drones save American servicepeople from harm. That’s what most advances in military technology do–enable us to kill more of the enemy while preventing them from killing more of us. War is not a pretty, or a glorious, business. Read more
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Speech diplomacy
Many will be disappointed that President Obama and Iran’s President Rouhani did not meet yesterday. Even their presence in the same room would have made headlines, never mind a handshake or a few words in the corner.
But they both gave speeches. What can we learn from what they said?
It is clear enough from Rouhani’s speech why he ducked any meeting with the President Obama. While not naming its target, he took aim at the United States: militarism, coercion, hegemony, Cold War mentality, universalization of Western values, “violent discourses, practices and actions,” arming of Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons (for use against Iran), supporting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The speech lists particulars against what the Iranian regime used to call “the Great Satan.”
Failing to name it should not make us deaf to what Rouhani is saying. He is saying the United States is responsible for most of the bad things that happen in the world, from Palestine to Afghanistan, to Syria and many other places. He is worried that the Americans will seek to topple the Islamic Republic. Iran is America’s enemy and determined to reshape the region, perhaps even the world, to its own preferences. Read more
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Force and diplomacy aren’t antithetical
I’ve had a number of people ask in the past 48 hours whether proceeding on the diplomatic track to collect Syria’s chemical weapons will strengthen Bashar al Asad.
The answer in the short term is “yes.” Whenever the international community negotiates with a ruler whose legitimacy is in question, it shores up his hold on power. Especially so in this instance, as Bashar will soon be responsible for declaring, collecting and turning over Syria’s chemical weapons, making him appear indispensable to a process Russia and the United States have dubbed A number 1 priority.
Neither will want him pushed aside while this process is ongoing. If he were to disappear suddenly, the process would at best come to a halt and at worst disintegrate, making accountability for the chemical weapons difficult if not impossible. Even the Geneva 2 formula–full delegation of executive authority to a government agreed by both the regime and the opposition–might be a bridge too far so long as the chemical weapons are not fully under international control.
This of course means that Bashar, whether he intends to use the chemical weapons again or not, will want to prolong the process as much as possible. The opportunities for footdragging are many. He is already demanding that the US give up the threat to use force as a condition for his turning over the chemical weapons. He can delay his accounting for the weapons and their locations for a month under the convention he has said he will sign. He can stall the deployment of weapons inspectors. He can claim that security conditions make collecting the weapons, said to be distributed to 50 or so sites, impossible. He can make working conditions for the inspectors hellish.
It will be Moscow’s responsibility to deliver Bashar and ensure he performs. I really have no doubt about Russia’s ability to do this. Syria depends on Russian arms and financing. Even a slight delay in deliveries of either would put Damascus in a bind. But Moscow too will have reasons to delay and prevaricate. The Americans, if they are to get anything like full implementation of a serious agreement on chemical weapons, will need to keep alive a credible threat to use force if Bashar fails to meet expectations.
This push and shove between the diplomacy and force is the rule, not the exception. It went on for more than two years after the UN Security Council authorized the use of force in Bosnia. It went on for months in the prelude to the Kosovo bombing, with several diplomatic failures to end the ethnic cleansing of Albanians from Kosovo preceding the eventual use of force. Even in Afghanistan, the Taliban were given an opportunity to deliver Al Qaeda into the hands of the Americans. Force was used only after diplomacy had failed. President Bush’s supporters would claim this was also true for Iraq.
The problem in Syria is that the issues there go far beyond chemical weapons. In addition to the mass atrocities committed with conventional weapons, there are two vital US interests at stake: regional stability and blocking an extremist (Sunni or Shia-aligned) succession in Syria. Secretary Kerry is trying hard to keep the door to a Geneva 2 negotiation open, because only a negotiated political transition has much of a chance of avoiding state collapse, which will threaten regional stability, and extremist takeover.
Russia and the United States share these interests in a negotiated political transition, but so far Moscow has remained wedded to Bashar al Asad, no matter how many times Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov claim they are not committed to him personally. What Kerry needs to do is convince the Russians that Bashar remaining in power is a real and serious threat to Russia, as it will encourage jihadi extremists to extend their fight to the Caucasus and cause state structures in the Levant to fragment.
The military balance will be an important part of Russia’s calculations. While President Obama has stayed largely silent on support for the Syrian opposition, frustrating Senator McCain and other Republicans who have wanted to see intervention, there are lots of indications that he is ratcheting up a military supply and training chain that moved slowly over the summer. The faster the Syrian opposition can pose a serious military threat to the regime, the sooner Russia will be inclined to reexamine its support for Bashar and its hesistancy about Geneva 2.
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Don’t bank on diplomacy yet
President Obama last night tentatively accepted Putin’s paddle and began his effort to paddle away from military action, which faced rejection in the Congress, towards a diplomatic denouement. This latest turn will disappoint and frustrate opposition Syrians who wanted a decisive military intervention.
But that was not in the cards, and the President’s move cheers those who believe that chemical weapons are the main issue Americans should be concerned about in Syria, as it offers a potentially better outcome than bombing. Certainly an endstate in which the international community gains control over Syria’s gigantic stockpile of chemical weapons (estimated at 1000 tons) and destroys them safely and securely is better than the uncertainty of a punitive bombing campaign, pinprick or not.
I see two problems with this approach:
- We are very unlikely to reach the desired endstate, which depends on Syria declaring all its chemical weapons, securely moving them to a relatively few destinations, and giving international inspectors unfettered access while a civil war rages. Remember what happened to the Arab League and UN observers? With no US boots on the ground, international control of Syria’s chemical weapons likely means mainly Russian control, which isn’t going to satisfy anyone in Washington. But it will make military intervention much more difficult.
- Chemical weapons are not all that is at stake for the United States in Syria. Continuation of the civil war there threatens the stability of Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. The longer the fighting goes on, the more likely it is that Islamist extremists will eventually succeed and make Syria a haven for Al Qaeda’s ambitions. That will mean threats to Israel as well.
Thousands of civilians will die from conventional weapons in the next month or so, while the diplomats try to hammer out a solution. Read the latest report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry for the gruesome details.
If it is any comfort, this kind of diplomatic delay was also the rule rather than the exception in the 1990s, when NATO intervened from the air first in Bosnia and later in Kosovo. The decisive intervention in Bosnia came more than two years after the UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force to protect UN-designated safe areas. Prior pinprick attacks had little impact. In Kosovo, force was used only after months of diplomatic efforts (and without a specific authorizing resolution from the UNSC).
President Obama’s enormous reluctance to use military force in Syria is not, as some commentators would have it, a sign of weakness. It of course behooves us to pursue any diplomatic lead that might accomplish our ends without the use of force, which always causes collateral damage and unanticipated consequences. The only real signal of weakness came from the Congress’ apparent willingness to back military action.
Where I differ from President Obama is on the breadth of American interests in Syria as well as the odds of a favorable diplomatic outcome. Chemical weapons are a relatively small part of the problem there. The real issue is an autocrat who prefers state collapse–so long as he remains in power in Damascus–to stepping aside and allowing the democratic evolution that the nonviolent protests called for.
While he did not mention the Syrian opposition last night, I can hope that the President is quietly trying to ensure that the more moderate forces of the Free Syrian Army have the means to protect themselves and the civilians who live in liberated areas. The Russians have not hesitated to make sure that the regime is well equipped and armed. Without an effort to level the battlefield, diplomatic initiatives to end the war are doomed to failure. Military interventions after diplomatic failures need to be more vigorous, not less.
Give diplomacy a chance, but don’t bank on it yet.
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What’s wrong with ICG’s approach on Syria
The International Crisis Group yesterday published a statement on Syria. It has drawn plaudits from some and hisses from others. This is not surprising. The statement is a combination of ICG’s usually sharp analysis with its typically bad policy recommendations.
On the analytical side, ICG notes acerbically that any military strikes by the United States “will be largely divorced from the interests of the Syrian people,” as their purpose will be to “punish, deter and prevent use of chemical weapons.” Strikes would also aim to protect Washington’s credibility, another objective divorced from Syrian interests. This is all accurate as far as it goes.
Then comes the policy frame: “the priority must be the welfare of the Syrian people.” Hardly. The armed forces of the United States don’t exist for the welfare of the Syrians. Their use has to be in the interests of the American people. When that overlaps with the welfare of others, we often talk of “humanitarian intervention.” But there is no way to convince the American president, much less the American Congress, to use military force or other instruments of US power unless it demonstrably serves US interests, including of course commitment to US values and regional stability.
Then we are back to the analytical frame, with the best and most memorable line in the report:
To precisely gauge in advance the impact of a U.S. military attack, regardless of its scope and of efforts to carefully calibrate it, by definition is a fool’s errand.
But then ICG goes on to try to gauge in advance some of the possible impacts of a US attack, with no more success than its memorable line foreshadows.
Then we return to the policy frame, where ICG is not alone in calling for a diplomatic breakthrough based on a “realistic compromise political offer” and outreach to Russia and Iran. The devil is in the details:
The sole viable outcome is a compromise that protects the interests of all Syrian constituencies and reflects rather than alters the regional strategic balance;
This is sloppily over-generalized. Who are the Syrian constituencies? What regional balance? Is Al Qaeda a Syrian consitutency? Is Hizbollah? The regional balance of what? If it is conventional military balance, the US and Israel win hands down. If it is terror, advantage Al Qaeda or Iran. If commitment to a democratic outcome counts, I’d give the prize to Syrian civic activists who started the rebellion and have continued to try to make it come out right. All of the above? Show me the negotiating table that can accommodate them all and I’ll show you heaven on earth.
But this is what really annoys the Syrian opposition:
A viable political outcome in Syria cannot be one in which the current leadership remains indefinitely in power but, beyond that, the U.S. can be flexible with regards to timing and specific modalities;
True enough, but who is the US to decide the issue of how long Bashar al Asad stays in power? Suddenly ICG is no longer concerned with an outcome that satisfies the Syrian people. It is now all about the Americans, who are viewed as the obstacle to a reasonable interval in which Bashar stays in power. The Americans are by far not the greatest obstacle to that.
Then we are quickly back to ICG’s typical empty appeal to do the right thing:
Priority must be given to ensuring that no component of Syrian society is targeted for retaliation, discrimination or marginalisation in the context of a negotiated settlement.
No mention at all of accountability, since that is inconsistent with leaving Bashar in power and fulfilling ICG’s hopes for a kumbaya moment.
So convinced as I am by the need for a political solution, ICG has done precious little in this statement to suggest the ways and means to get one. That’s what’s wrong with ICG’s approach.
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