Tag: Arab League
The Libya analogy does not stop at Benghazi
For those tempted to consider Syrian pleas to establish a “safe area” to protect civilians, Safe Area for Syria: an Assessment of Legality, Logistics and Hazards, prepared for the Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army by the London-based Strategic Research & Communication Center, is a must-read. It suggests:
At present, the most achievable option would be to establish a “safe area” in the country to provide refuge for embattled civilians from other cities and towns, a base of operations for the designated political leadership of the Syrian opposition as well as a military command centre — in other words, a Syrian Benghazi.
The pre-requisite is
…a pre-emptive aerial campaign would have to be waged to neutralize the regime’s air defence systems, particularly in Aleppo and Lattakia and in and around Damascus.
Safe areas come under attack because that is where the enemy is. The Syrian proposal is not intended to be a safe area like Sarajevo, which during the Bosnian war was declared but no military action taken to protect it until after it was attacked. Our Syrian colleagues are telling us the safe area they want would require in advance a significant air operation over much of Syria to prevent the shelling and air attacks that naturally result when a “safe area” is declared.
I won’t delve too deeply into the legal side of the paper, except to say that it dreams up some pretty far-fetched schemes because it is clear no UN Security Council resolution authorizing such a safe area can pass over Russian objections. It is hard to picture any of these schemes passing muster with Pentagon lawyers, and even less with the White House.
But if I am wrong and it turns out they are willing to bite the bullet and destroy Syrian air defenses, the military action won’t stop there. We’ll soon need to take out Syrian armor and artillery, which will be used to shell the safe area. And we’ll be doing this at the same time that the Free Syrian Army goes on the offensive. Sound familiar? The Libyan analogy does not stop at Benghazi.
What is the alternative? You see it on unfolding on the ground today in Syria. The Arab League observers are reportedly in Homs, where the Syrian security forces have wrecked a great deal of damage. I hope we are encouraging them to stay there, and to spread out to other areas that have been under siege. I also hope they can communicate directly with people outside Syria. The presence of the observers will encourage large demonstrations, and increase the risk to the regime of using violence. The Syrian security forces will play “cat and mouse,” but it is a game the mouse always loses if it goes on long enough. The Arab League just has to make sure it is a tireless and omnipresent cat.
PS: Reports today suggest that some Syrian security forces have left Homs as the observers arrived and that the protest there today is large. Here is what was going on before arrival of the observers:
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
It’s bad either way
Judging from my Twitterfeed this morning, there are two versions of the bombings outside security service buildings in Damascus today:
- The regime says it was Al Qaeda, or maybe the army deserters, or maybe just all those terrorists who have been attacking the state for months. Whatever it was, clearly that is where the regime wants the Arab League monitors, an advance party for which has just arrived in Damascus, to focus their attention. No need to go to Idlib or Daraa, where they might see Syrian army forces obliterating civilians.
- The protesters say it was the regime, giving itself an excuse to crack down. Al Qaeda is just a convenient suspect. The Europeans and Americans can hardly object to a crackdown aimed at their sworn enemy. Nobody wants Al Qaeda winning in Syria. But what really happened is that the secret services committed the act, or allowed it to be committed.
We may never know the truth–the Syrians have a habit of quickly cleaning up crime scenes, before any serious forensic evidence can be gathered.
I share the natural inclination to disbelieve the regime, which has established for itself a clear and consistent record of lying about everything. But it may not matter: these bombings represent an enormous escalation of the level and kind of violence in Syria. It will encourage both regime and protesters to ratchet up their rhetoric and intensify the physical conflict. While I might hope that will cause massive defections from the Syrian army, I think it far more likely it will reduce the numbers of people willing to go to the streets and improve the regime’s chances of repressing the demonstrations. The regime will target Sunni Islamists. Some of the Sunnis will respond by targeting Allawites, Christians and other regime loyalists. From here it is easy to go in the direction of sectarian civil war, no matter who was responsible for this morning’s bombings.
That’s where the Arab League observers come in. I share the blogosphere’s disappointment yesterday upon discovering that its leader is a Sudanese general who has served in Darfur and has an impeccable pedigree of loyalty to his country’s president, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court. But like it or not, the observers are the best bet for protecting the demonstrators in Syria, if they can get out of Damascus and communicate freely. It won’t take more than a couple of reports confirming the regime’s violence against unarmed civilians to enrage the international community.
What good will that do? We seem to be on the verge (or not) of a UN Security Council resolution on Syria, at long last. That would represent an end to Moscow’s protection of Bashar al Assad. I don’t believe that will necessarily cause him to fall right away, but he really cannot survive on his own forever. The Russians however will want what the Americans wanted in Egypt: a transition guided by people in the military who will maintain the country’s friendship with Moscow. The Syrian protesters seem smart enough to me not to follow the Egyptians down that dead end.
But first they have to find a way to avoid that civil war.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Syria options: quick failure or slow success
While I was enjoying a good discussion yesterday of mainly diplomatic Syria options over at Brookings (co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute), military experts at the Washington Institute were publishing an assessment of options for military intervention.
My bottom line: the “harder” military options, whether by the dissident-manned Free Syrian Army (FSA) or by external powers, are unlikely to be effective. Nonviolent options–multilateral diplomacy combined with continuing protests–have a much better chance for success, but they may take a long time. Where I come from, if the choice is between failing quickly and succeeding slowly, wisdom chooses slow success. But that also means sustaining the protesters for longer than they can last without help.
The Brookings/MEI event feature three of the very best on Syria: Murhaf Jouejati, who is now in the Syrian National Council (SNC), Ömer Taşpınar of Brookings and SAIS, and Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute.
Murhaf Jouejati set a good pace: the Barbara Walters interview showed Bashar al Assad for what he is: a liar. There is no disconnection from reality. He is determined to stay in power and use any means to do so. The U.S. sanctions have had a psychological effect but the European Union sanctions are far more important, especially the ban on importing Syrian oil. The big blows were the Turkish sanctions and the Arab League decision, which is to be implemented beginning December 27. This deprived Bashar of his claim to be an Arab champion.
The impact is substantial. Oil revenue is down, tourism is disappearing, the dinar has lost value, heating oil is scarce. The revolutionaries are shifting from street protests to strikes and boycotts, which are less dangerous. The SNC is coordinating with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which says it is committed to defensive actions. There are differences between the SNC and the National Coordinating Committee, a group inside Syria that is opposed to international intervention and prepared to talk with the regime, while the SNC would like international intervention to protect civilians and hasten collapse (and wants talks only on transition once Bashar has agreed to step down). Without outside intervention, regime implosion could take a long time. The Arab League proposal for international monitors has potential, but we need to get them in as quickly as possible, something Bashar is unlikely to agree to.
Ömer Taşpınar thinks two factors drive Turkish behavior on Syria: the damage Bashar has done to its “zero problems with neighbors policy” and a growing sentiment of Sunni solidarity, fed by disgust with Bashar’s continuation of the crackdown during Ramadan. Turkey does not want to be seen as supporting Western initiatives on Syria or following a U.S. lead. Ankara wants to see multilateral, especially UN Security Council, backing for whatever is done. It will not likely take unilateral action. The U.S. needs to be more effective diplomatically with Russia and China. The SNC needs to prepare and publish its vision for post-Assad Syria.
Andrew Tabler sees the U.S. as having been slow to react correctly to events in Syria, but it has now come around and is reaching out to the opposition, which is both grandiose in its ambitions and depressed in its mood. It is at a crossroads and needs to decide whether to use violence. The de facto contact group (U.S., France, Germany, UK, and Turkey, which should be augmented with Arab countries) needs to consider humanitarian corridors or buffer zones. The protests should remain nonviolent to preserve political and moral advantage. Sanctions have to be targeted to “break off” key regime pillars. The most likely to fall are the Sunni businessmen, who are already hedging their bets.
The military options published by the Washington Institute range from the silly to the unpromising. Humanitarian corridors into Syria’s cities? Apart from the fact that they don’t appear to be needed, they would impossible to sustain if the regime decided it did not want them. Buffer zones or enclaves along the Turkish border? That requires suppression of a substantial Syrian air defense system and constant vigilance thereafter, in the air and on the ground. Without it, the buffer zones just become unprotected targets, like the Safe Areas during the Bosnian war. That’s where you are sure to find your enemies, so that is where you aim. No-fly zone? It’s a bad joke, since the regime is not using aircraft to repress demonstrations. It would just be the top of the slippery slope to broader intervention.
In the end, the Washington Institute resorts to that next to last refuge of scoundrels, covert action:
…even covert intervention would buoy the opposition’s morale, while signaling to Damascus that events are moving against it, that external powers are willing to run risks to aid the population, and that the opposition has important allies. Taken together, these developments could significantly alter the dynamic of the Syrian struggle.
I’m all for doing whatever we can to get the Syrian opposition the money, cell phones, fuel and other supplies they need to sustain nonviolent protest, but “covert action” has a serious record of compromising whoever accepts it and failing to produce good results.
My conclusion: the Arab League proposal for human rights monitors is the best idea out there. If Bashar rejects them, it is one more nail in his coffin. If he accepts them, they are likely to report on atrocities and help to end his regime. I just hope the Arab League has 500 of them ready and willing if he does accept. A UN Security Council resolution calling for their deployment would be a giant step in the right direction. That’s a tall order for our diplomats, but one worthy of their efforts.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
What threatens the United States?
The Council on Foreign Relations published its Preventive Priorities Survey for 2012 last week. What does it tell us about the threats the United States faces in this second decade of the 21st century?
Looking at the ten Tier 1 contingencies “that directly threaten the U.S. homeland, are likely to trigger U.S. military involvement because of treaty commitments, or threaten the supplies of critical U.S. strategic resources,” only three are defined as military threats:
- a major military incident with China involving U.S. or allied forces
- an Iranian nuclear crisis (e.g., surprise advances in nuclear weapons/delivery capability, Israeli response)
- a U.S.-Pakistan military confrontation, triggered by a terror attack or U.S. counterterror operations
Two others might also involve a military threat, though the first is more likely from a terrorist source:
- a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally
- a severe North Korean crisis (e.g., armed provocations, internal political instability, advances in nuclear weapons/ICBM capability)
The remaining five involve mainly non-military contingencies:
- a highly disruptive cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure (e.g., telecommunications, electrical power, gas and oil, water supply, banking and finance, transportation, and emergency services)
- a significant increase in drug trafficking violence in Mexico that spills over into the United States
- severe internal instability in Pakistan, triggered by a civil-military crisis or terror attacks
- political instability in Saudi Arabia that endangers global oil supplies
- intensification of the European sovereign debt crisis that leads to the collapse of the euro, triggering a double-dip U.S. recession and further limiting budgetary resources
Five of the Tier 2 contingencies “that affect countries of strategic importance to the United States but that do not involve a mutual-defense treaty commitment” are also at least partly military in character, though they don’t necessarily involve U.S. forces:
- a severe Indo-Pak crisis that carries risk of military escalation, triggered by major terror attack
- rising tension/naval incident in the eastern Mediterranean Sea between Turkey and Israel
- a major erosion of security and governance gains in Afghanistan with intensification of insurgency or terror attacks
- a South China Sea armed confrontation over competing territorial claims
- a mass casualty attack on Israel
But Tier 2 also involves predominantly non-military threats to U.S. interests, albeit with potential for military consequences:
- political instability in Egypt with wider regional implications
- an outbreak of widespread civil violence in Syria, with potential outside intervention
- an outbreak of widespread civil violence in Yemen
- rising sectarian tensions and renewed violence in Iraq
- growing instability in Bahrain that spurs further Saudi and/or Iranian military action
Likewise Tier 3 contingencies “that could have severe/widespread humanitarian consequences but in countries of limited strategic importance to the United States” include military threats to U.S. interests:
- military conflict between Sudan and South Sudan
- increased conflict in Somalia, with continued outside intervention
- renewed military conflict between Russia and Georgia
- an outbreak of military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, possibly over Nagorno Karabakh
And some non-military threats:
- heightened political instability and sectarian violence in Nigeria
- political instability in Venezuela surrounding the October 2012 elections or post-Chavez succession
- political instability in Kenya surrounding the August 2012 elections
- an intensification of political instability and violence in Libya
- violent election-related instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- political instability/resurgent ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan
I don’t mean to suggest in any way that the military is irrelevant to these “non-military” threats. But it is not the only tool needed to meet these contingencies, or even to meet the military ones. And if you begin thinking about preventive action, which is what the CFR unit that publishes this material does, there are clearly major non-military dimensions to what is needed to meet even the threats that take primarily military form.
And for those who read this blog because it publishes sometimes on the Balkans, please note: the region are nowhere to be seen on this list of 30 priorities for the United States.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
What is a normal relationship?
Here’s what the Administration would like you to know about Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s visit next week.
Maliki and President Obama will be marking the end of the more than eight-year American military presence in Iraq and the beginning of a new, more normal relationship between Iraq and the United States. That is how senior officials yesterday framed their version of the visit, which will include a Wednesday event at Fort Bragg to thank the military for its sacrifices. My suggestion that the President add a word of thanks to the civilians who have worked in Iraq was welcomed. The “end of mission” ceremony will take place on Thursday, with the drawdown of the last troops occurring sometime thereafter.
By the end of the year, U.S. troops will be out of Iraq, except for the “normal” but large defense cooperation office headquartered in the Embassy. A total uniformed contingent of 250-400 plus supporting contractors will be stationed at 10 Iraqi bases around the country. The continuing security relationship will include substantial sales of U.S. equipment, to the tune of $11 billion (including F16s). The Iraqis are fully capable of handling internal security. The U.S. focus will be on external security, as well as police “train the trainers.” The war is ending “responsibly.”
The normalization of relations with Iraq will be based on the Strategic Framework Agreement, signed during the the Bush Administration. The Iraqis are enthusiastic about implementing it and have repeatedly pressed the U.S. for a stronger effort. There are now eight bilateral committees at work. The Iraqis want U.S. help in improving governance and restoring their regional role. Iraqis want a strong state that transcends ethnic and sectarian divisions. Americans will continue to advise in their ministries.
Maliki is no Iranian stooge–he left Iran during his exile from Iraq because his Dawa party colleagues were being murdered. Even many of the Shia in the south are none too fond of the Iranians, whose influence is generally overstated. We can and will be helpful to the Iraqis in dealing with the Turks, Kuwait, Bahrain and the Arab League. We failed to line up the Iraqis on Syria in recent months. That mistake will be corrected. The U.S. will still have lots of leverage in Iraq: they need and want us for many reasons.
Iraq is a functioning multiethnic state (the echoes of the Bush Administration were noted with irony) that faces a lot of problems, including the territories disputed between Baghdad and Erbil and failure to implement the agreements on which the current coalition government was based. But the issues are being worked out through politics rather than violence. Maliki is frightened of Ba’athist resurgence and does not always behave like a democrat, but there are countervailing forces in the parliament and elsewhere that restrain his actions. He is no worse than Richard Nixon when it comes to rival political parties, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt when it comes to the constitutional court.
Iraq has tremendous economic potential, due largely to its oil and gas resources as well as its strategic geopolitical location. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is hosting the Prime Minister, and a good deal of emphasis will be put on commercial prospects (and also jobs, jobs, jobs, I imagine). The Iraqis will be vastly increasing their oil export capacity, not only through the strait of Hormuz but also to the north.
The State Department is ready to take over the mission in Iraq. It has developed its capacity for deploying expeditionary diplomats and other needed personnel quickly. The administrative and logistical challenge of supporting the big embassy and 13 other posts (10 defense cooperation and 3 consulates) has been significant, but the problems have been solved.
So what did I think of all this?
There is a good deal of wishful thinking involved, especially when it comes to the capacity of the Iraqis and the U.S. embassy to fill the vacuum the military withdrawal will leave behind. The State Department has repeatedly failed on police training; it would be refreshing if it succeeded this time around. It would also be surprising if there were not other hiccups, or worse. Both Maliki and Obama are running risks.
But I don’t think we are making a mistake to withdraw completely: it is what democratic politics and shifting priorities in both Washington and Baghdad demanded. Americans are having trouble with the idea of continuing the effort in Afghanistan. Iraq is long forgotten. I also think it is important to get U.S. troops out of harm’s way before we deal with Iran, a challenge that is now coming on fast. No military option with Iran has much credibility if American troops are vulnerable to Iranian proxies in Iraq. I trust the new configuration, which includes 14 sites at which Americans will be present in numbers, will be far more defensible than the hundreds (even thousands at one time) that used to exist.
I also worry about Iraqi democracy, such as it is (which is admittedly more than in much of the region). The counterweights to Maliki are still weak institutions. The courts and provincial governments are particularly feeble. His paranoia could well evolve in harmful directions. If it does, the Americans will need to be ready to coax him back to a less self-destructive path. Sunnis and Kurds should not be expected to accept a new autocracy.
The problem with the Iranians is not so much their clout in Baghdad. It is their more pervasive influence at the local level, especially in the south but also in Kurdistan. The GCC reluctance to engage seriously with post-war Iraq is allowing this pervasive influence to grow. Despite repeated Administration assertions that the Arabs are beginning to engage with Maliki, there is precious little sign of it. Getting Iraq on side about Syria is crucial, not only because it will discomfort Bashar al Assad but also because it will help heal Maliki’s relationship with Arab League states and put Tehran on its back foot.
Naturally nothing was said in this unclassified briefing about continuing intelligence and counter-terrorism cooperation. I assume there is a classified side to this “normal” relationship, one that will give the United States ample access to both information and opportunities, if they arise, to attack Al Qaeda and other terrorists. Normal means different things to different people, but to Maliki it would certainly include our providing information that would help him protect the Iraqi state and his providing opportunities for the United States to do in its enemies if the Iraqis don’t want to do it themselves.
PS: I should have included in this post a word about Arab/Kurdish tensions, which are not so much between Arabs and Kurds as between high officials in Baghdad and Erbil. The Kurdistan Region has good reason to be disappointed with the failure to implement many of the items it thought Maliki had accepted as conditions for forming his government. Baghdad has good reason to be upset that Kurdistan has signed an oil production-sharing agreement with Exxon, one that includes resources that appear to lie in disputed areas. But these very real sources of irritation are not manifesting themselves in military confrontation so far as I can tell. That is a really good thing. But can it last?
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Delusional, deluded or deluding?
The full transcript of the Barbara Walters interview with Bashar al Assad is worth a read, if only because it will likely one day be seen a presaging the fall of the Assad regime, like Qaddafi’s mad rants in Libya. Bashar’s denial is total:
OK, we don’t kill our people, nobody kill. No government in the world kill its people, unless it’s led by crazy person. For me, as president, I became president because of the public support. It’s impossible for anyone, in this state, to give order to kill people.
Mistakes may have been made, but they are not his or the government’s. Individuals have made mistakes are being held accountable. He feels no guilt. The press is free. Foreign correspondents are welcome. There was no order for a crackdown, just the legitimate institutions of the state defending themselves from terrorists, as any state would have to do.
The terrifying part of all of this is that he gives the distinct impression of believing it. That would be delusional. It is difficult to imagine how someone so out of touch with reality can be convinced to stop the brutality.
In theory it is also possible that he is deluded: maybe his younger brother Maher, responsible for the security forces, doesn’t bother telling him what is happening? Certainly if he watches too much Syrian TV, he wouldn’t know that the protests are mainly peaceful and the security forces ferociously violent. He could then believe that there really are terrorists inciting this instability and attacking the Syrian state.
That would be truly deluded, but there is still another possibility: he is attempting to delude. Not so much the Western public, which by now knows better, but his own people, who will be treated to this interview repeatedly. Listen to Deborah Amos on the PBS Newshour Tuesday evening:
Watch Syria’s Assad Denies Ordering Deadly Crackdown as Sanctions Drive Down Currency on PBS. See more from PBS NEWSHOUR.
This fits with what Bashar says about his strategy in the interview:
…the majority of the Syrian people are in the middle and then you have people who support you and you have people who are against you. So the majority always in the middle. Those majority are not against you. If they are against you you cannot have stable most of the city…
Walters: You feel the majority of the people in this country support you?
Assad: I say the majority are in the middle and the majority are not against — to be precise.
He is trying to win over the majority, who are caught in the middle between the state and the terrorists.
I lean towards this last interpretation. Bashar al Assad is not a rocket scientist (only a physician), but he is more than smart enough to know what is going on and rational enough to stop it if he did not think it was in his interest. His focus is where it should be: winning the hearts and minds of the majority that is not yet against him, or at least keeping them neutral.
This understanding should inform the strategy of the opposition and the international community. Actions that turn this majority in Bashar al Assad’s direction (violence, sanctions that target vital commodities, rhetoric that suggests NATO is coming to the rescue) should be avoided. Actions that win over the substantial Syrian middle and lower classes (providing humanitarian assistance, international monitoring of the sort the UN has already undertaken or the Arab League has proposed, sanctioning non-vital trade and investment, denouncing regime violence, nonviolent boycotts, strikes and demonstrations) are the way to go.
Bashar is trying to outlast his opponents; they need to prepare for the long haul, even if we all hope this will end soon.
RSS - Posts
