Tag: Bahrain
Hang together
There is something special about celebrating July 4 in Tripoli. This is a country that made a revolution only after 42 years of dictatorship. Watching it prepare for elections July 7 is thrilling, even to an old salt. I’ll miss the reading of the Declaration of Independence on NPR this morning, especially this portion of the stirring preamble:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
These are the founding principles of the American republic. I am not by nature a proselytizer. I think everyone should find their own form of government. But if you start from these principles, it is hard–pretty much impossible–to come to other than democratic conclusions.
All the revolutions of the Arab spring have to some extent been inspired by similar thinking, but the Libyan and Tunisian ones more than others have been able to fulfill the hope of throwing off absolute despotism. Egypt experienced something more like a creeping military coup than a revolution. Yemen is enjoying, if that is the right word, a negotiated transition. Syria is lost in a civil war. Sudan (Khartoum) is seeing only the first stirrings of discontent. Bahrain has put the genie back in the bottle, for the moment. Other Gulf states have bought off and repressed their protest movements.
It is hard to fault those who decide the weight of oppression is too great to claim the dignity inherent in the idea that all men (and women) are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights. But if you believe that the premise is true, it is difficult not to want to support those who do decide to take the risk.
In the Libyan case, support came in military form, in response to a threat the dictator posed to Benghazi. But it is a mistake to believe that this is the only form of support, or even the most effective one. It is hard for me to imagine how military support to the Syrian rebellion, short of full-scale intervention well beyond the level in Libya, will do much more than widen and worsen the violence. Someone may get lucky and kill Bashar al Asad, but even then his Alawite sect and its allies will likely continue to fight a war they believe is “existential.” Thinking that way likely makes it so. It is easy to understand, and impossible to justify, their self-protective abuse of power.
Syrians and others engaged in the fight against tyranny would do well to remember Benjamin Franklin’s injunction at the signing in 1776:
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
May we all hang together.
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Playing chess with Mike Tyson
I might wish that were the name of William Dobson‘s book about how dictators are adjusting to contemporary pro-democracy rebellions, as the original text of this post said, but really it’s Dictatorship 2.0. I haven’t read it but intend to do so, as there was a lively discussion of it yesterday at the Carnegie Endowment with Karim Sadjadpour chairing, Dobson presenting, Otpor‘s Srdja Popovic and Marc Lynch commenting.
It is hard to be an old style dictator today, Dobson avers. Really only North Korea is left, as Burma has begun to adjust. The plug can’t be pulled on communications, which means dictators need to get savvy and use more subtle forms of repression: targeted tax inspections, contested but unfree and unfair elections (preferably with the opposition fragmented), control over television and the courts, big handouts to the populace. Dictatorships today do not aim for ideological monopolies but rather to prevent and disrupt mobilization.
Oppositions have to adjust as well. Srdja outlined the basics: they need unity, planning and nonviolent discipline. They must be indigenous. Internationals can help, mainly through education and help with communications. Protesters need to avoid confronting dictatorial regimes where they are strong and attack them where they are weak. You don’t challenge Mike Tyson to box; better to play chess with him. This means avoiding military action in Syria, for example, and focusing on the regime’s economic weakness. The contest is between opposition enthusiasm and the fear the regime seeks to impose. Humor and “dispersive” tactics that do not require mass assembly in the streets (work and traffic slowdowns, boycotts, graffiti, cartoons) are increasingly important in reducing fear.
Marc emphasized the sequence of events in the Arab awakening: Ben Ali’s flight from Tunisia made people elsewhere realize what was possible, Mubarak’s overthrow in Egypt made it seem inevitable, Libya and Yemen were far more difficult, a reversal that has continued in Syria, where the regime has substantial support from Alawites and Christians afraid of what will happen to them if the revolution succeeds. The tipping point comes when perception of a regime changes from its being merely bad to being immoral.
So who is next? Saudi Arabia and Jordan are in peril, Marc suggested. Bahrain is living on borrowed time. Srdja suggested Iran, which is moving backwards towards an old style dictatorship after the defeat of its Green Movement, can only be challenged successfully if the protesters learn from their mistakes. They need better leadership and a focus on the state’s inability to deliver services. China, Dobson said, has been good at pre-empting large protests. Burma may not be adjusting quickly enough to avoid an upheaval.
I didn’t hear mention of Russia, Cuba, Algeria, and lots of other places that might be candidates, but no one was trying to be comprehensive. Wherever they may be, dictatorships will adjust to what they see happening elsewhere and try to protect their monopoly on power from those who challenge it. Their opponents will also need to adjust. It is thus in both war and peace.
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The Syrian people still hold the key to Syria
Randa Slim writes:
During the recent discussions in Baghdad between the global powers and Iran, the United States rejected an Iranian proposal to add Syria and Bahrain to the discussion agenda. It might be worth pursuing this proposal at the next round of talks in Moscow. Time and again, Iranian senior officials have stressed the need for a political resolution to the Syrian crisis. They have been reaching out to different groups in the Syrian opposition. As the Western community keeps searching for a political solution in Syria, Iran might have some ideas about how to bring it about.
Iran will no doubt have ideas about Syria, but they won’t be ideas that Bashar al Assad’s opposition (or I) will like. The Iranians will want to get in Syria compensation for whatever they give the P5+1 (that’s the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) on nuclear issues.
Bahrain is a red herring. The Iranians don’t really expect the Americans to yield anything there, because it hosts the American Fifth Fleet. But the refusal of the Americans to yield to the Shia majority in Bahrain is a good analogy from Iran’s perspective to Tehran’s refusal to yield to the Sunni majority in Syria. Tehran will want to know: if majority rule is good for Syria, why isn’t it good for Bahrain?
From the perspective of Americans sympathetic with the rebellion, it would be best to keep the Syria issue separate.
If the impending American election is what restrains President Obama from taking action more vigorous action on Syria, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney loosened the constraint a bit last weekend by criticizing the President for not doing enough and calling for arming the opposition. The trouble with that proposition is that it is already happening and won’t likely alter the balance much. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing arms to what the Americans think are reliable recipients. It is unrealistic to expect that the violent side of the Syrian uprising will win the day, but it can likely sustain an insurgency indefinitely.
The more important constraint on President Obama is the need to keep the Russians on board for the p5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. Any overt American military move would likely cause Moscow to scuttle those talks and leave the Americans with the unhappy choice of military action or nothing in dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. Stopping Iran short of a nuclear weapon is one of America’s top foreign policy and national security priorities. It is unrealistic to expect the president to put it at risk with a military strike on Syria.
The fact is that no one has come up with anything demonstrably better than pursuing the Annan plan for Syria, though Andrew Tabler’s suggestion of an arms quarantine against the regime certainly merits consideration as a supplement. The key to making the Annan plan work is moving Bashar al Assad out of power so that work can begin on a political process. The Iranians and Russians will do this once they see him teetering on the brink. He is not far from that point. I still think the best way to put him there is through nonviolent means, like the general strikes that have recently plagued Damascus and other cities. It is very hard to crack down on large numbers of merchants for not opening their shops in the souk.
The Syrian people still hold the key to Syria.
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Remembrance without resolve
How much time is required to decide if the UN observers in Syria are failing? If you are the New York Times, two weekend days after authorization by the UN Security Council will do. You wouldn’t want to wait until a significant number of them have actually deployed. Even today, only eleven are active. And you would cite Syrian army attacks occurring while they are not present as evidence of their ineffectiveness, whereas the opposite would seem more likely the case: reduced attacks while the observers are present suggest they are having an impact.
The observers admittedly have a thankless task. There is as yet no peace to keep in Syria, where the regime continues to attack its opponents, refuses to withdraw the military from population centers or to allow peaceful demonstrations, blocks journalistic and humanitarian access and is not prepared to discuss a transition away from the Assad regime. The opposition also occasionally resorts to violence against the security forces. If they are going to have an impact, the observers will need to acquire it after full deployment over a period of weeks, working diligently with both protesters and the regime to ensure disengagement and to gain respect for Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan.
This they can do, but only by being forthright in their assessments of what is going on, determined in their efforts to go where they want when they want and honest in communicating their observations to both the Syrian and the international press.
The regime will do everything it can to intimidate the observers and shield their eyes from the worst of what is going on. It will retaliate against protesters who communicate with the observers. And it will play “cat and mouse,” encouraging the observers to go where nothing is happening and discouraging them from going where something interesting might be observed.
Kofi Annan will not be easily fooled. His long experience with UN peacekeeping and with the Security Council will ensure that Bashar al Assad faces a savvy and determined international civil servant, provided Washington continues to back the UN effort.
The initial deployment is for 90 days. It should have been shorter, so that the Security Council would be forced to review and decide whether to renew the mission earlier than July. Still, reports every 15 days to the Council will keep the issue on its agenda. The number of observers is limited to 300, still too few to monitor a country the size and population of Syria. At the very best, they will be able to make a difference in a relatively few communities, unless their numbers are much increased.
Some of the observers are likely to resign in frustration, as some of the Arab League observers did over the past winter. Others will take the regime’s side, criticizing the protesters for violence against the security forces. There will be confusion, even consternation, as they try to get a grip on a very slippery situation, one that threatens every day to descend into sectarian bloodletting of the worst sort.
Ultimately, Kofi Annan will need to decide whether the observers are serving a useful purpose. The history of such missions suggests that they are greeted initially with a surge of violence, which subsides if the observers gain respect as truly neutral. The difficulty is that “neutrality” is in the eye of the beholder. One of the beholders in Syria, Bashar al Assad, has labelled all the demonstrators terrorists and will try to settle for nothing less from the UN.
As chance would have it, President Obama on Monday announced the creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board, saying
…remembrance without resolve is a hollow gesture.
The first test of those words will be in Syria, Bahrain and the border between what is now Sudan and South Sudan. In all three places, there is a need to stiffen international community and in particular U.S. resolve to prevent atrocities, protect civilians and make oppressors accountable. This does not necessarily mean the military action others are calling for. In fact, none of these situations lends itself to military means. But the full political, diplomatic and economic weight of the United States should be brought to bear. The President needs make sure his words and gestures are not hollow as he weighs U.S. options in these on-going conflicts.
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This week’s “peace picks”
Loads of interesting events this week:
1. Georgian-South Ossetian Confidence Building Processes, Woodrow Wilson Center, 6th floor, February 6, noon- 1pm
Dr. Susan Allen Nan will discuss the Georgian-South Ossetian relationship, including insights from the 14 Georgian-South Ossetian confidence building workshops she has convened over the past three years, the most recent of which was in January. The series of unofficial dialogues catalyze other confidence building measures and complement the Geneva Talks official process.
Please note that seating for this event is available on a first come, first served basis. Please call on the day of the event to confirm. Please bring an identification card with a photograph (e.g. driver’s license, work ID, or university ID) as part of the building’s security procedures.
The Kennan Institute speaker series is made possible through the generous support of the Title VIII Program of the U.S. Department of State.
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Associate Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University
by
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Former National Security Adviser and CSIS Counselor and Trustee
Willard Room, Willard InterContinental Hotel
1401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC
Introduction by
John Hamre, CSIS
Remarks by
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Interviewed by
David Ignatius, The Washington Post
Book Signing
from 4:00 to 4:30 p.m.
-Books will be available for purchase-
This invitation is non-transferable. Seating is limited.
To RSVP please e-mail externalrelations@csis.org by Wednesday, February 2.
This book seeks to answer 4 questions:
What are the implications of the changing distribution of global power from West to East, and how is it being affected by the new reality of a politically awakened humanity? Why is America’s global appeal waning, how ominous are the symptoms of America’s domestic and international decline, and how did America waste the unique global opportunity offered by the peaceful end of the Cold War? What would be the likely geopolitical consequences if America did decline by 2025, and could China then assume America’s central role in world affairs? What ought to be a resurgent America’s major long-term geopolitical goals in order to shape a more vital and larger West and to engage cooperatively the emerging and dynamic new East? America, Zbigniew Brzezinski argues, must define and pursue a comprehensive and long-term geopolitical vision, a vision that is responsive to the challenges of the changing historical context. This book seeks to provide the strategic blueprint for that vision.
5. The Unfinished February 14 Uprising: What Next for Bahrain? Dirksen, 9:30-11 am February
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Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 106
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POMED DC Events Calendar
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alex.russell@pomed.org
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As the February 14th anniversary of the start of mass protests in Bahrain approaches, now is a critical time to analyze events over the past few months and discuss expectations for the coming weeks. With the release of the BICI report in late November, which detailed systematic human rights abuses and a government crackdown against peaceful protesters, the Government of Bahrain was tasked with a long list of reforms and recommendations. At this juncture, nearly two months after the release of the report, it is essential for the United States to debate the Kingdom’s reforms and how to move Bahrain forward on a path of democratic progress. Human rights groups continue to raise significant human rights concerns with respect to the situation on the ground. What are some of these concerns? What are the current realities on the ground in Bahrain? What are the strategies of the country’s political opposition parties and revolutionary youth movement, and how is the monarchy reacting? What are some expectations and challenges regarding the palace-led reform process? And, importantly, what constructive roles can the U.S. play in encouraging meaningful reform at this time? Please join us for a discussion of these issues with: Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) Elliott Abrams Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations Joost Hiltermann Deputy Program Director, Middle East and North Africa, International Crisis Group Colin Kahl Associate Professor, Georgetown University; Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security Moderator: Stephen McInerney Executive Director, Project on Middle East Democracy To RSVP: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGFWVEU3dzBVNUtiTzFKYW5OVlZ3UXc6MQ This event is sponsored by the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), the National Security Network, and the Foreign Policy Initiative. For more information, visit: http://pomed.org/the-unfinished-february-14-uprising-what-next-for-bahrain-2/
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6. An Assessment of Iran’s Upcoming Parliamentary Elections, Woodrow Wilson Center, 12-1:15 pm February 9
with
Hosein Ghazian
and
Geneive Abdo
Location:
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Geneive Abdo //Director, Iran Program, The Century Foundation
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Visiting Scholar, Syracuse University
This event requires a ticket or RSVP
The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) and the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding
invite you to
One Year Later:
Has the Arab Spring Lived Up to Expectations?
A public panel featuring:
John L. Esposito
University Professor & Founding Director
ACMCU, Georgetown University
Heba Raouf
Associate Professor
Cairo University
Radwan Ziadeh
Fellow, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding
Senior Fellow, United States Institute of Peace
Moderated by:
Farid Senzai
Director of Research
Institute for Social Policy and Understanding
February 9, 2012 – 4:00-6:00 pm
Georgetown University Hotel & Conference Center | Salon H
One year has passed since protestors took to the streets across the Arab World. Join the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding and the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding for an engaging panel on what progress has been made on the ground and where the revolution will go from here.
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John L. Esposito is University Professor, Professor of Religion and International Affairs and of Islamic Studies and Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Esposito specializes in Islam, political Islam from North Africa to Southeast Asia, and Religion and International Affairs. He is Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Islamic Studies Online and Series Editor: Oxford Library of Islamic Studies, Editor-in-Chief of the six-volume The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, The Oxford History of Islam (a Book-of-the-Month Club selection), The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, The Islamic World: Past and Present, and Oxford Islamic Studies Online. His more than forty five books include Islamophobia and the Challenge of Pluralism in the 21st Century, The Future of Islam, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (with Dalia Mogahed), Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (a Washington Post and Boston Globe best seller), The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?, Islam and Politics, Political Islam: Radicalism, Revolution or Reform?, Islam and Democracy (with J. Voll). His writings have been translated into more than 35 languages, including Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Bahasa Indonesia, Urdu, European languages, Japanese and Chinese. A former President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and of the American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies, Vice Chair of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, and member of the World Economic Forum’s Council of 100 Leaders, he is currently Vice President (2012) and President Elect (2013) of the American Academy of Religion, a member of the E. C. European Network of Experts on De-Radicalisation and the board of C-1 World Dialogue and an ambassador for the UN Alliance of Civilizations. Esposito is recipient of the American Academy of Religion’s Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion and of Pakistan’s Quaid-i-Azzam Award for Outstanding Contributions in Islamic Studies and the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University Award for Outstanding Teaching.
Heba Raouf Ezzat holds a Ph.D in political theory and has been teaching at Cairo University since 1987, and is also an affiliate professor the American University in Cairo (since 2006). She currently serves as Visiting Senior Fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Her research, publications and activism is focused on comparative political theory, women in Islam, global civil society, new social movements and sociology of the virtual space. She is also a cofounder of Islamonline.net which is now Onislam.net, an academic advisor of many youth civil initiatives, the member of the Board of Trustees of Alexandria Trust for Education – London, and the Head of the Board of Trustees of the Republican Consent Foundation – Cairo. She was a research fellow at the University of Westminster (UK) (1995-1996), the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (1998 and 2012), and the Center for Middle East Studies, University of California-Berkeley (2010). She recently participated in establishing the House of Wisdom, the first independent Egyptian Think Tank founded after the Egyptian revolution 2011.
Radwan Ziadeh is a Fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and a Dubai Initiative associate at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is the founder and director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies in Syria and co-founder and executive director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Washington, D.C.
Farid Senzai is Director of Research at ISPU and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Santa Clara University. Dr. Senzai was previously a research associate at the Brookings Institution, where he studied U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, and a research analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he worked on the Muslim Politics project. He served as a consultant for Oxford Analytica and the World Bank. Dr. Senzai is currently on the advisory board of The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life where he has contributed to several national and global surveys on Muslim attitudes. His recent co-authored book is Educating the Muslims of America (Oxford University Press, 2009). Dr. Senzai received a M.A. in international affairs from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in politics and international relations from Oxford University.
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Please RSVP here: http://arabspringispu.eventbrite.com/
For a map and directions to the GU Conference Center, please visit: http://www.acc-guhotelandconferencecenter.com/map-directions/
mem297@georgetown.edu
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Dr. John Hamre
President and CEO, CSISModerated by
Dr. Bulent Aliriza
Director and Senior Associate, CSIS Turkey ProjectCenter for Strategic and International Studies
B1 Conference Room
1800 K. St. NW, Washington, DC 20006
9. China, Pakistan and Afghanistan: Security and Trade, 12:30-2 pm, Rome Auditorium, SAIS
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This is called retrenchment
We all anticipated this State of the Union speech would not focus on international issues, but here is my short list of more important things not mentioned or glossed over:
- West Bank settlements (or Palestinians)
- North Korea
- Euro crisis
- Africa or Latin America (not even Cuba),
- Bahrain or Saudi Arabia, virtually no Egypt, Tunisia or Yemen
- China (except as an unfair competitor)
- Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, India or even Russia (except as an emerging market)
- Pakistan (except as an Al Qaeda haven)
- Strait of Hormuz
That’s a pretty spectacular list, even without noting the absence of NATO, Japan, allies, Europe, the UN…
A few notable items that were mentioned:
- Strong on regime change in Syria (putting Assad in the same sentence with Qaddafi could have implications) and on exporting democracy and free markets in general
- Positive about peaceful resolution of the dispute with Iran over nuclear weapons, while keeping all options on the table
- Trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia
- Burma as the hope of the Pacific!
Of course the President also mentioned withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, security cooperation with Israel, blows delivered against Al Qaeda, and the troops (no mention of civilians serving abroad this time around I’m afraid).
If this is a prelude to the campaign, as rightly it should be, it presages an ever more economically focused foreign policy, with security issues narrowed to a few top priorities and little focus on diplomacy except on a few specific issues. This is a vision for restoring American economic strength at home, not increasing–or perhaps even maintaining–its commitments abroad. This is called retrenchment.
PS: I should have mentioned that Richard Haas calls it “restoration.” That’s a more positive word, but the substance is the same.
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