Tag: China
This week’s “peace picks”
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Deputy Special Representative, Department of State
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Former U.S. Secretary of State
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Public Policy Scholar“International Reporting Project Journalist-in-Residence” at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies
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USIP-Wilson Center Distinguished Scholar
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Journalist and Author of seven books, most recently “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World”
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Professor of International Politics, Tufts University
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICAN AFFAIRS
Adjunct Professor
George Washington University
Washington, DC
Senior Research Fellow
International Food Policy Research Institute
Washington, DC
President and CEO
The Corporate Council on Africa
Washington, DC
J. Peter Pham, director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center at the Atlantic Council, and Bronwyn Bruton, deputy director of the Ansari Africa Center. For more information, contact itolber1@jhu.edu or 202.663.5676.
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights
The Honorable Johnnie Carson
Assistant Secretary of State
Bureau of African Affairs
U.S. Department of StateMs. Sharon Cromer
Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator
Bureau for Africa
U.S. Agency for International Development
Mr. Mark Schneider
Senior Vice President
International Crisis GroupMr. Paul Fagan
Regional Director for Africa
International Republican InstituteMr. Dewa Mavhinga
Regional Coordinator
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
- Ambassador Riaz Muhammad Khan, panelist
former Foreign Secretary, Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Author, Afghanistan and Pakistan: Conflict, Extremism and Resistance to Modernity - Pamela Constable, panelist
Staff Writer, The Washington Post
Author, Playing with Fire: Pakistan at War with Itself - Zahid Hussain, panelist
2011-2012 Pakistan Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Author, The Scorpion’s Tail: The Relentless Rise of Islamic Militants in Pakistan – and How it Threatens America
- Andrew Wilder, moderator
Director, Afghanistan and Pakistan Programs
United States Institute of Peace
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There are worse fates
The annual EU Forum, a confab sponsored by the Paris-based European Union Institute for Strategic Studies and SAIS’s Center for Transatlantic Relations, convened Thursday and Friday in Washington to focus American and European luminaries on the thing we all call the Arab Spring, even though we know it started last winter, varies from country to country and may not have results as upbeat as the appellation implies. Almost entirely missing from the day and a half conference were Arab voices. This was an opportunity for the “the West” to put its heads together, not for the revolutionaries or the oppressive regimes to offer their narrative.
They were nevertheless much present in the minds of the participants, who leaned towards enthusiasm for the values of the protesters, as well as their energy and determination, while worrying about the impact on Western interests. The three big areas of worry arise from
- the Islamists: what do they really mean by sharia law? will they really play fair in democracy?
- increased Arab support for the Palestinians: will it make the Israel/Palestine equation even more difficult to solve?
- sectarianism (will it lead to civil wars and possible spillover to other countries, especially in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen?
Underlying all was a sense that the West has precious few resources with which to respond effectively to the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, to the continuing repression in Syria and Yemen, or to the reforms in Jordan and Morocco, never mind the still solid autocratic regimes in the Gulf or the fragmented polity in Palestine. No one seemed to feel Western credibility or influence was strong, especially in light of the long-standing support (and arms) both Europe and the U.S. had given to Arab autocracies in the past (and continue to provide to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and others even now). And everyone was aware that the Chinese, Turks, Brazilians, Indians and other emerging powers will play increasing roles in the Middle East, offering contracts and aid on terms far less complex and burdensome than those of the West.
The Europeans nevertheless came with a strong sense that the Middle East is their “southern neighborhood” and they need to up their game in response to changes that will affect their interests directly, whether through immigration, economic interdependence, oil and gas supplies, contracts, investment and myriad other ties. Precisely what they are going to do about it was not clear, and there was a strong sense that European policy on the Arab Spring has been re-nationalized. The British and French in particular are carving out their own distinct approaches, taking advantage of their forward role in the NATO military action against Qaddafi, while other countries are lagging and the EU itself is still contemplating the interior walls of the Berlaymont.
The Americans would like to focus more on Asia, not only Afghanistan/Pakistan but also China and North Korea as threats to national security. It was clear to all that Europe would not share this Asian interest to the same degree, but yesterday’s talk of Chinese financing to back the euro might change a few minds on that score. The problem for the Americans is that the Asian challenge requires a very different set of policy instruments from the Arab Spring, which apart from Egypt and Yemen Washington might rather leave primarily to the Europeans (no one of course says this quite so bluntly, but if you follow the money that is what they mean). Everyone expects, though, that NATO will remain somehow important and in the end the only real military instrument capable of effective power projection available to the Europeans.
There were lots of other points made. Trade and investment are far more important than aid. We need to be talking not only with secular women but also with Islamist women. Liberal economic reform, associated in Egypt and other countries with the old regimes, is in trouble, at least for the moment. Civil society in the Arab Spring countries needs Western support, but it should not be done through governmental channels but rather by nongovernmental organizations like the American National Endowment for Democracy (and the talked about European Endowment for Democracy). Western conditionality should focus on transparency and accountability rather than specific policy prescriptions.
I could go on, but I trust the sponsors will be doing a far better job of writing up in due course, and tweets are available from EUISS for those really interested. Bottom line: the West is fading even as its values spread. There are worse fates.
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There are still things to do about Syria
I’m an enthusiast, as most Americans I know are, for our ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, so here is his Skype performance with Andrew Tabler yesterday at The Washington Institute:
TWI is good about writing up its events quickly, so I won’t attempt that. Just a few high points:
- There is a lot of chatter about revolutionary violence, which inevitably will lead to more regime violence, alignment of minorities with the regime and ultimately sectarian conflict;
- The newly established Syrian National Council (SNC) needs to develop a serious program for how it will govern that promises protection for minorities, establishes broad legitimacy within Syria and attracts international support;
- Concerted multilateral pressure targeting regime individuals, the central bank, the state-owned Commercial Bank and oil sales will hamstring the regime and weaken the allegiance of both the merchant class and some military elements to the regime;
- Regional pressure and openness to refugees, especially from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, can also help.
While Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution, they are now urging reforms and might be convinced to go along with international monitors focused on establishing the facts of what is going on. If Bashar al Assad then refuses them, it will reflect badly on him.
Policy conclusions:
- Discourage violence, help the opposition with the tactics of nonviolent civil resistance, including general strikes;
- Help the SNC develop its governance program, with ownership clearly staying with the Syrians;
- Tighten up sanctions;
- Form a regional Friends of Syria including neighboring countries;
- Talk with the Russians and Chinese about international monitors with a UN mandate.
PS: Some courageous Syrians, said to be demonstrating Friday in Damascus:
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Who is right?
When it comes to vital American interests, little trumps stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Bruce Riedel may be right that we need to begin to imagine how we can live with the prospect, but most of those who worry about these issues would want to maximize at least the non-military effort to prevent it from happening. Ken Pollack and Ray Takeyh think we need first to “double down.” Stephen Walt says that would be counterproductive. Instead we should ease up and try to get an agreement that Iran will not weaponize its nuclear technology. Who is right?
Walt starts from the obvious: pressuring the Iranians hasn’t worked. Regime survival is Tehran’s primary concern. Increasing the pressure implicitly or explicitly threatens the regime, which sees nuclear weapons as a guarantee of regime survival. Pressure will only solidify Tehran’s determination to get them. So why would redoubling work?
Pollack and Takeyh agree that regime survival is Tehran’s primary concern. They propose that we threaten it. Doing so, they argue, will require that we support the Green Movement–Iran’s so far failed popular uprising–as well as ethnic opponents of the regime, try to block (mostly Chinese) investment in the energy sector, target the Revolutionary Guards in ways they claim we have been reluctant to do, and increase criticism of Iran’s human rights record.
I’ll be accused of straddling, or maybe of mixing and matching, but it seems to me the sweet spot lies somewhere in between these stark perspectives. Yes, the United States should talk with the Green Movement and the ethnic groups in Iran and provide what support they think will be productive, so long as they remain nonviolent (violence, especially from the Baloch and Kurds, gives the regime the excuse it needs to crack down). It should certainly be focusing global attention on Iranian human rights abuses.
But it is unlikely that the Chinese are going to pass on energy investment in Iran unless there is a broad international agreement (read Security Council resolution) that asks them to do so, and we’ve got to be cautious about the ways and means used to support the Greens and other oppositions. American support, especially in covert form, can do more to harm them than to help.
Walt may be correct in his analysis of the failure of current policy. But it does not follow that if we ease up now the Iranians will be interested in accommodating our interest in seeing them stop their nuclear program short of weaponization. Why wouldn’t they just plow ahead if there is no clear cost associated with doing so? If making the benefits of stopping clear would help, why wouldn’t it also help to make the costs of plowing ahead clear?
Walt concludes his piece with his “real concern”:
…by falsely portraying the United States as having made numerous generous offers, by dismissing Iran’s security concerns as unfounded reflections of innate suspiciousness or radical ideology, and by prescribing a course of action that hasn’t worked in the past and is likely to fail now, Pollack and Takeyh may be setting the stage for a future article where they admit that “doubling down” didn’t work, and then tell us — with great reluctance, of course — that we have no choice but to go to war again.
That is a separate issue, perhaps the most important of war and peace question of this decade.
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Crouching tiger, hidden dragon
Now that the UN Security Council has at least condemned the regime violence in Syria, everybody is looking for President Obama to amp up calls for Bashar al Assad to step aside. The Administration, I am assured, knows perfectly well that an orderly transition to a less autocratic regime in Damascus would be a big improvement from the U.S. perspective.
But what if the President says Bashar has to go, and then he doesn’t? The U.S. hasn’t got lots of leverage, as it did over an Egyptian army that was heavily dependent on U.S. money, training and equipment. The most vulnerable sector in Syria is energy, where European rather than American companies are the critical players. Posing the President as a crouching tiger is better than exposing him as a paper tiger, especially after the week he has just gotten himself through.
And what if the transition is not orderly, but breaks down into sectarian and ethnic violence, with the risk of overflow into Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey? That could be a big mess, one we would regret for many years into the future.
The problem with this argument is that it suggests a quicker transition would be far better for the U.S. than one that drags on . Those who know Syria well are saying Aleppo and Damascus will turn against Bashar sooner rather than later. Sami Moubayed says unemployment, lack of moderate community leaders willing to calm the situation, and the influx of people from all over Syria into the two largest Syrian cities will ensure that the revolution eventually spreads there. In the meanwhile, the demonstrators are straining the security forces and beginning to bend them at the edges.
While Juan Cole is correctly disappointed in the wording and lack of teeth in the UN Security Council statement, I’m more philosophical about it. I see it as a necessary step along the way to ratcheting up pressure on Bashar. Its significance is that it happened at all, not the specific wording.
I wish we could wave a magic wand and make the Syrian army turn into pussycats, but we can’t. Only the demonstrators can make that trick work, by maintaining their nonviolent discipline and convincing some of the soldiers and police that their interests will be better served if they embrace the revolution rather than fight it.
While not often mentioned, it is important to keep an eye on the Chinese, who could either save the Syrian regime with cash for oil contracts or sink it by permitting more action in the Security Council and lining up with the Americans and Europeans. Syria doesn’t have enough oil to be of great interest to the Chinese, and a lot more of it is likely to flow once Bashar is gone. The hidden dragon may well be the deciding factor against the regime.
Meanwhile, the Syrian army has punched into the center of Hama, killing a few dozen more of its own citizens and making an orderly transition less likely. Bashar seems to have decided that he prefers to resist the inevitable, like Gaddafi in Libya and Saleh in Yemen, than give in like Mubarak in Egypt or Ben Ali in Tunisia. Yesterday’s scenes of Mubarak caged in a Cairo courtroom will not have encouraged him to rethink.
PS: AJ English continues to do a good job, with a lot of help from courageous friends at Shaam:
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Endgame
Suddenly, it’s all about endgame in AfPak. The death of Osama bin Laden has precipitated a small avalanche of writing about how to get out. James Traub writes about leaving with honor. Karl Inderfurth and Chinmaya Gharekhan suggest a regional political agreement would help the U.S. extract itself. Shuja Nawaz foresees the possibility of U.S.-Pakistani cooperation against the Haqqani group, provided Islamabad and Kabul can reach a political accommodation and the sorry state of relations between Washington and Islamabad does not derail things.
A lot of this strikes me as wishful thinking. The U.S. can of course withdraw from Afghanistan as planned by the end of 2014. The question is, what will it leave behind? Can we expect the Afghan government to maintain itself? Will the Taliban take over large portions of its territory? Will they return to hosting al Qaeda? Will U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan leave Pakistan exposed to infiltration and possible takeover by extremists with a safe haven in Afghanistan? What kind of relationship will we maintain with both Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Dick Holbrooke’s heirs (literal and figurative) are portraying him as saying that it is Pakistan that really counts, not Afghanistan. Those who worry about nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation have long felt that way.
Nothing about the Pakistani state gives me confidence in its ability to meet the challenges it will face once the U.S. is out of Afghanistan. Yesterday’s report in the Wall Street Journal about the Pakistani military’s dodgy billing for its role in the war on terror suggests that we are being robbed by the people who are supposed to be helping protect us, from threats they themselves have nurtured. It doesn’t get much worse than $70 million for air defense radar to protect against an enemy that doesn’t have air assets (and what was the radar looking at during the raid on Abbottabad?). The civilian side of the Pakistani state is widely believed to be just as mendacious.
It is also hard to be optimistic about the Afghan state. While the American military sees signs of tangible progress, especially in the south, efforts to improve governance lag at all levels while the country’s main bank has fallen victim to fraud. Anthony Cordesman argues that the metrics available are not even suitable to measuring progress on “hold” and “build.”
So what do we do? The Administration argues for continuing engagement. In Afghanistan, that is a given until the end of 2014. Savvy experts like Dennis Kux see Pakistan and the U.S. as condemned to a perpetual series of strategic disconnects, but nevertheless bound together by inevitable mutual interests. In this view, our interest is making sure Pakistan is not taken over by extremists. Theirs is in extracting as much military and civilian assistance as possible. The U.S. Congress will want to subject both to some real scrutiny in this difficult budget year, but my guess is that they won’t want to risk shutting it off.
The trouble is that the bilateral approach gives Pakistan incentive to keep the extremist threat alive. It would seem to me preferable to recast Pakistan not as a bilateral problem but rather as a regional one. In this perspective, issues like the Pakistan/Afghanistan border (the Durand line), Kashmir, Pakistan/India relations more generally and the Pakistan/China relationship become more important. The U.S. is not a main protagonist on many of these issues, but rather plays a supportive role. This is where the Century Foundation (Pickering/Brahimi) report on negotiating peace got it right: any settlement in Afghanistan will require a regional approach.
The same is true for Pakistan. Inderfurth and Gharekhan are right. Pakistan faces what it regards as “existential” threats, mainly from India. It is those fears that drive its nuclear policy as well as its posture on Afghanistan. The United States cannot allay those fears, but it can help to nudge Pakistan, India, China and Afghanistan into a regional effort to resolve some of the existential threats and shift all concerned in the direction of exploiting their economic opportunities, which have serious potential to incentivate resolution of the political and security issues and encourage the building of stronger states in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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