Tag: Democracy and Rule of Law
Peace Picks – August 6 – 13
1. Building the Bench for Inclusive U.S. Foreign Policy: Civil Society Leading by Example | Monday, August 6, 2018 | 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm | Open Society Foundations | Register Here
The Open Society Foundations, in collaboration with other partners, has supported research to better understand how civil society can drive inclusive innovation in foreign policy and national security. To this end, a new report, Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in the Foreign Policy Sector, demonstrates how think tanks and nongovernmental organizations can empower a diverse pool of experts to solve the world’s greatest challenges.
Civil society, as the core pool for expertise in government service, can address deficits in cultural, linguistic, and religious lived experiences to offer powerful insight and cultural competency for foreign policy. Experts will discuss best practices and recommendations for the field on how to draw from the United States’ tapestry of diverse communities to gain strategic contributions to diplomacy and national security outcomes.
Please join us for the Washington, D.C., launch of Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in the Foreign Policy Sector, in conversation with Vestige Strategies and the Truman National Security Project.
The panel discussion will be followed by a reception.
Speakers:
Moderator: Alex Johnson – Senior Policy Advisor for Europe and Eurasia, Open Society Foundations, Washington D.C.
Stefanie Brown James – Chief Executive Officer and Founding Partner, Vestige Strategies
Anthony Robinson – Director of Training and Public Engagement, Truman Center for National Policy and Truman National Security Project
2. Israel’s Nation-State Law: Consequences and Costs | Tuesday, August 7, 2018 | 10:00 am – 11:00 am | Wilson Center | Register Here
Last month, the Nation-State law enshrining the principle that Israel is the “national home of the Jewish people” became one of Israel’s Basic Laws, giving it a quasi-constitutional status. The new law, which polls indicate a majority of Israeli Jews support, has generated enormous controversy at home and abroad, alienating and angering Palestinian citizens of Israel and the Druze community with its focus on Jewish primacy.
What are the consequences of the new law for comity, politics and governance in Israel?
Join us as three veteran observers of Israel’s politics and policies discuss the new law and its consequences.
U.S. toll-free number: 888-942-8140
International call-in number: 1-517-308-9203
Participant passcode: 13304
Speakers:
Introduction: Jane Harman – Director, President, and CEO, Wilson Center
Moderator: Aaron David Miller – Vice President for New Initiatives and Middle East Program Director, Wilson Center
Ayman Odeh – Head of the Joint List, the third largest parliamentary group in the 20th Knesset
Anshel Pfeiffer – Correspondent, Haaretz; author, Bibi: The Turbulent Life and times of Benjamin Netanyahu
Shibley Telhami – Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, University of Maryland, College Park
3. Pakistan: After the Elections | Tuesday, August 7, 2018 | 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm | Hudson Institute | Register Here
Pakistan has spent almost half of its 70 years as a nation under military rule and the rest under a semi-authoritarian democracy. Since 2008, Pakistan has ostensibly had civilian rule with a peaceful transfer of power in 2013. Analysts are hopeful that Pakistan’s 2018 election on July 25 will continue this trend of democratization.
Elections do not make a democracy. Yet free, fair, and inclusive elections are one of the pillars of a democratic nation. Most observers and analysts, both within and outside the country, have raised concerns about the influence of Pakistan’s military intelligence establishment on the July 25 general election.
On August 7, Hudson Institute’s South and Central Asia Program will host a panel to discuss Pakistan’s 2018 elections. Panelists will include Professor C. Christine Fair, Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor in the Peace and Security Studies Program at Georgetown University; Dr. Muhammad Taqi, a columnist for The Wire; and Ambassador Husain Haqqani, former Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States and director of South and Central Asia at Hudson Institute.
4. Pakistan Elections: What Now? | Wednesday, August 8, 2018 | 9:30 am – 11:00 am | United States Institute of Peace | Register Here
Pakistan’s national elections on July 25 ushered in a new government, with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party now set to head a new governing coalition and former cricket star Imran Khan expected to become prime minister. After a controversial campaign period, the incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)—whose former leader Nawaz Sharif was imprisoned just days before the elections—has alleged rigging, military manipulation, and media censorship. Several political parties have also challenged the results of the elections. Should the results stand, the PTI appears to have swept races around the country, and now faces the challenge of governing.
To discuss the outcome of the elections, the shape of the next government, and the complaints and challenges to the outcome, USIP will hold a conversation with senior representatives from Pakistan’s top three political parties (PTI, PML-N and the Pakistan Peoples Party) via Skype along with experts Daniel Markey, Kiran Pervez and Moeed Yusuf in Washington, D.C. The event will take place from 9:30am – 11:30am on Wednesday, August 8, 2018 at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Join the conversation on Twitter with #PkElectionsWhatNow.
Speakers:
Moderator: Moeed Yusuf – Associate Vice President, Asia Center, U.S. Institute of Peace
Syed Tariq Fatemi (via Skype) – Special Assistant to the Prime Minister
Daniel Markey – Senior Research Professor, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Kiran Pervez – South & Central Asia Regional Chair, U.S. Department of State
Shah Mahmood Qureshi (via Skype) – Vice Chairman, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
Sherry Rehman (via Skype) – Leader of the Opposite of the Senate, Pakistan
5. U.S. Arms Transfer Policy – Shaping the Way Ahead | Wednesday, August 8, 2018 | 10:30 am – 12:30 pm | Center for International and Strategic Studies | Register Here
The Trump Administration released its new Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) policy and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) export policy in April 2018. It constitutes the first update to the CAT policy since January 2014.
Please join CSIS as we host a public event to discuss the Administration’s new CAT policy. The event will commence with keynote remarks by Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Tina Kaidanow. Following these remarks, a moderated panel consisting of government, think tank, and industry experts will contextualize and discuss challenges in implementation, as well as opportunities presented for U.S. strategy and U.S. business as a result of this policy update.
Speakers:
Ambassador Tina Kaidanow – Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Alex Gray – Special Assistant to the President for the Defense Industrial Base, White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy
Laura Cressey – Deputy Director for Regional Security and Arms Transfers, U.S. Department of State
Jeff Abramson – Senior Fellow, Arms Control Association
Keith Webster – President, Defense and Aerospace Export Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Melissa Dalton – Deputy Director, International Security Program and Director, Cooperative Defense Project, CSIS
Dak Hardwick – Assistant Vice President, International Affairs, Aerospace Industries Association
Andrew Philip-Hunter – Director, Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group and Senior Fellow, International Security Program, CSIS
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A bad idea whose time should not come
Kosovo President Thaci has made it clear he intends to discuss changing Kosovo’s borders with Serbian President Vucic. He denies this means ethnic partition of Kosovo and calls it a correction of the border, a euphemism intended to mean an exchange of territory:
If the Kosovo-Serbia border correction and the final agreement on mutual recognition are achieved, if such an agreement is of bilateral and balanced, meaning a win-win for both parties, then no one would be against it.
Presumably he is open to trading some or all of Kosovo’s Serb-majority northern municipalities for Albanian-majority territory in southern Serbia. The deal would of course have to include, prior to the land swap, mutual diplomatic recognition. Only sovereign states can exchange territory.
This idea has been widely circulated in recent weeks, but Thaci’s remarks are the first clear confirmation from the Albanian side of the equation. It would not be happening without US and European concurrence. Brussels and Washington have apparently decided that integrating the northern Serb municipalities with the rest of Kosovo is just too difficult, so they have dropped their previous firm opposition.
The border correction, or whatever you call it, is a bad idea, for many reasons:
- The majority of the Serbs in Kosovo as well as the more important Serb monasteries and other religious sites are not in the north. Those south of the Ibar River will be at risk, both short term and long term, if territory is exchanged.
- The exchange would increase support for those Albanians in Kosovo who favor union with Albanian and for those in Macedonia who would like to join such a Greater Albania, potentially destabilizing Macedonia as well.
- Republika Srpska, the Serb-controlled 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina, will want to follow suit, declaring independence and seeking to join Serbia. That will precipitate a comparable Croat move to have the Croat-majority cantons of Bosnia join Croatia.
- The Russians will point to this correction of borders as precedent for what they would like to do with South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova, and Donbas as well as Crimea in Ukraine.
- They may even like the idea enough to allow Kosovo into the United Nations, which would be a Pyrrhic victory if it then joins Greater Albania, or if China decides still to veto Kosovo membership.
I am still hoping agreement on this bad idea will prove difficult to achieve. Serbia has good security reasons not to give up territory in southern Serbia that lies adjacent to its main outlet to the sea. The Serb Orthodox Church stands to a big loser if this “correction” proceeds. Kosovo has good reason not to precipitate a series of claims to international border corrections that are unlikely to be peaceful. Nor will Pristina’s current politicians thrive in an environment in which Kosovo’s population is anticipating the end of the country’s statehood by merger into Albania. Vetevendosje, a movement that has advocated the option to join Albania, will be the big winner.
A democratic Kosovo and a democratic Serbia should be able to come to terms on protection of their respective minority populations without this perilous exchange of territory and populations. Of course that is precisely the problem: neither is a consolidated democracy and both are run by ethnic nationalists who still lack adequate respect for minorities. It shouldn’t be a big surprise that an ethnic nationalist administration in the US and an EU in which ethnic nationalism has gained lots of ground weaken in their commitment to democracy and the rule of law, but it is not a welcome development. This is a bad idea whose time should not come.
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Admitting guilt
President Trump has essentially ordered Attorney General Sessions to end the Special Counsel’s probe of Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election:
..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further.
As the investigation has already produced a slew of indictments and half a dozen guilty pleas, the President’s effort to end it is the moral equivalent of admitting guilt. It is now evident that Trump knew about meetings with the Russians in advance and that his public appeal for the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails was in fact a serious signal to Moscow to do what it could to help his campaign.
We are not talking legally moot collusion here. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me we are talking conspiracy against the United States election, seeking and accepting foreign assistance to an electoral campaign, and obstruction of the Special Counsel investigation. All of those are serious crimes, even if collusion is not.
It is telling that Trump is trying to intervene just as the trial of Paul Manafort, his campaign chair, begins. Manafort is not yet charged with conspiracy with the Russians but rather with financial crimes unrelated to the campaign. If he is convicted, however, he will of course want to plea bargain, offering evidence to the Special Counsel on campaign-related issues. Trump wants desperately to avoid that. Manafort’s relationship to the Russians still needs elucidation, but it won’t be surprising to me if he is eventually shown to have been a witting agent of Moscow, to which he owed a good deal of the personal fortune the Special Counsel claims was not reported properly to the Internal Revenue Service.
Trump also wants to stop his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, from assisting the Special Counsel. While most of Cohen’s involvement was not with the campaign, his payoffs to women on Trump’s behalf raise a host of financial and campaign-related issues.
What happens if Trump succeeds in firing Mueller? I would like to think there would be a massive rebellion in Congress, including among Republicans. But that now seems unlikely, since the Republicans with few exceptions have aligned with Trump. Nor is the reaction in the country easy to predict. More than half the electorate didn’t vote for Trump in the first place, but they have no way of weighing in politically until the November election. Street protests? Maybe: even massive ones if the August 11/12 white nationalist demonstration scheduled outside the White House goes ahead. Trump may even benefit if the demonstrators clash and he can pose as a law and order guy.
But this I am pretty sure will happen: the evidence of wrongdoing will spill out into the public domain, both through state-level prosecutions and by leaking. One way or another, we are headed for a major constitutional crisis as it becomes evident that Trump sought and accepted Russian help in the campaign and has tried desperately to cover up what he and his minions did.
The last time a president was caught violating the law he was forced to resign. Trump won’t do that. God bless America. We are going to need it.
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Peace Picks July 23 – 29
1. The Unmaking of Jihadism: The Current Effort to Combat Violent Extremism | Monday, July 23, 2018 | 11:00 am – 12:00 pm | CSIS | Register Here
Please join Mitch Silber (former Director of Intelligence Analysis for the New York City Police Department), Jesse Morton (the former leader and co-founder of Revolution Muslim for which he served time in prison), and Seth G. Jones (Harold Brown Chair and Director of the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS), as they discuss the ongoing effort to counter violent extremism in the United States and abroad. The discussion will surround the issues of returning foreign fighters, counter messaging, post-prison re-integration, and other efforts related to countering violent extremism. Jesse Morton and Mitch Silber now co-direct a Virginia-based nonprofit, named Parallel Networks, that focuses on the rehabilitation of radicalized individuals.
2. Verifying North Korean Denuclearization: Where Do We Go from Here? | Monday, July 23, 2018 | 1:30 pm – 4:45 pm | CSIS | Register Here
More than one month after the Singapore Summit, little headway has been made on denuclearization of North Korea. Many attribute the slow progress to disparate definitions of denuclearization on the part of the United States and North Korea. This conference brings together regional and technical experts to take stock of where we are on the four elements of the Singapore Summit and to examine the following questions: Why do the United States and North Korea have different definitions of denuclearization? Is CVID feasible? What are the appropriate standards for a verification protocol for North Korea’s denuclearization? What should be our goals in a denuclearization agreement? What are we willing to sacrifice in return? What does the road ahead look like?
WELCOMING REMARKS
Mr. H. Andrew Schwartz, Chief Communications Officer, CSIS
OPENING REMARKS
Dr. John Hamre, President and CEO, CSIS
SESSION I: Verification Standards for North Korean Denuclearization
Mr. Stephen Pomper, Program Director, United States, International Crisis Group
Ms. Rebecca Hersman, Director, Project on Nuclear Issues and Senior Adviser, International Security Program, CSIS
Mr. Richard Johnson, Senior Director Fuel Cycle and Verification, Nuclear Threat Initiative
Mr. William Tobey, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
SESSION II: Taking Stock: Where Do We Go from Here?
Mr. David Nakamura, Staff Writer, The Washington Post
Mr. Christopher Green, Senior Adviser, Korean Peninsula, International Crisis Group
General (Ret.) Walter “Skip” Sharp, Former Commander, United Nations Command/Combined Forces Command/United States Forces Korea
Dr. Sue Mi Terry, Senior Fellow, Korea Chair, CSIS
3. What to Expect from Pakistan’s Election? | Tuesday, July 24, 2018 | 10:30 am – 12:30 pm | The Wilson Center | Register Here
On July 25, Pakistan will hold an election that will constitute the country’s second consecutive peaceful transfer of power. The incumbent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, hit by corruption charges that have resulted in a 10-year jail sentence for former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, will try to fend off several opponents. They are led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, headed by cricket star-turned-politician Imran Khan. What might recent Pakistani political developments—including Sharif’s sentencing, dozens of parliamentarians changing their political affiliations, and the emergence of several new religious political parties—portend for the election outcome? What role, if any, might Pakistan’s powerful military be playing in the election? What implications might the election’s possible outcomes have for the United States? This event will address these questions and more.
Speakers:
Mariam Mufti, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Waterloo (Canada)
Sahar Khan, Visiting Research Fellow, CATO Institute
Tamanna Salikuddin, Senior Expert, U.S. Institute of Peace, and Former Pakistan and Afghanistan Director, U.S. National Security Council
4. The Military-Industrial Component of the U.S.-India Partnership | Tuesday, July 24, 2018 | 12:15 pm – 2:00 pm | The Stimson Center | Register Here
Please join the Stimson South Asia program for a conversation with Air Marshal M. Matheswaran, the former Deputy Chief of the Integrated Defence Staff in the Indian Ministry of Defence, who will talk about the military-industrial component of the U.S.-India partnership. Joanna Spear, Associate Professor of International Affairs at the Elliott School, and Benjamin Schwartz, Head of the Aerospace and Defense Program at the U.S.-India Business Council, will serve as discussants. Sameer Lalwani of the Stimson Center will moderate.
5. Eighth Annual South China Sea Conference | Thursday, July 26, 2018 | 9:00 am – 4:45 pm | CSIS | Register Here
This full-day conference will provide opportunities for in-depth discussion and analysis of developments in the South China Sea over the past year and potential paths forward. The event will feature speakers from throughout the region, including claimant countries. Panels will address recent developments, legal and environmental issues, the strategic balance, and U.S. policy.
9:00 am: Morning Keynote
Representative Ted Yoho, Chair, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific Committee on Foreign Affairs
United States House of Representatives
9:45 am: Panel: State of Play in the South China Sea over the Past Year
Bill Hayton, Associate Fellow, Asia-Pacific Programme
Chatham House
Colin Willett, Asia Section Research Manager
Congressional Research Service
Sumathy Permal, Fellow and Head of Centre for Straits of Malacca
Maritime Institute of Malaysia
Feng Zhang, Fellow, Department of International Relations
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
Moderator:
Amy Searight, Senior Adviser and Director, Southeast Asia Program
Center for Strategic and International Studies
11:15 am: Panel: Dispute Resolution in the South China Sea and Beyond
Commodore Lalit Kapur (Retired), Senior Fellow
Delhi Policy Group
Charles I-hsin Chen, Visiting Senior Fellow
Institute for Taiwan-America Studies
Bec Strating, Lecturer
La Trobe University
Thanh Hai Do, Senior Fellow
Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam
Moderator:
Gregory Poling, Director, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative; and Fellow, Southeast Asia Program
Center for Strategic and International Studies
12:30 pm: Lunch Served
1:15 pm: Lunch Keynote
The Honorable Randall G. Schriver, Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs
United States Department of Defense
2:00 pm: Panel: Environmental Issues in the South China Sea
Vo Si Tuan, Senior Scientist
Institute of Oceanography, Nha Trang
Carmen Ablan Lagman, Professor
De La Salle University
Rashid Sumaila, Director, Fisheries Economics Research Unit
University of British Columbia
Moderator:
Brian Harding, Deputy Director and Fellow, Southeast Asia Program
Center for Strategic and International Studies
3:30 pm: Panel: The Military Balance in the South China Sea
Collin Koh Swee Lean, Research Fellow, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Nanyang Technological University
Hideshi Tokuchi, Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow
Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA
Richard Heydarian, Fellow
ADR-Stratbase Institute
Bonnie Glaser, Senior Advisor and Director, China Power Project
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Moderator:
Andrew Shearer, Senior Adviser on Asia Pacific Security and Director, Alliances and American Leadership Project
Center for Strategic and International Studies
6. Identifying – and Isolating – Jihadi-Salafists through their Ideology, Practices, and Methodology | Thursday, July 26, 2018 | 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm | The Heritage Foundation | Register Here
In order to win the war against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, the United States must understand the enemy. Yet the problem of knowing the enemy has never been more acute, and the lack of consensus around this issue has never been more debilitating, for American foreign policy.
Without a clear vision of who the U.S. is fighting, the government and military will not be able to distinguish ordinary Muslims from the extraordinary extremists, will be incapable of devising effective strategies for military and political efforts, and will not know which allies can be safe partners and which need to be avoided for being too close to the extremists. While there are many reasons for a lack of understanding the enemy, one of the most important is a deep disagreement about the role that Islam plays in motivating al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
This event will explore the notion that while a marginal version of Islam is the driver of extremism, it is possible to distinguish the jihadi-salafists from the majority of Muslims. A close examination of the jihadi- salafists’ belief system and methodologies will help the U.S. and allied governments formulate strategies to stop their spread.
Speakers:
Dr. Mary Habeck, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Georgetown University, and American University
Zainab Al-Suwaij, Executive Director, American Islamic Congress
Moderator:
Robin Simcox, Margaret Thatcher Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
7. Faith and Fragile States: Political Stability and Religious Freedom | Friday, July 27, 2018 | 11:00 am – 2:30 pm | USIP | Register Here
Religion influences both peace and conflict worldwide. Violent extremism is often framed in religious terms, and religious discrimination continues to increase as both a driver and symptom of conflict. But, religion drives peace and coexistence as well and religious actors are essential for advancing religious freedom. Efforts to engage religious actors in countering violent extremism (CVE) and interfaith peacebuilding must take this dichotomy into account. Join the International Republican Institute, Search for Common Ground, and the U.S. Institute of Peace on July 27 for two panel discussions that explore the nexus of international religious freedom, CVE, and interfaith peacebuilding.
Opening Remarks
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Former U.S. Representative from Virginia
Tony Garrastazu, Senior Director, Center for Global Impact, International Republican Institute
Panel 1: Religious Engagement in CVE
Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, President, Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies
Humera Khan, President, Muflehun
Moderator: Nancy Lindborg, President, U.S. Institute of Peace
Panel 2: Interfaith Peacebuilding
Cardinal Onaiyekan, Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria
Mike Jobbins, Senior Director of Partnerships and Engagements, Search for Common Ground
Susan Hayward, Senior Advisor, Religion and Inclusive Societies, U.S. Institute of Peace
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The elephant in the room
Tuesday, Carl Gershman (President, National Endowment for Democracy (NED)), Andrew Wilson (Executive Director, Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE)), Daniel Twining (President, International Republican Institute (IRI)), Kenneth Wollack (President, National Democratic Institute (NDI)), and Shawna Bader-Blau (Executive Director, Solidarity Center) convened at CSIS to discuss “Promoting Democracy in Challenging Times.” Daniel Runde (Senior Vice President; William A. Schreyer Chair and Director, Project on Prosperity and Development, CSIS) moderated the panel.
In recent years, the world has experienced a democratic recession. Civil societies have suffered amidst authoritarian resurgences in countries that previously displayed shifts towards democracy. Established democracies have also endured setbacks amidst populist groundswells that enabled the rise of authoritarian-friendly leaders like Trump. From the outset, Runde made it clear that Trump’s recent cozying up to totalitarian leaders would not feature prominently in the discussion, imploring the panelists to “tell him something they are optimistic about” in their democracy promotion work.
With this in mind, Gershman opened by pointing out that NED was founded in the midst of Huntington’s third wave of democratization in the 1980’s. In this sense, the democratic backsliding of the last 12 years should be seen less as a permanent phenomenon and more as a temporary setback. Despite this challenging environment for democracy promotion, however, Gershman highlighted that NED enjoys unprecedented bipartisan congressional support. Abroad, recent democratic gains in The Gambia, Colombia, Malaysia, Armenia, and Tunisia reveal that democracy remains an appealing option worldwide. Gershman reminded the audience to never underestimate the power of the people, pointing to the January protests in Iran as evidence that citizens there are tired of their country’s “failed system.”
Bader-Blau said her organization’s efforts to stand in solidarity with workers around the world recently convinced the ILO to enshrine freedom from harassment at work as a human right. The Solidarity Center’s efforts have also led to the unionization of 200,000 garment workers in Bangladesh. Wilson highlighted CIPE’s recent progress in Bangladesh. The creation of the Bangladesh Women’s Chamber of Commerce with CIPE’s help allowed 10,000 women in that country to receive loans to start or expand their businesses. CIPE’s work has also encouraged international corporations to look beyond profits and place more importance on their role in society, particularly in the developing world.
For Twining, a major source of optimism lies in IRI’s work to strengthen governments in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Balkans. Beyond addressing the institutional vacuums that foment violent extremism, Twining revealed that this work also strengthens societies to prevent destabilizing refugee flows from occurring. Twining also emphasized IRI’s positive influence in Europe, where its efforts to expose foreign influence in domestic politics are helping to curb Russian disinformation campaigns in the region.
Wollack also chose to focus on the Middle East, highlighting positive developments in Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon, and Tunisia. For him, reforms among these Middle Eastern “liberalizers, reformers, and transformers” continually prove that they can handle economic and political problems better than autocrats. Another source of optimism is the fact that NED and its affiliates exist today, in contrast to 35 years ago, when no funds for democracy promotion existed in OECD countries.
The five panelists agreed that the work of democracy promotion matters because people, if given a realistic choice, will choose this system of government because they want to be free. After all, this is the premise upon which the NED and its four affiliates were founded during the Cold War. However, what happens when that choice is eroding in the United States, the country historically seen as the beacon of democracy?
The erosion of democratic norms in America has turned what Gershman described as a recession into a democratic crisis that severely erodes the credibility of the NED family of organizations abroad. President Trump counters and corrupts the efforts of NED and its affiliates every day, both outside and inside the United States. IRI’s efforts to counter Russian disinformation campaigns are undermined when the president attacks the free press. Things could get worse if Putin begins using force to pick off countries at the periphery of NATO with the confidence that mutual defense has become obsolete. Further, Trump’s performance in Helsinki raises the question of whether the US president has been co-opted by the very country that threatens these nations.
Wollack revealed that NDI was founded based on the principle that “if democratic politics fail, the entire democratic system is put in jeopardy.” This rings true today, though in a way that NDI’s founders would probably never have imagined. The democratic system’s legitimacy is threatened by our president, the elephant in the room. The NED organizations do not have the authority to act here at home, but an intervention is badly needed. Let’s hope that it comes through the power of the people this November.
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Not too late for shame
Why don’t we talk more about civil society in Syria?
A cursory search of “Syria” in Google News will produce a plethora of articles and papers about the intentions, interests, and actions of foreign powers, military groups, radical militias, and the Syrian government. In common discussion both among the policy community and the greater American public, the civil conflict in Syria is almost exclusively seen through the lens of great-power politics. There are many reasons for this:
- As Americans, we care about what our government does abroad, and consider crises with this in mind.
- It is natural when analyzing conflicts to focus on the main actors, i.e. states and military groups.
- Larger social organizations like governments and militias use press releases, a strong online presence, and propaganda to gain visibility abroad.
- Small, local organizations, or disorganized civil society are harder to place in the public eye.
The adage that “one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic” still holds. The media industry can only run so many horror stories of bombed civilians, destroyed hospitals, or sniped children before the general public shouts “enough,” and switches off. There is comfort in ignorance. Tragedy only sells in small quantities.
It has become easy to see the Syrian civil conflict as a giant game of chess between half a dozen actors and to forget the millions of lives that have been impacted by the war. Netanyahu’s latest outburst or Trump’s mood today can begin to matter more than the fifty civilians massacred in the latest Russian airstrike. It is easy, when presented with such a deluge of information and traumatic events, to filter out the bloody noise of individual annihilation and stick to the clean, sanitary puppet show of great-power politics.
For me, the bubble burst on July 13, when the Middle East Institute welcomed Syrian journalist and civil activist Raed Fares to speak at a roundtable about the state of civil society in northwestern Syria. Fares, who has survived multiple assassination attempts by ISIS and Jabat al-Nusra, founded the Union of Revolutionary Bureaus (URB) in the city of Kafranbel, located in the northern region of Idlib. Their main activity is running the FM radio station Radio Fresh, as well as overseeing women centers and other civil society endeavors around the city.
What struck home the hardest while listening to Fares is the realization of how dissociated I had become from the pain and horror of individual people living and fighting in Syria. Some might say that is for the best: emotion and objectivity don’t mix well. Good research doesn’t come from the heart.
Phasing out emotion, however, as well as concentrating on objective, feasible policy-making, can make us forget about the true victims of the Syrian civil war. National interests may take precedence over foreign lives in the minds of many, but that doesn’t mean that local casualties and damage should stop mattering. This civil war will end someday. Many would argue it is already over. The process of reconstruction is just around the corner. The state of civil society matters.
This is especially the case in Idlib. Fares is currently visiting the United States to try to rescue funding for his organization cut by the Trump administration, without which he will likely have to shut down the URB. He warned that the disappearance of secular, democracy-promoting organisms such as the URB directly profits jihadi groups such as HTS and al-Qaeda, who become the default service providers and political mouthpieces for a tired and frustrated population.
A journalist told me that Syria stories consistently are the least-read media pieces. Americans are tired of hearing about Syria. After seven years of the same-old, depressing stories coming out of the country, they apparently would rather hear about almost anything else.
The consequence, according to Fares, is a fairly similar conclusion in Syria, albeit for wildly different reasons. After seven years of blood, seven years of bombs, seven years of poverty and misery, the Syrian people are ready for the conflict to be over, regardless of who wins. They just want something resembling stability and normalcy. Currently, only Bashar al-Assad can provide this.
If anything, this is the most significant sign that Assad has won. In the territories currently or soon to be under his control, the appetite for systemic change and popular upheaval has been utterly annihilated, leaving a despot who massacres his own people as their only hope for proximate relief. Who can blame them? This is just a symbol of the moral failure reached by the international community when it comes to the Syrian people.
The policy community and the greater public need to acknowledge and focus on the plight of Syrians. Forgetting about the Syrian people is counter-productive. Stabilization is the current buzzword when it comes to Syria, and it cannot occur without the help and interest of the local population. Neither can peace-building and reconstruction, whether or not the American government is involved. Policy think-tanks and media outlets need to make a greater effort to broadcast the voices of the Syrian population, and to make sure that their hopes and needs are part of the conversation surrounding their future.
Not only is shutting out the Syrian people counter-productive, it is also wrong. Justice and morality might seem like privileges that can wait for stability and security to be restored. Local populations, however, don’t forget past injustices easily. The Syrian people, and the greater Arab world, will remember how we treated them at their hour of greatest need. It is probably already too late for redemption. It is not, however, too late for shame.
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