Tag: European Union
Beginning to do the right thing
John Kerry ‘s first trip abroad as Secretary of State is focusing on a problem the Obama Administration has been trying hard to ignore: what to do about Syrian President Bashar al Asad, whose recent use of Scud missiles against civilian population centers is just the latest of his war crimes. His indiscriminate shelling of Homs, Hama, Aleppo and smaller Syrian towns will long be remembered as crimes against humanity that went on for far too long.
Washington has so far preferred to focus on the humanitarian crisis in Syria. A million Syrians are now refugees in other countries, several million are displaced inside Syria, more than 70,000 are dead and half of those alive and still inside the country are in need of relief. The U.S. government has committed upwards of $365 million already on humanitarian assistance, hoping an opposition military victory would determine the political outcome.
It has not worked out that way. The Asad regime has cracked with myriad defections but has not crumbled. Its core, based on an Alawite minority that has reason to dread its fate if the regime fails, remains intact. Iranian and Russian military and financial support remains solid. Scud missiles and the Syrian air force have provided the regime the means to challenge the opposition even in liberated areas. The regime is unable to “clear and hold” territory, but it can still prevent the opposition from doing so.
The flow of military assistance is increasing. Saudi and Qatari funding has flowed mainly to Sunni Islamist groups, some of them affiliated with Al Qaeda. This tilts the playing field against the more moderate opposition, now more or less unified in the Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. It is fractious, but has managed to put forth parameters for a political solution that would allow talks with the regime while reaffirming that Bashar al Assad and his coterie have no role to play in Syria’s future. The Coalition will appoint a provisional prime minister on Saturday.
The Obama Administration has hesitated to provide lethal assistance to the Coalition for good reasons. It fears anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons would fall into the wrong hands and be used against civilian targets outside Syria. This would amount to “fast and furious” (an operation in which guns provided by the U.S. were used in the murder of an American border patrol agent) on steroids. The Administration also worries about the Russian reaction. It needs Russia to keep open the routes through which American withdrawal from Afghanistan will occur this year and next. It also needs Russia to maintain sanctions and UN Security Council unity against the Iranian nuclear push, promising talks on which occurred this week in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
While others (including some Europeans) supply arms, President Obama should support the Syrian Coalition with the resources it needs to begin governing liberated areas inside Syria. At Thursday’s meeting of the Friends of Syria, Secretary Kerry announced that the United States will provide $60 million to the Coalition, for use in supplying humanitarian relief, essential services and law and order through the local administrative councils that have been set up in liberated areas of Syria.
As soon as the provisional Syrian prime minister is named, Secretary Kerry should also announce that the Syrian embassy in Washington, already in the hands of employees sympathetic to the revolution, will be turned over to the Coalition. These gestures would give the Coalition credibility and legitimacy with Syrians that it has all too obviously lacked in the past. They would also signal to Bashar al Assad as well as his Russian and Iranian sponsors that the Coalition will eventually become the internationally recognized authority in whatever territory it is able to liberate.
Washington today is focused mainly on its own budget problems. Convincing Americans it is a good idea to shell out hard cash for a Syrian revolutionary government that has yet to prove itself is a hard sell. But there are members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who find the situation in Syria intolerable. And there is every reason to believe that the bill for humanitarian relief in Syria will grow by far more than $60 million if the fighting continues. If there is even a 50/50 chance that strengthening the Coalition will shorten the war, the investment is likely to be a good one.
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Only Beppe Grillo knows
The Italian elections continue to provide amusement, albeit far from my usual obsession with war and peace. At this writing, not too many hours after the polls closed, the votes are counted. Surprised? This is a bit like waiting for luggage at Fiumicino: the electronic board predicts to the minute when your luggage will arrive, and it does!
It looks as if the leftist coalition of Pier Luigi Bersani has won in the lower house by a very slim margin of popular votes. But the leading party there gets a “premium” of seats that will enable him to wield a comfortable majority. In the Senate, Silvio Berlusconi’s rightist coalition is a couple of seats ahead, if I am to believe the algorithm nerds at La Repubblica. Comedian Beppe Grillo will hold the votes needed to gain approval in the upper house. He can’t make Berlusconi prime minister, but he could make it impossible to form a new government. The far more serious and sober Mario Monti, who so ably steered Italy through the shoals of financial crisis for the past year, will not have enough seats to make the difference. His big real estate tax increase weighed heavily against him.
This is Italy: the leftist candidate is the more fiscally conservative one. The right is much less likely to meet the needs of the financial markets, which is at least one reason American markets fell today on the news (though the impending sequester is likely another reason). Of course this should really be comprehensible in Washington: American deficits rose sharply under George W. Bush and in the first year of Barack Obama but have been declining for several years since. Of course in Italy there is also pressure for government spending cuts. Berlusconi never implemented any significant restructuring during three terms (10 years) as prime minister and isn’t likely to do any better the fourth time around. He could of course overcome the current electoral impasse by offering to join Bersani in a national solidarity government, perhaps even one with Monti as prime minister again.
But he shows as little sign of willingness to do that as to rein in his foul behavior. I’ll be in Rome next month: I’ll be asking how any woman could vote for such a mascalzone. The issue isn’t whether he paid for sex with underage girls. The issue is how little respect he has for women in general.
The key question now is what Beppe Grillo will do. That is the most unpredictable thing in Italian politics these days. To call him an iconoclast would minimize his resistance to paying Italy’s debts and remaining in the Eurozone. To call him a populist would minimize his promises to introduce a 20-hour work week and free internet and tablet computers for everyone. To call him a comedian would minimize the seriousness of his attack on privilege and corruption.
Italy of course has big problems: its mountain of public debt, its slow economic growth, its lagging exports, its aging population, its youth unemployment, its shaky banking system, its corruption, its organized crime and its scandal-ridden church, just to name a few. All of this now falls in the lap of someone who is better known for attracting hordes to V(affanculo) demonstrations than for deliberating seriously on issues of state. His choice is whether to back a former Communist who promises continuing austerity, which isn’t likely to be popular in piazza, or block government formation and push the country to a new election.
I have no doubt what I would choose. The combination of Monti’s sobriety about the budget deficit with Grillo’s passion for rooting out corruption in the public sector could be healthy. President Giorgio Napolitano, a former Communist himself, is likely to favor a left-supported government with Monti at the helm. It is hard to see how Grillo and Berlusconi, who in any event will not have a majority in the lower house unless the cavaliere wins a new election, would do anything more than roil markets with pledges to cut taxes and failure to cut expenditures.
But if Italians agreed with me they wouldn’t have given Berlusconi 30% of the vote. Nor would any Italian who agreed with me have given Beppe Grillo the votes needed to block Monti from finishing the serious work he started. Such are the glories of democracy. The Italians are entitled to, and deserve, the government they have voted for. But only Beppe Grillo knows what that is.
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Treachery could go a long way
With appreciation to the Etilaf (National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces) media department, here is the Interim Political Advisory Committee “framework for any political solution.” It was adopted in Cairo last Friday. I am publishing it in full here because I haven’t seen it elsewhere:
The Interim Advisory Political Committee of the Syrian Coalition held its regular meeting to discuss the latest political and field developments. Members of the committee examined the domestic, regional and international developments that relate to the Syrian revolution. As the Syrian Coalition is keen on elevating the suffering of the Syrian people, the protection of Syria’s national unity, saving Syria from the crimes committed by Assad’s regime, and preventing foreign interference, the committee developed the following framework for any political solution:
1. Achieving the objectives of the revolution in achieving justice, freedom, and dignity, as well as sparing the country from any further devastation and preserving the unity of Syria in order to achieve a transition to a civil and democratic system that ensures equal rights for all Syrians.
2. Bashar Assad and security leadership who are responsible for the current destruction of the country are outside the political process and must be held accountable for their crimes.
3. All Syrians will be part of any future political solution, including those currently serving with the state institutions, Baathists, political, civil and social forces as long as they did not participate in any crimes committed against other Syrians.
4. Any acceptable political initiative must have a clear timeline and clearly stated objectives.
5. Member States of the Security Council, especially Russia and the United States of America, must secure appropriate international support and adequate safeguards to make this process possible. They should adopt such political initiative, which could result in issuing binding resolution from the UN Security Council.
6. We expect Russia to turn its statements about not adhering to having Bashar Assad into practical steps. Any agreement between Russia and Syrians must be done with legitimate representatives for the Syrian people. Such agreement will not be implemented as long as Assad and his regime are controlling the government.
7. The Iranian leadership must recognize that its support of Bashar Assad is pushing the region towards sectarian conflict, which is not be in the interest of anyone. Iranian government should realize that Assad and his regime have no chance to stay in power nor will they be part of any future solution for Syria.
8. The friends of the Syrian people should understand lasting political solution that ensures the stability of the region and preserves the institutions of the state will only take place through changing the balance of power on the ground which requires supporting the Syrian coalition and Joint Chiefs of Staff with all possible means.
I take this to be the political committee’s effort to reframe the proposal by the Coalition’s leader, Moaz al Khatib, for talks with the regime. That “personal” (i.e. uncoordinated) proposal was conditional on release of political prisoners and renewal of passports for expatriates, two conditions that were not met within the time limit al Khatib proposed.
Now we have this more elaborate, and more opaque, proposition from al Khatib’s followers. It does not suggest talks with the regime but rather an internationally sponsored political process backed by both the US and Russia and approved in a Chapter 7 resolution of the UN Security Council. While the details of that process are unspecified, the committee asks for a timeline and clear objectives, which clearly include a democratic Syria. Bashar al Asad is not to be part of the political process envisaged.
There’s the rub, the same as almost a year ago. So far, Asad has refused exclusion from the political process and backed his refusal with brutality. The regime has cracked but not broken. The Coalition is saying only a military response to its brutality (“changing the balance of power on the ground…with all possible means”) will enable a “lasting political solution.” But the Europeans yesterday refused to lift their arms embargo in order to help the opposition. The Americans are likewise still sitting on their hands.
Serious international negotiations don’t sound likely. Moscow and Washington are still unable to agree on a plan. But the interim political committee is correct that ultimately it will be conditions inside Syria, not the best laid plans of those outside, that will determine what happens. Both the expatriate opposition and the regime leadership are insulated from the violence, which is creating a much bigger humanitarian problem than has been acknowledged so far. My admittedly limited contact with opposition people inside the country suggests they are more inclined to negotiate, albeit not with Bashar. I can only hope that the same is true of some within the regime. Treachery could go a long way to ending this criminally violent regime.
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US policy toward Iran in 2013
Unrealistic though it may sound in the wake of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei’s trenchant rejection of Vice President Biden’s offer of bilateral talks, negotiations represent the best tool to deal with the nuclear challenge Iran poses for the US. The key to successful negotiations is a credible US threat to use force, Ambassadors Jim Jeffreys and Tom Pickering agreed at the release this week of the Washington Institute’s new paper on US policy towards Iran.
It will not be easy to mount a credible threat. The memory of the Iraq war and the drawdown of the US presence in Afghanistan leave little political appetite for the use of force against Iran. Israel may eagerly throw around the idea of a pre-emptive strike, but American political and economic realities cast the military option in an unfavorable light. A military strike against Iran could at best set the program back by four to five years. The boots on the ground needed to eradicate the threat of a nuclear Iran are politically and economically inconceivable.
Regime change is another woefully inadequate tool to cracking Iran. As Pickering put it,
Regime change is not something we do successfully.
US influence on the prospects for regime change inside Iran is at best limited and at worst undesirable. Iranian-led regime change is desirable, but would suffer from US endorsement. Any attempt to openly encourage regime change during a burst of popular regime opposition in Iran would be counter-productive.
The ambassadors disagreed on “containment” of Iran’s nuclear capability. Jeffreys prefers “confront and resist” to “containment.” He recommends this approach, among others. According to Pickering, adopting a strategy of containment now would represent a “premature capitulation to failure.” Containment in the classical sense amounts to treating Iranian nuclear break-out as inevitable and deterrence as the only available course of action. Such a fatalistic approach would weaken the nuclear non-proliferation regime, unnerving regional actors Turkey and Saudi Arabia and setting in motion a regional arms race with cataclysmic implications.
Both ambassadors praised the American-led mobilization of the international community to isolate Iran, mainly through the use of sanctions. But at the end of the day, both Ambassadors called for the pursuit of negotiations, even in the face of resistance and distrust.
Negotiations must proceed on the premise that a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue exists. To stop Iran from dismissing American engagement as a ploy to trigger a regime change, Jeffreys insisted that the Obama administration set clear red lines establishing which Iranian actions the US would not tolerate (nuclear break-out), and which actions the US could live with (human rights violations). Presenting military action as the consequence of nuclear break-out would prove to the Iranians that negotiation means negotiation, not mind games.
Pickering agreed with making lines clear, just not so red. He cautioned against trying to trade “horses for rabbits.” The degree of distrust between the two countries is too great for early negotiations to tackle the big ticket items head-on. The US cannot expect Iran to halt it’s nuclear program in exchange for reversal of a few sanctions. Engagement can result in small steps. The US would ask that the Iranians cap their enrichment at 3.5 to 5.0 percent. In exchange, the US would promise no new sanctions and repeal the more easily reversible (European) sanctions. The Iranians would also reserve the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.
Challenges between the US and Iran will continue even after resolution of the nuclear issue. In Jeffreys‘ words, Iran’s regional “hegemonic schemes” at the core of the nation’s foreign policy since “time immemorial” are not going away anytime soon.
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What difference does it make?
Presidents Nikolic of Serbia and Jahjaga of Kosovo will meet in Brussels Wednesday. This is a first since Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence. But the prime ministers have met several times in Brussels since last fall. Official talks have been ongoing since 2011. What difference does a meeting of the presidents make?
Likely not much on the substantive side, though we’ll see soon if enough progress has been made on resolving issues in Serb-controlled northern Kosovo to warrant sealing a deal. As my friends over at Transconflict have been anxious to note, the main issues there are between the local Serbs and Belgrade. Once those are resolved in a way that meets German concerns about parallel institutions, a deal with Pristina should not be difficult, provided Serbia forgets about the ludicrous platform it put forward recently still claiming sovereignty over all of Kosovo. An announcement on exchanging liaison officers, to work out of EU missions in the respective capitals, is another possibility.
But even without specific outcomes, the presidents’ meeting is significant symbolically. Serbia has been careful in its dealings with Kosovo to try to preserve its own symbols of sovereignty and deny any to the Pristina authorities. That’s what silly quarrels about Kosovo license plates (whether they can have an “R” on them for “Republic”) and Kosovo* (that’s how Serbia wants Kosovo identified at regional meetings) are really about.
I am not privy to the preparations for Wednesday’s meeting, but I imagine that the Kosovo authorities will be exigent in insisting on reciprocity and symmetry in every aspect of the meeting. I don’t really think symbolism is all that important, but the Serbs do. Atifete Jahjaga is the living symbol of Kosovo statehood, independence and sovereignty. She should insist on nothing less than full respect for those hard-won attributes from Tomislav Nikolic, who is himself the living symbol of Serbia’s statehood, independence and sovereignty. Yes, also independence: ridding itself of Kosovo is vital to Serbia’s future as a European state.
Tim Judah, surely one of the most experienced analysts of Serbia, Kosovo and the Balkans in general, sees the current avowedly nationalist Serbian leadership as continuing to normalize relations with Kosovo, like its allegedly liberal predecessor. Surely there has been progress in the EU-sponsored talks under Nikolic, but let’s be clear about why: it is the German insistence on settling the issues in northern Kosovo that is driving Belgrade in the direction of rapprochement with Pristina. Serbia wants a date for EU accession negotiations to begin, in part because the date will bring money intended to fund the adjustments required as Belgrade makes its way through the 35 chapters of the acquis communitaire, to which it must conform its laws and practice before becoming an EU member.
Serbia, whose economy is in doldrums linked to the European financial crisis, needs that money. Kosovo, while less developed economically than Serbia, is in better financial shape: it has borrowed little and invested heavily in infrastructure, while keeping overall government expenditure relatively tight. Its population is much younger than Serbia’s, which makes its pension burden far lighter.
There is another big difference: Kosovo’s population is 90% committed to NATO and EU membership. Serbia’s is negative on NATO and not much better than that on the EU (plurality, not majority, support). The irony of course is that NATO and the EU are much more interested in Serbia than in Kosovo. That’s another reason the meeting of the two presidents is important. Jahjaga, a former deputy chief of the much-respected Kosovo police, is the picture of propriety and rule of law. She polishes Kosovo’s image in Europe, the United States and beyond. Symbolism does sometimes count.
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Adagio
There is slow movement, adagio not andante, on two fronts, Syria and the Iran nuclear issue:
- Syrian opposition leader Moaz al Khatib’s proposal for conditional talks with the regime has elicited some interest on the part of Syria, Iran and Russia.
- The P5+1 (that’s the US, UK, France, Russia and China + Germany) have agreed to meet with Iran to discuss nuclear issues February 25 in Kazakhstan. The US and Iran are indicating willingness to meet bilaterally as well.
There is no breakthrough here. These are small steps forward at the glacial pace that often characterizes diplomatic moves. But given how frozen things seemed on both fronts even a few days ago, this is progress.
On Syria, Khatib’s proposal was a personal one, made initially on his Facebook page without approval of his Coalition. It reflects in part the view of the National Coordination Committee, which is an inside Syria opposition group that has long wanted to start a dialogue with the regime. The expatriate opposition was not pleased with the proposition. My guess is that the Americans are okay with it, even though they continue to insist that Bashar al Asad step aside.
Dialogue could lead to a split in the regime between hawks who want to continue the crackdown and doves who see promise in talking with the opposition. Of course it could also lead to a similar split in the opposition, with hardline Islamists opting to continue the fighting and relative moderates interested in talking. The key issue is whether Bashar is prepared to leave power. If not, dialogue with the regime is likely to become a snare and a delusion, wrecking the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces that Khatib leads.
On Iran’s nuclear program, the outline of a deal is increasingly clear:
- limits on uranium enrichment (e.g., an end to Iranian enrichment above 20%, shipment out of the country of stockpile uranium enriched beyond 5%, and likely also something restricting plutonium production, which has not been much of a public issue so far);
- a serious, verifiable and irreversible commitment not to develop nuclear weapons (including “coming clean” on past nuclear weapons-related activities);
- an end to American and multilateral economic and financial sanctions.
It is the sequencing of the many steps that need to be taken to get to this result that has caused so much difficulty. The Americans and Europeans want the nuclear commitments implemented up front. The Iranians want sanctions relief first. Lack of trust makes compromise difficult, but it would not seem completely out of reach, provided Iran is prepared to make a serious and verifiable commitment not to develop nuclear weapons.
What we’ve got here are two instances of coercive diplomacy, where outside powers are bringing pressure to bear in order to end one regime and to curtail fundamentally the options available to another one. The odds of success are not high, since the regimes involved have a good deal at stake (and are allied with each other). Bashar al Asad would have to come to the conclusion that his life is worth more than his position. Tehran would have to come to the conclusion that regime survival is more likely if it accepts limits on its nuclear program than if it rejects them.
On the other side, the key ingredient is credibility.
The Americans and Europeans need to convince Bashar that they are fully committed to end his rule. To do so, they need to back more fully and visibly Khatib’s Coalition, making it a serious governing alternative to the Syrian regime. This is more important now than arms supplies, which seem to be reaching the rebellion in substantial if not overwhelming quantities.
Washington and Brussels also need to convince Tehran that they will tighten sanctions further if there is no nuclear deal. And Washington needs to make the threat of military force more credible than it appeared at former Senator Hagel’s confirmation hearing last week.
Even if talks with the Syrian regime and with the Iranians begin soon, at this pace we still have a long way to go before we can be certain of acceptable outcomes on either front. But slow movement is better than none.
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