Tag: European Union
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.
The diplomatic screw turns
While Americans are distracted today by Newt Gingrich’s South Carolina primary victory over Mitt Romney and the entry of the New York Giants and New England Patriots into football’s “Superbowl,” the big international news is the European Union agreement to halt imports of Iranian oil within six months. Yawn. No wonder it hardly gets a headline.
This may not be the final turn of the diplomatic screw, but it is an important one. Iran’s economy and currency are in a tailspin. The stage is now set for P5 (that’s U.S., UK, France, Russia and China) + 1 (Germany) talks with Iran on its nuclear program. Turkey wants to host, but a date has not been announced.
If this next stage of the diplomatic efforts fails, as the effort a year ago did, the slide towards war will accelerate. Iran is rattling its saber, which is long enough to try to close the strait of Hormuz to outward-flowing traffic, thus denying the world oil market about 20% of its supplies and causing a sharp price spike. They will also make trouble for Americans in Iraq and possibly elsewhere. The Americans and Europeans, whose warships traversed the strait today in a show of force, will then draw their oil stocks to dampen the price and use military force to keep the strait open, and possibly to deny its use to the Iranians (who need it to import oil products).
While talking about military action less than at times in the past, the Americans and Israelis are conducting a “stealth” war against the Iranian nuclear program, blocking supplies of vital materiel, infecting software with at least one computer worm and assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists. None of this effort can stop the Iranians in their tracks if they are committed to nuclear weapons. Even bombing of their nuclear facilities won’t do that–they will almost surely react by redoubling their efforts. In the absence of an agreement, the best we can hope for is to slow Iran down.
Today’s turning of the diplomatic screw is intended promote a negotiated solution. It is unrealistic to imagine that Iran will cease and desist from trying to obtain all the technology it needs to build nuclear weapons. But it is still possible they will agree to abide by the terms of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) they have signed and ratified. Many other countries have stopped on the threshold of nuclear weapons–the ones I know best are Brazil, which acquired the necessary technology but reached an agreement with Argentina for a mutual standdown, and Italy, which opted for a dual key arrangement for control of American weapons deployed on Italian territory.
Arrangements of these sorts are not possible with Iran. No matter how much my idealist friends press the idea of a Middle East nuclear free zone, it is impossible to imagine the Israelis going for it, especially under the current Netanyahu government. And if the Americans, who asked Israel decades ago not to build nuclear weapons in the first place, can’t even get the Israelis to stop building settlements, what are the odds of success in getting Israel to give up nuclear weapons? “Never again” is not only a slogan–it is an objective that all Israeli governments will adhere to. Nuclear weapons are an important means to that end.
So is there no hope? On the contrary, I think there is. Iran gains little and losses a lot if it actually deploys nuclear weapons: it gets targeted by both Israel and the United States, with the former likely to launch on warning. The United States is committed not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states. Against nuclear weapons states, first use is not prohibited in American doctrine.
What does Iran hope to gain by developing nuclear weapons? Prestige, to be sure, and a more secure and powerful role in the Middle East. But most important is that the Iranians believe that nuclear weapons will guarantee no American invasion and thus survival of the theocratic regime. This is a perception problem: even if we resort to bombing, there isn’t going to be an American invasion of Iran, which is far too large and populous a country for the Americans to imagine that things would come out better than in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the price of blocking Iran from developing nuclear weapons is a pledge that the United States will not invade, it is not too much to pay.
We need however to be cautious. We should not sell out Iran’s Green Movement, or the rebellion against Bashar al Assad in Syria. Nor should we do anything that will help Hamas and Hizbollah to continue their trouble-making. We should not be guaranteeing regime survival in Tehran, only saying what we all know to be true: America hasn’t got the resources or the desire to take on another major ground war in the Middle East.
Nationalism has the edge
A colleague who has spent many years in and around Serbia writes:
You have probably noticed that Serbian politics haven’t changed much…the same old faces, same games, same centuries-old unresolved issue, same silliness, and the same struggle for the country’s soul, i.e., eastern or western orientation.
That is pretty much precisely my impression from a few days in Belgrade. Bosnia, Kosovo, Communists vs. nationalists, Washington vs. Moscow, EU as the only route out of the morass.
As fortune would have it (logistics kept me from two other appointments), I spent today mainly among anti-nationalists, which is admittedly where at least some of my personal sentiments lie. These are the people who defend individual human rights, are unstirred by appeals to ethnic identity and are trying hard to steer the Balkans in a more “civic” and “European” direction.
They are having a really hard time. The Serbian political spectrum has shifted definitively in the nationalist direction, with President Tadic trying hard to outflank his nationalist competion, both inside and outside the governing coalition. Today the government fired anti-nationalist Sreten Ugricic from his position as head of the national library, for signing a statement and speaking out in defense of a Montenegrin colleague. The pretense is that this was done because in defending someone else’s right to free speech–and freedom from physical harm–he really was calling for Tadic’s assassination, which is a stretch even in Belgrade.
But it is indicative of the atmosphere here, which is reminiscent of the Milosevic era for the anti-nationalists. Their calls to government officials go unanswered, the American embassy ignores them and even threatens to cut off funding if they continue to refer war crimes cases to the relevant state prosecutor, their media outlets get no government advertizing and they find themselves in court on ancient and often spurious charges. Of course this makes them ever more insistent and sometimes strident, determined to steer the ship of state in the direction they thought it was pointed after Milosevic fell: towards accountability for past behavior, resolution of the Kosovo and Bosnia dilemmas and quick movement towards the EU.
The newest feature on the anti-nationalist landscape is the Preokret (turn-around, maybe U-turn) coalition, which has managed to put Ceda Jovanovic’s Liberal Party, Vuk Draskovic’s Serbian Renewal Movement, Zarko Korac’s Social Democratic Union and some nongovernmental organizations into a pro-European coalition:
All of us, all citizens who have struggled in good faith for a European Serbia…are embittered because of our numerous lost opportunities. We are especially dismayed with the unnecessary and dangerous turn of a pro-European government towards anti-European hysteria and a strategy that logs barricades at two border crossings in northern Kosovo, which could become the barrier to gaining the status of candidate nation and a date to begin negotiations for Serbia’s accession to the European Union.
This is not hyperbole, but it isn’t popular in Serbia these days either. Those who say it over and over–like Preokret and Petar Lukovic at the anti-nationalist, regionally focused internet portal e-Novine–can expect harassment, accusations of malfeasance, and attacks in the increasingly government-influenced popular press.
I no doubt will get notes from friends criticizing me from associating with Petar Lukovic, allowing my picture to run on his site and agreeing to mention my visit to e-Novine here on peacefare.net, which I happily do (I trust the Serbian secret services will report it anyway). The test of a democratic society is not whether it tolerates well-mannered dissent, but whether it can allow the more strident but intelligent sort to test its mettle on the sinews of the state. e-Novine‘s style is not mine, but that’s just the point.
My last visit today was to the indomitable Natasa Kandic. I will carry back to Washington the Humanitarian Law Centre’s Kosovo Memory Book 1998-2000 and addendum documenting “each person killed during the Kosovo conflict because of his her nationality.” This is a work of extraordinary dedication and commitment, one that lends a firm foundation to her effort to create a regional reconciliation commission (RECOM)
to create an accurate, objective and official record of war crimes and other serious violations of human rights; to recognize the victims and their suffering; and to prevent the recurrence of such crimes.
Who could be opposed to that, you ask? It is not so much open opposition. You’ll find lots of people to rain praise on the idea, and few who will criticize it. But there are others who do not answer phone calls, or make arrangements for high-level meetings, or otherwise fail to help make this important idea into a reality. And why should they? Nationalism has the edge today. Keeping the wounds open serves some people better than closing them.
What does Serbia want?
There is nothing new in this post: only an explication of President Tadic’s recent “four-point” plan for resolving Kosovo-related issues, given to me in Belgrade orally by someone in a position to know the thinking inside the Serbian government. There are other explications out there.
First, the “red lines”:
- no recognition of Kosovo as an independent state.
- no partition, because of international community opposition.
Then, the “comprehensive solution” of more important, but non-technical issues Serbia is trying to interest the Americans and Europeans in pursuing:
1. For north Kosovo, no less right to govern themselves than they have now.
2. For the Serb enclaves south of the Ibar river, full implementation of their rights under the Ahtisaari plan.
3. Resolution through an agreed mechanism of rights to private property and socially owned enterprises.
4. An international mechanism to guarantee protection of the Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo, in particular the church properties.
This came to me with relevant commentary. Belgrade is not looking for return of displaced people and refugees to their pre-war homes. It anticipates that most people who recover property will sell it to the majority group in the area in which the property happens to sit. The current Serb officials in municipalities south of the Ibar river Belgrade regards as illegitimate crooks, which is pretty much the same way it regards Albanians who occupy positions in the Pristina institutions, but with that special disdain for those of your own kind who go over to an enemy. Belgrade would like the municipal governments in the enclaves reconstituted more to its liking.
The last of the four issues–an international mechanism for protection of sacred properties–is directly related to Serb identity and the most important of the four items for Belgrade. If there is flexibility on that, Belgrade can give more on the other three. Belgrade does not regard the current Belgrade/Pristina talks as the right forum for talks on these issues. It wants to talk more directly to those with the authority to implement solutions. They irony of that was not lost on me.
Asked what was in the plan for Pristina, I was told that the Albanians could hope that settling these issues would encourage more investment and resulting employment.
It is difficult to regard this “four-point” plan as explicated here as representing much progress, except that it essentially reduces Belgrade’s “wants” from restoration of sovereignty over all of Kosovo to something more manageable, without however promising Serbian acceptance of Kosovo’s status as a sovereign state. Certainly the attitude towards the Pristina institutions and the municipal governments in the Serb enclaves is one not likely to induce a warm response. Nor are the Americans and Europeans likely to be thrilled with the attitude toward the Pristina/Belgrade talks, from which Belgrade would like to escape.
That said, there is much here a negotiator could work with. Some sort of international mechanism guaranteeing Serb church properties in Kosovo is not out of the question. A mechanism for settlement of property disputes was always in the cards. If Belgrade is willing to instruct its loyalists to vote in the next Kosovo elections, I suppose some of the municipal governments it regards as illegitimate may be swept away, or in any event modified. The Ahtisaari plan has ample provision for self-government in the Serb municipalities.
The Ahtisaari plan is in fact the heart of the matter. It considered all four of the issues the Serbian government is now emphasizing. A hard look at what is in the plan on these issues and how it might be implemented is in order, both in Belgrade and in Pristina. And the day will come when direct talks between responsible officials may be necessary.
This brings us back to the recognition question. Belgrade can expect implementation of any agreement on the four points it raises only by a sovereign government, one it recognizes as legitimate. This is implicit of course in the Belgrade/Pristina talks, but it is still denied explicitly in Belgrade, which has painted itself into a corner by stating repeatedly and loudly that it will never recognize Kosovo as sovereign and independent (as required by its post-Milosevic constitution). It does not have to. It can simply allow General Assembly membership, which Moscow blocks in the Security Council with a veto bought with a sale of Serbian energy assets to the Russians at bargain basement prices. Any principled Russian position on the issue disappeared with Moscow’s recognitions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the break-away provinces in Georgia.
The related question of Kosovo’s identification in regional talks, prominent in the B92 report cited above, was not mentioned to me. If Belgrade’s demand is that it be consistent with UN Security Council resolution 1244, I see no problem with that: the International Court of Justice has decided that declaration of a sovereign and independent Kosovo was not inconsistent with 1244. But of course that is not what Belgrade is asking: it will want Kosovo’s identification to be “status-neutral,” an interpretation of 1244 that the ICJ, the United States and other recognizing countries do not agree with. Even most of the non-recognizing EU countries understand that Kosovo will have to be dealt with on a basis that does not remind it constantly that they have not recognized it.
Belgrade is today feigning disinterest in EU candidacy, claiming that real benefits only come from getting a date for accession talks to begin and that in any event the reform process required for EU candidacy will continue. But of course this flurry of interest in redefining the agenda comes directly from Angela Merkel’s clarity last summer about what Serbia needed to do to get EU candidacy, in particular her insistence that Serbian parallel institutions in the north be dissolved.
However turgid and byzantine the four points and the related commentary get, the real prize here is the EU, for both Serbia and Kosovo. Belgrade can hope for EU membership, if it prepares at the current pace or better and the stars align well, before 2020, maybe even by 2018. Kosovo cannot. If Belgrade doesn’t mind being put on the same EU time schedule as Kosovo, which would vastly slow its progress but simplify many issues, so be it. That likely is not want Serbia wants, but it may well be what it ends up getting.
Beware the tradeoffs
Important decisions are pending the next few days on Syria. The two key immediate questions are these: will the Arab League extend its human rights monitoring mission? Will the UN Security Council finally condemn the crackdown?
The Arab League mission has not been able to protect civilians or notably reduce the intensity of the crackdown. But the observers are bringing out large crowds of peaceful demonstrators and documenting abuses, which are two good results. The Arab League should decide the issue of whether their mission should be extended not on the basis of whether they have “succeeded,” but rather on the basis of what will be most helpful to peaceful protests and civilian protection. Syria needs more observers for these purposes, not fewer. UN training for them is just beginning. At least another month is required before the Arab League gives serious consideration to abandoning the mission, and even then it will be important to consider the consequences for peaceful protest and civilian protection. No one should be fooled by the Qatari advocacy of armed Arab League intervention: it isn’t going to happen.
A UN Security Council resolution on Syria would vastly improve the odds for real success of the Arab League mission. The day Bashar al Assad feels the cold hand of Prime Minister Putin pushing him aside is the day the game changes fundamentally in Syria. But Russia has little interest in handing the West a victory in Syria, especially if it would mean losing an important naval base on the Mediterranean. Putin will move against Bashar only if doing so will help to save this asset, not lose it. That is a high price for the Syrians to pay, but it may not be avoidable. That’s one tradeoff.
Then Bashar would have only Iran as a key pillar of international support. Americans think of Syria and Iran as two separate issues, but to Tehran they are just related theaters of struggle with the U.S. Loss of Syria as an ally and link to Hizbollah in Lebanon would be a serious blow to Iran, which is in a spiral of heightening tensions with the U.S. over the strait of Hormuz, planned sanctions that will reduce Iranian oil exports and most fundamentally the Iranian nuclear program. July 1 is emerging as the consensus date for Europe and the U.S. to implement new sanctions. That will be in the midst of a U.S. electoral campaign in which the Republican candidate–most likely Mitt Romney, but it really doesn’t matter who it is–will be pushing for military action.
Iran is supposed to meet with the Americans and Europeans in Turkey still this month to discuss the nuclear impasse. Even the Israelis seem to think the Iranians have not yet decided to build nuclear weapons. Syrians should want to watch that closely: it is not impossible that they will be sold out in exchange for a nuclear deal. It is hard to picture the U.S. winning on both the Syrian and nuclear fronts, but if the Administration succeeds at that I’ll be the first to offer heartiest congratulations!
Let there be no doubt: if Washington has to choose between stopping Iran short of a nuclear weapon and toppling Bashar al Assad, it will choose the former, not the latter. That’s a second possible tradeoff.
Beware the tradeoffs. They are a lot of what diplomacy is about.
Nonviolence is nonviolent
I’m taking flak for yesterday’s post on the violence between Albin Kurti’s demonstrators and the police in Kosovo yesterday. Most of the criticism is based on misunderstanding or distortion. I don’t know what RTK read over the air during the evening news, but I would urge those who were upset by it to read the entire original, then compose and submit a reasoned comment. I’ve published a few already. In the meanwhile, I’ll try to respond to what I have heard so far.
First, I wasn’t there, so I depended on news reports that the demonstrators were throwing rocks, which in my book is a violent act. Here is a BBC account:
Police said more than 30 officers were injured after protesters hurled rocks and metal bars at them in the town of Podujevo, and at the nearby border crossings of Merdare and Dheu i Bardhe….Police responded with tear gas and water cannon and a Reuters reporter saw several injured protesters in the ensuing clashes.
It is Martin Luther King day tomorrow in the U.S., so this is a fine weekend to make this point: nonviolence is nonviolent. It requires the demonstrators to resist the temptation to throw rocks, push the police, whack them with baseball bats or attack them in any way. This requires training and discipline.
The first time I sat down in a street for a cause was 1964 in Cambridge, Maryland, then a segregated city in which the police and National Guard were not on our side. We were civil rights demonstrators advocating equal treatment for the Black population. The National Guard, which was under state (not national) authority at the time, was armed with tear gas and bayonets. Yes, fixed bayonets. Had we in any way provoked them, there would surely have been a much worse mess than yesterday in Kosovo, including deaths. Had we tried to remain seated in the street, they would have dispersed or arrested us, or both. We would have had to remain nonviolent throughout that process as well, not resisting arrest or trying to escape, even when the tear gas burned and the billy clubs (or the bayonets) got used.
It appears to me that Albin is not exerting the kind of nonviolent discipline that nonviolence requires. He seems to me to be trying to provoke the authorities, knowing full well that they will hesitate to use lethal force. If I am correct about that, I stand by every word of what I wrote yesterday. If I am wrong, I may need to adjust my view, but I’d like someone who was there to tell me that there was no physical provocation of the police, even after the police started to try to disperse the protesters. As a citizen, you are not entitled to use force against the authorities just because they use force against you. The monopoly on the legitimate means of violence is theirs, even when they are in the wrong. You have the right to resist passively (not actively!) and sue them in court after the fact.
Of course Albin may reject this view and challenge the authorities with rocks or other means. If he does, he can expect to be arrested and tried.
I’ve also been challenged on grounds that I showed bias toward the Serbs by opposing the Albanian blockage of the border crossings and not the Serb embargo of Kosovar goods. This is wrong. I have decried the Serbian blockade of Kosovo and urged that it be lifted.
I have been told the underlying cause of what happened is that Prime Minister Hashim Thaci has refused to implement a parliamentary resolution calling for reciprocity with Serbia. All the demonstrators were trying to do is ensure that reciprocity.
There is a big difference in the American system of government between a Congressional resolution, which the executive branch can ignore, and a law, which it cannot. Even with a law, there is often some leeway in implementation. In a case like this, where implementation requires the cooperation of another sovereign government, it may well take time and effort to get results. Thaci’s government has chosen the route of negotiation without (further) unilateral action. Whether that is wise or not, Albin is entitled to demonstrate against it, to speak against it in parliament, but not to try to implement the resolution by blocking the roads.
A final concern I heard yesterday was that this might lead to civil war within Kosovo. That I take very seriously. Kosovars, from Albin Kurti to Hashim Thaci, should take stock now and come to the realization that further incidents of this sort are in no one’s interest. The Serbs have already done themselves tremendous damage by blocking the roads in northern Kosovo and challenging the international authorities, which has put at risk their hopes for European Union candidacy. How much sympathy with Kosovo do you think will survive in Washington, Brussels or even Tirana if you continue to fight with each other when there are so many more important things to do?