Tag: European Union
The buck still stops with the Syrians
It has taken longer than Syria-watchers predicted, but President Obama today finally called on Bashar al Assad to “step aside” in Syria. This is an interesting formulation that implies he could remain nominally president but allow reforms to move forward. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon seems to have also taken that line yesterday with Bashar in a phone call.
Let’s look at the options from Bashar’s perspective. Egyptian President Mubarak stepped down and now finds himself on trial. Libyan non-president Qaddafi refused to step down and now is fighting a war he is likely to lose. Yemen’s President Saleh is recovering from wounds his opponents inflicted in retaliation for his military attacks on them, but he has managed to continue to dominate Sanaa from Saudi Arabia, using his son and other loyalists as proxies. Only former Tunisian President Ben Ali is managing an untroubled, but powerless, retirement somewhere in Saudi Arabia. None of those options looks as good as “step aside,” though I have my doubts the protesters would accept Bashar remaining even nominally in power for more than a brief transition period.
President Obama also signed an executive order that
- blocks the property of the Syrian government,
- bans U.S. persons from new investments in or exporting services to Syria, and
- bans U.S. imports of, and other transactions or dealings in, Syrian-origin petroleum or petroleum products.
The trouble of course is that there is little Syrian government property in the U.S., few new investments or service exports to Syria and almost no U.S. import of Syrian oil or oil products.
For President Obama’s new rhetorical line to be effective, other countries–especially Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Europeans–will need to play hard ball with the Syrian regime. Both the Turks and Saudis have sounded recently as if they are willing to do that, and the Europeans in their own complicated way seem to be moving in the same direction.
Diplomacy is getting other people to do what you want them to do. As many in the blogosphere are noting, Washington’s direct influence on events in Syria is small. President Obama himself said:
The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing, and slaughtering his own people. We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.
So that’s where the buck stops: with the Syrian people, who have shown remarkable courage and determination so far. Here they are in Aleppo yesterday:
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Planning for Libya 2.0
I continue to plug preparation for post-Qaddafi Libya, which I looked at in some detail in a Contingency Planning Memorandum the Council on Foreign Relations published 10 days ago.
Foreign Policy last night published a new, updated piece I did for them, under the appropriate subhead:
Make no mistake: Qaddafi will be ousted, and probably sooner rather than later. That’s why the hard work of rebuilding Libya must start now.
Finally, it seems that Libya’s rebels have momentum on their side: They have pushed back Muammar al-Qaddafi’s forces on multiple fronts and are poised to encircle the capital of Tripoli. Libyans, and the entire world, will no doubt cheer the country’s liberation, but it’s not time to celebrate yet. Even if Qaddafi falls sooner rather than later, the immediate post-war period will still pose serious risks to both Libyans and the international community.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. A botched transition to a new regime could imperil the security and welfare in a post-Qaddafi Libya, discredit the NATO intervention, provide haven to international terrorists, lead to a new dictatorship, and even break up the country. We know from the experience in Iraq how costly a poorly planned transition can be.
The most pressing requirement will be reestablishing security. There’s no sign as of yet that Qaddafi intends to go quietly. On Aug. 15, he implored his supporters to “pick up your weapons, go to the fight for liberating Libya inch by inch from the traitors and from NATO.” Even if the regime collapses, remnants of his armed forces may take these words to heart. Tripoli presents the greatest challenge. While liberated areas in other parts of the country have stabilized quickly as Qaddafi’s forces and sympathizers fled, there is no guarantee that the same will hold true for the capital. Many regime supporters and mercenaries have gathered there, and could mount the kind of “stay-behind” operation that brought chaos to post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
Security cannot be maintained for long without at least a rudimentary system for police, courts, and incarceration. These new institutions will be forced to grapple with internecine warfare among rebel or tribal factions, revenge killings, and criminal gangs. The Qaddafi-era institutions may suffice in the immediate post-war period, but thorough reforms will be needed if the rule of law is to be established on a more permanent basis.
Humanitarian requirements are also likely to be acute in Tripoli as well as other newly liberated population centers. Even in liberated areas, casualties and humanitarian requirements have not yet been fully assessed. Electricity outages are already reportedly severe in Tripoli, while Misrata has been in need of food shipments. Following Qaddafi’s fall, it will be vital to quickly restore basic services to these neighborhoods. Providing food, water, shelter, and health care for the most vulnerable — including what may amount to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people — will also be key. An angry citizenry does not make for a smooth transition.
Kickstarting Libya’s economy will require getting its energy production and exports back online as quickly as possible. But it is not just a matter of getting the oil and gas flowing: A more transparent and accountable system for spending the resulting revenue, much of which used to disappear into Qaddafi family accounts, will be needed to help forestall quarrels over the proceeds and set the country on a more sustainable path. The post-Qaddafi regime will need to do a full accounting of its assets and try to ensure that some of them are not “privatized” by officials seeking to line their pockets.
Establishing transparent, accountable, and inclusive institutions of governance will be the responsibility of the Transitional National Council (TNC), which has now received diplomatic recognition from the United States as well as much of Europe and the Arab world. This will be key to determining Libya’s political future. The TNC’s inclinations are clearly in the democratic direction, but it has been rent by factionalism and disorganization. The killing of the rebel military chief Abdel Fatah Younes by what appears to be a dissident faction within the rebel ranks is only the most visible example of this internal chaos. In order to maintain its claim to legitimacy, the new government will need to swiftly incorporate new people from recently liberated areas and heal long-standing tribal and minority wounds.
The TNC should consider including officials formerly belonging to Qaddafi’s army and security services, who otherwise may try to spoil the transition. Just as de-Baathification harmed international efforts to construct a stable government in Iraq, premature de-Qaddafiization could create more problems than it solves. On the institutional level, it needs to lay out a roadmap for preparing a constitution, organizing national and local elections, and convening a parliament. This is a tall order for a government that recently disbanded its executive committee in the wake of Younes’s murder. Even in Egypt, where a solidly unified military remains in charge, the timing and order of these political events has posed knotty issues.
The international community has a role to play in this transition as well. It must lend its help to Libyans in overcoming the many challenges that they will face. The process should begin at the United Nations, where the coordinated effort to protect Libya’s civilians first began. A Security Council resolution could affirm that Libya should remain a single country, should be able to sustain and defend itself, should be committed to using the wealth of its natural resources in an equal and beneficial manner, and should be governed by inclusive institutions that respect the will of all its people and their human rights. This kind of internationally supported transition framing will help to ensure common purpose and coordination among the dozens of governments and hundreds of organizations likely to become involved, some of which are already providing assistance in liberated areas.
The United Nations, which authorized the NATO intervention, has both the funding and the credibility with Libyans to play a leadership role in the transition. From Washington’s perspective — which is no doubt to avoid getting embroiled in more nation building — it is also a relatively economical way to get things done, as the United States usually pays no more than one-third of the U.N. costs.
The European Union also has serious capabilities — in particular, the ability to deploy hundreds of paramilitary police needed to stabilize a city like Tripoli — which will likely need to be brought to bear. Several important European Union members, such as Italy, France, and Germany receive oil and gas supplies from Libya or have invested in Libyan energy production, and therefore have a vested interest in seeing the country manage its transition effectively. Europe, however, is preoccupied with its own financial difficulties. Libyan assets frozen in the United States and Europe will eventually provide ample financing, but wealthy Arab oil producers may be needed to meet Libya’s most immediate requirements.
The United Nations and the European Union should lead in assisting the Libya transition, but that does not exempt the United States from contributing. American logistics and intelligence have been vital to the NATO military operation and will likely also be crucial in the post-Qaddafi period. The United States is not completely devoid of interests in Libya, after all — it does not want sensitive materials from Libya’s nuclear and chemical weapons programs to get loose, for known terrorists to seek haven there, or for any Stinger-type anti-aircraft weapons to escape into the world arms markets. The United States will also want to make sure that NATO is prepared to step in if chaos threatens to break up Libya, re-install a dictator, or unleash a humanitarian crisis across North Africa and the Mediterranean.
Libyans have much to look forward to celebrating after a long and difficult conflict. But the really difficult challenges still lie ahead. The more we think through the challenges and prepare for them now, the easier it will be to meet the requirements later.
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Qaddafi near the end, Bashar still bumping along
It’s only been a week or so since I published a Council on Foreign Relations paper on preparing for post-Qaddafi Libya. It looks as if we are going to be there before the end of the month, if not in Tripoli itself in most of the rest of the country. A high-level defection, talks in Tunisia between the regime and the rebels, an ineffectual Scud missile launch by Qaddafi’s forces and rebel penetration of more western Libyan towns all signal that Qaddafi is near the end of his road.
That will of course be cause for celebration, but the really tough challenge–a successful transition to a more democratic regime that can govern and defend united Libya while respecting the rights of all its people–lies ahead. The Transitional National Council (TNC) that Europe and the United States have recognized as the legitimate governing authority has good intentions and even some good plans, but implementation in the confused period after the fall of Qaddafi will be difficult at best.
It seems to me that the international community is already well behind the curve. It needs a new UN Security Council resolution laying out the goals, parameters and leadership for the post-Qaddafi period. The EU, preoccupied though it is with the problems of the euro, needs to be thinking about deployment of a paramilitary police force at TNC request to ensure public order in Tripoli, at least temporarily. Hoping it won’t be requested or needed is not a good plan.
The internationals are in worse shape in Syria, where they haven’t managed to pass even a Security Council resolution denouncing Bashar al Assad’s horrendous assaults on his own population. The Turkish national security council is planning to meet Thursday to consider “radical” moves on Syria. Foreign Minister Davutoglu has pronounced what he terms the “final word,” which presumably means that action is coming soon. Speculation centers on a Turkish military incursion across the border into Syria, presumably to protect civilians in neighboring villages. In that event, all Bashar has to do is concentrate his attacks on the population in areas the Turks would find it hard to reach.
The more important move could come in the form of Turkish economic sanctions that signal clearly to businesspeople in Damascus and Aleppo that they need to convince Bashar al Assad to stop. But that isn’t easy for the Turks, who are enjoying their role as the burgeoning economic power of the region and will not want to give anyone reason to think twice about doing business with Turkish companies. It would be far easier for the Turks if any economic sanctions were multilateral and decided at the United Nations.
I am in Istanbul this morning–it really is a thrilling city of fabulous economic activity. Turkish geopolitical confidence is growing, but taking on Syria either militarily or economically when your foreign policy is focused on “zero problems” with neighbors is not easy. Still, I have to hope Ankara decides this week to save Europe and the United States from their own ineffectiveness.
PS: A demonstration in Aleppo, this evening:
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Macedonia is not an island
I’ve been out all day getting to Ohrid and back to Pristina, so haven’t posted or tweeted. The best I can do after eight hours of road travel is to offer a few summary tics of what I had to say at the conference celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Ohrid agreement, which ended the fighting in Macedonia in 2001 and ushered in a new era of stronger Albanian participation in the Macedonian state.
- Macedonia is not an island. The Ohrid agreement is mainly about internal governing arrangements: decentralization, representation of Albanians and others in the state institutions, police reform, use of languages. While the agreement unquestionably saved the state, it has also meant that Macedonians and Albanians in Macedonia have spent 10 years focused mainly on their own internal arrangements. There is a tendency to forget that what happens in Macedonia affects the region, and what happens in the region affects Macedonia. It is time for Macedonia to play a stronger role regionally, in particular by helping to make sure Kosovo and Bosnia are not partitioned.
- Changing the status of a boundary is not the same as moving a border to accommodate ethnic differences. Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia all gained independence within well-recognized and accepted borders, some of which had previously been boundaries internal to former Yugoslavia. But none of these borders was moved from their previous positions. Belgrade today would like to move Kosovo’s border to hive off the Serb-populated portion of the north, with the explicit purpose of accommodating ethnic differences. That is fundamentally different from changing the status of a boundary. If we start down that road, we will never finish, or maybe we’ll finish but not peacefully.
- The era of separations in the Balkans is over, the era of reintegration has begun. In any event, the many after-shocks of the dissolution of former Yugoslavia are now clearly fading in magnitude and significance. There will be no more new states in the Balkans. What people need to focus on now is ensuring equality before the law for all their citizens, which is what makes me comfortable with being a minority in the United States: I’ve got precisely the same rights as the rich, white, male slave-holder Thomas Jefferson. That’s a good deal, if it can be implemented fully. The ultimate paean to the Ohrid agreement will be sung when people tell me its provisions are no longer required to ensure proper treatment of anyone.
This new era of reintegration is going to require vision and leadership that is sometimes lacking. Macedonia is facing a difficult choice. Greece is blocking its path to integration in NATO and the EU by refusing to allow it to enter until it adds a geographical qualifier to its constitutional name, since Greece claims “Macedonia” as its own. Prime Minister Gruevski, who notably did not attend the Ohrid conference and takes a negative view of the agreement, has remained adamant against this change, a position that gains him votes and avoids his having to call a referendum on a new constitution that he might lose.
The Albanian leadership in Macedonia is keen on NATO and EU membership. The former they regard as a guarantee of Macedonia’s internal security; the latter they see as eventually opening up Macedonia’s borders to Albanians in Kosovo and Albania. So refusal to compromise on the “name” issue gives the Albanians of Macedonia real heartburn.
None of this is insoluble. In fact, we’ve gone from doubts about the very existence and viability of the Macedonian state to doubts about what to call it, though I hasten to add that my own preference is to call it what its citizens want it to be called, which for now is “Macedonia.”
PS: I gratefully acknowledge Ylber Hysa, one of Kosovo’s finest, for suggesting the “Macedonia is not an island” theme.
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Reintegration requires a plan
Pristina is a lot cooler than I had anticipated–barely a cloud in the sky too. It looks a lot better under these weather conditions than raining or foggy, that’s for sure!
The weather may be clear and cool, but the security situation is not. Pristina’s move late last month to seize control of the two border posts with Serbia has inspired widespread support among Albanians in Kosovo, without triggering the inter-ethnic strife south of the Ibar River that some might have feared. But it did trigger Serb roadblocks and violence in the north that killed a Kosovo police officer and destroyed one of the border posts.
KFOR, the NATO force that deployed in Kosovo after the war with Serbia in 1999, has now taken charge of the border. Most imports from Serbia are blocked (humanitarian assistance and goods for the Serbiann Orthodox Church can pass). Belgrade and Pristina are to meet September 5 to try to find a way forward by September 15, when the agreement for KFOR control of the border gates expires.
What might be the solution? It really all depends on what is decided about the status of northern Kosovo, which has remained under Belgrade’s control since the war. Belgrade wants to keep it that way. Pristina wants to take control of what it regards as its sovereign border, with the Serb communities of the north enjoy the wide measure of autonomy allowed to them in the Ahtisaari plan, an international community product that Belgrade never accepted.
The three dimensions on which this game will be played include a) the situation on the ground in the north, b) Belgrade’s efforts to gain candidacy status for the EU as well as a date for the beginning of negotiations, and c) Pristina’s efforts to make its governance acceptable to the Serbs of the north.
The situation in the north
Belgrade will try to get back to the status quo ante, in which it controlled the border posts and refused to allow collection of Kosovo customs duties on the products crossing there. It woud also prevent Kosovo products from entering Serbia with a stamp and documentation reading “Kosovo customs.” This practice in the past deprived Pristina not only of an important export market but also of what it figures as $30-40 million euros per year of customs duties. It also fed a substantial operation smuggling untaxed products to the area south of the Ibar.
Pristina will try to prevent return to the previous situation and to ensure that its police and customs officers control the northern border, with the eventual goal of retintegrating the north with the rest of Kosovo under the Ahtisaari plan.
Belgrade’s EU ambitions
With elections likely early next year, Belgrade is looking this fall for the European Union to grant it status as a candidate for membership and a date for the beginning of negotiations. The issue is what it will have to do to achieve these substantial goals. It has already met the EU requirement to arrest the remaining war criminals. Now several European states appear to be insisting that it also agree to give up its territorial ambitions in northern Kosovo and agree to reintegration in accordance with the Ahtisaari plan, perhaps elaborated further.
German Foreign Minister Westerwelle appears to have said this in a visit to Pristina this week. The question is whether Chancellor Merkel will repeat the hard line in Belgrade when she visits August 24.
Pristina’s efforts
It is not going to be possible to force Pristina’s governance on the Serbs, who believe they have good reason to fear retaliation. The Ahtisaari plan would provide the northern municipalities with wide autonomy, but that is not in itself going to compensate for the loss of tens of millions of euros as well as a general lack of confidence, amounting to fear and loathing.
The Pristina authorities have tried to signal their willingness to provide substantial resources to the north and claim that Serb communities in the rest of Kosovo get far more per person from the government purse than Albanian majority communities do. They are going to have to make more efforts in this direction than they have made so far if they hope to convince anyone who lives in northern Kosovo.
What the situation requires is a goal and a plan. In my view, the goal should be reintegration of the north with the rest of Kosovo. With that kind of clarity, the international community successfully reintegrated Eastern Slavonia (a Serb-majority area) in Croatia and Brcko (a town contested by Muslims and Serbs in Bosnia). The plan needs to be worked out jointly between Pristina and Belgrade, with help from their European friends (and the occasional push from the Americans). Such a reintegration plan does not require Serbia to accept Kosovo’s independence–only its territorial integrity, which in any event is implicit in UN Security Council 1244, to which Belgrade appeals regularly.
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Preparing for post-Qaddafi Libya, shortened
For those who think the full Council on Foreign Relations version is too long, here is my 750-word version, most of which has also been published on CFR’s The Water’s Edge and CNN.com:
Muammar Qaddafi clings to power in Tripoli. The end could come with little warning. That will mark the beginning of a difficult transition in Libya, not the end. We need to be prepared.
The first challenge will be security. Failure to maintain public order is what got us into big trouble in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein’s “stay behind” operation stirred civic unrest and destroyed government buildings. The murder in Libya last month of the overall rebel commander is a reminder that internecine warfare among the more than 45 rebel militias is a real possibility. People who lost family and tribal members to the Gaddafi regime may seek to settle scores. Former regime elements may seek to defend themselves and to “privatize” state assets. Criminals will see opportunities to traffic in arms, drugs and even people.
The humanitarian challenges will be no less daunting. Fighting has displaced at least half a million Libyans from their homes. Perhaps half of those are still in Libya, and many who are not will seek to return quickly once Qaddafi falls. Food, water, shelter and health services need to be secured for the most vulnerable. In addition, keeping water and electricity flowing to the residents of Tripoli and other major urban centers will be vital to maintaining public order, especially if Qaddafi falls this summer.
U.S. interests in Libya are limited, but a relatively successful transition from the Qaddafi regime to a united, stable, more open and democratic Libya would be seen in the region and more widely as a credit to the NATO-led intervention. It would also enable Libya to resume oil and gas exports, demonstrate international community capacity to manage such transitions and encourage positive outcomes to other Arab Spring protests, including those in Yemen and Syria.
Failure to stabilize Libya could lead to chaos, breakup of the Libyan state that sets an unwelcome precedent elsewhere, or restoration of dictatorship. These outcomes would all damage American and allied credibility and likely also cause major problems for our European allies, including shortfalls in energy supplies, loss of major investments and a continuing refugee flow. Refugees could also cause problems in Tunisia, Egypt, and the rest of the Mediterranean.
It is therefore the Europeans, along with the Arab League, who should take the lead in post-Qaddafi stabilization of Libya, under a clear United Nations Security Council mandate that recognizes a legitimate post-Qaddafi Libyan authority and sets out strategic goals for the transition. The goals should include a united and sovereign Libya within its well-established borders that can sustain, govern, and defend itself through inclusive democratic institutions, using Libya’s resources transparently and accountably for the benefit of all its people.
Quick deployment of a peacekeeping force of several thousand paramilitary police, mainly to keep order in Tripoli and other population centers, would help ensure these goals are met. The European Union and its member states can deploy several hundred paramilitaries. Turkey and Arab countries might supply the remainder. An international peacekeeping operation would not administer Libya but would support an inclusive interim authority in maintaining stability, providing humanitarian assistance, and beginning the reconstruction process.
What if this does not work? NATO will need to be prepared to step in. Only as a last resort—to deal with widespread disorder, a threatened breakup of the Libyan state, or a humanitarian catastrophe—should the international community consider armed intervention without the invitation of a legitimate Libyan authority. This could mean U.S. boots on the ground, but only briefly as part of a broader multilateral effort.
Leadership in post-Qaddafi Libya should be passed as quickly as possible to the Libyans, who have already set up local councils and a Transitional National Council, which help to organize and provide services in the liberated portions of the country. These indigenous institutions merit nurturing and support, including unfreezing of Qaddafi-era assets so that the councils in liberated areas can begin to meet the needs of their populations. The post-Qaddafi era has already begun there.
Libya is a resource-rich country with a relatively well-educated citizenry that has demonstrated courage under fire. The country lacks institutions and political experience, but not talent and commitment. The international community should prepare to support Libyan efforts to take charge of the country’s destiny once Qaddafi leaves the scene.
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