Tag: Gulf states
Peace Picks March 17 -21
There were a few cancellations and postponements today due to the weather. Nevertheless, here are our picks for DC events this week:
1. Peace and Stability in the Central African Republic
Tuesday, March 18 | 9:30 – 11am
Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium; 1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
REGISTER TO ATTEND
Register for the live webcast
The Central African Republic has become one of the most challenging humanitarian, security and political crises on the African continent since the coup that unseated President Francois Bozizé one year ago. Violence along community and religious lines has claimed thousands of lives, and more than one million people remain displaced. Strong domestic and international efforts are needed to address the humanitarian and security crisis as well as restore state authority and consolidate peace in the country.
On March 18th, the Africa Growth Initiative (AGI) at the Brookings Institution will host a conversation with Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga, Imam Omar Kabine Layama and Reverend Nicolas Guérékoyamé Gbangou, the Central African Republic’s highest-ranking Catholic, Muslim and Protestant leaders, respectively. Their work to prevent violence and promote interreligious tolerance has won national and international praise. AGI Senior Fellow Amadou Sy will moderate the discussion, which will include questions from the audience.
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Something Americans will like
Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns gave a fine speech yesterday at CSIS on “A Renewed Agenda for U.S.-Gulf Partnership” heavy on security, resolving regional conflicts and supporting “positive” transitions (you wouldn’t want to use the D word in the Gulf). Too bad the agenda bore so little semblance to the changing reality.
The Gulf will of course remain important to the US and to the rest of the world. Its oil resources are the life’s blood of much of the global economy. An interruption in supply, as Bill rightly pointed out, would cause an increase in oil prices worldwide, with possibly catastrophic impacts on growth and investment.
But the political economy of Gulf oil is changing. The United States is importing less of it, down now to about 20% coming from the Persian Gulf. And that represents a shrinking percentage of total US oil requirements, as our own oil production is increasing rapidly. Asia is importing more Gulf oil. China takes the lion’s share of Hormuz-transported oil, India another big chunk. The International Energy Agency forecasts that 90% of Persian Gulf oil will go to Asia within a generation. Why would such a dramatic shift in oil trade not affect geopolitics? Read more
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Things are not going well
Things are not going well in many parts of the world:
- The Syrian peace talks ended at an impasse over the agenda. The regime wants to talk terrorism. The opposition wants to talk transition. The US is looking for options.
- Ukraine’s peaceful protests are ending in an explosion of violence. Russia is financing and encouraging the government. The US is ineffectually urging restraint.
- The UN has documented crimes against humanity in North Korea. No one has the foggiest notion what to do about a regime that has now starved, tortured and murdered its citizens for more than six decades.
- Egypt is heading back to military rule. The popular General Sisi is jailing both his Muslim Brotherhood and secularist oppositions. Terrorism is on an upswing.
- Libya’s parliament has decided to overstay its mandate. A new constitution-writing assembly will be chosen in elections tomorrow, but in the meanwhile violence is on the increase and oil production down.
- Yemen’s president has short-circuited the constitutional process altogether. He announced a Federal structure that divides the South, whose secessionists reject the idea.
- Afghanistan’s President Karzai is putting at risk relations with the US, because he is trying despite the odds to negotiate a political settlement with the Taliban.
- Nationalism is heating up in Japan, South Korea and China. Decades of peace in Asia are at risk as various countries spar over ocean expanse and the resources thought to lie underneath.
- Nuclear talks with Iran are facing an uphill slog. The interim agreement is being implemented, but prospects for a comprehensive and permanent solution are dim.
- Israel/Palestine negotiations on a framework agreement seem to be going nowhere. Israel is expanding settlements and increasing its demands. Palestine is still divided (between Gaza and the West Bank) and unable to deliver even if an agreement can be reached.
For the benefit of my Balkans readers, I’ll add: Read more
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Peace Picks February 18 – 21
1.Urbanization and Insecurity: Crowding, Conflict, and Gender
Tuesday, February 18 | 12:00 – 2:00pm
5th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center; 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Recent comparative studies of rapidly growing cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America have identified a variety of threats to women’s personal security and an equally varied set of government and community responses. This seminar features presentations of the results of large-scale comparative studies as well as ethnographic studies that highlight the role of gender in urban violence.
SPEAKERS
Alison Brysk
Fellow
Mellichamp Chair in Global Governance, Professor, University of California Santa Barbara
Richard Cincotta
Global Fellow
Demographer in Residence, The Stimson Center
Caroline Wanjiku Kihato
Visiting Senior Researcher, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Alfred Omenya
Principal Researcher & Architect, Eco-Build Africa, Nairobi Read more
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Bahrain 3 years on
With the third anniversary of the Bahraini uprising today, Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) and Creative Peace Initiatives hosted a panel on human rights in Bahrain featuring Joshua Colangelo-Bryan (Senior Attorney, Dorsey & Whitney), Brian Dooley (Director, Human Defenders Program at Human Rights First), and Shadi Mokhtari (Professor, American University). Jeff Bachman (professorial lecturer, American University) moderated. The Bahraini government was not represented.
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The Cory Remsburg metaphor
The President’s State of the Union speech last night broke little new ground on foreign policy. He is pleased to be finishing two wars and will resist getting the United States involved in other open-ended conflicts. He may leave a few troops in Afghanistan to train Afghans and attack terrorists. Al Qaeda central is largely defeated but its franchises are spreading in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Mali. He will limit the use of drones, reform surveillance policies and get us off a permanent war footing. He wants to close Guantanamo, as always, and fix immigration, as always.
He will use diplomacy, especially in trying to block Iran verifiably from obtaining a nuclear weapons and in resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict, but also in destroying Syria’s chemical weapons capability. He will support the moderate Syrian opposition. He will veto new Iran sanctions in order to give diplomacy a chance to work, maintain the alliance with Europe, support democracy in Ukraine, development in Africa, and trade and investment across the Pacific. America is exceptional both because of what it does and because of its ideals.
The President didn’t mention Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia or Japan. He skipped North Korea too. His mother must have taught him that when you don’t have anything nice to say you shouldn’t say anything at all. Those countries might merit mention, but all have in one way or another been doing things that we prefer they not do. He mentioned China, but only as an economic rival, not a military one. He skipped the pivot to Asia as well as Latin America. For my Balkans readers: you are not even on his screen. Read more
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