Tag: Iran
Overdue
Two things are overdue: a forceful international community reaction to the violent repression in Syria, and an agreement for President Saleh of Yemen to leave power.
The Syrian situation is getting downright ugly, with the regime claiming it is fighting terrorists. Tanks, machine guns and random sniper killings were the weapons of choice yesterday in Deraa, the epicenter of the protests so far. We can expect similar action to be taken elsewhere, if the regime has the military resources to deploy. Lots of protesters have been rounded up for interrogation. The pattern book here is Gaddafi’s, with echoes of Saddam Hussein: random violence to reinstate fear, which then keeps most people in line.
The State Department has urged all Americans to leave Syria. This may seem pro forma and irrelevant, but it isn’t: we saw in Libya how Washington hesitates to take vigorous action until U.S. citizens and embassy staff are safe. So far as I know, essential embassy staff are remaining in Damascus. The U.S. citizens in Syria will include not only tourists and Syrian Americans, but notably also Defense Department scholarship students studying Arabic at Damascus University.
The key to success for the protesters in Syria is their relationship with the security forces. The large army is mostly conscripts with short tours of duty. If they can get the security forces to hesitate in using violence, there is real hope of success. This will require a level of mass mobilization and nonviolent discipline that will be difficult to achieve. Protesters in small numbers are easy prey to regime violence, and attacks against the security forces will only bring massive violence in reprisal.
Washington is said to be working on “targeted” sanctions against individuals in the Syrian regime responsible for ordering the attacks on demonstrators. There are also signs of a condemnatory UN Security Council resolution in the works. Both are good ideas, even if late in the game. An International Criminal Court threat of indictment against the regime leadership seems to me less than credible, since Bashar al Assad will certainly not allow investigators into the country. More useful would be frank talk from Turkey, which has improved its relations with Syria of late and wants to play a peacemaker role in the Middle East.
The real game though is Iran, which now appears to be encouraging and assisting the crackdown in Syria. The day Tehran becomes convinced that the crackdown is counterproductive is the day it will end. We may have to wait for a long time for that day, or the day Bashar agrees to step aside, so the protesters need to get ready for a long and difficult haul.
In Yemen, the now negotiated agreement appears to provide for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down within 30 days, turning power over to a handpicked vice president while the president’s family members remain in their jobs, in exchange for immunity from prosecution for the president and his family. The most detail I’ve seen includes this:
The two-page draft deal, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, doesn’t mention defense or counterterrorism issues. People familiar with the document say the U.S. and Gulf Arabs expect that Mr. Saleh’s son and nephews—who run the country’s intelligence service, Republican Guard and elite Interior Ministry forces and are key counterterrorism liaisons for American officials—would remain in their positions until new elections….
According to the proposed plan, a vice president chosen by Mr. Saleh would take over after the 30-day period, running the country along with a parliament in which 50% of seats are controlled by the ruling party, 40% are controlled by the opposition, and the rest are reserved for undefined “others.”
This is the smooth transition the U.S. seeks to protect its interests in maintaining the counterterrorism campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. It sounds to me as if it more than adequately protects Saleh.
The protesters are now said to have agreed with the plan, which the political party opposition negotiated. The remaining question is when it will be announced officially, setting the 30-day clock in motion. That will require a push from the international community–Saleh won’t jump on his own. If this is the plan everyone accepts, best to get on with it.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Syrians need even more courage
AJ English is doing what it can to cover events in Syria from nonprofessional footage, as journalists have been kept out:
Brian Whitaker, whose al-bab.com is one of the best blogs covering the Arab world, is being widely cited today for saying about Syria:
For the regime, the only tool left now is repression, and in the long run that will seal its fate. The question is how long.
Of course in the long run we are all dead, but I wish I shared his confidence that repression will not succeed. One need only recall popular rebellions that did not succeed in Burma, Thailand, Belarus, Venezuela and elsewhere to be reminded that autocratic regimes sometimes do manage to repress their opponents. The outcome in Syria is not yet obvious to me, much as I might wish Whitaker correct.
As President Obama has suggested, Bashar al Assad is being egged on and assisted by Tehran, which will regard the Syrian repression as a quid pro quo for Saudi intervention in Bahrain. This is cynical and ugly, but sometimes cynical and ugly succeeds. As Babak Rahimi says in a piece for the Jamestown Foundation yesterday:
If successful in its reaction to the events in Syria, Tehran will be able to reinforce its national interests and expand its reach in the region. If Syria is unsuccessful in subduing its revolt and goes the route of Egypt, then Iran will lose a major strategic ally and access to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which could have a major impact on Iran’s position in the Middle East.
If Babak is correct, and I think he is, it is puzzling that the Americans have waited so long to express their displeasure with the repression in Syria.
Of course it may well be that the demonstrators are better off without overt American assistance, which the regime would no doubt use to tar them as foreign stooges. But that label for the moment seems more appropriate for Bashar al Assad, who is clearly getting Iranian encouragement and support.
The Syrian demonstrations yesterday were widespread, but not overwhelming in numbers, and the regime showed little hesitation in mowing down its opponents, killing upwards of 75. That however is a smallish number in the history of repression in Syria. Bashar is trying desperately to prevent Damascus from erupting. It is not pre-ordained that he will fail–a lot of people in Damascus owe their jobs to the regime, which has husbanded the spoils less greedily than Gaddafi in Libya.
Syrians still need to decide how much they want change, and how much change they want. No one should presume to tell its citizens that they have to risk their lives. That is for them to decide, I hope in numbers so large that the outcome Whitaker predicts will come sooner rather than later.
PS: Courage does not appear to be lacking. This crowd chanting “the people want to topple the regime” is in Zabadani, near the Lebanese border, tonight:
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
DC lunch: women of courage
Yes, I did make it to both lunchtime events today, Mona Makram-Ebeid at the Middle East Institute and Shirin Ebadi at the Carnegie Endowment. Hard to beat that for a ringside seat to observe the changing Middle East.
A former member of the Egyptian parliament now at the University of Cairo, Professor Makram-Ebeid was at pains to underline the liberal, democratic, non-sectarian, non-religious character of the Egyptian revolution, which sought “dignity, justice, freedom and human rights.” The problem is that in the aftermath Egyptian institutions are still fragile, the constitution is still one that gives the president the power to eliminate freedom, and the forces competing for influence include the army, the Muslim Brotherhood and the various liberal democratic opposition forces, which are notably less strong and more fragmented than the other two.
The liberal democratic opposition wants a date certain for constitutional reform as well as a new electoral law that makes the system more proportional (rather than majoritarian). They did not like the army’s insistence on amending the old constitution and submitting it to referendum, but that is water under the bridge. What they need to do now is to prevent a “rift between the people and the army” while they prepare themselves for elections by unifying and attracting Muslim moderates. No strong liberal democratic force can emerge without Islamic elements within it. The older secular parties are weak. Turkey and Indonesia provide examples of democratic Islamic states, but Egypt will develop its own model.
The Muslim Brotherhood, she thought, would be more manageable within the system than outside it. The National Democratic Party of Hosni Mubarak is still a serious threat, as are the Salafists and jihadists who have suddenly emerged. The Army is the key to ensuring these elements do not disrupt the transition to democracy.
What does Egypt need from the U.S.? Moral support and economic assistance, the latter in the form of renegotiation of Egypt’s debt (with generous forgiveness) and retrieval of stolen assets. This will be larger than the official aid package, which should focus on promoting democratic civil society. Egypt will try to resuscitate tourism and hopes Egyptian expatriates will help. Cairo will have to be careful in rooting out corruption not to damage the productive economy.
Professor Makram-Ebeid finished with a flourish, quoting MLK:
The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.
The second game of my lunch time double header was a conversation with Iranian Nobel Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi. She would have appreciated that arc of history bending towards justice, but started off with another bon mot:
If you can’t eliminate injustice, at least tell everyone about it
Living now in exile in Atlanta, she has done just that in The Golden Cage. But today’s event was more about Iran than about the book.
Bottom line: Iran is like the fire under embers.
By which I took her to mean that it may burst into flame at any moment, even though it seems under autocratic control at the moment. She still believes, and works for, the motto of the revolution: “independence and freedom.” But that is not what the current government is delivering. Iranians have lost freedom since the time of the Shah. They don’t freely elect their representatives and their government is busy helping Bolivia and rebels in Senegal, things that have nothing to do with the welfare of Iranians.
Women, who have a high level of culture in Iran and constitute 65% of university students, face discrimination: the testimony of two women is required in court to equal the testimony of a man, their lives are compensated at half the rate of a man’s, they need written permission of their husbands to travel. It is no surprise that many women are found in the Green Movement opposition.
She prefers nonviolence as the means in Iran; the goal is democracy and human rights. It is not yet clear whether this can be achieved within the current constitutional regime or will need a new one. Many rights are guaranteed in the constitution in word, but not implemented in practice by the government. The government uses violence against the citizens; governments that do this will fall.
Asked whether she would opt for peace or justice in a post-revolution Iran, she replied it would depend on circulstances. She was vigorous in denouncing the Iraqi government’s attack on the Mujahadeen el Khalq (MEK) at Camp Ashraf, insisting they are refugees and should not be forced back to Iran, where they would be mistreated. She refused to be drawn out on whether the MEK is a terrorist organization, saying only a court could decide that.
U.S. sanctions, she thought, are not really “sanctions,” i.e. punishments. The U.S. has the right to regulate its trade. Iran may not like it, but Washington is within its rights.
The nuclear program is not a particular source of pride for Iranians, who view it as hurting them because of sanctions and in any event don’t want to see another Fukushima reactor incident in Iran. Besides, they’ve got more important things to worry about. Like private internet access, which is nominally allowed by the law but not yet implemented.
She was in no mood to give advice to President Obama (and I imagine would prefer to give it privately), but did say that she appreciated his Nowruz (New Year’s) message, which had the right approach.
I admit: lunch took more than an hour. But it was worth it! It would be hard to find two more eloquent exponents of a revolution in progress and one not yet quite started.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Riyadh and Washington try to get it together
With King Abdullah back in the saddle throne since late February, after months abroad for medical treatment, it seems to me that Saudi diplomacy has gone into relative overdrive. Their biggest move was troops into Bahrain, to free up the Bahraini security forces to beat up demonstrators, but now they appear to be taking an active role in arranging for the departure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh from his post, if not from the country. I imagine they’ve decided now he is more liability than asset, something most Yemenis seem to have concluded weeks ago.
The Americans are also in overdrive, with Defense Secretary Gates and National Security Adviser Donilon wearing out the flying carpet to Riyadh. This is likely in part damage limitation–the Saudis aren’t happy to see the Americans plumping for transition in the democratic direction in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain. It must be difficult to convince them that somehow we’ll manage to stop the process before it gets to the Kingdom, which has largely pacified its own population and cracks down hard when soft power fails to do the job.
But it looks as if there may be more on the agenda: the Iranian challenge looms large for both Washington and Riyadh, and both have taken to implying that the Iranians are up to no good in Bahrain, though there is little evidence that the protests were fueled by Tehran. This I suppose is where the Saudis would like the Americans to draw the line: democracy is good, but not if it threatens to bring a Shia majority into power (as it did of course in Iraq, and the Saudis were not pleased).
This leaves Libya and Syria. I see no real unhappiness coming from the Saudis about what is going on in Libya, and it is difficult to imagine that the United Arab Emirates would lend its air force to the cause if the Saudis were not prepared to go along. Gaddafi is not a Saudi kind of guy, and of course there is no Shia threat there. Syria is harder to read: are the Saudis backing Bashar al Assad, who runs an Alawi (sort of Shia) regime, or not? Riyadh and Damascus have in the past competed with him for influence in Lebanon. Would the Saudis prefer a Sunni regime in Damascus? Or does the preference for stability prevail? So far, the latter.
Saudi influence is likely one of the reasons the Americans haven’t been as welcoming of the protesters in Syria as might have been expected. Both Washington and Riyadh are worried about chaos in Syria, and how that might affect Iraq and Jordan. This is odd, of course, since Damascus is allied with Tehran and Bashar al Assad has not hesitated to make trouble for the Americans in both Iraq and Lebanon. I wonder if things started really coming apart in Damascus whether the Saudis would reconsider.
Now if you’ve got a headache from all this diplomatic mumbo jumbo, I’m not surprised. But the world really is complicated, the Middle East more than most other regions. And if something happens in Saudi Arabia to disrupt its giant oil production and exports, that $4 gasoline is going to start looking cheap.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Sure non-violent resistance can work in Iran
Problem is, there is no telling when.
The question “Can Non-Violent Resistance Work in Iran?” was posed Friday by Karim Sadjadpour to a panel at the Carnegie Endowment featuring former Italian ambassador in Tehran Roberto Toscano and Iranian political philosopher (and former political prisoner) Ramin Jahanbegloo.
No surprise the panel thought non-violent resistance might work and is not naive. Jahanbegloo emphasized that it is a strategic (not a moral) imperative, in particular if civil society is to win the day. Regime oppression of the Green Movement is a sign that it is a real threat.
Toscano agreed, saying that violence and politics are alternatives. Violence may achieve quick results, but at the cost of longer-term problems, because it undermines the legitimacy of the revolutionary movement. Violence divides people, and the resulting revolution has to defend itself from those who did not support it. Nonviolence enhances legitimacy by widening support. Iran, Toscano underlined, is autocratic, not totalitarian, rather like Italian Fascism.
Jahanbegloo thinks the Green Movement still has a good deal of capability, as it is a civic movement with real, indigenous, grass roots support. It needs to focus on undermining media and military support for the regime. Because of its dispersed leadership, the Movement is hard to decapitate. Women have been particularly important among the Greens, and more of them are in prison than men.
Agreeing that the lack of a clearly defined leadership structure strengthens the movement, Toscano noted that the regime also lacks a single target–it is an oligarchy that relies increasingly on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its recycled alumni, and far less than in the past on the clerical establishment, who are not united in supporting the theocracy. The Greens need to build a more democratic political culture–to some degree they already have–by emphasizing human rights.
Jahanbegloo noted that the Greens have lost the enormous mass support that they had in the past. They need to rebuild, maintaining nonviolent discipline and establishing a better rapport with the security forces. They are also lacking support from “the bazaar,” business interests. But they are correct to define themselves as a broad civic movement and need to learn from their failures, as the Czechs did.
What can outsiders do to help the Greens? They need to maintain a consistent, principled approach and target human rights violators. At the same time, they have to realize that on the nuclear issue and on Iran’s regional role as a great power, the Greens do not disagree fundamentally with the regime.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Jon Stewart’s freedom packages
If you didn’t see it on TV, and you are not among the 156,073 people who have viewed it on line since Monday night, this is well worth all 6 minutes and 49 seconds.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| America’s Freedom Packages | ||||
|
||||
RSS - Posts
