Tag: Israel/Palestine
All in, or not
Whether President Obama will get Congressional backing for strikes on Syria’s capability of using chemical weapons will be decided in the political arena, where the current is running strongly against. While he may win in the Senate, he faces a difficult uphill battle in the House, which is far more sensitive to public opinion.
Both Tea Party Republicans and more liberal Democrats are hearing from their constituents, who include members of my family, that they don’t see why the United States needs to take action. Why can’t the Arab Gulf states, whom we have armed to the teeth, do this job? What is at stake for America? What is happening in Syria is sad, even tragic, but why is it our responsibility? Why don’t we have stronger backing at the UN and elsewhere?
Samantha Power, now our ambassador at the UN, was busy yesterday in Washington trying to answer these questions. She cited as reasons for the United States to act destabilization of the region, growing recruitment of violent extremists, Israel’s security, and proliferation of chemical (and other mass destruction) weapons as well as American credibility in the effort to prevent it. She catalogued the international community’s carefully hedged verbal support. She reviewed our efforts to use nonmilitary means both at the UN and elsewhere. That’s all fine as far as it goes.
The disconnect, and it is an important one, is arguing that American national security is at risk but the President proposes a strictly limited intervention: short, high-flying and unmanned, no boots on the ground. Samantha says:
President Obama is seeking your support to employ limited military means to achieve very specific ends, to degrade Assad’s capacity to use these weapons again and deter others in the world who might follow suit. And the United States has the discipline as a country to maintain these limits.
Limited military action will not be designed to solve the entire Syria problem. Not even the most ardent proponents of military intervention in Syria believe that peace can be achieved through military means.
But this action should have the effect of reinforcing our larger strategy for addressing the crisis in Syria. By degrading Assad’s capacity to deliver chemical weapons, we will also degrade his ability to strike at civilian populations by conventional means.
She may be correct that we’ll hit that sweet spot where we deter further use of chemical weapons and also help the opposition by degrading his conventional capabilities. But the odds are definitively against hitting such a small part of the spectrum of possible results. Unintended consequences are the rule, not the exception. US military action could also collapse the regime completely, with chaotic results or inimical ones like a takeover of Syria by Islamist extremists. Or it could be perceived by Bashar al Asad as nothing more than a pinprick, causing him to escalate the use of both conventional and chemical weapons to defeat a flagging opposition.
An honest adviser should be telling the President that the consequences of military action in Syria are likely to be long-lasting, one way or another taking us down the slippery slope he has so long tried to avoid. This could mean more military action and also burdensome civilian efforts. The real option is not a quick and limited strike, but a quick and limited strike followed by difficult to predict consequences that may well require more of us than we anticipate now. That’s the “all in” option.
Doing nothing, however, is also a decision. That too could lead in unintended directions, including collapse of the regime and takeover by Islamist extremists. After all, the last two years of doing little or nothing militarily have not moved us any farther away from those outcomes. It is arguable, and often argued, that had we done something two years ago things would be much easier to manage now.
The difference between “all in” and “not,” the option that ironically “All In”‘s Chris Hayes favors, is how much say the United States afterwards. A strike will bring clout with the opposition as well as the international community. It will mean a central role for the US in post-war Syria, something that may be as much burden as advantage. It could also increase the credibility of a military threat to the Iranian nuclear program.
Backing off now, or going ahead without Congressional approval, will weaken a president who is already having domestic difficulties. Domestically, “not” could put an early end to his second term. Can you see the Republicans compromising on the budget by October if the Tea Party beats him on Syria? Internationally, he will have a harder time convincing anyone that he is willing or able to strike the Iranian nuclear program, which will make a diplomatic solution even harder than it is already proving.
The Administration may be proposing a short-term effort, but the real alternative is between “all in” and “not.”
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Too narrow broadens
The Syria war resolution approved in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee goes a long way to correcting the problems in the original draft. The too narrow definition of American goals has been broadened to include changing the momentum on the battlefield. It looks as if the Administration has the votes to get this version approved in the Senate, provided it is not filibustered.
The question will be whether the broader definition of American goals is just too much for the House, where the increasingly isolationist Tea Party is strong among Republicans and more liberal Democrats likewise oppose getting involved abroad. It is one of the ironies of this Administration that it is paying the cost of George W. Bush’s mistake in going to war in Iraq. The House Republican leadership, while supporting the resolution, will not impose party discipline to ensure its passage, leaving voting entirely up to individual members. Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who has come out swinging for the resolution, faces a tough uphill battle to get an overwhelming majority of Democrats to support the resolution. That won’t be easy.
My guess is that the key to success or failure lies with, whether you like it or not, Israel. Some think the Israelis are ambivalent about removing Bashar al Asad. Their politicians may be. But their intelligence apparatus has concluded that Bashar has to go sooner rather than later, to better the odds of preventing an extremist takeover. The Israelis have been smart to keep their mouths shut in public, but they are no doubt lobbying hard in private for vigorous military action that would reinforce the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons as well as help to end the war. Failure of the US Congress to approve military action, or hesitation by the President to take it, would reduce the credibility of an American military threat against the Iranian nuclear program, as Secretary of State Kerry made eminently clear in his testimony in the Senate.
The President can take military action without Congressional approval, but failure of the Congress to act would make an already messy process incomprehensible to most of the world and further reduce the likelihood of finding support among friends and allies. The Arab League, while denouncing the use of chemical weapons, has so far not called for military action. With the United Kingdom restricted from participation by its parliament and Germany and Italy reluctant as usual about military action, European support essentially comes down to France and maybe a few smaller countries. Plus Turkey, whose interests clearly lie in the earliest possible end to the war in Syria.
Russia remains adamantly opposed to military action, even if President Putin is sounding Moscow’s usual meaningless grace notes about not necessarily standing forever with Bashar al Asad and wanting to discuss the matter with President Obama. Iran is in an tough spot. It is a diehard opponent of chemical weapons use, as Saddam Hussein gassed Iranian forces in the 1980s, during the Iraq/Iran war. But its high officials, echoed by Moscow, are still insisting the August 21 attack came from the Syrian opposition, not the regime. This creates an opening. If the Americans can present Russia and Iran with detailed, incontrovertible evidence that the regime was responsible, logic would dictate that they at least stop their extensive military support to Bashar al Asad and his Hizbollah allies. But of course logic doesn’t necessarily govern situations like this one.
The action this week will be first and foremost in the House and then in Saint Petersburg, where the world’s major economic powers will be meeting at the G20 Summit. If and when a resolution passes in the House, there will be a moment–likely less than a day–for a quick diplomatic maneuver by Russia and Iran to agree to a diplomatic conference that would remove Bashar and save Moscow and Tehran from the embarrassment of an American air attack like the ones in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan that altered the military balance on the ground. If the diplomacy fails at that point, it will have another chance, but only after whatever happens happens. The law of unanticipated consequences will then be in full force.
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What’s wrong with ICG’s approach on Syria
The International Crisis Group yesterday published a statement on Syria. It has drawn plaudits from some and hisses from others. This is not surprising. The statement is a combination of ICG’s usually sharp analysis with its typically bad policy recommendations.
On the analytical side, ICG notes acerbically that any military strikes by the United States “will be largely divorced from the interests of the Syrian people,” as their purpose will be to “punish, deter and prevent use of chemical weapons.” Strikes would also aim to protect Washington’s credibility, another objective divorced from Syrian interests. This is all accurate as far as it goes.
Then comes the policy frame: “the priority must be the welfare of the Syrian people.” Hardly. The armed forces of the United States don’t exist for the welfare of the Syrians. Their use has to be in the interests of the American people. When that overlaps with the welfare of others, we often talk of “humanitarian intervention.” But there is no way to convince the American president, much less the American Congress, to use military force or other instruments of US power unless it demonstrably serves US interests, including of course commitment to US values and regional stability.
Then we are back to the analytical frame, with the best and most memorable line in the report:
To precisely gauge in advance the impact of a U.S. military attack, regardless of its scope and of efforts to carefully calibrate it, by definition is a fool’s errand.
But then ICG goes on to try to gauge in advance some of the possible impacts of a US attack, with no more success than its memorable line foreshadows.
Then we return to the policy frame, where ICG is not alone in calling for a diplomatic breakthrough based on a “realistic compromise political offer” and outreach to Russia and Iran. The devil is in the details:
The sole viable outcome is a compromise that protects the interests of all Syrian constituencies and reflects rather than alters the regional strategic balance;
This is sloppily over-generalized. Who are the Syrian constituencies? What regional balance? Is Al Qaeda a Syrian consitutency? Is Hizbollah? The regional balance of what? If it is conventional military balance, the US and Israel win hands down. If it is terror, advantage Al Qaeda or Iran. If commitment to a democratic outcome counts, I’d give the prize to Syrian civic activists who started the rebellion and have continued to try to make it come out right. All of the above? Show me the negotiating table that can accommodate them all and I’ll show you heaven on earth.
But this is what really annoys the Syrian opposition:
A viable political outcome in Syria cannot be one in which the current leadership remains indefinitely in power but, beyond that, the U.S. can be flexible with regards to timing and specific modalities;
True enough, but who is the US to decide the issue of how long Bashar al Asad stays in power? Suddenly ICG is no longer concerned with an outcome that satisfies the Syrian people. It is now all about the Americans, who are viewed as the obstacle to a reasonable interval in which Bashar stays in power. The Americans are by far not the greatest obstacle to that.
Then we are quickly back to ICG’s typical empty appeal to do the right thing:
Priority must be given to ensuring that no component of Syrian society is targeted for retaliation, discrimination or marginalisation in the context of a negotiated settlement.
No mention at all of accountability, since that is inconsistent with leaving Bashar in power and fulfilling ICG’s hopes for a kumbaya moment.
So convinced as I am by the need for a political solution, ICG has done precious little in this statement to suggest the ways and means to get one. That’s what’s wrong with ICG’s approach.
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Lincoln was a lonely Republican
So Dana Milbank thinks the 50th anniversary did not live up to the original. I really can’t imagine how that would have been possible, but no doubt the Milbanks of 1963 gave the original a snarky review as well.
I enjoyed my couple of hours at the Wednesday event. Dana is right that John Lewis was better than the rest, but he is better than the rest most other days too. His consistency and persistence in advocating integration in every dimension of American life are welcome relief from the politicians who seek the next big thing. Not to mention his seemingly impeccable integrity.
If showing up is half the battle, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (I’m grateful to President Obama for giving up “Barry”) were winners. Bill did better: his declaration that it shouldn’t be easier to buy a gun in America than to vote is certainly a crowd pleaser on the left. The King family, unfortunnately, got the father’s desire to be heard but not his rhetorical gifts. But older sister Christine King Farris made a magnificent statement with her terrific hat.
The best part though was the music, which was a vital dimension in 1963 as well. I’m writing without the benefit of my program, so I won’t be able to cite singers and groups, but the church choir that was invoking the protection of God when I arrived about 2 pm was exactly what the occasion merited. The overly harmonized Star Spangled Banner wasn’t my thing, but the foxy (am I allowed to say that?) gospel singer who came on later was over the top.
As for the President, he made the appropriate allusions to progress and pushed for closing economic gaps, but he wasn’t all there. How could he be? Later in the day he made some of his clearest public remarks about Syria and what he might do, and would not do, to respond to Bashar al Asad’s use of chemical weapons. But there are a lot of other things on his mind as well: the impending Federal budget crisis, Congressional deadlock, and the slow economic recovery, not to mention tensions with Russia, the Iranian nuclear program, American withdrawal from Afghanistan and already bogged down talks between Israel and Palestine. I can’t imagine that he would have sat through an hour of others speechifying, except for this occasion.
The most important political signal of the day was who did not show up. The nation’s Republican leadership took a pass. This was not a good omen, as it confirms that the GOP is uninterested in minority votes. Blacks and hispanics would unquestionably be better off if both parties had to court their votes. I’d have expected at least George W. Bush, who appointed Condi Rice and Colin Powell to high office and had a position on immigration pretty close to that of Barack Obama. But today’s Republicans seem to be opting for disenfranchisement and gerrymandering of Congressional districts rather than an all-out effort to compete and break up the Obama rainbow coalition.
That’s too bad for minorities, but it is also a demographically fated strategy. Fifty years from now, we’ll only have a two-party system if Republicans change their approach. The only question is how long it will take them to turn around. Lincoln cannot be the lone Republican leader present at the 100th anniversary of the March on Washington.
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Solid kernels in a not so good idea
My SAIS colleague Ed Joseph and Aaron David Miller earlier this week put forward a proposal for a Union of Arab Democracies that merits examination despite its deep and fatal flaws. There are nuggets therein worth preserving.
The idea in their words is this:
Egypt and its fractious neighbors desperately need a unifying vision that can inculcate respect for democratic norms across glaring differences. Although Arab nations have no interest in joining the European Union or NATO, the Arab world can draw on the model of Eastern European transition, with fledgling Arab democracies devising their own supra-national organization dedicated to advancing democracy. Like the E.U. in its infancy, this Union of Arab Democracies (UAD) could start with limited objectives and evolve toward ambitious goals, including, ultimately, pan-Arab political union.
Waving their magic wand, Ed and Aaron then tell us all the good things that would happen if such an organization were to come into existence, despite the shambolic history of pan-Arab political union proposals.
If Egypt and the other Arab uprising countries were capable of creating such an organization, they wouldn’t need it. The weakness of the proposal is all too apparent when Ed and Aaron get to proposing that Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority (known to me as Palestine) would be the leading democracies, with transitioning countries (Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen) and supposedly “liberalizing” countries (Morocco, Jordan and possibly Oman) tagging along. What a democratic club! Several are more likely to find themselves joining an Islamic union than a democratic one.
Nevertheless, there is a core idea here that is important: transitions need a destination. When the Berlin wall fell, the former Soviet satellites of eastern Europe and the Baltic “captive nations” quickly set their aim on meeting European Union and NATO standards. This gave direction and impetus to countries that would otherwise have wandered as aimlessly as the North African revolutions are doing today.
The way to answer the question “transition to what?” is not to have nascent Arab democracies try to figure it out for themselves. They cannot reasonably aim for membership in NATO or the EU, but they should be able to aim at two easier targets: the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe or, as my Turkish colleague Aylin Unver Noi suggests, the Council of Europe.
OSCE comprises 57 states and plays an important role in the Balkans and the more Asian parts of Eurasia. Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia are already among its “cooperating partners.” Several OSCE members are no farther along in democratizing than their Middle Eastern partners. With 47 member states, the Council of Europe regards itself as the continent’s leading human rights organization. It has a human rights court with some real enforcement capacity that could provide minorities in the Middle East with real recourse if their mother countries were to join.
The idea of extending OSCE and the Council of Europe to the southern littoral of the Mediterranean may seem far fetched, but efforts to construct more ad hoc arrangements have not worked well. Neither the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership nor the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative gained much traction before 2011, Aylin says, and their relevance will be further reduced by the Arab uprisings.
Another of the world’s more restrictive clubs, the rich people’s Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) , has opened its doors to newly developed states like Korea and Mexico, much to their benefit and the benefit of the organization. Opening the OSCE and Council of Europe to new Middle Eastern members, who would need to meet clearly defined criteria in order to get in, would be a worthwhile experiment. It would give the Arab uprisings, if they want it, a destination as well as a tough-minded qualification process, which is really what Ed and Aaron were calling for.
So “no” to the Arab Democratic Union. “Yes” to Arab democracy that aims to meet the not too exacting standards of the OSCE and respects human rights as defined by the Council of Europe.
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Well managed conflicts are hard to resolve
This makes sense of course. Why bother paying the high price resolution usually entails if the cost of continuing in conflict is relatively low? We see this happening today in many places: Israel/Palestine, Macedonia/Greece, Armenia/Azerbaijan, Cyprus/Turkey. How should the international community behave in such instances?
Generally the approach has been to continue efforts at resolution, almost no matter what. Depending on how you count, the Israel/Palestine conflict is 65 years old, Macedonia’s conflict with Greece over its name has been subject to mediation for more or less 20 years, the Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has been working on Armenia and Azerbaijan’s dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh for as long, and UN peacekeepers have been in Cyprus for almost 40 years. It makes economic sense to continue because the international community efforts are relatively cheap compared to the potential consequences of ending them.
But does it make sense in terms of getting to yes? Is the international community’s willingness to continue mediation or peacekeeping efforts inhibiting a solution rather than encouraging one?
That is a difficult judgment to make, but I have my suspicions, especially in the Macedonia/Greece dispute. On the surface, it is a fairly simple one: Greece refuses to accept what it prefers to call “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (or the FYROM) by its constitutional name (Republic of Macedonia). This wouldn’t make much difference except that Greece can (and does) block the FYROM from entering NATO or getting a date to begin negotiations on EU membership, in violation of a 1995 “interim agreement.” The International Court of Justice has found Greece in violation of that agreement but it does not have the ability to enforce its decisions.
For almost 20 years, now UN envoy Matt Nimetz has tried to find a solution. Greece has appeared at times ready to accept a modifier (for example, “North Macedonia”) but wants the agreed name used in all circumstances, including every time it is mentioned in the Macedonian constitution. This isn’t very attractive to Skopje, which already enjoys a world in which everyone but Greece and international organizations call the country Macedonia. Skopje doubts that even if it accepted the Greek parliament would ratify membership in NATO, much less the EU.
This is one spat the world could do without, but nothing the committed and inventive Nimetz has done in 20 years has gotten rid of it. So the question is, should we get rid of the UN envoy, hoping that will give Athens and Skopje ample incentive to cut a deal directly with each other?
I don’t know. There is little likelihood of a solution unless they do, but that is no guarantee they would.
Macedonia’s prime minister has enjoyed a great deal of popularity as a result of his nationalist rhetoric and building program. The only people in Macedonia really unhappy with the current situation are ethnic Albanians, who regard NATO membership as the ultimate guarantee of security and would like to end a dispute that has nothing to do with their own ethnic identity. But Albanians represent close to a quarter of the population. Macedonia is a fragile state that cannot afford to alienate its largest minority.
The Greek prime minister, who was one of the originators of the dispute in the 1990s, has likewise little political incentive to settle it. While there are certainly some Greeks who would like to see the issue resolved, if only to stabilize a neighborhood in which the country has significant investments, they are relatively few. Most Greeks regard ancient Macedonia as quintessentially Greek and are unwilling to see the label hijacked by Slavs.
I don’t want to minimize the importance of this dispute to those most directly involved. Macedonians and Greeks alike regard the issue as profoundly important, as it affects their identities. But is this something the rest of the world should be investing to solve? There is not risk of armed confrontation over this issue. After 20 years, it seems to me the UN would be more than justified to pack in the effort and let the parties to the conflict try to resolve it themselves, or not.
More on other well managed conflicts in future posts.
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