Tag: NATO
There is virtue in clarity
That’s the best I can say for today’s meeting of the Presidents of Serbia and Kosovo. President Nikolic made it clear that he does not and will never accept the independence of Kosovo. President Jahjaga made it clear she does not accept anything less.
The issue, as regular readers will know, is not really independence, which is relative and political. The real issue is sovereignty, which for these purposes is absolute and juridical. I think of it as based in a monopoly over the legitimate means of violence, recognized by other sovereign states.
If the two presidents remain apart on this issue, I imagine there won’t be many more meetings. Each meeting, including this one, confirms what everyone in the world–including in Belgrade–knows: Serbia will not be able to exercise sovereignty (a monopoly over the legitimate means of violence) over Kosovo. Anyone who thinks it will hasn’t been there in a long time. It is no surprise that Nikolic didn’t seem keen on continuing to meet.
The internationals will of course insist that the meetings continue at the more productive political level of prime ministers and below. This is a good idea. Pristina and Belgrade have made some progress on real issues and need to get to the difficult work of implementing what they have agreed. It is particularly important that they begin to resolve the vexing problem of northern Kosovo, where Serbia continues to defy the UN Security Council resolution that it incorrectly claims preserves some vague semblance of Serbian sovereignty.
I do not mean to imply that Nikolic’s reassertion of Serbian authority is irrelevant. To the contrary, a claim of sovereignty over Kosovo’s territory has to be taken very seriously, not only by the Kosovo authorities but also by the international community. Today it is the NATO-led KFOR presence in Kosovo that prevents this claim from assertion by force. KFOR wants out. It is unlikely to remain at all in five years. If Kosovo is to remain sovereign, it had better figure out some combination of diplomatic, political, military or other means to protect its claim. It is not that I doubt Serbia’s pledges not to use force. They are sincere. But they are also insufficient.
I had visits today and yesterday from two Serbs. One said Serbia would never recognize Kosovo’s independence. The other looked forward optimistically to reintegrating the north with the rest of Kosovo, where he is a politician participating in the Pristina institutions. I suggested they get together for a chat.
It is unlikely to be any more productive than today’s meeting between the two presidents. But there is virtue in clarity.
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Middle East: less grand, more strategy
Middle East Institute intern Aya Fasih, recently arrived from Cairo, writes in her debut on peacefare:
With the re-election of President Obama and massive transformations ongoing in the region, the Middle East Policy Council’s 71st Capitol Hill Conference focused Wednesday on “U.S. Grand Strategy in the Middle East: Is There One?” Related questions included:
- Is it even possible to formulate a grand strategy for the region amidst all the turbulence it is witnessing?
- Were past U.S. grand strategies for the region successful in achieving their objectives?
The prestigious panel, comprised of Chas Freeman Jr., William Quandt, Marwan Muasher and John Duke Anthony (moderated by Thomas Mattair), identified five main points of discussion: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, the Arab uprisings, the Syrian crisis, and the political-economic security of the Gulf Cooperation Council states.
Chas Freeman Jr., Chairman of Projects International, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and President of the Middle East Policy Council, said the two main U.S. policies in the Middle East, unconditional support to Israel and strategic partnership with pre-revolutionary Egypt and the rentier Gulf states, were contradictory and therefore precluded any grand strategy. Freeman underscored the costs associated with U.S. support and protection of Israel; he said that U.S. support for irresponsible and immoral policies of Israel has undermined U.S. strategic interests in the region and potential cooperation with the region’s other powers:
America may have Israel’s back, but no one has America’s back.
Continuation post-revolution of an American-Egyptian partnership is in doubt. In the aftermath of the Iraq war, Afghanistan, and “abandonment” of the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians, the U.S.-Saudi relationship has weakened and become more “transactional.” It should no longer be taken for granted. In Freeman’s view, U.S. policies preclude formulation of grand strategies and leave room for only limited cooperation.
William Quandt, Professor at the University of Virginia and former staff member of the National Security Council, started by expressing suspicion of grand strategies. The Bush 41/Clinton dual containment of Iraq and Iran failed, as did the Bush 43 strategy of replacing certain Arab regimes, starting with Iraq, with pro-Western ones. Quandt, like the other three fellow panelists, thought the U.S. needs to revise its policies, starting with the realization that “we are not all-powerful.” A revised strategy should include:
- an end to U.S.-Iran animosity, which would avoid a dangerous war and benefit Iraq, Syria and Lebanon;
- maintenance of positive relations with NATO ally Turkey, which will also benefit Iraq and Syria;
- friendly relations with Egypt because of its geo-strategic importance and influence over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
- greater attention to Saudi Arabia, which faces a difficult generational transition;
- a negotiated end to the Syrian conflict;
- a renewed effort to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
John Duke Anthony, Founding President of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, discussed mainly the six Gulf Cooperation Council states, highlighting the vital strategic importance of the GCC for the region’s security and U.S. energy supplies.
Marwan Muasher, Vice President for Studies at Carnegie Endowment and former Jordanian Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, and Ambassador to the United States, highlighted how the U.S. must change its approach by assessing the new governments and players in the region not based on their ideology but rather on their performance. U.S. influence will not be decisive in the process of transition. Events on the ground and competition for power among local actors will determine the outcomes. It is crucial that the US start differentiating between different Islamist actors and parties and realize that serious differences exist among them. The clock is ticking on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unless the U.S. chooses to sponsor it now, peace may never be an option again.
All four panelists agreed that U.S. policies toward the vital region must undergo serious reassessment if the U.S. wants to secure its strategic interests. The U.S. should exert extraordinary effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, re-engage with Iran and work quickly to ensure a negotiated settlement in Syria.
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Redlines
The publication last week of a five-step peace process roadmap to 2015 allegedly prepared by Afghanistan’s High Peace Council reopens the issue of whether a negotiated settlement with the Taliban–or parts thereof–is possible. American efforts led first by Richard Holbrooke and more recently by Marc Grossman have failed. With an American drawdown of troops proceeding and Afghan forces all too clearly not yet capable of taking over, it would not be surprising to see the Afghans make another stab at a deal.
But anyone who thinks this plan was prepared in Dari or Pashto is kidding themselves. This document reads to me like an American plan, written in good diplospeak, warmed over. It foresees an increase in Pakistan’s role in the negotiations, but it also includes all the American red lines (admittedly at the very end):
Any outcome of the peace process must respect the Afghan Constitution and must not jeopardize the rights and freedoms that the citizens of Afghanistan, both men and women, enjoy under the Constitution. As part of the negotiated outcome, the Taliban and other armed opposition groups must cut ties with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and verifiably renounce violence.
The timeline for the plan began in early 2012. Some of the action items concerning release of prisoners and assurance of safe passage for negotiators seem to have been fulfilled. But a critical step, announcement that the Taliban are cutting their ties to al Qaeda, to my knowledge has not been taken (the deadline was March 2012). The Taliban have denied media reports to that effect. I know of no credible evidence that the Taliban have softened their position on education and participation of women, though they may have gotten savvier about (not) attacking girls’ schools. Nor have they renounced violence.
The devil, as always, is in the details. The roadmap proposes that in the second half of 2013 the negotiating parties
…agree on the modalities for the inclusion of Taliban and other armed opposition leaders in the power structure of the state, to include non-elected positions at different levels with due consideration of legal and governance principles.
I wrote about this for the Washington Post more than two years ago, when I first heard rumors of State Department officials looking for a settlement that would give over a large portion of southern Afghanistan to Taliban governance in exchange for cutting their ties with al Qaeda and laying down their arms. It is still a distasteful proposition.
But less so than two years ago because American and Afghan efforts have failed to install anything like functioning governance in much of Afghanistan outside urban centers. The Northern Alliance opponents of the Taliban may not like it, but the Americans will find it easier to twist their arms than those of the Taliban. The alternative to a negotiated settlement with the Taliban might just be their military success in the countryside, where they are doing relatively well.
It is reasonable under current conditions to pursue a plan like the one McClatchy uncovered. But those redlines are important. If the Taliban don’t break with al Qaeda and accept women as human beings, we’ll regret a settlement that brings them into Afghanistan’s governing structures. So will Pakistan.
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Consequences
The NBC report that Bashar al Asad is preparing chemical weapons for use has generated a contradictory response: President Obama, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and NATO Secretary General Rasmussen have all warned there will be consequences. My Twitterfeed concurs that use of chemical weapons would be “suicidal” for Bashar.
But there is little that can be done once these weapons are out of their storage sites and loaded on airplanes or missiles, as the report ambiguously suggests might be the case. The numbers of troops required to secure the Syrian chemical weapons stocks is on the order of 75,000. It is clear enough that U.S. troops have not yet been deployed in these numbers anywhere near Syria in preparation for their seizure.
That wouldn’t be a sufficient or appropriate response in any event. It would put a substantial number of American troops in harm’s way without any guarantee of success. So what might we be thinking of doing?
My guess–but it is only that–is regime decapitation. Any order to use chemical weapons will have to come from the top. If the Americans have done nothing else in the almost two years of killing, they should at least have discovered Bashar’s hiding places. Using cruise missiles, the U.S. can destroy dozens of sites with extraordinary precision. Whether or not Bashar himself is hit (remember how many times we missed Qaddafi?), his ability to continue in command is likely to be severely degraded, as they say.
Another thought is to pour arms into the revolutionary forces in the hope that they will be able to seize the remaining chemical weapons. But without specialized training and equipment, that really would be a suicidal course of action. It is far more likely that chemical weapons will scare a large part of the population out of Syria, creating enormous problems for its neighbors, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan.
The problem with either proposition is that we have no idea what would come next. Decapitation would precipitate a rush both within the regime and from the outside to try to seize control of the state apparatus. The most likely winners are guys with lots of guns. That includes the Syrian security forces as well as the more heavily armed and capable revolutionaries, who come from the Sunni Islamist end of the political spectrum. If neither wins a definitive victory, the civil war would intensify, with terrible consequences both inside Syria and in the region. There is a real risk that punishing Asad will generate an outcome even more inimical to U.S. interests.
There is still a real possibility that reports of imminent chemical weapons use are false or exaggerated. But if they are true, someone had better be thinking of a better idea than I’ve had about what “consequences” are appropriate, feasible and productive. Bashar al Asad and lots of other autocrats will notice if he uses chemical weapons and there is no reaction. That would further undermine U.S. and NATO credibility, which is already at a perigee.
There is a report today that the Russians and Americans are meeting hastily to discuss Syrian chemical weapons. If the possibility of their use pushes Washington and Moscow together to a political solution, that would be a really good outcome for all concerned, except Bashar al Asad and his regime.
PS: Ambassador Ford says it is above his paygrade to decide what is to be done in the event Syrian uses chemical weapons. Certainly the implication of American military action is strong.
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A new idea
I don’t often hear new ideas from the Balkans. Most of what passes for innovation there is rehashed from the detritus of failure and packaged in insincere compliments to the international community. So it was with real pleasure that I spent an hour Monday listening to Bosnian Federation President Živko Budimir, whom I knew in the aftermath of the Bosnian war as the deputy commander of the Federation armed forces.
The General had a commanding brief. He outlined the many weaknesses of the post-war transition in Bosnia, including:
- The structural asymmetry between the cantonalized Federation (the Croat and Muslim controlled 51% of the country) and Republika Srpska (the Serb controlled 49%).
- The ethnic homogenization down to the municipality level caused by the war and the failure to fulfill promises that displaced people and refugees could return to their homes (except for Serb returns along the Croatian border in Herzegovina).
- The continued strength of the entity (Federation and RS) level of governance, despite international efforts to beef up the “state” (i.e. central) government.
- Ethnic dominance of political parties, the civil service, interior ministries, police and the judiciary.
- Widespread corruption.
- The failure of economic recovery and consequent 40% unemployment.
- Determined and blatant RS efforts to precipitate the dissolution of the state.
This unflinching analysis already made the hour worthwhile. But Budimir offered solutions as well. Some of them were well known: protection of individual rights, redistribution of entity responsibilities to the central government and to the municipalities, tougher international attitudes, acceleration of the EU accession process.
But he surprised me with a new idea: he proposed that the relative success at Brčko, a northeastern Bosnian town where reintegration and economic revival worked well under American tutelage, be expanded by creating a “Posavina district” encompassing seven municipalities, including Brčko.
I don’t imagine this is going to happen tomorrow, but it is clever to build on the one place where reintegration has been successful. There can be no dissolution of Bosnia (or of the RS) so long as the Posavina corridor, which links the eastern wing of the RS with its more populous western wing, is under multi-ethnic control. This is why I have repeatedly suggested that the EUFOR troops in Bosnia be concentrated there. President Budimir’s idea is better: expand the area under multi-ethnic governance, keeping the populations of Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs more or less equal to ensure that no one group dominates the area.
How to get this done? Budimir insists on the international community playing a strong role, both with sticks (especially in opposing dissolution of the state) and carrots (in particular NATO and EU membership), in particular to block corruption and promote reconciliation. But he also proposes the founding of a new multiethnic political party in Bosnia to reinvent its politics. This would require a good deal of courage and commitment, of which the general showed ample supplies in bringing his idea to Washington. Now what he has to do is get them to fly at home.
PS: Here is Budimir’s text. Here is his powerpoint presentation.
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Pas de deux
After twenty years and more of objecting to Macedonia calling itself Macedonia and months of avoiding direct contact, even in the presence of the UN mediator, the Greek Foreign Minister sent a friendly message to his counterpart in Skopje at the beginning of October suggesting a memorandum of understanding “outlining the basic parameters of a possible mutually acceptable solution” including “the general principles governing good neighbourly relations.” A month later the Macedonian Foreign Minister responded in an equally friendly tone. What’s going on here? Are we really making progress on this silly but so far insoluble problem?
I doubt it. There are clear hints in the letters exchanged that no agreement is likely any time soon. The Greek letter and MOU fail to mention the Interim Accord of 1995, which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2011 found Greece had violated. It requires Greece not to block Macedonia’s membership in international, multilateral and regional organizations under the name “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.”
Athens instead proposes a new MOU that includes the following language:
the name agreed upon [in the future] will be used by all erga omnes and for all purposes.
This means Macedonia would have to change its name throughout its constitution as well as in all its official correspondence, documents and buildings, a condition that Athens knows is unacceptable to Skopje. While one of my Greek readers has suggested that this is negotiable, there is no sign of that in the Athens letter or text.
The response from Skopje is likewise friendly but no more forthcoming. It brushes off the Greek proposal with mention of the Interim Accord, which it clearly prefers to the proposed MOU, and the ICJ decision, which went entirely in Skopje’s favor.
So what’s going on here, if not a move towards resolution of this dreadful dispute? It seems to me likely that both sides are trying to avoid responsibility for what happens in December, when the European Council will meet and likely decide not to offer Skopje a date for the start of EU accession talks, because of a Greek veto. Athens wants to be able to say that it offered a way out that Skopje rejected. Skopje wants to be able to say that it responded positively to the Greek initiative without result.
This is diplomatic ballet, likely coached by high-priced consultants on both sides. It would be fun to watch, if it hadn’t already gone on far too long.
Greece is in blatant violation of an ICJ decision. It is a testimony to European fecklessness that 26 EU members don’t dare tell Athens it needs to back down and settle for a definitive solution farther down the pike, when Macedonia is at the threshold of EU membership. Macedonian politicians of all stripes acknowledge that will be necessary.
Washington deserves no more credit than the 26. It allowed Greece to block NATO membership for Macedonia at the Chicago summit in May, while Macedonian soldiers were guarding NATO headquarters in Kabul.
Those seeking equity must do equity. The music and the pas de deux should stop. In the absence of a resolution of the name issue, Skopje should get a date to start EU accession talks and it should enter NATO as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as the Interim Accord requires, at the next NATO summit in 2014. Athens’ greatest leverage will come when Skopje is ready for accession. That is the time to settle the name issue.
Of course if Athens and Skopje decide they can settle the issue now, that’s all right too. I’ll be glad if they prove me wrong, but I doubt that is what is in the cards.
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