Tag: Russia
Jeb, the anti-Trump
Jeb Bush’s foreign policy speech at the Reagan Library yesterday merits careful attention. In a campaign for the Republican nomination dominated so far by Donald Trump’s verbal antics, this speech ranks as the most serious effort yet to challenge Barack Obama’s approach to threats from the Islamic State and Iran.
I won’t quarrel much with the Governor’s analysis of the current situation. Yes, the Islamic State in particular and Islamic extremism in general are more of a threat today than they were in 2009, even if American civilian deaths from terrorist acts since 9/11 have been minimal. Iran is a bad actor likely to cause more problems in the Middle East once sanctions are lifted. The situation in Syria, which Iran has exacerbated with support to Bashar al Assad and Hizbollah, is catastrophic and needs a more effective approach.
But Bush confuses cause and effect in ways that make his policy prescriptions screwy. It is apparent that the mainly military approach both the Bush and Obama administrations have taken to fighting Islamic extremism in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen has made the situation worse, not better. Yet in Iraq Jeb suggests we only need to do more and better on the military front in order to fix the situation. I don’t see any reason to believe that will work well. Nor is his hand-waving confidence about Iraqis “coming through for their country” convincing.
The Iraq war is the basis for much of what Bush thinks Obama has gotten wrong. In Bush’s narrative, the “surge” was a military success that Obama squandered by withdrawing American troops. Only by showing more military resolve region-wide can the US reverse that mistake.
But that is a false account of what actually happened. Obama withdrew American troops from Iraq on a schedule negotiated and agreed by the George W. Bush Administration. Republicans neglect that fact, because it disrupts their portrayal of the Obama Administration as weak, vacillating and prone to ignore the importance of military power. When challenged, they claim that George W. thought the agreement would be renegotiated. Obama tried that and failed, not because he was weak, vacillating and prone to ignore the importance of military power but because political sentiment in both the US and Iraq leaned heavily against a continuing US military presence.
If anyone is to be blamed for the rise of the Islamic State’s takeover of Sunni portions of Iraq, it is Nouri al Maliki, who was hand-picked as prime minister by the Bush Administration. The Obama Administration compounded that error when it backed Maliki for a second term even though his party had lost its plurality in parliament. Maliki thereafter proved himself an aggressive Shia sectarian who alienated both Sunni and Kurds, thereby weakening the Iraqi state and setting the stage for the ISIS takeover. It is vital always to remember that the problems in Iraq and generally in the region are at their heart political, not military.
But that narrative is too complicated for Jeb Bush. He prefers a simpler one that echoes his older brother’s worldview:
What we are facing in ISIS and its ideology is, to borrow a phrase, the focus of evil in the modern world.
I can think of a lot of other foci of evil in the modern world, and I’d have thought that “axis of evil” was a Manichean phrase no one would want to echo, given its association with the catastrophic mistake of invading Iraq and the less catastrophic but still serious mistake by George W. of failing even to try to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran before it had installed almost 20,000 centrifuges and enriched enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon.
On that subject, Jeb takes up the prevailing Republican unequivocal opposition to the nuclear deal. He offers no idea what his alternative is. He promises to undo the alleged damage Obama has done if elected, but of course withdrawal from the deal at this point would also have consequences he fails to consider: either Iran will race for nuclear weapons or the Europeans, Russians and Chinese will implement the deal and lift sanctions. The US then ends up either 1) having no alternative to war (without any allies except Israel), 2) watching its European allies make common cause with Moscow and Beijing against American efforts to unilaterally enforce sanctions. This is no formula for restoring American leadership, which is what Jeb says he wants to do.
Only on Syria does Bush offer any substantial suggestions worth examination: protected zones in parts of Syria and a no-fly zone over the whole country. Assad, not just ISIS, would be his target. Those are propositions President Obama has resisted because they take the US down the slippery slope towards greater involvement in the chaos that the multi-sided Syrian civil war their has generated. But his refusal to get involved hasn’t improved the situation or made it easier to solve. We shouldn’t have to wait for a new president to correct course on Syria.
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Magic numbers
The magic numbers are 44 House Democrats and 13 Senate Democrats. Those are the thresholds opponents of the Iran nuclear deal need to reach to achieve veto-proof majorities in both houses of Congress, assuming all Republicans vote against.
Rob Satloff says defeat of the deal would be no big deal. John Bolton says it would be a good thing. Suzanne Nossel says it would be a disaster. Who is right?
Nossel in a word. But let’s go through the drill.
Satloff argues that defeat in the Congress might either push President Obama to
- reopen the negotiations, seeking a “better deal,”or
- seek to implement the agreement without Congressional approval.
For Case 1, Rob offers no explanation of why the Iranians would agree to renegotiate. For Case 2, he suggests the Iranians would abide by the terms of the agreement, despite not getting the sanctions relief that was the primary purpose of their engagement in the negotiations. This runs contrary to both what the Iranians have said–that they will proceed apace if there is no deal–and what they have done in the past. The Iranian nuclear program mushroomed (to use an unfortunate metaphor) after the Bush administration ignored Tehran’s feelers about reaching an accommodation and refused to talk about anything but dismantling its nuclear program.
In both cases, Rob fails to consider the reaction of the Chinese, Russians, Europeans and Gulf States.
This is fatal to his argument. With rejection of the agreement in the US Congress, the united front against Iran getting nuclear weapons would quickly evaporate. The Chinese and Europeans, who have been salivating at the prospects for increased trade with Iran, would have no reason to go along with reopening the negotiations. If the Iranians do appear to be implementing the agreement, multilateral sanctions would rapidly disappear, leaving the US isolated and unable to get the European support required if the “snapback” provision is to be used.
Bolton argues that the snapback provision is not only useless but harmful to American interests, because it sets a precedent for getting around the UN Security Council veto. He cites as a negative example a Cold War era effort by Dean Acheson to do an end-run around the UNSC through the General Assembly. That effort caused no harm Bolton admits, but he is unfazed. He is sure snapback is bad, even if the experience he cites was not. It’s hard to imagine why the New York Times published that argument.
Let’s get real. Rejection of the deal in Congress would most likely lead to three “no”s:
- No International Atomic Energy Agency inspections;
- No multilateral sanctions;
- No constraints on the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran would be free, if it wants, to move ahead towards nuclear weapons, not in 10 or 15 years, but right now. If President Obama or his successor were to decide on attacking the Iranian nuclear program, he would be on his own without allies and without the grounds Iranian violation of the agreement would provide.
That is not the worst of it though. American clout with all concerned would decline markedly. With Iran presumed to be racing for a nuclear weapon, the Saudis, Egyptians and Turks would need to keep pace. The Europeans think they led what they call the EU3+3 (P5+1) in the negotiations. Rejection in Congress would pull the rug out from under our closest allies. Russia and China would deem the US unreliable, even as they respectively pursue arms and energy deals with Tehran.
Rejection in short would be a milestone comparable to the Senate’s rejection of the League of Nations not much more than 100 years ago. It would break the faith with Europe, reduce US clout with less friendly world powers, initiate a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and limit America’s ability to lead on many non-nuclear issues.
President Obama will speak about all this today at American University. I trust he’ll have those magic numbers in mind.
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Do-over: the Special Court drama in Kosovo
Rrap Kryeziu, a Haverford rising senior who is spending the summer helping me out on Balkans research, writes:
Kosovo’s future direction depends on an impending vote in its parliament expected to take place Monday. The seven-year-old country faces a pre-teen crisis. Following a 2010 report by the Council of Europe that attributes inhumane crimes to high government officials and former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members, Kosovo’s Western allies as well as its Serb and Russian adversaries, are demanding accountability. Because the alleged crimes took place in the post-war period and some in Albania, they are not covered by the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which in any event is closed to new cases.
A constitutional amendment in the Kosovo Parliament would enable the creation of a Special Court in which internationals would try still unspecified indictees. On June 26, the amendment fell five votes short. The opposition, which vehemently opposes the amendment, did not vote at all. Seven members of the governing PDK did not support the constitutional amendment despite their party leader’s unequivocal public support for the Special Court. PDK leader, former Prime Minister and now Foreign Minister Hashim Thaci may himself be implicated in the accusations, according to the Council of Europe report.
Opponents of the Special Court are concerned with upholding the KLA’s freedom-fighting reputation. They fear the court will tranform the image of Kosovars from victims of ethnic cleansing to perpetrators of crimes against humanity. There are also concerns about national sovereignty. Members of Vetevendosje (VV)–the leading opposition party–now surprisingly praise the integrity and capacity of Kosovo’s justice system, which in the past they have criticized as the tool of the ruling elite. It is unclear how they expect the court system to prosecute people they previously accused of controlling the judiciary.
One part does not reveal much about the whole. There was no single mastermind behind the KLA, which was an organic resistance movement. Potentially finding a few KLA commanders guilty of war crimes should not tarnish the entire movement. Confronting uncomfortable allegations by bringing a handful of individuals to justice will instead clear a dark cloud that has been cast by the Council of Europe report. It will reflect political maturity on behalf of Kosovo.
The US ambassador to Kosovo has warned lawmakers of a cascade of political disasters if Kosovo does not allow creation of the Special Court. Kosovo will weaken its partnerships with Western allies, who will allow the Security Council to take up the matter. Russia, which does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, will have a big say in what happens there. It is also likely that new elections will ensue, as the current coalition had promised to establish the Special Court within six months of taking power.
It is time for a re-run. The result will signal whether Kosovo is heading West, or astray.
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Europe at sea
On Monday, the Hudson Institute hosted a conversation with Rear Admiral Chris Parry, Royal Navy (Ret.), entitled Europe at Sea: Mediterranean and Baltic Security Challenges. Seth Cropsey, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, moderated. Admiral Parry spoke about the challenges that Europe faces, given that it is surrounded by water on three sides, and outlined several alternative political futures for Europe.
The threats to Europe from the sea are not new. In 1983, the USSR had a plan to attack Europe through the Central Front plus the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas. Understanding the way the Russians view the Black and Baltic Seas is crucial to understanding Putin’s motives. They have a very short coastline on the Baltic Sea. Until they took Crimea, they had a short Black Sea coast as well. This has always made the Russians nervous. Russia and the Scandinavian countries also have competing claims in the Arctic. Russia’s claims extend far beyond the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and Russian icebreakers now escort vessels through the Arctic.
Europe, however, is more worried about the Mediterranean because of unstable states in North Africa and the Levant, as well as migration both by sea and overland through Turkey. There is a risk for the return of Barbary piracy, as well as for seaborne terrorist attacks on coastal tourist areas. Northern Europe believes that it is the responsibility of Southern European countries to deal with this. The EU is not set up to make political decisions because it is an economic union with political pretensions. The effort needed to run the EU saps energy from efforts to address seaborne security threats.
Parry spoke about how influence has shifted, such that the important global players are now the US and the East Asian countries. The US is well-placed to benefit from globalization. If Europe isn’t careful, it will decline and become strategically irrelevant. In the future, Parry sees:
- An increase in the use of state power by non-Western countries.
- Small amounts of high-quality force will be decisive.
- Increased proxy activity, because states don’t want to directly confront each other.
- WMD proliferation.
- Increased terrorism.
- Diffusion of technology and weaponry.
There will be both irregular threats from terrorism, criminality, disasters and disease, as well as renewed threats from China, Russia, ISIS, Marxist revivalists (in Greece, for example), regional aspirants and weapons proliferation. Europe will need to contain a Middle Eastern equivalent of Europe’s Thirty Years War, ensure access to natural resources, and adapt to climate change.
Though Putin constitutes an existential threat, Parry noted that defense expenditure in Europe is declining. NATO countries still however spend more than non-NATO countries. It spends far more to shoot down a cheap missile than the missile costs; this unsustainable cost ratio must decrease. NATO has failed to resist coercion in Ukraine. Hitler knew he would win at Munich because he knew the British and French wouldn’t go to war. Putin is using traditional hard power and is confused by our lack of response. Russia’s Baltic Sea exercises are designed to resist NATO forces.
Scandinavia is nervous. Europe has become strategically dependent on the US; some European countries have armies that aren’t prepared to go to war. The UK is investing in new aircraft carriers but is hollowing out the rest of the Royal Navy. To resist coercion at sea from Russia, a change in attitude is needed.
Parry also spoke about the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The Iran deal represents what is possible, rather than what is desirable. China and Russia have been keen to maintain Iran as a client state and suppress its nuclear ambitions. In the rush to welcome Iran into the global economy, we need to be careful about the security dimensions. As a result of the Sunni-Shiite conflict in MENA, the “Great Satan” tag will shift from the US to Saudi Arabia. China has invested heavily in new trade routes. It may get the bulk of its future oil and gas from Shiite Iran and Shiite-dominated Iraq. But China could also move into the Southern Gulf States if the US and Europe reduce their commitments there.
Like Russia, China is increasing its naval presence, sometimes disregarding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. There are increasing numbers of Chinese warships in the Indian Ocean as well as Chinese ships in the Mediterranean and Chinese icebreakers in the Arctic. China views its oil rigs as sovereign territory, which means that it believes it can base missiles and surveillance off of them. This is illegal under international law.
Parry outlined three different potential futures for Europe:
- A Eurasian future: the US drifts to the Pacific and Europe pursues economic cooperation with Russia and China.
- A maritime future: Parts of Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Korea together control trade on the seas. The sea is the physical equivalent of the World Wide Web and controlling it is vital for international trade.
- A fragmented future: There are no eternal friends or enemies, just interests, and each country pursues its own interests. Europe’s separatist movements could also lead to a fragmented future.
According to Parry, the US now faces choices as well. Unconventional oil and gas have been a game-changer for the US economy. The US has to decide whether it will use this money to remain strategically dominant or turn inward. The 2016 election will be crucial. In the future, if it becomes clear that help isn’t coming from the US, European countries will seek accommodation with Russia and East Asian countries will seek accommodation with China. This will have major geostrategic consequences.
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The truth in criticisms of the Iran deal
Here are some criticisms of the Iran deal that contain at least a kernel of truth. I thought I might go over these, for the sake of clarifying some of the arguments pro and con:
1. It will give Iran a lot of money to do bad things with. That is true. It’s not as much money as some are claiming: perhaps $50 billion fairly quickly the US Treasury thinks, rather than the $100-150 billion deal opponents cite. Since the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliates has lost a great deal (two-thirds of the country’s centrifuges and virtually all of its enriched uranium, not to mention a plutonium-producing reactor filled with concrete), the pressures to compensate it with both money and freedom to do bad things in the region will be enormous. That means more money for shipping arms to Bahrain, Yemen and above all Syria as well as compensating Hizbollah for its losses. Only by countering Iranian moves in those places can the US hope to avoid some of the consequences.
2. All the agreement does is buy time. Yes, that is the main thing it does, by pushing Iran back from a breakout time (the time it needs to get the fissile material needed to build a singular nuclear weapon) of 2 months or so to a year, and preventing any shortening of that breakout time for 10-15 years. But that is not all it does. The verification mechanisms put in place will be the strictest and most comprehensive installed anywhere and will last forever. The obligation Iran takes in the agreement not to pursue nuclear weapons is binding and permanent. The military option so many critics implicitly favor remains an open should Iran move in the direction of getting a nuclear weapon.
3. The verification measures are inadequate. It is difficult to prove a negative, as we all know. That is what the verification measures are asked to do. But no country has ever made nuclear weapons in facilities monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as Iran’s will be. Iranian facilities will be covered by the tightest monitoring scheme ever devised, with the real capability of detecting diversion of any nuclear material. Still, a clandestine nuclear program is possible, conducted outside monitored facilities. That is why Iranian delivery to the IAEA of answers to questions about its past activities with “possible military dimensions” (PMDs) is so important. That is due October 15, with an IAEA report due December 15. If you want an early indication of whether this agreement will be effective, watch that space.
4. Lifting of sanctions cannot be “snapped back.” Existing contracts will be grandfathered, so the legal impact of any reimposition of sanctions–which can be decided by the US and its allies over Russian, Chinese or Iran objections–will not be immediate. That’s true. But the fact of reimposition will be much more significant than the legal impact. Companies that do business with Iran will immediately dial it down, if not out, should sanctions be reimposed, if only to avoid getting into trouble with US and European financial regulations. In the longer-term, Iran will be less vulnerable to sanctions if it invests its money well and is able to develop its oil and especially gas resources. That is an inherent part of the deal.
5. The deal allows industrial-scale nuclear facilities that make Iran a threshold nuclear state. I wouldn’t rank 5000 or so centrifuges or a few hundred kilos of light enriched uranium as industrial scale or nuclear threshold. But fine if you do, because Tehran has much more than that now and would be under no obligation to give any of it up if there is no deal. Are we better off with numbers two and three times as large as will exist if the deal is not approved? Not to mention that without a deal we can expect Iran to accelerate its nuclear efforts.
6. The sanctions will hold even if the US withdraws from the agreement. It is true that the US can make life extremely unpleasant for any company or bank anywhere in the world that does business with Iran if Washington says no. But there is a high price to be paid for extraterritorial extension of our sanctions: other governments don’t like it and Iran will build an elaborate network to get around it, as they have with the existing sanctions. Especially on the Repubican side of the aisle, it should be appreciated that anti-market restrictions are unlikely to be watertight or last forever.
7. The arms and especially missile sanctions should not have been lifted. The UN Security Council imposed them in order to get Iran to negotiate on nuclear issues. Iran expected them to be lifted as soon as it had implemented its portion of the nuclear constraints. Instead they will remain in place far longer than we had a right to ask. I’d prefer they not be lifted too, but I never got a pony either.
I’m reasonably confident the Congress will not muster the 2/3 majority in both houses required to kill the deal. But if they do, we can expect most of the world (that’s everyone but Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu) to think us deranged and to refuse American leadership on Middle East and many other issues for a long time to come. All those Gulf countries complaining about the deal now will make much more noise if the deal falls through and Iran acquires the material for a nuclear weapon in the next couple of months. Remember President Wilson, the League of Nations and the period between the World Wars? This would be at least as bad.
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Peace picks July 20-24
1. Iran and the Future of the Regional Security and Economic Landscape | Tuesday, July 21st | 9:00 – 12:00 | CNAS | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Under the deal, Iran will put significant limitations on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief from the international community. But the details and effects of the agreement are far from simple. Iran’s regional rivals, who are core U.S. partners in the Middle East, are deeply concerned about how the deal will change regional power dynamics. There are also questions about economic competition, particularly in energy markets, in the aftermath of
the nuclear deal. Keynote address by: Dr. Colin H. Kahl, Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. Panelists include: Dr. Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow, CMEP, Brookings, David Ziegler, Distinguished Fellow and Director, Project on the Middle East Peace Process, WINEP, Melissa Dalton, Fellow and Chief of Staff of the International Security Program, CSIS, Elizabeth Rosenberg, Senior Fellow and Director, Energy, Economics, and Security Program, CNAS, Colin McGinnis, Policy Director, U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Sean Thornton, Senior Counsel, Group Financial Security BNP Paribas, and Caroline Hurndall, Head of Middle East Team, British Embassy. Moderators include: Ilan Goldenberg, Senior Fellow and Director, Middle East Security Program, CNAS and Zachary Goldman, Executive Director, Center on Law and Security, NYU School of Law and Adjunct Senior Fellow, CNAS.
2. Women and Countering Violent Extremism: Strengthening Policy Responses and Ensuring Inclusivity | Tuesday, July 21st | 9:30-12:30 | USIP | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Women worldwide suffer disproportionately from violent extremism and conflict. Women’s key roles in society put them in ideal positions to prevent extremist violence. Yet, 15 years after the United Nations Security Council vowed to reverse the broad exclusion of women from leadership in security and peacebuilding, they
remain marginalized. On July 21 at USIP, experts from civil society, the United Nations, academia, and the U.S. government will discuss ways to include women in efforts to counter violent extremism. The debate will directly inform U.S. government officials preparing for major international conferences on these issues this fall. The U.N. Security Council recognized in 2000 (in its Resolution 1325) that we need women to help lead in global efforts at resolving violent conflict. Several current wars and conflicts underscore how the recent surge in violent extremism has given new urgency both to protecting women and including them in solutions. The U.N. secretary general’s special representative on sexual violence, Zainab Bangura, will discuss that imperative, having recently visited Syria and Iraq. Speakers include: Zainab Hawa Bangura, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, Former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the UN, Timothy B. Curry, Deputy Director, Counterterrorism Policy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Eric G. Postel, Associate Administrator, USAID, Robert Berschinski, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, Carla Koppell, Chief Strategy Officer, USAID, Nancy Lindborg, President, USIP, Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, President, Women in International Security, Susan Hayward, Director, Religion and Peacebuilding, Governance, Law and Society, USIP, and Jacqueline O’Neill, Director, Institute for Inclusive Security. Moderator: Kathleen Kuehnast, Director, Gender and Peacebuilding, USIP.
3. Islamic extremism, reformism, and the war on terror | Tuesday, July 21st | 10:00 – 12:00 | AEI | REGISTER TO ATTEND | President Barack Obama has said that the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) and other extremist groups do not represent true Islam. The extremists, however, dispute this.
This leads to a basic question: What role, if any, does Islam play in fomenting terrorism? As extremist forces increasingly sow destruction, how should policymakers respond? How prevalent are moderates, and how serious are regional calls for a “reformation” within Islam? What role, if any, can the US play to encourage reform? How do anti-Islamic polemics undercut reform? Panelists include: Jennifer Bryson, Zephyr Institute, Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution, Abbas Kadhim, Institute of Shia Studies, Zainab Al-Suwaij, American Islamic Congress, Husain Haqqani, Hudson Institute and Former Pakistani Ambassador to the United States, and Mohamed Younis, Gallup. Moderators include: Michael Rubin, AEI and Danielle Pletka, AEI.
4. Negotiating the Gulf: How a Nuclear Deal Would Redefine GCC-Iran Relations | Tuesday, July 21st | 12:00-2:00 | The Arab Gulf States Institute | REGISTER TO ATTEND | As a nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 was recently finalized, few in the international community have more at stake than Iran’s Arab neighbors across the Gulf. Will the agreement usher in a new era of detente in the Middle East? Will Iran emerge as a more responsible partner, not just to the West but also to
regional powers? Can Iran and the GCC states begin to identify areas of cooperation to bring about more stability and security to the region? Will the agreement truly prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, or does the Middle East stand on the brink of another, particularly dangerous, arms race? Speakers include: Suzanne DiMaggio, senior fellow and the director of the Iran Initiative at New America, Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi journalist, columnist, author, and general manager of the upcoming Al Arab News Channel, Nadim Shehadi, director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, Fletcher School, Tufts University, Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar, fellow, Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and, assistant professor, Department of International Affairs, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.
5. Russian Expansion – A Reality or Fiction: A Conversation with Elmar Brok | Tuesday, July 21st | 12:30-1:30 | German Marshall Fund | REGISTER TO ATTEND | With the Minsk II ceasefire in eastern Ukraine looking increasingly shaky, Europe risks a frozen conflict for years to come. However, is Russian President Vladimir Putin finished in Ukraine? Can the United States and Europe expect more aggression from the Kremlin or is consolidation Russia’s strategy now? What do the future of Russian relations with the European Union and Germany look like and what role do sanctions play in this calculation? Elmar Brok, chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, will answer these questions and provide analysis of U.S.-European views toward Ukraine and Russia. GMF, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and the European Parliament Liaison Office are pleased to jointly host this conversation.
6. Saudi Arabia’s Scholarship Program: Generating a “Tipping Point”? | Tuesday, July 21st | 1:oo | Atlantic Council | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Westerners most commonly associate the Kingdom with oil, religious conservatism, and a deeply unstable region. Our panelists will challenge such conventional perceptions by examining the seismic economic, social, and governmental changes underway, many of which evidently result in part from the deliberate Saudi government investment in its human capital. The panel will present the thesis that, having sent over 200,000 Saudi youth abroad in the past ten years with the King Abdullah Scholarship Program, the Kingdom is already experiencing powerfully transformative economic and social advances. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone, Atlantic Council Vice President and Director of the Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, will moderate the discussion. Hariri Center Associate Director Ms. Stefanie Hausheer Ali will present key data and analysis on the scholarship program’s origins and size as well as its costs and benefits from her case study for the King Salman Center for Innovative Government. Dr. Rajika Bhandari, Deputy Vice President of the Institute of International Education (IIE) and Director of IIE’s Center for Academic Mobility Research and Impact, will discuss the Saudi scholarship program within the context of other international scholarship programs and the types of impacts such programs can have. Ms. Samar Alawami, an American University graduate of the scholarship program and researcher at the King Salman Center for Innovative Government, will discuss how the scholarship is impacting her generation. Ambassador James Smith, President of C&M International, will reflect on the changes in Saudi Arabia he witnessed during his tenure as US Ambassador from 2009 to 2013.
7. Rebuilding Afghanistan: Transparency & Accountability in America’s Longest War | Tuesday, July 21st | 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm | PS21 | REGISTER TO ATTEND | As the longest running and one of the most expensive wars in U.S. history winds down, just where did the money go? PS21 is delighted to present a discussion with the man looking into that very question, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John F. Sopko, and Just Security. Speakers include: John F. Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, and Andy Wright, Founding Editor, Just Security
8. Nigeria: A Conversation with President Muhammadu Buhari | Wednesday, Jul 22nd | 9:45 – 11:15 | Located at USIP but sponsored by NDI | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Please read: Important information for guests attending public events at USIP. In a milestone for Nigeria and multi-party democracy in Africa, Muhammadu Buhari was elected president in March, becoming the first opposition candidate to unseat an elected Nigerian president through the ballot box. Following a vigorous political campaign period, Nigerians successfully managed a relatively peaceful electoral process and government transition. As the new government begins its mandate, political, economic and security pressures remain intense, including the escalating insurgency of Boko Haram and unresolved conflicts across the country. President Buhari’s remarks at USIP will come on the last of his three days in Washington, following his July 20 meeting with President Obama. All guests should arrive no later than 9:45 am to pass through security. Doors to the event will close promptly at 10:00 am.
9. Arbitrary Justice in Saudi Arabia: How Activists Have Organized against Due Process Violations | Wednesday, July 23rd | 11:30 – 1:00 | Located at Open Society Foundations but sponsored by Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain and Amnesty International | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) and Amnesty International are cosponsoring an event to shed light on the absence of Rule of Law in Saudi Arabia. The discussion will outline the specific deficiencies within the Saudi criminal justice system that lead to the
commission of human rights violations, including judges’ lack of independence, practices of arbitrary and incommunicado detention, and a catch-all anti-terrorism law. Discussion will then turn to highlighting the cases of those activists, including members of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) and human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair, who have sacrificed their independence to raise awareness of human rights abuses and bring reforms to this system. Panelists include: Abdulaziz Alhussan, Visiting Scholar at Indiana University’s Center for Constitutional Democracy and former attorney for several ACPRA members, Hala al-Dosari, Saudi activist and women’s health researcher, Sunjeev Bery, Director of MENA Advocacy at Amnesty International USA, and R. James Suzano, Acting Director of Advocacy at ADHRB.
10. On Knife’s Edge: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’s Impact on Violence Against Civilians | Wednesday, July 23rd | 12:00-1:00 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The post-Cold War era has witnessed horrific violence against non-combatants. In the Bosnian War alone, tens of thousands of civilians died. The founders of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)—and then of the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC)—hoped these courts might curb such atrocities. However, we still know very little about their actual impact. This talk will draw on the ICTY’s experience as the first wartime international criminal tribunal to provide insight into how and when these institutions might affect violence against civilians. Speakers include: Jacqueline McAllister, Title VII Research Scholar, Ph.D., Northwestern University, Assistant Professor, Kenyon College and John R. Lampe, Senior Scholar Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of Maryland, College Park.
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