Tag: Russia
When it rains
When it rains, it pours, or so it seems with diplomatic initiatives. Yesterday it was the six-month Iran nuclear deal. Today it is the United Nations announcement of a date for Syria peace talks: January 22, in Geneva.
Neither one faces easy implementation, but the Syria peace talks are the dicier proposition. A lot of things are still unclear, including who is invited and how they will be represented. But Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon was at pains to be clear about the purpose:
“full implementation of the Geneva Communique of 30 June 2012,” including the establishment of a transitional governing body with full executive powers, including over military and security entities.
This is word for word what the Syrian Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (Etilaf) requires.
It is a tall order for Bashar al Asad, as it implies that the meeting aims to remove him from power, if not from Syria. Friends in Etilaf doubt the regime will show up for a meeting with this purpose. I think it more likely it will, but with people who cannot make serious commitments for Bashar al Asad, whatever their nominal titles. It is very unlikely that a one-day meeting is going to move us more than a millimeter closer to a negotiated settlement in Syria. I’ll be delighted if it does that much.
How, you should ask, are the two news items related? Did the nuclear deal pave the way for the Syria talks? Or vice versa, did some sort of unannounced side deal on Syria pave the way for the nuclear deal? Or are these two developments unrelated?
There are certainly some who have hoped that a nuclear deal would open the door to a broader rapprochement with Iran. That’s possible, but unlikely in such a short timeframe. Syria is no less vital to Iran and its “resistance axis” (which also includes Hizbollah and Hamas) today than it was before the nuclear agreement was reached.
It is far more likely that Iran and Russia, the Asad regime’s key allies, are hoping to find the Americans pliable on Syria and even willing to accept half a loaf now that they’ve had their top priority at least temporarily met. The Americans and their European partners (including Turkey) are worried about the rampant proliferation of extremists in Syria, reliant on Bashar al Asad to complete implementation of the chemical weapons agreement, and aware that things are going badly for the opposition military forces. It is not a good moment from Etilaf’s perspective to be negotiating an end to the regime.
There is, however, virtue in talking, if the UN can manage to get both the regime and opposition to Geneva with credible delegations. If, as I expect, the regime is nowhere near ready for Bashar al Asad to step aside, the obvious subject to discuss is the protection of civilians. The international norm against military attacks on civilian populations is at least as important as the international norm against the use of chemical weapons. It is violated in Syria on a daily basis.
The regime’s use of artillery, aircraft and missiles against civilian population centers should be ended. Moscow and Tehran have the leverage to make this happen. Without their financing and weapons supplies the regime wouldn’t last a month. Even if the Geneva meeting is unable to achieve its avowed purpose of creating a transitional government, it would be doing something worthwhile if it provides an opportunity for the Americans and Europeans to get Russia and Iran to pressure Asad to end attacks on civilians.
The Geneva meeting might also serve a useful purpose if it fails altogether, forcing the Americans to rethink strategy in Syria (as Fred Hof suggests). But if the Americans do nothing different after such a failure, the damage will be to the credibility of Etilaf and any other groups that go to Geneva. When it rains, it pours, especially on the heads of those who aren’t well supplied with protection.
It’s the next six months that really count
If you are interested in today’s news about the six-month nuclear deal with Iran, read no further. You’d do better to go to the New York Times for Michael Gordon’s piece on the important details and David Sanger’s on the broader issues of significance and impact on international relations.
My interest is in the prospects beyond six months. Is this
- a step in the right direction towards a broader agreement that ends Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, or
- is it a relatively insignificant pause in a decades-long march that will necessarily end, even if Israel or the US intervenes militarily, in a nuclear-armed Iran?
I don’t think we know the answer to that question. What we need to think about is how to make sure the answer is 1. and not 2. What will Tehran more likely to stop and even roll back its nuclear progress? What would push Tehran in the wrong direction?
Sanctions
There is little doubt that sanctions have brought Iran to the negotiating table, and the propect of lifting them will be a major factor in Tehran’s thinking about whether to continue to pursue a potential nuclear weapons capability. So should we tighten them further, or not?
I depart from the Administration and more dovish colleagues on this question. If this is a six-month agreement, I think there is virtue in Congress making it clear what happens after the six months are up if the negotiations fail to produce a more permanent agreement. Passing sanctions now, with a six-month trigger that the President can renew once or twice if he certifies real progress is being made, makes negotiating sense.
The trouble of course is that the Iranians will see this as pointing a gun at them while they sit at the negotiating table (there was a poster plastered all over Tehran recently with just that picture). The majlis will likely respond with some six-month trigger of its own. I don’t see that as a terrible thing. There is something to be gained by being clear with each other about the consequences of a negotiating failure in the next stage.
There is also something to be gained from clarity about what happens if there is a permanent agreement. The Congress may not like it, but it will need to act to lift sanctions and enable Iran to return from the penalty box we have put it in.
Security
The international community’s failure to respond effectively to India, Pakistan and North Korea as they each went nuclear has given Tehran good reason to believe that we won’t do much if they follow in that path. Even bombing won’t do much more than postpone what it at the same time make inevitable. For understandable and good reasons, we have no record of attacking a regime that succeeds in making nuclear weapons.
So somehow the non-nuclear path has to be made to look at least as secure for Tehran’s rulers as the nuclear path. That’s distasteful, but necessary. President Obama has already gone a long way in this direction by eschewing in his General Assembly speech last fall any intention of pursuing regime change in Iran. If Iran wants more than that, it will need to end the tense relationship with the U.S. it has cultivated and enjoyed for more than 30 years. And we will need to do likewise, reducing the threat of military action.
Rapprochement
That’s what diplomats mean when they talk about rapprochement. No one snuggles with someone they don’t trust. We don’t trust Iran. They don’t trust us. That makes snuggling dangerous.
Building trust is something that requires a far broader effort than what has been going on between us in Geneva in the last month or so. The Iranians understand that. Witness their Foriegn Minister’s unsuccessful Youtube video. We do the same stuff: our virtual embassy has been up and running for years, with little detectable effect on the Iranian leadership.
Trust requires personal contact. Apart from President Rouhani’s fall visit and the Geneva meetings, there is precious little other than the nuclear negotiations themselves. The various Track 2 dialogues (those are unofficial meetings to discuss substantial isses) have been useful, but their reach into Iranian and American society is limited. We need far broader exchanges to build trust: between universities, thinktanks, parliaments, research centers. That is going to take a long time, as it did with the Soviet Union and with China.
Verification
In the meanwhile, we need verification. Even if we decide in favor of rapprochement, we will want to be morally certain that Iran is not violating a permanent nuclear agreement behind our backs. There is good reason to believe that they conducted some nuclear weapons research and development in the past. They have not owned up to that or allowed verification at key sites. This makes trust harder than it would be otherwise, and verification all the more necessary.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been good at verification in the past, and Iran has reached agreement with it on important issues. The IAEA will be the centerpiece of any verification effort. But neither the Americans nor the Israelis will be satisfied with only the IAEA. They will maintain their own national means for verification, but Israel (which has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty) will refuse the IAEA access to its own nuclear facilities. NPT parties and non-parties are not equal. Verification will be lop-sided, and therefore difficult to arrange with Tehran, which is highly sensitive to any sign of “disrespect.”
Bottom line
The next six months are more important to resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue than the last six. Getting a permanent nuclear agreement will require progress on sanctions, security, overall rapprochement, and verification that will not be easy.
Deal, or no deal?
The nuclear talks with Iran are officially with the P5+1 (that’s the US, UK, France, Russia and China). But they are increasingly looking like a negotiation (at a distance) between Israel and Iran, with the P5+1 acting as mediators and looking for a mutually acceptable compromise. What are the odds of finding one? It depends on what we all call leverage. That comes from being able to walk away, because you’ve got a “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA) that you prefer over the agreement on offer.
Iran’s BATNA is clear: it can continue its nuclear program, which entails continuing also to endure increasingly tight sanctions as well as the risk an Israeli or American attack. President Rouhani doesn’t like this option, because he has promised Iranians relief from sanctions, improved relations with the rest of the world, and an improved economy. Iranians are not interested in going to war. But Supreme Leader Khamenei can still veto any proposed agreement. There is every reason to believe he would do so if somehow his negotiators dared to bring home an agreement that completely dismantled Iran’s nuclear program, blocking it from any future enrichment (or reprocessing). Read more
Yes, Syria can get worse
The Syrian Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (Etilaf) decided yesterday that it would go to a Geneva 2 diplomatic conference:
The G[eneral] A[ssembly] [of Etilaf] endorsed the Syrian Coalition’s readiness to participate in a Geneva conference based on the transfer of power to a transitional governing body (TGB). This body should include full executive powers including presidential powers with control over military and security apparatus. Furthermore, the Assad Regime and those associated with him will have no role in the transitional period and future Syria.
The Syrian Coalition stipulates that prior to the conference access for relief convoys, including the Red Cross and the Red Crescent IFRC and other international relief agencies, to all besieged areas must be ensured, and prisoners, especially women and children, must be released.
What this “based on” language does is to make Bashar al Asad’s removal from power not a precondition for talks as in the past but instead Etilaf‘s desired outcome in the future. Humanitarian access and release of prisoners are standard demands in situations such as this. Likely the Syrian regime will be prepared to offer half a loaf: a few humanitarian convoys and release of some women and children.
There really wasn’t much choice. Washington has been insisting that the Coalition agree to Geneva 2, posing the question as a choice between dealing either with Al Qaeda or with the regime. A refusal to go to Geneva 2 would have led to withdrawal of Western support. Perhaps even the Saudis were convinced to condition their assistance on a start to negotiations.
The truth is that the relatively moderate opposition will need to deal with both Al Qaeda and the regime, one way or the other.
Etilaf is not strong enough to do it with military force. Today’s news includes a regime offensive to retake Aleppo’s airport. Iranian and Russian military assistance to the regime is flowing unrestrained. Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has become dominant in Raqqa, the one provincial capital in opposition hands and is strengthening across the north. The Supreme Military Council, the military affiliate of Etilaf and nominal coordinator of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) brigades, is less and less in evidence.
There is no sign it is strong enough to counter the regime and ISIS with politics either. Wisely, Etilaf is sending people into Syria to talk with opposition supporters in advance of Geneva 2. They will get an earful. Opposition activists are disappointed with Etilaf, which has been unable to deliver governance and services to liberated areas. Many people inside Syria lean more towards negotiating with the regime, as they hope it will end the military’s campaign against the population. But they have little trust in the mostly expatriate Etilaf to do it.
Etilaf, broadened with some representation of the FSA and opposition activists from inside Syria, may have no choice but to go to Geneva 2. But talks are unlikely to produce a political settlement any time soon. The regime sees no reason to allow itself to be decapitated. It will want Etilaf to agree to participate in the 2014 presidential elections, with Bashar al Asad as a candidate. Doing so would be fatal to the moderate opposition and leave Syria’s fate to a battle between extreme Islamists and the regime.
That is likely in any event. Power today in Syria grows from the barrel of a gun, supplemented by humanitarian assistance. Extremists are proving better at both than Etilaf, which has the additional disadvantage of fickle Western friends. As Syrians see it, the Americans not only backed off bombing of Syria’s chemical weapons facilities but are also now cozying up to Iran in an effort to reach a nuclear deal.
Whom would you back? You have a choice:
- the guys with long beards inside Syria capable of protecting you against the regime and feeding you, even if their methods are brutal and their religious practices oppressive, or
- the closer-shaven ones who meet outside the country, command no army and can’t even convince the internationals to bring their humanitarian assistance in from Turkey and Jordan.
Geneva 2 is unlikely to produce a political settlement. But even if it does, the war will not end because the negotiators there won’t command the extremist fighters. Those who think things can’t get worse in Syria are in for a surprise.
Peace picks, November 11-15
The Federal government is closed Monday for Veterans Day but the rest of the week has lots of peace and war events. The Middle East Institute Conference (last item) is not to be missed:
1. How to Turn Russia Against Assad
Tuesday, November 12th, 2013
6:00pm
Rome Building, Room 806
1619 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Samuel Charap
Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia, IISS
Jeremy Shapiro
Visiting Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program, Brookings Institution
Chair: Dana Allin
Editor of Survival and Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Affairs, IISS
A light reception will follow
No RSVP Required
For More Information, Contact SAISEES@jhu.edu or events-washington@iiss.org
Samuel Charap is the Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in the IISS–US in Washington, DC. Prior to joining the Institute, Samuel was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow at the US Department of State, serving as Senior Advisor to the Acting Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security and on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff.
Jeremy Shapiro is a visiting fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. Prior to re-joining Brookings, he was a member of the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff, where he advised the secretary of state on U.S. policy in North Africa and the Levant. He was also the senior advisor to Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon, providing strategic guidance on a wide variety of U.S.-European foreign policy issues. Read more
Giving pause
Nuclear talks in Geneva with Iran ended without an agreement and will reconvene November 20. The P5+1 (that’s US, UK, France, China, Russia+Germany) are mostly exuding confidence that an agreement can be reached. The talks did not break down, they paused. What blocked agreement? Reuters reports:
Diplomats said the main stumbling blocks included the status of Iran’s Arak heavy-water reactor of potential use in making bomb-grade plutonium, the fate of Iran’s stockpile of higher-enriched uranium – both acute issues for France – and the extent of relief from trade sanctions demanded by Tehran.
The first two are critical issues for the P5+1. Their purpose is to prevent Iran from accumulating all the material (either highly enriched uranium or plutonium) it needs for a quick or undetected sprint to build nuclear weapons. The third is Iran’s main concern. It desperately needs sanctions relief for its battered economy.
Criticizing from the sidelines is Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, who wants Iran’s ability to produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium destroyed completely and sanctions lifted only when that ambition is fulfilled. His hostility to an agreement that delivers anything less appears to have motivated France’s hard line in Geneva. While the press is treating this intransigence as a surprise, French President Francois Hollande is on the record saying: Read more