Tag: Russia
Still the beginning
A lot of the news today about Syria is not only about Syria. Keeping your eye on Syria means watching:
- Russia: Secretary Kerry will be in Moscow this week trying to close the gap with the Russians, who have not wanted a political solution that begins by requiring Bashar al Asad to step down. It would be hard to do better for Russia experts than Michelle Kelemen’s piece this morning on NPR, but I confess they did not hit hard on what I think is the best bet for Kerry. Russia and the United States share an interest in preventing an extremist Sunni takeover of Syria. The longer the violence persists, the more likely that outcome is. A concerted, UN Security Council push for a political settlement that moves definitively to a post-Asad regime would not only help the Russians save face but also provide the best chance of blocking extremists.
- Israel: The Israelis have conducted more air raids into Syria, ostensibly to stop war materiel from shipment to Hizbollah. The Syrian government, which in the past has not acknowledged Israeli attacks, denounced them on Sunday, thus providing an opportunity to claim Israel is in cahoots with Syria’s revolutionaries and also raising the odds on retaliation. It would appear the air strikes did not trigger Syria’s much-vaunted, Russian-supplied air defense system. Some say that is because the Israelis entered Syria from Lebanon. Whatever. It still suggests that Syria’s air defense capabilities are over-rated. The US should be able to do at least as well as the Israelis.
- Jordan: The Syrian border with Jordan is now largely in revolutionary hands and refugees are pouring across into a country that was already under severe internal strain from political protests and economic downturn. The UN is projecting a million Syrian refugees in Jordan by the end of the year. Many wonder whether Jordan’s monarchy can meet the challenges.
- Lebanon: Israeli entry into Syria from Lebanese airspace gives Beirut something all parties can denounce, but at the same time it illustrates all to starkly the parlous state of Lebanese sovereignty. Lebanese Hizbollah and Sunni fighters are already killing each other inside Syria. They also clash occasionally inside Lebanon. Hizbollah has made it absolutely clear that it regards preservation of the Asad regime as vital to its own existence.
- Turkey: There are already something like half a million Syrian refugees inside Turkey, which is now blocking them at the border. The Turks have wisely reached a ceasefire agreement with their own Kurdish (PKK) rebellion, thus limiting the damage Damascus can do by supporting Kurdish militants. NATO exercises at Incirlik, close to the Syrian border, were presumably scheduled some time ago, but they occurring now and signal that Turkey has backing in preventing spillover from Syria. But Turkey still faces dissent from its anti-Asad posture from its own Turkish-speaking Alevi population (second cousins to the Arabic-speaking Alawites of Syria).
- United Nations: Carla Del Ponte, a Swiss member of a UN inquiry commission into human rights violations, suggested yesterday that it was the rebels, not the government, that had used sarin gas in Syria. The former prosecutor of The Hague Tribunal concerned with war crimes in former Yugoslavia, she has a previous record of making controversial statements that are difficult to confirm or deny. Best to wait for the UN chemical weapons experts to pronounce on the subject.
I’ll be posting later today on how the Syria crisis affects different political forces inside Iraq. Suffice it to say: the news is not good there either.
Inside Syria, the regime has been ethnically cleansing western parts of the country, presumably in preparation for making them an Alawite stronghold.
What we are seeing are developments–refugees, military exercises and operations, political maneuvering, ethnic cleansing, chemical weapons allegations–that challenge the state structures in the Levant and put many of them under severe strain. The strain is likely to get much worse, as there is little evidence of anything that would prevent a further slide. We are still at the beginning of this tragic story, not near its end.
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The Americans are coming
President Obama, bless his heart, is sending John Kerry off to Moscow next week to convince the Russians that something needs to be done about Syria’s use of chemical weapons. Yesterday’s leak that the President is considering supplying weapons directly to the opposition is presumably intended to strengthen Kerry’s hand in what must be an uphill push.
The smart money is betting the Russians won’t budge. I’m not so certain, but in any event Obama is doing the right thing to pursue them. He may eventually have to act without Russian concurrence, in order to maintain American credibilty in the eyes of the Iranian and North Korean regimes. But it would be far better reach a political accommodation that ends the Asad regime with the Russians on board, so as not to endanger their cooperation in the nuclear talks with Iran or the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Obama needs Moscow for both.
Kerry’s push could get some help from unexpected quarters. Missiles were fired yesterday at a Russian civil aircraft flying over Syria. There is no reason to believe the opposition has the capability to target aircraft at an altitude anywhere near 9000 feet. If they did, they would surely use the capability against the Syrian air force. The Russians were already busy denying that they were urging Hizbollah to withdraw from Syria. Someone in Moscow has to be scratching his head and asking if Russia is on the right side in Syria.
Russia need not change its mind and come over to the opposition. Great powers rarely do that. Russia wants to convince the world it is again a great power. A wink and a nod would suffice. That’s what Moscow did in Kosovo in 1999. The UN Security Council resolution legalizing that intervention passed after the war.
The really vital interest for Russia in Syria is to avoid a Sunni extremist takeover, which Moscow fears would infect its restive Muslim population in places like Chechnya and Dagestan. Here Obama and Putin are in the same sinking boat. What they’ve done so far has increased the likelihood of an extremist takeover in Syria, not decreased it. If Russia is serious about dealing a blow against jihad in Syria, it is becoming eminently clear that Bashar al Asad is not the guy to do it.
The Russians do not believe that Asad has used chemical weapons. I trust Kerry will be going to Moscow with a gaggle of intel analysts in tow to make the case. It will not be easy. The Russians don’t trust anything we say. Our record, from the Tonkin Gulf to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, is not a great one. Let’s leave aside “Remember the Maine!”
But I think there is good reason to believe chemical weapons have been used in Syria, likely to test our reaction to their use. If we don’t react, they’ll be used a bit more, slowly erasing that (red) line in the sand.
Obama might like to just ignore the challenge, as chemical weapons are no better at killing people than conventional arms and a good deal more difficult to handle. That’s where Iran and North Korea come in. If he fails to react to Syria’s use of chemical weapons, how will he convince Tehran or Pyongyang that there is a credible threat of military action against their nuclear programs? That threat is vital to any possibility of diplomatic success with either of them.
This gloomy picture could change dramatically if Moscow decides it has bet on the wrong horse and decides to abandon Asad. It’s not likely, but it’s highly desirable. Obama and Kerry are right to try.
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The dark side is the bright side
Here is my answer to the silly Benjamin Alter and Edward Fishman “The Dark Side of Energy Independence” published in the New York Times yesterday. They consider all the bad things that could happen in producing countries if oil prices decline to $50 per barrel because of increasing US production. Let’s leave aside the improbability that such a fall would be caused by relatively high-cost US oil and gas production, or the likelihood that Saudi Arabia and other OPEC producers would restrict their output to boost global prices. Sure, a fall to $50 is possible, especially in a period of slow economic growth.
Let’s instead remember that prices averaged around $60-65 per barrel as recently as 2009. In 1998, they were under $20 per barrel, having declined from nearly $100 (in today’s dollars) in 1980/81. So we have seen in the past even more dramatic oil price declines than Alter and Fishman are projecting. Did anything like the political consequences they dread come about? They predict instability in the Persian Gulf monarchies, especially Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and trouble for Vladimir Putin, who they say might turn to bullying his neighbors.
The short answer is “no.” The Persian Gulf monarchies have survived, and thrived, through many ups and downs in global oil prices. Putin has been at least as inclined to bully his neighbors (and defy the US) with oil prices high than when they were low.
More important: the United States should welcome a situation in which both the Gulf monarchies and Russia need to pay more attention to their populations’ discontents and less to where to invest the mountains of cash they are building up. Alter and Fishman acknowledge this with respect to Russia:
In the long run, of course, America would welcome a Russia that is more beholden to its people’s wishes than to fluctuations in energy markets. Washington should be under no illusions, however, that the transition to that point will be either smooth or linear, and it should prepare for turbulence along the way.
It seems to me it is Moscow that should prepare for turbulence along the way, not Washington. Manama and Riyadh should also worry.
What we should be doing is preparing for the next increase in oil prices, which is inevitable even if unpredictable. This means refilling at lower prices the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and maintaining our focus on energy conservation (especially fuel efficiency standards for cars) and non-hydrocarbon alternatives. It also means convincing Gulf producers to circumnavigate the strait of Hormuz with pipelines, including from Iraq’s southern oil fields to the north and west and across Saudi Arabia. And it means building the Keystone pipeline, with whatever safety measures are required to ensure environmental protection.
The United States has endured decades of increasing oil imports. Paying for them has weakened our position in the world and enriched antagonists. The only dark side to oil independence we should worry about is letting down our guard. I hope never again to see us pandering to Moscow or Riyadh because dependency on oil imports.
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Civilians >> chemical weapons
The “Salon” I did with Stanford’s Lina Khatib yesterday on “Should the U.S. intervene in Syria?” focused mainly on chemical weapons, as all conversations about Syria yesterday did.
Lina, who had published a piece with Larry Diamond on Thursday making the case for military intervention (arms to the rebels plus a no-fly zone but no boots on the ground) in Syria, is concerned not only about chemical weapons use, the evidence for which she regards as “credible,” but about the fertile ground for Islamist extremists and the impact on the region. The longer the fighting lasts, the worse it gets.
I don’t disagree with any of that. But it doesn’t matter whether she and I think the evidence of chemical weapons use is credible. What matters is what the Russians, Chinese, Turks and others think. If there is going to be serious military intervention in Syria by the United States, it is going to need multilateral cover, preferably a UN Security Council resolution as well as an Arab League request. The standards the evidence is going to need to meet are high. The world is in no mood for another Middle East war based on flimsy claims related to weapons of mass destruction.
It is going to take time to assemble the evidence and convince skeptics. Once we are ready, Peter Juul proposes a reasonable course of action to mobilize the UN Security Council and NATO (for both military action and humanitarian relief). If that fails, the US will have to consider unilateral action without multilateral cover, but that is a course of action with many drawbacks.
There is also a credibility issue in the other direction: if the US doesn’t act against Syrian use of chemical weapons, why would the Iranians believe that we would take action against their nuclear program? This is a serious problem, but it should not drive the timetable. Being 100% certain, and trying to convince others, is more important than the timing.
That is a cruel thing to say. Syrians are dying every day. The average is climbing towards 200 per day, 6000 per month. The total by now is well over 70,000. Those are staggering numbers. Few of them are killed by chemical weapons. Bombing, Scuds, artillery and small arms fire are much more common:
The targeting of civilians is a war crime, no matter what the weapons used. Civilians are more important than the weapons that kill them. The standards of proof are easily met. The Syrian security forces and their paramilitaries are attacking and killing civilians daily with conventional weapons.
I would like to see the international community act on those grounds, rather than focusing on a limited (and difficult to prove) use of sarin gas. But this is not the unipolar moment of 1999, when the United States led a NATO intervention in Kosovo without UN Security Council approval. That is unlikely to happen. So we are heading down a long road of difficult proof.
Some, like Leila Hilal on Chris Hayes’ show last night, would prefer a negotiated solution. So would I. But it is not looking as if Bashar al Assad is hurting badly enough to yield to the transition plans that Russia and the United States agreed in Geneva last June. The mutually hurting stalemate that would provide the conditions for that will require that the revolutionaries do a bit better than they have managed so far. More international assistance is going to be needed.
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Syria is not just about Syria
Lina Khatib and Larry Diamond have a good piece outlining the case for intervening in Syria over at theatlantic.com. They want the US to supply the opposition with weapons and to intervene from the air to redress the imbalance in favor of the regime, which is using its air force and Scuds to good advantage in preventing the revolution from consolidating (holding and building in COIN-speak) its control of liberated areas. Intervention would shorten the conflict and limit the damage to neighboring countries, which are suffering from overflow of both the conflict and refugees.
I buy their argument, but it is incomplete because it does not look at the bigger picture.
President Obama, as he pointed out some weeks ago in an interview, does not regard Syria as isolated from other issues, because it is not. The most important factors weighing against intervention have little to do with Syria and a lot to do with Russia.
Obama does not want to lose Russian support for the Northern Distribution Network (NDN). It is vital to US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Moscow could shut it down, thereby prolonging the American presence in Afghanistan. That is something the Russians would like because they fear the post-2014 consequences of withdrawal. Without the NDN, we would again be at the mercy of the Pakistanis for maintaining the pace of the withdrawal. That is not a good place to be.
The President also does not want to lose support for the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. The Russians have not only participated, they have also gone along with the sanctions that give the talks at least some slim hope of success. Of course they too don’t want Tehran to get nuclear weapons, but they might risk that if we act in Syria without their concurrence. Risking American prestige in an air war with Syria could also seriously diminish the credibility of any military threat to Iran, which is bleeding money and men in Syria without any risk to Americans.
Obama regards both the withdrawal from Afghanistan and preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons as higher priorities than ensuring Assad’s downfall.
The President also knows the American people will not be happy with another military intervention in the Middle East. This is not just because of war weariness, though that is real enough. Going to war while the sequester constrains the budget would cause serious strain on the Defense Department and likely end up crimping other priorities as well. If you are an advocate of a strong America, you should want to husband resources after more than a decade of war, not spend them in a place that is suffering mightily but is not a top American national security priority. An air war in Syria would also necessarily tip off the Syrians (and therefore also the Iranians and maybe also the Russians) to our latest and best technology, giving them a leg up in any future confrontation.
I can think of responses to all these issues, but if you don’t deal with them you haven’t made the case. Syria is not just about Syria.
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It isn’t branding
Milan Misic of Belgrade’s Politika asked a couple of questions. Here is how I replied, in an interview published today:
Q: Do you think that [Serbia’s] image is actually worsening instead of improving? And what…should Serbia start doing to re-brand herself?
A. I don’t think the problem is branding.
Serbia has benefited in recent years from an America that was willing to let bygones be bygones and a Europe that wanted Serbia in rather than out. This has meant openness to Nikolic and Dacic, both of whom had enough baggage from the 1990s to merit hesitation.
Rejection of the deal with Pristina will put Serbia in the deep freeze with both Washington and Brussels for some years. Both will try to continue to make nice (at least to Dacic and maybe even Vucic, who are not seen as the sources of the problem), but without much conviction. Serbia will find itself turning more and more to Moscow, which doesn’t seem much interested at this point as it has gotten most of what it wanted in the energy sector. I doubt the Americans and Europeans will begin to block IMF loans, but there will be many here who see that as our last remaining leverage.
Nikolic’s remarks at the UN last week were particularly egregious. Crimes against Serbs do not justify Serb crimes against others. Acquittals of others do not require acquittals of Serbs. His inability to see the Milosevic enterprise for what it was—a criminally violent effort to remove minorities from Serb-controlled territory—is truly odious. His claim that Serbia has always cooperated fully with the Hague Tribunal is laughable.
The best thing Serbia can do now to fix the problem it has created is to change its mind about the Pristina deal, which has never been published. They can announce proudly that they have gotten some adjustments (in fact I understand it contains provisions on police and justice that should relieve some anxieties in the north). There really is still time. But not much.
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