Tag: Russia
Bearly civil
Russia is not America’s “number one geopolitical foe,” as Governor Romney suggested in March, but newly reelected President Putin is definitely a pain.
His meeting with President Obama yesterday produced little or nothing on the two main issues for the United States: Syria and the Iranian nuclear program. Meanwhile, the Brits stopped a shipment of refurbished Russian attack helicopters headed for Syria, while the Iranians thumbed their noses at the U.S.-backed nuclear offer. It’s a good thing the nuclear talks, which are continuing today, are being held in Moscow, since that gives the Russians an incentive to float new ideas and prevent a collapse. The Russians will do what they can to pass the hot potato on to the next meeting, reportedly to be held in Beijing.
The problem isn’t so much that Russia is a geopolitical foe with the capacity to do America serious harm, which is what it was during the Cold War. The problem is that Moscow controls some things Washington needs, like the northern supply route to Afghanistan and the Security Council consensus on blocking Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. can manage without these things, but it can manage much better with them.
Presidents Obama and Putin looked none too pleased with each other yesterday at their meeting in Mexico, during a G-20 summit. Putin, who is trying to re-establish Russia’s great power status, figures sticking it to Obama will help him demonstrate that Russia is indispensible. Obama has both hands tied behind his back, because–contrary to what one of my Twitter followers suggested yesterday–he needs Putin’s help on Afghanistan and Iran, even if Russia is today a middling power.
This makes for an uncivil relationship, one that could end with tragedy in Syria and catastrophe in Iran. The Russian bear hasn’t got the capacity to project power that the Soviet one had, but it is leveraging its weakened position effectively. I share President Obama’s preference for multilateralism, which has virtues in particular for dealing with Iran and Syria. But it is important to keep open other options, if only to counter a middling power seeking to leverage its assets.
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Impotent superpowers
The significance of today’s joint Obama/Putin call for democratic transition in Syria is, as usual, in what is not mentioned. Neither the Russian arms shipments to the regime nor the Saudi and Qatari arms flowing to the opposition are mentioned. Ditto the suspended UN monitoring mission. There is no hint of intervention other than through the Annan plan and the UN Security Council. The Americans are essentially accepting the Russian emphasis on dialogue and peaceful means, while reiterating their hope for eventually democratic ends.
Hope is not a policy. The question is whether something else lurks behind these words. I doubt it. Note the emphasis in the statement on the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran. Note also the emphasis on supplying Afghanistan from the north. Russia is vital to both. Bucking Putin in Syria would not be smart if the higher priority is blocking Iran’s nuclear program from achieving “break out.” So long as Pakistan is blocking the usual land routes into Afghanistan, Russia is vital to NATO supply lines.
The statement is silent on Egypt. It appeals for North Korean implementation of a 2005 (sic) agreement. The Middle East peace process statements it references are more recent, but no more effective.
There is very little else in the statement that would excite my interest. I can’t imagine why Jackson-Vanik, legislation whose premises (non-market economy and restrictions on emigration) became obsolete years ago, is still in effect. Russia in the World Trade Organization is clearly going to be better for the United States than Russia outside. But I’ve got to give Putin and Obama extra credit for this:
This year we together celebrate the 200th anniversary of Fort Ross in California, which was founded by Russian settlers and underscores the historic ties between our countries.
Anodyne is not a policy either, unless you want to convey how impotent the former superpowers have become.
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Shifting sands
Uncertainty is breaking out all over the Greater Middle East.
With Crown Prince Nayef’s death in Saudi Arabia, the House of Saud will soon have to look past its octogenarian leadership to the next generation, with all the uncertainties that implies. Will the next generation be as attached to religious and social Wahhabi conservatism as the current one? Will it open an era of serious reform?
The suspension of the UN monitoring effort in Syria presages an increase in violent conflict with a highly uncertain outcome. Russia seems determined to keep Bashar al Assad in power, though its Foreign Minister denies it. Iran will certainly exert itself in that direction. I doubt the armed rebellion can beat the Syrian security forces any time soon, but we could see a lengthy insurgency fed by Saudi and Qatari arms shipments through Turkey.
The only real certainty in Egypt is that the military is trying to hold on to power. Whether it can and what the consequences will be is highly uncertain, as are the results of today’s presidential election. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has arrogated to itself legislative power, which means it now has to deal with Egypt’s economy and social problems along security and law and order. I don’t know any military establishments equal to that task, but the risk of new parliamentary elections may be greater than the SCAF wants to run. It could end up forced to rule Egypt, likely badly, for some time to come.
Iraq‘s Prime Minister Maliki has faced down a parliamentary rebellion but Al Qaeda has renewed its murderous attacks against the country’s Shia. If they succeed in reigniting Iraq’s sectarian warfare, the promise of a relatively democratic society that produces a lot of oil will evaporate, leaving a bitter residue.
Iran‘s Supreme Leader Khamenei has concentrated power as rarely before in the Islamic republic’s history, but American and Israeli threats of military attack against it nuclear program make prediction even a year out difficult.
After ten years of rule by Hamid Karzai, even Afghanistan faces the uncertainty of an election (to be held no one knows when in 2013 or 2014) in which he will not be running and an end to the NATO combat role shortly thereafter.
I needn’t mention next month’s elections in Libya or the aging leadership in Algeria, where military success in repressing Al Qaeda in the Maghreb seems to have pushed the militants into the Sahel, where they are destabilizing several other countries.
A region that enjoyed decades of stability–some would say stagnation, much of it autocratically imposed–now registers high volatility. Of course volatility can move in either direction: there are possible positive developments as well as negative ones. Tunisia has pushed the envelope in the positive direction. Yemen seems to be making progress against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and affiliates, though some think the government offensive and U.S. drone attacks are creating more extremists than they are killing. Morocco and Jordan have attempted some modest reforms that seem unlikely to suffice, but they may stave off open rebellion.
It is not easy to deal with uncertainty. Most experts would recommend triage and prioritization. Triage happens naturally. There are only a few Middle East problems that will make it to the President’s desk: Iran and Egypt most frequently, Afghanistan because of the American troops, and we can hope Syria when Obama meets with Putin this week at the G-20 in Moscow.
Prioritization of issues is harder. Even those who recommend it muddle exactly what they mean. Colleagues at the Carnegie Endowment recommend in a recent overview of the situation in the Middle East:
international actors should focus on a few, very specific issues for special emphasis, such as international human rights standards, the maintenance of existing treaty relationships, and the principle of peaceful settlement of international disputes.
But then they go on to recommend economic cooperation aimed at job creation, a non sequitur virtually guaranteed to disappoint expectations given limited U.S. resources and a track record of failure. Not to mention the difficulty of meeting human rights standards, since these require equal gender treatment not readily available in the workplace in many of the countries in question.
Shifting sands will make navigation in the Middle East difficult for a long time to come. I recommend to all my international affairs students that they learn Arabic, or another of the regional languages (Farsi most of all). Even if American oil production continues to reduce already low U.S. dependence on the Middle East, the global oil market and the extremist movements the region has spawned will ensure we remain engaged there for a long time to come, triage and prioritization notwithstanding.
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Democracy fails between elections
Newly arrived Middle East Institute summer intern Ilona Gerbakher writes:
While the world is significantly more democratic today than it was twenty years ago, there have been notable failed transitions. Political scientists Danielle Lussier and Jody Laporte gave a joint talk Tuesday at the Woodrow Wilson Center on “The Failure of Democracy in Post-Soviet Eurasia.” Lussier focused on the regression to authoritarian rule in Russia under Vladimir Putin. Laporte investigated the ways in which three post-Soviet authoritarian regimes – Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan – deal with political opposition between elections. Lussier and Laporte chart the decline of freedom in former communist countries, and ask the question, “why did democracy fail to survive in Russia and the Eurasian republics?”
The case of Russia is perplexing, as it is an outlier in the context of democratization theory. Its level of wealth, education and history of independent statehood suggest Russia should be more politically open than it is today. Lussier presented a graph which showed that, since 1998, Russia’s domestic policies have been backsliding into authoritarian territory. Examples of this backsliding include passage of laws that have obstructed the formation of political parties, cancellation of elections and legislation that curtails freedoms of press and association.
Lussier rejects the three common explanations for the return to authoritarianism in Russia. First of these is that Russia’s elite is insulated from popular pressure by hydrocarabon wealth. Second is that Russia’s history instilled a cultural preference for authoritarian rule. Third is that the failure of liberalization in the 1990’s discredited democracy in Russia.
She suggests an alternative explanation: that the Russian public failed to constrain the Russian political elite. Elite constraining activities, such as building and supporting opposition parties and campaigns as well as public acts of political dissent, are a vital check on the tendency of governments to centralize power in economically or politically difficult periods. The Russian public more consistently engages in elite-enabling activities that support hegemonic parties.
One elite-enabling activity, contacting public officials to perform private favors, is the single (non-voting) political activity with the highest public participation. Other forms of non-voting political participation have steadily declined for the last two decades. They are episodic rather than repetitive. Young people are the least politically engaged sector of society. The decline in political participation preceded the decline in political openness (and the rise of authoritarianism) in Russia.
Laporte shifted the focus from Russia to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakstan. Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the only post-Soviet democracies are Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The rest are non-democracies, because vote fraud and voter manipulation is endemic. Elections are neither free nor fair. In order to investigate the inner-working of these authoritarian regimes, Laporte examined the way that they treat political opposition between, as well as during, elections.
In all three countries, the election committees are dominated by pro-government officials, state resources are abused in order to mobilize support for the government, and vote fraud is endemic. Opposition parties are prevented from registration in various ways, their space for campaigning is limited, and opposition party operatives are often harassed.
Between election cycles differences emerge. In Kazakhstan, repression of opposition parties is constant and unconditional. All opposition groups and operatives are targeted, the dominant tactic is violent repression, and the goal of the government seems to be to completely eradicate the opposition. In Georgia, repression of opposition parties between elections is intermittent, the targets are random, the dominant tactic of repression is public and private criticism by government officials (acts of violence against opposition groups are rare), and the intent seems to be harassment rather then eradication of the opposition. In Azerbaijan, repression of opposition parties is reactive and the targets are contingent upon circumstances, with more opposition parties are being targeted in recent years. The main goal is to discourage criticism of the government. The dominant tactic is judicial, such as high court fines levied against protestors. Why do we see these differences in the treatment of opposition groups? Laporte speculates that both the nature of the opposition party and patterns of political corruption are at play.
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The road to Damascus still runs through Moscow
Michelle Dunne and Dimitri Simes got it wrong in yesterday’s discussion on the PBS Newshour of Russia’s role in Syria. They failed to understand the main reason the Obama Administration hesitates to buck Moscow and offered a precedent–the 1999 Kosovo intervention–that can’t be mechanically applied in today’s conditions.
If only Syria were at stake and the Russians were tacitly on board, it would be foolish, as Simes suggested, for the Americans to hesitate to act without UN Security Council (UNSC) approval. They acted without approval in Kosovo without any serious backlash from Russia, which in 1999 was in no position to offer much resistance.
But that is not the current situation. Iran is also on the chess board. If the United States attacks Syria without Moscow’s concurrence, it will lose Russian participation in the P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. Your top national security priority for the moment is stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but you would put that goal at risk for the sake of Syria? Whether you believe stopping Iran can be done by diplomatic means or you think that military action will be required, you want to keep your powder dry and the Russians on side as much as possible.
Russia to boot is not the basket case it was in 1999, when it winked and nodded at NATO’s attack on Serbia, which after several months ended Belgrade’s repression and the expulsion of the Albanians from Kosovo. Simes conveniently forgot that Kosovo briefly threatened real problems between the United States and Russia, when Moscow seized the Pristina airport before NATO forces arrived there. But Russia was too weak and too broke to do anything more than putter around the runways. Moscow today is far better equipped with armed forces, hard cash and diplomatic support to respond than it was in 1999.
The key to solving the Syria problem is convincing Moscow that it risks losing everything when the Assad regime comes down. Diplomatic persuasion, not military action, is what is needed. At some point, Russia will realize that protecting its port access in the Mediterranean and its arms sales to Syria requires support to the successor regime. If Moscow fails to jump ship in time, the Russians will go down with it.
Moscow sounded a bit desperate yesterday underlining that its arms sales to Bashar al Assad violate no UN resolution or international law. True enough. What they violate is common sense and human decency. No one should be surprised that this is difficult for Vladimir Putin to understand. He is after all having his own problems with demonstrators. But even he by now understands that helicopter gunships are not the right way to deal with dissent.
When President Obama sees President Putin at the G-20 meeting in Mexico next week, Syria should be high on the agenda. The road to Damascus still runs through Moscow.
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The Syrian people still hold the key to Syria
Randa Slim writes:
During the recent discussions in Baghdad between the global powers and Iran, the United States rejected an Iranian proposal to add Syria and Bahrain to the discussion agenda. It might be worth pursuing this proposal at the next round of talks in Moscow. Time and again, Iranian senior officials have stressed the need for a political resolution to the Syrian crisis. They have been reaching out to different groups in the Syrian opposition. As the Western community keeps searching for a political solution in Syria, Iran might have some ideas about how to bring it about.
Iran will no doubt have ideas about Syria, but they won’t be ideas that Bashar al Assad’s opposition (or I) will like. The Iranians will want to get in Syria compensation for whatever they give the P5+1 (that’s the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) on nuclear issues.
Bahrain is a red herring. The Iranians don’t really expect the Americans to yield anything there, because it hosts the American Fifth Fleet. But the refusal of the Americans to yield to the Shia majority in Bahrain is a good analogy from Iran’s perspective to Tehran’s refusal to yield to the Sunni majority in Syria. Tehran will want to know: if majority rule is good for Syria, why isn’t it good for Bahrain?
From the perspective of Americans sympathetic with the rebellion, it would be best to keep the Syria issue separate.
If the impending American election is what restrains President Obama from taking action more vigorous action on Syria, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney loosened the constraint a bit last weekend by criticizing the President for not doing enough and calling for arming the opposition. The trouble with that proposition is that it is already happening and won’t likely alter the balance much. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing arms to what the Americans think are reliable recipients. It is unrealistic to expect that the violent side of the Syrian uprising will win the day, but it can likely sustain an insurgency indefinitely.
The more important constraint on President Obama is the need to keep the Russians on board for the p5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. Any overt American military move would likely cause Moscow to scuttle those talks and leave the Americans with the unhappy choice of military action or nothing in dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. Stopping Iran short of a nuclear weapon is one of America’s top foreign policy and national security priorities. It is unrealistic to expect the president to put it at risk with a military strike on Syria.
The fact is that no one has come up with anything demonstrably better than pursuing the Annan plan for Syria, though Andrew Tabler’s suggestion of an arms quarantine against the regime certainly merits consideration as a supplement. The key to making the Annan plan work is moving Bashar al Assad out of power so that work can begin on a political process. The Iranians and Russians will do this once they see him teetering on the brink. He is not far from that point. I still think the best way to put him there is through nonviolent means, like the general strikes that have recently plagued Damascus and other cities. It is very hard to crack down on large numbers of merchants for not opening their shops in the souk.
The Syrian people still hold the key to Syria.
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