Tag: Saudi Arabia
Fin de regime
My guess is that we are finally in the waning days of the Asad regime in Syria. UN envoy Brahimi was in Damascus yesterday and will talk with the Russians this weekend. His is sounding like a last ditch effort. Moscow has made it clear that it will no longer prop up Asad. Now they have to be convinced to give him a shove in the right direction. It shouldn’t be all that hard. Bashar’s military police chief has famously absconded, joining his foreign ministry spokesperson. The regime is cracking, though not yet crumbling.
This is a delicate moment in which a great deal is at stake. The devil is in the details. Brahimi is still pressing for a solution that jibes with last June’s Geneva agreement, which Moscow and Washington both endorsed, on formation of a fully empowered government with Bashar still in place. I doubt the revolutionaries will accept it. They want him out before agreeing to a ceasefire. Provided that condition is met, a negotiated transition of power to some sort of “unity” government (which means it would include a “remnant” of the Asad regime) with a guarantee of a future transition could be a good thing, provided it genuinely puts Syria on a democratic path and extracts it from the violence now on going. But it could also sell the Syrian revolution short by putting a new autocrat in place and creating conditions for renewed violence.
There will be precious little real international support for a true transition to democracy. The Saudis and Qataris, who have provided the bulk of the arms and money to the revolutionaries, are not much interested in anything beyond getting Asad out and installing a Sunni (preferably Islamist) regime, democratic or not. The Russians, Iranians and Iraqis will fear that outcome and want to preserve a secular regime, whether democratic or not. The Americans and Turks will want a secular democracy, but they are not in a position to insist on it. The Americans have been reluctant to get too involved. Only if Turkey decides to put its boots on the ground inside Syria will it have the kind of clout required. Even then, it may fail to get what it wants.
The Syrians hold the key to the outcome. But of course they point in many different directions. There are lots of Syrians who would prefer a secular democracy, but they are stronger among the nonviolent protesters than among the revolutionary military forces deciding the outcome. The Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, now recognized internationally as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, is trying to project a unified and moderate image. But the results so far are rudimentary: a few press statements, not always on the most pressing issues. There is still no transition government.
Jabhat al Nusra, a leading Islamist group among the fighters, is producing more substantial results. Rejecting the Coalition, it is anti-Western, Islamist, socially conservative and hard-fighting. The United States has designated it a foreign terrorist organization. Washington’s primary concern is its links to al Qaeda in Iraq, which Jabhat al Nusra denies. But I’ve also heard that the designation was done in part to please the Russians, who are genuinely (and justifiably) concerned with Syria becoming a source of Islamist extremism that could infect parts of Russia. Baghdad is also worried about a Sunni extremist regime in Syria that would try to counter Prime Minister Maliki’s increasingly Shia (and autocratic) drift in Iraq.
Few in Syria want the state to collapse or divide territorially. The revolution has not been fought on ethnic or sectarian grounds, even if it has exposed ethnic and sectarian divisions. Only Syria’s Kurds lean in the direction of federalism, inspired and supported by their confrères in Iraq. But I see no real plan on the horizon to prevent revenge killing, despite the very real likelihood it will happen. If there is extreme violence against the Alawites or other minorities thought to have supported the regime, collapse and division become more likely.
All decisions that depend on the will of a single individual, as Bashar’s to step aside does, are inherently unpredictable. There is of course the possibility he will refuse and hang on for a while, even defying the Russians to do so. A Google search for “fin de regime” turns up a lot of hits concerning Syria, in 2011. The longer this goes on, the worse it will be in the end.
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Bashar al Asad’s apocalypse
I published a daring series of predictions at the end of last year. Very few were correct. The only two that came close were these:
Balkans: Serbia gets candidacy status for the EU but that fails to save President Tadic’s Democratic Party from a parliamentary election defeat. Kosovo meets all the requirements but continues to be denied the European Union visa waiver. Bosnia gets a new government but no constitutional reform.
United States: Republicans nominate Mitt Romney. Economy continues slow recovery. Barack Obama is reelected, by a smaller margin than in 2008. Al Qaeda succeeds post-election in mounting a non-devastating suicide bombing.
Even then, you’ll need to ignore the part about Kosovo meeting all the requirements (it hasn’t yet) and that last part about a successful Al Qaeda bombing in the U.S. (that hasn’t happened yet either). Is it an accident that the two places I know best were also the subject of my most accurate predictions?
I’ll rely on other people for my next big prediction: Andrew Tabler and Jeff White, who know Syria much better than I do, were at the Washington Institute yesterday predicting the end of the Asad regime within weeks, at most a few months. Even if the Mayan apocalypse hasn’t happened, Bashar al Asad’s will.
According to Jeff, the regime’s military capacity to defend itself is way down. Its air power, artillery and Scuds are little avail. Its large-scale maneuver capacity is declining, as are its numbers. There is fighting in 12 of 14 provinces. Regime armor and mechanized infantry can no longer move freely. The only potential major game changers out there are Hizbollah, Iran and chemical weapons. Iran and Hizbollah are not likely to risk more than they already have.
Rebel offensive performance is improving. They are taking objectives and interrupting lines of communication. They appear to be self-sustaining now in arms, their numbers are still growing, and they are capable of more sustained and coordinated action. The Islamists are playing an increasing role. Rebel losses are up, especially among commanders, but their recruitment stream is still strong.
Jeff suggest five possible endgames:
1. Province by province dismantlement of the regime, which has already begun.
2. Chaotic collapse of the regime.
3. Controlled regime contraction to Damascus or the coast.
4. A headlong rush to the coast.
5. Regime recovery, which looks unlikely.
Possible indicators the end is near: there may be desperate pleas for a ceasefire, evacuation of Russian nationals, senior defections or flight, military units abandoning the regime, a coup attempt and last (but not entirely in jest) burning papers at the Iranian Embassy.*
Andrew agreed. There is a marked deterioration in the humanitarian situation, with food in short supply, refugee and displaced people camps overcrowded and ill-equipped. The revolution is turning in an Islamist direction, in part because of U.S. unresponsiveness to its needs. Anti-Western sentiment is strong. It was a mistake to designate Jabhat al Nusra as a terrorist organization before recognizing the Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
The Coalition remains badly divided by sect, class, rural/urban and by personality. While the military and civilian leaderships have met and issued a joint statement, how the two insurgent efforts will be combined at various levels is not at all clear. The armed rebellion, with which the U.S. is not well-connected, is likely to be in the lead once Bashar falls. The U.S. should be sending arms, more to gain influence than anything else, as they are no longer needed as much as once they were for military purposes. We need to be ready also with civilian assistance, which has been too slow. The aid should be overt and direct, not covert and indirect, if we want to gain influence over the outcome. Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia may well move faster than we do, as they have with arms, with consequences for our interests.
It is clear Syria will need a lot of help once this is over. Post-war reconstruction has stumped the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it has boots on the ground, which isn’t going to happen in Syria. Working through and with the Coalition, which we’ve now recognized as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, to produce a decent outcome is going to be an an enormous challenge. Failure could ignite a broader conflict in Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Success would damage Hizbollah and Iran. This one is worth a candle.
*This morning I would add use of cluster bombs.
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The Gaza war in regional context
While the news media is mainly focused on the exchanges of rocket and air attacks between Israel and Gaza, my guess is that the broader regional picture will be decisive in determining the course and outcome of this latest outbreak of war in the Middle East. Here is a rundown of that broader picture:
1. Egypt: Cairo is trying to broker a ceasefire, with rhetorical support from the Arab League, but the Egyptian Prime Minister’s visit to Gaza Friday made it clear that the Muslim Brotherhood-led government will be more sympathetic to Hamas than Hosni Mubarak. Still, Egypt is in a tight spot: continuation of the war will attract militants to Gaza and the Sinai as well as send an already weak Egyptian economy into a tailspin. While Hamas has roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, a democratic regime in Egypt has to worry that Egypt’s citizens, sympathetic as they are to the plight of the Palestinians, will not want to sacrifice too much on their behalf. A ceasefire could restore Egypt’s role as a key regional player.
2. Syria: There has already been an exchange of artillery fire between the Syrian regime and Israel, something that hasn’t happened in a long time. Bashar al Asad may well look to military action on the Golan front in an effort to rally his remaining support and try to divert attention from his war against the Syrian revolution, now more than a year and a half old. The Syrian army won’t have a lot of spare capacity to challenge Israel, but it won’t want to be left out of the fight if the war continues.
3. Jordan: The protest movement against the rule of King Abdullah has intensified. The monarchy will not want to divert security forces to a fight against Israel, with which it maintains good if not warm relations. If the protests are successful, the king will be weakened further. A more constitutional monarchy might well be less friendly to Israel, but still unwilling to risk conflict.
4. Hizbollah: On the Lebanese front, Hizbollah is the main military force. It is already heavily engaged fighting against the revolution in Syria, but it could presumably make Israel’s situation more difficult by joining in the rocket barrage. Its record fighting Israeli ground forces is significantly better than Hamas’, so the Israelis would hesitate to engage on both fronts. But Hizbollah will be reluctant to aid Hamas, which has fallen out with the Syrian regime Hizbollah is supporting.
5. Gulf Cooperation Council: The Saudis and the other GCC states have not generally engaged directly against Israel, but the visit last week of the Emir of Qatar to Gaza (and his promise of financing) suggest that they may play a behind the scenes role bankrolling Hamas and others willing to challenge Israel. This could significantly attenuate the quiet but growing accommodation between Israel and the Sunni Arab world.
6. Turkey: Turkey and Israel seemed headed for rapprochement that would cure the 2010 rift over the Israeli attack on a Turkish aid flotilla headed for Gaza. This now seems much less likely. Turkey’s Islamist government will have to give at least verbal support to Hamas and hesitate to appear to paper over its differences with Tel Aviv.
7. Iran: Many of the larger rockets in Hamas’ arsenal come from Iran, which must be enjoying watching the Israelis engage in Gaza rather than carrying out the threat to destroy Tehran’s nuclear facilities. Iran will no doubt provide Hamas, Hizbollah and Syria as much assistance as it can spare in its sanctions-weakened state, hoping to keep the Israelis preoccupied.
8. The wider Arab world: Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen and Sudan all have their own problems that preclude more than rhetorical engagement in the Palestinian cause. Marc Lynch notes that mobilization in the Arab world so far is limited but could well intensify. The Arab street, which presumably has a louder voice today than before the Arab awakening, is certainly sympathetic to the Palestinians. And it is far more likely to support Hamas’ more aggressive military approach to Israel than the Palestine Liberation Organization’s diplomatic push for membership for membership in the United Nations.
Bottom line: Egypt likely has the decisive role in determining whether this war remains, like the one in 2008/9, a bilateral affair or turns into a wider conflict with more permanent consequences. But Iran, Hizbollah, and Turkey are also important players. If Israeli ground action lines up all the regional forces in favor of Hamas, the unintended consequences could be dramatic.
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Yemen isn’t working
Daniel Byman, Brookings fellow and the moderator of Tuesday’s event about “Yemen and the Fight Against a Resurgent al-Qaeda,” noted that Yemen has become increasingly important in Washington over the past decade. Despite this, few understand Yemen. American political leaders have not found a successful strategy to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” al-Qaeda in Yemen. Ibrahim Sharqieh of Brookings Doha and Gregory Johnsen, Ph.D. candidate at Princeton, did not claim the expertise to address moral or legal questions about drone strikes, but they questioned their effectiveness in achieving U.S. objectives.
Sharqieh noted the fluctuations of U.S. interest in Yemen over the past 14 or 15 years. Until the Yemeni people elected a new president in parallel with “Arab Spring” reformation movements across the Middle East, the U.S. cooperated with the Ali Abdullah Saleh regime. When the al Qaeda threat was high, the U.S. gave Yemen more assistance, attention, and aid money. When the threat was low, the Yemen issue would be replaced with other more pressing foreign concerns. This approach makes it in Yemen’s interest to have some al Qaeda presence. Johnsen agreed that a mutually dependent relationship has formed between new President Hadi and the U.S. Hadi needs the U.S. because he lacks domestic support and the U.S. needs Hadi to continue its drone strikes. Sharqieh explained that this relationship excludes the Yemeni people from the discussion of fighting al Qaeda increasing a sense of alienation.
Sharqieh proposed a new approach focused on political settlement, development and local ownership of the conflict against al Qaeda. First, the Yemeni political transition must be successful in order to provide hope for the people and reinforce the nonviolence of the Yemeni uprising. The Iran-backed north, separatist south and influence of the old regime are barriers to the success of the political settlement. Second, the U.S. should adopt a sustainable assistance program to combat the serious challenges to stability: the 46% unemployment rate, 56% of people under the poverty line, 300,000 suffering from malnutrition, and significant illegal immigration. Third, Yemenis need to feel ownership of the al Qaeda threat. Many resent the U.S. drone attacks as a violation of national sovereignty.
Johnsen agreed that the “Yemen Model” for fighting terrorism has not been effective. It was on the day of President Obama’s inauguration in 2009 that Said Ali al-Shihri announced the joining of al Qaeda‘s Saudi branch with a Yemeni contingent to form al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In December 2009, Secretary of State Clinton added the organization to the list of known terrorist groups and the U.S. carried out its first drone attack in Yemen. Days later al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula placed a suicide bomber on a plane to Detroit. From the Christmas Day failed attack to today, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has grown from 200 or 300 to anywhere from 1,000 to 6,000 members.
How has the organization grown so quickly? Civilian deaths in drone attacks are partly to blame, Johnsen believes, in addition to economic and humanitarian challenges. The U.S. views Yemenis as terrorists and non-terrorists, but al Qaeda members in Yemen might also be tribal figures, community leaders, friends or family. Yemen is not like Afghanistan where al Qaeda members are often easily identifiable foreigners.
“Yemen is a broken country,” Johnsen said, and the path forward for the U.S. will not be easy. The U.S. cannot win the fight against al Qaeda alone. Yemeni tribes and Saudi Arabia are well-positioned to help, if they want to do so. The Obama administration has never explicitly defined for a foreign or domestic audience the moral or legal framework in which the drone strikes operate. It is possible that the U.S. has burned all bridges that could have encouraged tribal allies to take up the fight against al Qaeda, but Washington could improve the prospects with an apology for past civilian deaths and an honest effort to find a better strategy.
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How do you say fast and furious in Arabic?
I’m surprised the American-imposed limits on arms transfers to the Syrian opposition from Qatar and Saudi Arabia are front page news today in the New York Times. It has been common knowledge for some time that the United States does not want shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons (man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS) transferred to Syrian rebels. Anti-tank weapons are likewise blocked.
I thought it obvious why. But apparently not, so let’s review the merits of the case. These weapons pose a serious threat to commercial aircraft and other civilian targets. Washington does not want to transfer weapons that fall into extremist hands and are then used against Americans. “Fast and furious” comes to mind–the scandal surrounding a transfer of guns to Mexican drug cartels in order to track them that ended in the murder of American border patrol agent. So, too, does the Washington-sponsored mujahideen effort against the Soviets in Afghanistan, which armed radical Islamist forces that are now fighting against the Americans.
Rumint has it that there are hundreds of thousands of MANPADs already in circulation. If so, it is hard to understand how none have made it into Syria. I am told that American ones come with a difficult-to-replace 90-day battery. If effective, that would make them relatively unattractive. I don’t know whether Russian, Chinese, Iranian, British and other systems have similar immobilizing measures. There have been a number of incidents in which MANPADS have been used against civilian aircraft: in Rhodesia, Georgia, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Iraq. Some attempts were successful, others not. It does not take a lot of imagination to picture why officials in Washington would worry about MANPADS getting into the wrong hands.
Anti-tank weapons come in a bewildering variety, wire-guided and not. Some seem to have made their way to Syria, where the rebels have often destroyed the regime’s tanks. I have a hard time understanding why Washington would worry much about the transfer of these weapons, especially if they are already in theater. It would of course be wiser to transfer them to more reliable people, but war doesn’t allow a lot of fine distinctions to be made.
A birdie tells me that the Syrian opposition is getting all the AK-47s and other “light” weapons it needs. It is not doing them a whole lot of good. The Syrian army is using artillery, tanks, snipers and the occasional aircraft to project force far beyond the range the rebels can target effectively when they shoot back.
The real question for Washington at this point is whether to allow the Syrian opposition to get MANPADS, which it would use to enforce a de facto no-fly zone over the areas that it controls. This could level the playing field and allow the opposition to hold on to liberated areas. I haven’t been enthusiastic about the arming of the opposition, not the least because it strengthens extreme Islamist and other anti-democratic forces that should not inherit Syria from the Asad regime. But with the civic opposition yesterday demonstrating in favor of arming Free Syrian Army, it is hard to oppose a shift in Washington’s stance that would allow MANPADS with appropriate self-limiting technology and anti-tank weapons to reach it.
U.S. government officials have been insisting that they draw the line at “lethal” assistance, presumably to bolster their so far unsuccessful efforts to turn the Russians and Chinese around on Syria and allow a UN Security Council resolution with teeth to pass. But with Iran, Hizbollah and the Russians pouring arms and men into Asad’s efforts to crush the rebellion and Syria repeatedly firing artillery into the territory of NATO-member Turkey, isn’t it time to consider leveling the playing field, as the diplomats say?
If that shift takes place, we have to recognize that there is a real possibility that the weapons will some day be used us. How do you say “fast and furious” in Arabic?
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Arab women agree on problems, not solutions
Women have played important roles in the Arab awakening but they now face an uphill struggle to consolidate their gains.
During the first panel of this week’s Woodrow Wilson Center about “Women after the Arab Awakening,” participants discussed the problems facing women on the Middle East. Heads nodded and the audience, mostly women, groaned and laughed together. All cringed when speakers presented alarming legal and cultural setbacks for women and smiled or applauded for stories of courage or insightful comments about the status of women.
In the second panel, when the speakers were asked to identify a path forward, tensions flared. The audience tittered at provocative statements and the question and answer period turned into a heated argument. Underlying the tension, were important issues: the appropriate role of religion in government, the tension between Islam and feminism and the appropriate representation of minorities in democracies.
Dalia Ziada, one of Newsweek’s most influential women and CNN’s eight agents of change in the Arab World, sees politicians and political systems as only part of the problem. Culture is also responsible. Suzanne Mubarak advanced the status of women with the “khula” law giving women the right to divorce and other legislation allowing women to pass down their nationality. President Mubarak allocated 64 seats in the lower house of parliament to women. These legal successes did not result in meaningful improvement in status for women in Egypt because of culture. Most women who ran for office had connections to Suzanne Mubarak or other leaders and were often not considered competent.
Rihab Elhaj, co-founder of the New Libya Foundation, made a similar point. Eighty of the 200 seats in the Libyan parliament are allotted for political parties, which are required to include women alternately with men on their party lists. This helped women get 33 seats, but they have not yet taken on leadership roles because they are unconnected to leading male politicians.
In Tunisia, culture and social norms have also interfered with women achieving the status laws allow. Tunisia has a unique history of legislation promoting women’s rights. But when Omezzine Khelifa, a political party leader in Tunisia and adviser to the Minister of Tourism, proposed parity, many disagreed. Some thought it was not the time to deal with women’s issues. Others opposed a parity law because it suggests that women are incapable of getting into public office any other way. Parity in Tunisia passed, but as in Egypt it did not allow women to win 50% of the seats. Most political parties chose men to head their lists, so women won seats only if a party received enough votes to win multiple seats.
Fahmia Al Fotih, Yemeni journalist, also described cultural barriers. Several key women leaders during the revolution were subjected to harassment and even violence as a result of their participation in the protests. A barrier was erected to keep women and men separate, but some women chose to ignore the barrier in protest and were often beaten as a result. The National Consensus Government is composed of 35 members, of whom only three are women.
Not all problems in the Middle East can be attributed to patriarchal culture. There are real legal, physical and social barriers preventing women from reaching high positions. In Yemen, a humanitarian crisis has pushed political participation from many women’s minds as they struggle to feed their families. According to an Oxfam report this year, four out of five Yemeni women report that their lives have gotten worse in the past twelve months. Saudi blogger Hala Al Dosari recounted harassment by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a woman jailed for driving and a youth conference on the empowerment of civil society shut down at the last moment. Ziada expressed concern about possible Egyptian legislation allowing marriage at 14 and female genital mutilation. In Tunisia, Khelifa reported on the recent debate about whether women should be described as “complementary” or “equal” to men in the constitution. Al-Nahda’s draft of Article 28 to the constitution, which used the “complementary” wording, was defeated, but the debate will not be over until the constitution is finalized.
The second panel was intended to address what should be done to solve these problems. Syrian Honey Al-Sayed of Souriali Radio called for an effort to define equal roles for Syrian women now, before the revolution is over. Heads nodded in response, given that so many of the speakers had noted how optimistic they were about women’s rights during their revolutions and how things changed afterwards. Elhaj said that the change in Libya was not because of some Islamist scheme to remove women from the public sphere, but because of a natural reversion to the status of women prior to the revolution. Al-Sayed argued that Syria might be able to avoid this if there is a large-scale education campaign and civil society organizations are developed now.
Gabool Al-Mutawakel, Youth Leadership Development Foundation co-founder, made a similar argument for working to keep the spirit of the Yemeni revolution going, but she offered new insight: the problem facing women is the notion of “women’s issues.” She cited a female politician who preferred to talk about being a woman in politics rather than her policy ideas. Women will not succeed in Yemeni politics if the only areas about which they can speak with credibility are women’s issues. Women must not just represent women, but all of Yemen. Al-Mutawakel suggested we teach women about leadership, not just empowerment. We should also foster a culture of competition where women learn how to win and lose. Quotas can have the effect of killing a woman’s motivation to fight for a seat.
It was in this panel that tensions flared. Hanin Ghaddar, a Wilson Center Public Policy Scholar and editor of NOW News, saw an inherent contradiction between feminism and Islam and argued for separation of religion and state in Lebanon. The revolution taught her that small changes are no longer acceptable and that we need drastic, radical changes, which an Islamic government cannot offer. Yassmine ElSayed Hani, Wilson Center Visiting Arab Journalist, argued on the contrary that separation of religion and state is not realistic in Egypt. Sharia is a way of life that should not be reduced to the troubling laws in the Middle East that are supposedly based on it. About 80% of the Egyptian population is Muslim, so the government should reflect the majority of the population. Ghaddar argued in response that a democracy should protect the minority. Ziada suggested that Egypt may not need a religious government exactly because its population is so religious.
There is agreement about the problems women in the Middle East face, but disagreement on what to do about them.
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