Tag: Syria
True courage
Just a Friday reminder from central Damascus that true courage is not lacking in Syria:
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Ingredients of success
I’m spending the day at the “The Arab Spring: Getting It Right,” the annual conference of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy in lovely Crystal City. Here are a few highlights.
The first session focused on the ingredients for successful democratic transitions. Here are my quick notes:
Dan Brumberg, Georgetown, in the chair:
- Systemic problems need systemic solutions: if you get rid of torture, you need forensics.
- Need process of consensus and pact-making.
- Religion is an important dimension of identity that needs to be part of that process.
Jason Gluck, USIP: constitution-making
- People need to know why they need a new constitution. What are the core principles they want enshrined there?
- Egypt: battles over timing, constitutional committee reflect lack of answers. Exclusiveness undermines the constitution-writing body.
- Tunisia: using simple majority, not consensus, in committees writing the constitution, with little outreach to civil society beyond Tunis.
- Libya: only four months for constitution-writing, which doesn’t allow deep consideration or public participation. Inclusivity is in doubt.
- Process matters more than constitutional content. Because it makes for legitimacy. Making a constitution is a political, not a legal exercise. It incarnates core values of the state and society.
- Not a drafting exercise but a national dialogue about needs and aspirations.
- Inclusive, participatory, consensual, transparent, deliberative processes are more likely to have good results.
Alfred Stepan, Columbia: transition needs these elements:
- Legitimate constitution written by a representative group.
- A government results from popular vote.
- Powersharing (with military or religious authorities) is not necessary
- The government has to have real authority over policy.
- Civil society more important in deconstructing autocracy than in reconstructing the state, which requires political society and leadership.
- Major transitions (end of WWII, 1989) have required international support, but Arab awakening is getting much less external assistance.
- Brumberg: ironically, opposition consensus building happens more in autocratic society like Tunisia rather than in more open one like Egypt.
Tunisia has been successful because parties have been talking with each other and developing consensus (pact-making) for a long time (since 2003)
Laith Kubba, National Endowment for Democracy: getting it right means avoiding chaos or crisis. Indicators:
- Military “neutralized” and under civilian control: Tunisia OK, Egypt not and militias are the problem in Libya.
- Security apparatus has to shift from protecting regime to protecting state.
- Economic equity has to increase.
- State institutions need to emerge that allow society to be free, including at local level.
- Democratic culture, including associations, free but responsible press.
- New elites emerging in political parties, youth groups, think tanks.
- Education improving.
Big risk: those who reject democratic culture as a foreign import.
Comment from a Tunisian participant, whose name I missed:
- Traditional solidarity was important in Tunisia. Reduced likelihood of revenge.
- So too was role of women.
The second session focused on regional and global impacts:
Radwan Ziadeh, Syrian National Council and Carr Center, Harvard
- Syria is not like Tunisia, Yemen or Libya. It is now more like Bosnia: international community hesitancy, political opposition cannot deliver so Free Syria Army is taking over, regime crimes are systematic.
- Hoping for protection of civilians in a safety zone along Turkish border by an Administration that includes people who made the mistakes in Bosnia.
- Three hundred observers are insufficient.
- Need for military action without UN Security Council approval, but UNGA (137 countries) and Friends of Syria provide cover.
- Everyone looking for U.S. leadership, but Washington is inhibited by domestic considerations, lack of oil interest.
- Arabs lack resources and legitimacy to act.
Brian Grim, Pew Research Center: Religion and the Arab Spring
- Government restrictions on religion are increasing in more countries and those with greater population before Arab spring.
- Problem is especially strong in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where constitutional guarantees for religious freedom are not strong and apostasy laws are prevalent, enforced both by governments and social hostilities.
- Restrictions on conversion 80% in MENA, where both government violence and social hostilities are prevalent.
Caryle Murphy, Woodrow Wilson Center: A View from the Gulf (especially Saudi Arabia)
- Arab Spring affects Saudi Arabia externally: Egypt, Bahrain, Iraq.
- Saudi effort is to manage and keep it away from the Gulf.
- Foreign policy activism: GCC confederation? First step with Bahrain?
- Riyadh is disappointed in the U.S., lack of confidence in U.S. willingness to intervene.
- Arab Spring also affects Saudi Arabia internally: TV, internet and Twitter have made young Saudis more aware of the rest of the world and want to be more like it. Ditto those studying abroad.
- But impulse is still evolutionary, not revolutionary. Unemployment is the big youth problem. Government is aware but will it move fast enough to accommodate youth demands for jobs and more freedom?
- Society still very conservative, political consciousness very limited, including both secularists and Islamists.
- Petitions for constitutional monarchy, Umma party formation led to government clampdown.
- Eastern Province: Shia very unhappy.
- Religion is a focus of debate, which is important because it is the foundation of legitimacy.
Aylin Unver Noi, Gedik University (Turkey): Regional Alignments
- Ankara has shifted foreign policy towards Middle East.
- Sunni resistance camp emerging, pro-Palestinian, Islamist-led, democratic governments.
- Revolution in Syria would cause it to join this camp, as Jordan might.
- Turkey concerned with Kurdish aspirations, especially PKK activities in Syria.
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Think twice
With U.S. officials saying–malgre’ moi–that the Annan plan is already failing, the White House is pledging to ramp up pressure on Syria. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has also held hearings looking for policy options.
They aren’t finding many, other than the now tired safe areas, humanitarian corridors, no fly zones and other euphemisms whose only real utility is to initiate what would no doubt be a lengthy and frustrating international military intervention with an uncertain outcome. Arming the opposition is another standby, but the perils of doing that have become more obvious with the continued fragmenting of the Syrian National Council, which was supposed to serve as the opposition “umbrella” and conduit for money. It just isn’t clear who might eventually benefit from the arms. Giving weapons to Sunni-dominated insurgents in Syria could have repurcussions in Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and beyond that would not be in the U.S. interest.
The one point of consensus in the testimony is provision of greater support to the in-country opposition, including intelligence about the movement of the Syrian security forces. This is eminently reasonable, but even those who say
The regime has had a far harder time dealing with civil resistance over the past year than armed resistance
still advocate support to the armed resistance, presumably to gain influence over it. That’s too bad, since armed resistance tends to discourage the more effective nonviolent resistance.
We can always tighten sanctions, or get someone else to tighten them, but it is in their nature that the easy and more obvious restrictions get done first. The extension of financial and travel sanctions to more and more marginal regime figures may net a few bad guys, but the marginal utility is likely to be low, unless we happen to hit a regime fixer more important than he appeared to be in the first round. A look at who is still buying Syrian oil might turn up something interesting we could accomplish, and it would likely be useful to extend some of the sanctions on Iran’s banking system to Syria. But let’s be clear: doing that will unquestionably make life even harder than it has been for ordinary Syrians.
The sad fact is that there is not much else we can do to raise the costs to Bashar al Assad, unless we are prepared to take military action. Despite White House mumbling about ramping up pressure, my sense is that we are nowhere near that decision. There are good reasons for this. Apart from all the tactical difficulties of attacking Syrian forces that are inside major population centers, the Administration’s top priority has to be mounting a credible military threat against Iran’s nuclear program.
An attack on Syria without UN Security Council approval could end Russia’s support for the P5+1 negotiations with Iran about its nuclear program, and any prospect for UNSC approval of action against Iran. We also run the risk that an attack on Syria would not go well, or that it would chew up U.S. assets like cruise missiles, or that it would provide Iran with intelligence on our capabilities that would make an attack there less effective. You don’t want to get into a scrap in Syria if your top priority is Iran (that’s true even though I would oppose an attack on Iran).
This leaves the main U.S. focus in Syria on diplomacy, in two directions: Moscow and the Syrian opposition. The renewal of the UN observer mission in Syria comes up in July. We need Moscow to bring Bashar al Assad into full compliance with the Annan plan by then. At the same time, we need to get the Syrian opposition in compliance, by ending its counter-productive use of violence. This is what none of those testifying at the House have been willing to say.
If we get to July without the Annan plan implemented, then we will need to consider withdrawal of the observers as well as the use of military force. I understand perfectly well the arguments in favor–there is no doubt in my mind that Bashar al Assad is capable of continuing the crackdown and committing much greater atrocities than he has so far. And I understand why some U.S. government officials (and President Sarkozy) are trying to create the impression that military action is likely, even though it isn’t.
But President Obama is unlikely in the middle of an election campaign focused on the economy to take us to war, yet again, in an Arab country Americans don’t care much about. Withdrawal of the observers without the subsequent use of force would leave Bashar al Assad to crack down even harder, which is what he did after the departure of the Arab League observers. That would not be a good outcome.
We need to be thinking twice about Syria at every stage.
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Justice delayed
The conviction of former Liberian president Charles Taylor more than a decade after the war crimes he aided and abetted during the period 1996-2002 answers one important question about his role in the war in Sierra Leone: did he bear some responsibility for rebel atrocities, even if he did not command them directly or conspire to produce them? The court said yes, though an alternate judge held a dissenting view.
Judging from Helene Cooper’s graphic piece in the New York Times about her own family’s experiences, the conviction also provides an important occasion for victims. Even more than ten years after the fact, even though the indictment covered only crimes in Sierra Leone and not in Liberia, they take some satisfaction from knowing that justice has not been denied but only delayed.
But what does it do, and not do, to prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity in the future? When Charles Taylor was indicted, it was widely believed that the court action would disrupt the then ongoing process of beginning the reconstruction of Liberia. Helene Cooper notes that he was tried for crimes in Sierra Leone rather than Liberia to avoid political problems that might have arisen in the country of which he was once president. So far as I can tell, these fears have proven unfounded. Charles Taylor is not today an important political factor in a Liberia that has made substantial progress in becoming a normal, functioning country, even if a frighteningly poor one.
Many diplomats bemoan the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of President Omar al Bashir of Sudan, because they say it makes him hold on to power more tightly and interferes with diplomatic efforts to resolve the various conflicts embroiling his country. That view readily prevails in Syria, where President Bashar al Assad’s obvious responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity cannot lead to an ICC indictment because Russia will prevent the necessary referral from passing in the UN Security Council. Ugandan religious leader Joseph Kony, an ICC indictee, is still at large, despite a U.S.-aided manhunt. ICC indictment of Muammar Qaddafi, his son Saif and their security chief in Libya does not appear to have had much impact on their behavior.
So what good is an indictment that won’t produce justice for decades? It is unlikely that the indictees themselves will moderate their behavior in response to an indictment. Their discount rate is high and the results too uncertain and too far in the future to make them behave. But there are other possible benefits. First, an indictment may give pause to some of those below the top leadership, who will want to avoid also being held responsible. Second, an indictment is a concrete expression of international community will to remove a leader from power. It may not help in cutting deals, but it makes the bottom line remarkably clear.
Charles Taylor is the first head of state to be convicted since the Nuremberg trials. He is likely not the last. International justice is agonizingly slow, frustratingly incomplete, and potentially damaging to prospects for negotiated settlements. But even justice delayed can shed light on past events, moderate behavior and provide satisfaction to victims.
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The UN has not failed in Syria yet
Here is a piece I did for Al-Monitor.com, which they posted yesterday, under the title “UN Just Getting Started in Syria— Give Observer Mission a Chance.”
The New York Times, NPR and other major media outlets have already declared the 300-strong UN observer mission in Syria, approved last weekend in the Security Council, a failure. The UN hasn’t stopped the violence, or even induced the Syrian government to withdraw heavy weapons from population centers. The observers are unable to protect protesters or ensure that humanitarian relief reaches civilians, as required by Kofi Annan’s six-point plan.
All that is true, but premature: As of yesterday, there were only 11 UN observers deployed in Syria. The remaining dozen or so are headquarters and support personnel. Part of the initial contingent came from the UN mission in Lebanon, but the Secretary General will not want to denude that effort to staff Syria. It will take time to get UN member states to cough up more troops for what is obviously a dangerous effort.
The press reports that violence typically subsides when the observers are present but surges once they leave. To journalists, this is a sign of their ineffectiveness. To diplomats, it means that they may be able to tamp down the violence, provided they are deployed in sufficient numbers.
If the 12 already deployed work in groups of at least three, they can be present in only four places on any given day, provided they have adequate transport, which is not ensured. Of course they haven’t been effective yet. They haven’t really arrived. The remaining several hundred will take weeks, maybe even months, to deploy.
Even then, experience suggests that it will take time before violence subsides. The UN operates only with the consent of warring parties, in this case the Syrian government and a fractious array of protesters. Consent is nominal on both sides. The government, feeling threatened, wants to suppress its opponents before withdrawing its forces from population centers. Some of the protesters continue violent attacks on Syrian security forces, providing the government with a convenient excuse for its continued use of force.
It will likely take weeks at best, more likely months, to reverse this spiral of violence. Only diligent and impartial reporting by the observers, combined with pressure from Kofi Annan and key Security Council members, can turn it around. The Americans, British and French need to focus on ending protester violence, in particular by the Free Syria Army. Its command and control is not unified, and many of its adherents are not former soldiers but local neighborhood-watch volunteers. Picture George Zimmerman with an AK-47. It is going to be difficult to get them to implement a ceasefire. The Russians and Chinese need to focus on Bashar al-Assad, whom they have so far been protecting. They need to convince him that his only chance for survival is an end to the brutal crackdown.
Once the situation begins to calm, at least in some places, humanitarian relief has to begin flowing and journalists must be allowed in, in accordance with Kofi Annan’s plan. Even Assad may allow these moves. International relief efforts will lighten his financial burdens and foreign journalists may be more objective than the protester-sympathetic “stringers” who provide most of the on-the-ground coverage at present.
Only then will it be possible to begin the political dialogue Kofi Annan is to facilitate.
While the Security Council has not called explicitly for Assad’s removal, it has called for
a Syrian-led political transition leading to a democratic, plural political system…including through commencing a comprehensive political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition.
The implication is that Assad is to be eased out, more like Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen than Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. The Americans, British and French will press hard for a democratic transition. Russia will resist, even if it signed on to the Security Council call.
One key factor in the political equation will be Iran. Syria, which is running out of money, depends heavily on Iran for financial, military and political support. Tehran won’t want to lose Assad, but if it looks as if he is about to go they will want to shift gears and try to put someone else in place who will continue the many decades of Syria’s alliance with Iran. Continued chaos, which is already flowing over Syria’s borders to Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, may be worse from Tehran’s perspective than a new man at the helm in Damascus.
Of course, we may never get to that point.
The UN observers and the other elements of the Annan plan may still fail. But they haven’t failed yet, no matter what the press says.
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Remembrance without resolve
How much time is required to decide if the UN observers in Syria are failing? If you are the New York Times, two weekend days after authorization by the UN Security Council will do. You wouldn’t want to wait until a significant number of them have actually deployed. Even today, only eleven are active. And you would cite Syrian army attacks occurring while they are not present as evidence of their ineffectiveness, whereas the opposite would seem more likely the case: reduced attacks while the observers are present suggest they are having an impact.
The observers admittedly have a thankless task. There is as yet no peace to keep in Syria, where the regime continues to attack its opponents, refuses to withdraw the military from population centers or to allow peaceful demonstrations, blocks journalistic and humanitarian access and is not prepared to discuss a transition away from the Assad regime. The opposition also occasionally resorts to violence against the security forces. If they are going to have an impact, the observers will need to acquire it after full deployment over a period of weeks, working diligently with both protesters and the regime to ensure disengagement and to gain respect for Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan.
This they can do, but only by being forthright in their assessments of what is going on, determined in their efforts to go where they want when they want and honest in communicating their observations to both the Syrian and the international press.
The regime will do everything it can to intimidate the observers and shield their eyes from the worst of what is going on. It will retaliate against protesters who communicate with the observers. And it will play “cat and mouse,” encouraging the observers to go where nothing is happening and discouraging them from going where something interesting might be observed.
Kofi Annan will not be easily fooled. His long experience with UN peacekeeping and with the Security Council will ensure that Bashar al Assad faces a savvy and determined international civil servant, provided Washington continues to back the UN effort.
The initial deployment is for 90 days. It should have been shorter, so that the Security Council would be forced to review and decide whether to renew the mission earlier than July. Still, reports every 15 days to the Council will keep the issue on its agenda. The number of observers is limited to 300, still too few to monitor a country the size and population of Syria. At the very best, they will be able to make a difference in a relatively few communities, unless their numbers are much increased.
Some of the observers are likely to resign in frustration, as some of the Arab League observers did over the past winter. Others will take the regime’s side, criticizing the protesters for violence against the security forces. There will be confusion, even consternation, as they try to get a grip on a very slippery situation, one that threatens every day to descend into sectarian bloodletting of the worst sort.
Ultimately, Kofi Annan will need to decide whether the observers are serving a useful purpose. The history of such missions suggests that they are greeted initially with a surge of violence, which subsides if the observers gain respect as truly neutral. The difficulty is that “neutrality” is in the eye of the beholder. One of the beholders in Syria, Bashar al Assad, has labelled all the demonstrators terrorists and will try to settle for nothing less from the UN.
As chance would have it, President Obama on Monday announced the creation of an Atrocities Prevention Board, saying
…remembrance without resolve is a hollow gesture.
The first test of those words will be in Syria, Bahrain and the border between what is now Sudan and South Sudan. In all three places, there is a need to stiffen international community and in particular U.S. resolve to prevent atrocities, protect civilians and make oppressors accountable. This does not necessarily mean the military action others are calling for. In fact, none of these situations lends itself to military means. But the full political, diplomatic and economic weight of the United States should be brought to bear. The President needs make sure his words and gestures are not hollow as he weighs U.S. options in these on-going conflicts.
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