Tag: Syria
Is the U.S. still enabling dictators?
Several of the Arab protest movements look set to fail: Bahrain’s already has, Yemen’s is engulfed in civil war and Syria’s faces long odds. To what degree is the U.S. enabling outcomes that leave dictators in place?
The most problematic case is Yemen. There the U.S. has armed and trained military forces that President Saleh and his son have used both against unarmed protesters and tribal rivals. It is hard to believe that the U.S. could not do more to restrain the army, but Washington’s interest in continuing the effort against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has limited the constraints it is willing to impose on Saleh and son. We keep mouthing off about the Gulf Cooperation Council plan for Saleh to pass power to his vice president, in preparation for elections. That clearly is not going to happen. Gregory Johnsen proposes a radical reset to prioritize getting rid of Saleh and reaching a political settlement. It is hard to picture the intelligence community and the Pentagon concurring, unless they’ve learned a lesson or two from Pakistan’s relationship with the Haqqani network. They should be worrying about whether we end up with Yemen looking much like Somalia or Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan: a free fire zone for our drones with an increasingly radicalized population and little prospect of stability.
In Bahrain, the U.S. has essentially stood down from its early support of political reform and dialogue proposed by the Crown Prince. We are now getting ready to sell arms to a monarchy that has dissed its Shia population, which it refuses to recognize as a majority (and won’t bother counting either). The only remaining hope is the international commission of inquiry led by Cherif Bassiouni, which is supposed to report soon. Some will object that the King is not really a dictator, and that both the economy and speech are relatively free in Bahrain. I’d suggest talking with some of the protesters about that. The issues in Bahrain have more to do with concentration and abuse of power, discrimination and prejudice than legal restrictions. We should be continuing to press the monarchy for serious reform.
It would be unfair to accuse the U.S. of enabling Bashar al Assad, who is not a favorite in Washington, and President Obama has now said all the right things. But well-informed commentators think we still haven’t done all we could to organize a concerted multilateral effort against him. My own proposition is for diplomatic observers. If Bashar doesn’t accept them, he embarrasses himself. If he does, they are likely to embarrass him. Meanwhile, the protesters seem increasingly to be taking up arms, a move likely to fail and also ignite sectarian and ethnic violence. That’s a worst case outcome from the American perspective.
So whether by commission or omission, Washington is still not doing all it could to make things come out right. I’m not one who denounces the Administration for leading from behind–the White House is correct to expect Yemenis, Bahrainis and Syrians to take point. But especially in Yemen and Syria, where demonstrations continue daily despite ferocious repression, we should do more to lend a hand to those who have the courage to continue to protest nonviolently.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Diplomatic observers for Syria
I’d like to revive an idea that I put forward more than a month ago: diplomatic observers for Syria.
I think we are in for the long haul in Syria. Bashar al Assad shows no signs of giving up. The international sanctions will pinch with time, but Iran is doing its best to counter them. While Bashar’s support has frayed in Damascus and Aleppo, that is only around the edges. The protesters are under a lot of pressure and have been unable to do what the Libyans did so successfully: put together a proto-government that could project a constitutional framework and roadmap to elections.
Military intervention is simply not in the cards. The Arab League isn’t asking for it. Russia has so far blocked all serious propositions in the UN Security Council. Moscow’s naval base at Latakia guarantees this will continue. I imagine Putin admires Bashar’s spunk and isn’t going to worry about what is done to the demonstrators. Turkey may stiffen its position a bit, but Ankara hasn’t yet done anything that really pinches hard.
If the protest movement in Syria is going to survive, it needs some help. We’ve been through this before. In some of the darkest days of the Kosovar rebellion against Serbia in 1998, the international community provided a Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission that reported on who was doing what to whom. It was too little too late and did not avoid war, but it was that mission that confirmed mass atrocities and helped to rouse the international community to its military intervention.
I don’t expect in Syria that there will be a military intervention, even if an observer mission were to confirm mass atrocities. The Russians won’t sign on to it, and I doubt the Americans and Europeans have the stomach to do it without Security Council authorization, which is what they eventually did in Kosovo.
But an international observer mission would likely reduce the ferocity of Bashar’s assault on Syria’s citizens and give us a far better window on what is happening than we have at present. Ambassador Ford’s visits to the protesters have clearly been a boost. Multiply that 1000 times in quantity (hard to match Ford in quality) and you’ve got something that might make a difference.
Would Bashar agree to it? At some point, he is going to be feeling the international pressure enough to make concessions. It is unlikely he will make any serious political reforms, since those would put his hold on power at risk. If he thinks that agreeing to international observers might eventually help him to relieve international pressures, he might do it.
In any event, I don’t see a downside to proposing it. The protesters have been literally crying for international protection. Civilian observers are not what they have in mind–some of them would like military intervention. But if the Arab League were to press the case and recruit the observers, the time may come when Bashar will yield to the proposition. If he doesn’t, all the worse for him: it suggests he has a great deal to hide.
I fear that if we fail to get something like this in place, the Syrian protest movement may fail, as the Iranian one did. That would be a big defeat for democratic forces in the Middle East, which are having a hard time elsewhere even if Libya and Tunisia seem to be proceeding more or less in the right direction.
In Yemen, the return of President Saleh to Sanaa has upped the ante and increased the violence. In Egypt, it is no longer clear–if ever it was–that the country will end up with a significantly more democratic system than the one Hosni Mubarak reigned over for decades. A Bashar victory in Syria would encourage reactionary forces elsewhere and help Iran to survive the Arab spring with its main client state still firmly attached. We haven’t got a lot of cards left to play on Syria: proposing international observers is a half measure that might be worth a try.
PS, October 26: The Syrian National Council is now calling for international monitors.
PPS, Octoer 28: Human Rights Watch likes the idea too.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Where is the Security Council?
Thursday’s meeting in Paris of 63 countries to launch the reconstruction phase of the Libyan revolution went well. Money is starting to flow (including a big shipment of Libyan cash) and the Transitional National Council (TNC) continues to say all the right things: no revenge, contracts will be respected, democracy and rule of law should prevail. Elections within 18 months, which is more reasonable than the 12 months previously mooted.
The trick now is implementation. Even at yesterday’s meeting, there was friction over contracts. The French foreign minister made it clear he thought Paris deserved a lion’s share because of its role in the NATO military action. This friction and many others will grow. It is important that too much money not flow too fast into Libya: I’ve never seen a post-war reconstruction effort that would not have benefitted from less funding, which forces decisions on priorities and gives decent people incentives to block corrupt practices.
What the international community needs is a common script: a United Nations Security Council resolution that sets out strategic goals for Libya, as defined by the Libyans and agreed with the international community. The ideal vehicle for this is the new resolution needed to lift sanctions. This should state the main goals, which I might summarize something like this: Libya will be a single, united country with its capital in Tripoli governed by democratic processes under the rule of law. It will use its natural resources transparently and accountably to benefit all its citizens, live in peace with its neighbors and fulfill its obligations under international agreements it has signed as well as the UN charter.
This would not eliminate all frictions in the international community: a country as rich as Libya is bound to create rivalries among oil and gas consumers as well as suppliers of good and services. But it would help to frame the international effort and provide some touchstones to guide reconstruction efforts.
Libya is not the only country needing a Security Council resolution. None has yet passed denouncing the regime’s violence against its citizens in Syria, because Moscow is blocking it. The Secretary of State rightly spent some time yesterday cajoling the Europeans to block oil and oil product imports from Syria, which would deprive Damascus of something like one quarter or one third of its normal revenue. But we should not lose sight of the need for the UNSC to speak up against the blatant violations of human rights Bashar al Assad is indulging in.
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice has done incredible things this year–Qaddafi would still be sitting pretty in Tripoli but for UN Security Council resolution 1973. She has also gotten the Human Rights Council, that much-criticized body, to play a positive role on Syria, denouncing the regime violence there. But there is no rest for the weary. A strong UNSC resolution is out of the question–there won’t be any authorization to use “all necessary means,” which is the kind of thing needed to implement military options. The Russians are nowhere near going along with it, because of their long friendship with Syria and their use of port facilities at Latakia.
But it is hard for me to believe that the UNSC can allow what Damascus is doing to pass in silence. The Russians should now be worried about their own long-term relationship with a regime that is looking shaky, even if no one expects it to fall soon. Bashar al Assad does not have a lot of friends left. Most of them are in Tehran, which has recently been urging Bashar to reform. Moscow also needs to make sure it is, as President Obama likes to put it, on the right side of history.
PS: The EU went ahead with the oil ban on Syria today. Bravo to both the Europeans and the Secretary of State, who pressed the case hard!
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
The long diplomatic game in Syria
It is past time to take a look at the possibility that the protests in Syria will not bring down Bashar al Assad any time soon. While some of the opposition appears in frustration to be calling for violence on the part of the demonstrators, my inner voice tells me that would be a big mistake. Bashar has the advantage in use of force, and he has demonstrated willingness to use it.
There is no real possibility of external military action in support of a violent Syrian rebellion, which is what made the difference in Libya. The Arab League is far from advocating a UN Security Council resolution authorizing force. The Russians, who enjoy the use of the Syrian port at Latakia, would block it anyway–they haven’t even allowed a resolution condemning regime violence.
If the protesters take up arms, they will elicit a response in kind and drive the violence in Syria in the ethno-sectarian direction, which is precisely what Europe and the United States fear the most. Even Iran will agree: a Sunni-defined uprising against the Allawi regime would be particularly unwelcome in Tehran.
So the question becomes this: how can the protesters sustain their nonviolent efforts over the longer term, defined as months or even a year or two? Only if they are clearly able and willing to do so will Bashar yield. If he thinks he can outlast the demonstrators, why would he give in?
First, the international community needs to warn the protesters that there is no real alternative. There will be no external military action. Not even a “no fly zone,” which has become code for the kind of aggressive air campaign NATO conducted in Libya. Syria is not Libya. Damascus has strong backing from Tehran and Moscow. Ankara has talked tough but has not backed it up with action. Ditto the Arab countries, several of which have withdrawn their ambassadors but done little else.
Second, the international community needs to reward and encourage those among the protesters prepared to keep to nonviolence and maintain unity of purpose. Monday’s formation of the Syrian National Council (SNC), an analogue to the Transitional National Council that has become the post-Qaddafi governing structure in Libya, is a good development. It will need wholehearted moral and financial support from Europe and the United States, though at this stage formal recognition would be premature.
The SNC, led by a diaspora professor, will necessarily be an outside Syria affair for the most part, unless the protesters can somehow carve out some liberated space inside the country. They have tried to liberate particular cities several times, only to see the regime security forces eventually surround and retake them.
An alternative approach is to use cyberspace, as the Libyans also did, to publish their intentions and plans for post-Bashar Syria. This could include a constitutional charter or framework that projects the kind of Syria they would institute, including a roadmap for preparation of a new constitution as well as local and national elections. This would give the international community something to respond to and provide a blue print for future preparations and eventual implementation.
Third, the SNC will need to encourage defections from the military and business communities. This can be done by making it clear, as the Libyans have done, that contracts will be maintained, revenge avoided and continuity valued once Bashar is gone. There is time enough in the aftermath of a revolution to vet and re-vet government officials, military officers and crony businessmen. It need not be done immediately, or used as a threat against the regime. The trick is to get regime elements, especially the security forces, to turn on Bashar, which they will do if they believe it will help protect them after the regime falls.
Fourth, while the SNC figures out how to convey the impression of knowing what to do if Bashar steps down, the international community needs to give him a stronger shove in the right direction. Europe has still not blocked imports of oil and oil products from Syria. Over time, that would deprive the regime of at least some revenue (assuming Damascus sells the oil at a discount elsewhere) and signal to businesspeople that the European Union is serious about getting him to step aside. Secretary of State Clinton needs to spend some quality time beating up the Europeans on this subject when she sees them Thursday at the Libya contact group meeting in Paris.
Getting the Russians on board for a Security Council resolution, even a relatively weak one, would also be useful. At some point, Russia needs to begin worrying about making sure that any new regime is not going to throw its fleet out of Latakia. The SNC might start raising questions about the Russian presence there and suggesting that it could be sustained, but only if Moscow goes along with a resolution taking the regime to task for its treatment of the protesters.
What else can be done? It is better in my view to maintain the U.S. ambassador in Damascus rather than withdraw him. But he needs to continue his visits to demonstrators and do what he can in other ways to provide encouragement and succor. Also on the diplomatic front: we should of course be consulting constantly with Turkey and Lebanon, encouraging these frontline states to confront the regime as best they can. Turkey in particular could wield a bit more clout than has so far been apparent with Syria’s business elite.
Jordan has already spoken up against the Syrian regime, but Iraq Prime Minister Maliki has preferred to toe the Iranian line and suggest that the Arab spring can benefit no one except Israel. Apart from the patent inaccuracy of that allegation, Maliki’s attachment to Bashar, who spent years shipping terrorists into Iraq, is passing strange. Our man in Baghdad has presumably objected appropriately, but we need to do a bit more to ensure that Maliki is not actually helping Bashar, presumably on the theory that the enemy of my enemy (Saudi Arabia detests Maliki) is my friend.
Fifth, more unanimity against Bashar in the Arab League might help a good deal. The Secretary General of that august but ineffectual organization was supposed to visit Damascus earlier this week to plead for an end to violence and more reform, but the Syrians rejected his not too vigorous plan before he even arrived. Not clear to me whether he was able to make the trip. Iraq is not the only problem–Algeria is also Qaddafi-sympathetic and welcomed members of his family yesterday.
The Syrian regime will find it difficult to resist unanimity in the international community, if it can be achieved. When even Iran and Hizbollah are distancing themselves, you know you are in trouble. One of Qaddafi’s serious mistakes was to alienate Arab governments, two of which even joined in the NATO military action against him. But it will not be easy to get everyone aligned in the right direction. The diplomats have a big job to do.
PS: For a pessimistic view of the Syrian opposition, see Kinda Kanbar’s piece at Middle East Progress.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
What was it like 48 years ago?
Credit for this post, if credit is due, goes to Zaheer Ali, a New York City historian who asked in response to a tweet saying that I was at the March on Washington if I had ever written anything about it. No, I haven’t, until just now, when I should be working on a book proposal.
I remember as much about the circumstances as I do about the event. My aunt tried to convince my mother she shouldn’t let me go. I was 18, age of the immortals. Just graduated from high school, working in a factory for the summer before starting at Haverford. I was determined to march despite rumors of violence. I certainly did not want to take advice from my rascist aunt, who went livid. Fortunately a more liberal uncle weighed in on my side. Defiance proved unnecessary–my mother was a liberal and thought it natural that I wanted to go.
It’s all about witness, wanting to testify to your beliefs by moving your body to the right place at the right time. I’d been to Washington before, as a child and tourist. It was still a segregated city then, though as best I understand it more by tradition than by law. My parents would only eat in chain restaurants that had integrated. Returning by bus that August day of 1963 was a right of passage for me: a first opportunity to witness on my own.
What has become known as Martin Luther King’s greatest moment I thought of at the time as Bayard Rustin’s. No, I did not know he was gay, or even what gay was, but I knew he was the great organizer. He proved it that day, assembling an enormous mass of people, whites as well as people who then mostly still called themselves Negro. There was a long list of speakers. Martin Luther King was the climax, but I can assure you that many of the others stirred the crowd as well. I particularly remember being moved by A. Philip Randolph, but don’t ask me any longer what he said. And the music! Dylan, Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary: mostly white, but “radical” as it was known then.
I had to leave New Rochelle, where my family lived, early in the morning, around 4 am. I grabbed the brown bag from the fridge with what I thought was my lunch in it, only to discover as we arrived in DC that the smell of raw fish was coming from my brown bag in the overhead rack. I had to borrow a couple of dollars from a cousin to get a hot dog or two for lunch.
We marched from somewhere not too far–maybe Thomas Circle. Memory confuses this occasion with the several later occasions I joined antiwar marches in DC. The spirit was good, really good. Everyone singing, chatting, laughing. I don’t remember a moment of tension all day. I guess the segregationists decided the crowd was too big and stayed home. Certainly it was nothing like the venomous atmosphere I endured two years later demonstrating in Cambridge, Maryland, where the national guard fixed bayonets and gas masks to confront us in the main street.
The message of the day was integration. Those who cite MLK’s “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers” have got it right. It is hard to appreciate today how much imagination was needed then to picture integration of blacks and whites in the United States. None of us were sure though at the time that MLK had quite risen to the occasion. Was his speech really eloquent enough? Did it rise to the occasion? Would anything make a real difference in a country that seemed hopelessly attached to segregation and racism?
We all think we know the answers to those question now, but at the time nothing was clear, except the day and the overwhelming power of that crowd of witnesses. These were people who really could sing “we shall overcome.” And they were determined to do it, though they had no idea how long it would take.
What does this have to do with peace and war? Everything: Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Syria have all trod the path of nonviolent witness, some more successfully than others. Even Libya did it briefly. Hesitatingly, sometimes inadequately but increasingly the United States has come out on the right side, witnessing for the world to see that it supports human dignity. There really is no other choice. Bashar al Assad and King Khalifa of Bahrain should take notice. Washington may hesitate, it may equivocate, but it will not fail in the end to support the radical proposition that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Bashar unabashed
Bashar al Assad, Syria’s beleaguered president continues his crackdown, despite growing international condemnation and pressure. What has happened to Muammar Qaddafi, who is hiding somewhere, and Hosni Mubarak, who is on trial, has likely given him renewed determination to avoid a similar situation. The only way he knows to avoid it is to use violence to repress the demonstrations, which continue even if they are not gaining headlines during this Libya week. The regime even took the trouble to injure a cartoonists hands, a bizarre but telling acknowledgement of its own impotence against the humor and spirit of the protest movement.
The opposition claims to still be moving toward forming a Syrian National Council, but this week’s meeting in Istanbul does not appear to have been a brilliant success. I’m not sure what the problem is, but in my view unity is overrated. There is no reason the opposition today should agree on much more than getting rid of Bashar. There will be time enough in the future to quarrel over politics.
Nor do I think the lack of “leadership” is really a big problem. The demonstrators have been remarkably effective at coordination and coherence without clear leaders. United is important, but regimes enjoy decapitating movements. Only when the time comes to negotiate do they really need an empowered group to undertake that thankless task.
What the Syrian opposition needs now is a program. What are they going to do if Bashar does step aside? The Libyan Transitional National Council did itself a great service when it put out its “constitutional charter,” which included a political roadmap for the next year. It gained some support inside Libya, but just as importantly it enabled the internationals to say they know what the Libyans want. Something like that is needed from the Syrians.
Next week the international community needs to move ahead with European Union sanctions targeting Syria’s energy sector. That would be a serious contribution to depriving Bashar of the resources he needs to continue his brutal repression. But it really isn’t sufficient. Turkey needs to step up its game, which once seemed headed in the direction of toughening but somehow went flaccid in the last ten days or so. There is a lot at stake for Turkey: its “no problems with neighbors” policy is teetering, and it gets 20% of its gas supplies for its booming economy from Syria’s principal supporter, Iran.
There isn’t a lot else out there, though David Schenker offers a few more “incremental” (that means small I think) ideas. I fear that we are going to end up with a long-term stalemate in Syria: the demonstrators unable to unseat Bashar, Bashar unable to repress the demonstrations. This situation will bleed the finances of both Syria and Iran, but it will also bleed the protesters and increase the likelihood of a chaotic sectarian breakdown in Syria.
The Syrian regime continues to portray the uprising as an armed rebellion of terrorists. That is clearly untrue, as the Syrian protesters have chosen a nonviolent course from the first. They are fired up about dignity. The demonstrators haven’t got a lot more than daring, cleverness, unity, and amazing good humor on their side. And me, I’m on their side too!
PS: The question on some minds today is why not have an international intervention in Syria, since it worked so well in Libya? In my way of thinking, it did not work well in Libya: it worked in the end, but only at a high cost in lives and other destruction.
Just as important: the Russians, who have a naval base at Latakia on the Syrian coast, are not going to allow a Security Council resolution to pass authorizing force (they haven’t even let one pass denouncing the regime violence), the Arab League is not on board and the topography of hilly Syria weighs against effectiveness from the air. The Syrians are likely going to have to sustain their efforts until the security forces turn on Bashar and tell him they are not prepared to continue on his behalf.
PS: Ali Ferzat, the cartoonist the Syrian government felt it had to beat up, responds eloquently today with this:
PPS: The UN humanitarian mission to Syria has completed its visit and is calling for protection of civilians, who are under “constant threat.” Not bad for a group shepherded around by government minders.
RSS - Posts
