1. Tunisia: Justice in Transition | Tuesday, October 2, 2018 | 9:30 am – 11:30 am | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | Register Here
Please join the Carnegie Middle East Program for a screening of the documentary, Tunisia: Justice in Transition. The film tracks the trajectory of Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission, established in 2013 to address the crimes of the Ben Ali and Bourguiba regimes. It includes interviews with victim’s families, human rights activists, and political actors to explain the Commission’s rocky path over the past five years.
Following the screening, Sarah Yerkes will moderate a discussion on the status of transitional justice in Tunisia today with one of the film’s creators, Ricard Gonzalez, and Salwa El Gantri.
Speakers:
Salwa El Gantri is the head of Tunisia Office for the International Center for Transitional Justice. She is an expert in gender and transitional justice, and has more than twelve years of experience in the democracy, human rights, and transitional justice fields.
Ricard Gonzalez is a journalist and political scientist. He has worked as a correspondent in Washington, DC, Cairo, and Tunis for El Mundo, El País, and Ara.
Sarah Yerkes is a fellow is a fellow in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, where her research focuses on Tunisia’s political, economic, and security developments as well as state-society relations in the Middle East and North Africa.
2. Is Russia Becoming Central Asia’s Near Abroad? | Tuesday, October 2, 2018 | 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm | Wilson Center | 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004 | Register Here
Russia’s relationship to Central Asia has always been distinctive and ambiguous, in contrast to its attitude toward both Ukraine and the Caucasus. Only in the twentieth century did it develop a deep sense of mission there, and then only at the hands of a small number of ideologues.
Today, Central Asia is fast recovering its traditional regional spirit, which increasingly impacts its former imperial ruler. As this happens, Russia, while remaining a force to be reckoned with in Central Asia, is also becoming an object of Central Asian geopolitical and cultural influence. Hence the notion of Russia as Central Asia’s “near abroad.”
The talk will be a Distinguished Speaker Lecture with S. Frederick Starr, Founding Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program and a Professor at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
3. China’s Alliance with North Korea and the Soviet Union: A Conversation with China’s Leading Historians | Thursday, October 4, 2018 | 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm | Wilson Center | 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004 | Register Here
The Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program will be hosting China’s three leading diplomatic historians for a discussion about the history and present day relevance of China’s Cold War-era relations with North Korea and the Soviet Union.A Misunderstood Friendship: Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, and Sino-North Korean Relations, 1949–1976, co-authored by Dr. Zhihua Shen and Dr. Yafeng Xia, is the first book-length history of the China-DPRK relationship to appear in English. Shen and Xia draw on previously untapped primary source materials to offer a unique account of the China-North Korean relationship, uncovering tensions and rivalries that shed new light on the ties between these two Communist East Asian nations. They unravel the twists and turns in high-level diplomacy between China and North Korea from the late 1940s to the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, and reveal that the tensions that currently plague the alliance between the two countries have been present from the very beginning of the relationship.
Mao and the Sino–Soviet Split, 1959-1973: A New History, co-authored by Dr. Danhui Li and Dr. Yafeng Xia, synthesizes over 20 years of research on the subject by the authors and offers a comprehensive look at the Sino-Soviet split from 1959, when visible cracks appeared in the Sino-Soviet alliance, to 1973, when China’s foreign policy changed from an “alliance with the Soviet Union to oppose the United States” to “aligning with the United States to oppose the Soviet Union.”
The authors will be joined by commentator Dr. Gregg A. Brazinksy and moderator Dr. Christian Ostermann
Speakers:
Zhihua Shen is the director of the Center for Cold War International History Studies at East China Normal University, Shanghai, and the author of a number of major Chinese-language works on Cold War history.
Danhui Li is Professor of History at Institute for Studies of China’s Neighboring Countries and Regions, East China Normal University, editor-in-chief of two academic journals: Lengzhan guojishi yanjiu (Cold War International History Studies), and Bianjiang yu zhoubian wenti yanjiu (Studies of Borderlands and Neighboring Regions). A leading authority on CCP’s external relations during the Cold War, she has published extensively on Sino-Soviet relations and Sino-Vietnamese relations during the Indochina War (in Chinese, Russian and English).
Yafeng Xia is Professor of History at Long Island University in New York and Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Studies of China’s Neighboring Countries and Regions at East China Normal University in Shanghai. A former Wilson Center fellow and public policy scholar, he is the author of numerous books on Chinese Cold War history.
Gregg A. Brazinsky is professor of history and international affairs at The George Washington University. He is the author of Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2017), and of Nation Building in South Korea: Korean, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2007).
4. LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media (DC Launch) | Thursday, October 4, 2018 | 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm | New America Foundation | 740 15th St NW #900 Washington, D.C. 20005 | Register Here
In an age of livestreamed terrorist attacks and viral misinformation, a new pocket-sized battleground has emerged.
Through the weaponization of social media, the internet has transformed war and politics. Terrorists livestream their attacks, “Twitter wars” produce real world casualties, and viral misinformation alters not just the result of battles, but the very fate of nations.
In their new book LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media, authors Peter W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking study what social media has been doing to politics, news, and war around the world, drawing upon everything from historic cases to the latest in AI and machine intelligence. They track dozens of conflicts in every corner of the globe, studying the spread of YouTube battle clips, a plague of Nazi-sympathizing cartoon frogs, and even enlist in a digital army themselves.
Join New America for a conversation moderated by Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of the Foundation, with the authors as they tackle the questions that arose during their five years of research: What can be kept secret in a world of networks? Does social media expose the truth or bury it? And what role do ordinary people now play in international conflicts?
5. Yemen’s Path Forward | Thursday, October 4th, 2018 | 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm | Middle East Institute | 529 14th St NW Washington, DC 20045 | Register Here
Three years into Yemen’s civil war, the country continues to see severe humanitarian devastation, widespread food insecurity, and lack of economic access, against the backdrop of an increasingly complex geopolitical environment. An intensification of fighting in Hodeidah and elsewhere in the country has added to the human costs of the conflict and threatens to become catastrophic. Increasingly, Yemenis are war-weary and anxious to see progress on the UN-led negotiating process intended to end the fighting and restore the peaceful transition interrupted three years ago.
The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to host a half-day conference to assess the priorities for ending the conflict and scenarios to move forward. This conference will convene two panels and a keynote address to assess urgent priorities and potential pathways forward for Yemen.
Speakers:
Bruce Abrams assumed duties as deputy assistant administrator in USAID’s Middle East Bureau in January 2017. His portfolio includes USAID programs in Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, the technical support team and the Middle East Regional Platform. Abrams joined the Middle East bureau after serving as deputy mission director in USAID Zimbabwe.
Sama’a Al-Hamdani is an independent researcher and analyst focusing on Yemen. She is currently a visting fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) at Georgetown University and a research fellow at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies (SCSS). Al-Hamdani is also the director of the Yemen Cultural Institute for Heritage and the Arts (YCIHA), a nonprofit based in Washington DC dedicated to Yemeni arts and heritage.
Marcia Biggs is a special correspondent for PBS NewsHour, for whom she has recently won a Gracie Allen Award, a First Place National Headliner Award, and a New York Festivals World Medal. Her expertise lies in the Arab world, with over a decade of experience in the Middle East, five years of which were spent living in Lebanon. Most recently, she became one of the few television journalists to cover the crisis in Yemen, which she did in a four part series for PBS, “Inside Yemen.”
Ambassador Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak assumed his duties as the ambassador of the Republic of Yemen to the United States in August 2015. Formerly, Ambassador Bin Mubarak was the director of the presidential office and chief of staff. Prior to taking up his appointment as the director, Ambassador Bin Mubarak was appointed on January 2013 secretary general of Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference (NDC), leading a team of over 120 staff facilitating the mediation process among the participating 565 delegates, and providing technical assistance to NDC working groups.
Amb. (ret.) Gerald Feierstein is director for government relations, policy and programs at MEI. He retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in May 2016 after a 41-year career with the personal rank of career minister. As a diplomat he served in nine overseas postings, including three tours of duty in Pakistan, as well as assignments in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Lebanon, Jerusalem, and Tunisia. In 2010, President Obama appointed Amb. Feierstein U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, where he served until 2013. From 2013 until his retirement, Amb. Feierstein was principal deputy assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs.
Latifa Jamel is the chairperson of Justice for Women and Children. Originally from Taiz, she is a Yemeni journalist and political activist. She served as board members in Yemen Aid, International Council of Rights and Freedoms, and Yemeni American Coalition. She previously worked as an academic advisor and head of Social Studies department in local schools within Taiz.
Timothy Lenderking is the deputy assistant secretary of state for Arabian Gulf affairs in the Near East Bureau at the U.S. Department of State. He is a career member of the senior Foreign Service. Lenderking served previously as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from 2013-2016. He served as the director of the Pakistan office at the Department of State from 2010-2013. From 2008-2010, Lenderking completed two tours in Baghdad, the first as the senior democracy advisor at the US Embassy, and the second as the policy advisor to LTG Charles Jacoby, Commanding General of Multi-National Forces Iraq (MNF-I), based at Camp Victory.
6. The Limits of Punishment: Transitional Justice and Violent Extremism | Friday, October 5th, 2018 | 10:30 am – 12:00 pm | Brookings Institution | 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, DC 20036 | Register Here
In countries where jihadi groups have gained control over territory and populations, states face the challenge of dealing with individuals accused of association with those groups. Governments have too often responded in heavy-handed ways, penalizing broad segments of local populations suspected of having supported the group, often on the basis of thin or non-existent evidence. Such excessively punitive and dragnet approaches risk backfiring by exacerbating local grievances, conflating victims with perpetrators, and laying the groundwork for future violence.
On October 5, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and the United Nations University’s Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR) will present a discussion of alternative strategies and justice issues for countries affected by jihadi violence. Experts will present the findings of three fieldwork-based case studies of Nigeria, Somalia, and Iraq, which analyze these states’ approaches to accountability and rehabilitation of Boko Haram, al-Shabab, and Islamic State affiliates. Panelists will also discuss the potential application of transitional justice tools; conditional amnesties; defectors programs; and disarmament, demobilization, and rehabilitation approaches to transitions away from conflict in such settings.
Panelists will include Lana Baydas, an independent human rights expert; Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow with the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings; and Cale Salih, research officer at UNU-CPR. Landry Signé, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Africa Growth Initiative at Brookings, will provide introductory remarks and moderate the discussion. After the program, panelists will take questions from the audience.
I’m going to try to find videos to post every Saturday, when at least some people have the time for them. Here is the first: Mohammad al Abdallah, Executive Director of the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, on whose board I serve. He is speaking at the United Nations last week:
Here’s another, a hearing last week at the Middle East and North Africa subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, also on #Syria. Hanin Ghaddar, Nicholas Heras, and Mona Yacoubian testify:
“The territory controlled by the Syrian opposition must be demilitarized,” Erdogan told reporters in the Russian town of Sochi. “But together with Russia, we will put our efforts into clearing those territories of radical elements,” he said, referring to al-Qaeda-linked extremists in Idlib.
What could go wrong?
Everything. Such “safe zones,” where civilians are herded for supposed protection, are vulnerable. There are foreseeable problems:
They can’t protect themselves but will have to rely for protection on Turkish and Russian forces as well as restraint by the regime and Iranian-backed militias. The Russians are unreliable at best. The regime, the Iranians, and their friends are pernicious.
Provocateurs will hide in these safe zones and give nearby Syrian and Iranian-backed forces an excuse to attack them, most likely using barrel bombs and other stand-off weapons.
Eventually, the Syrian opposition people who take refuge in such safe zones will be turned over to a regime that has been killing “reconciled” fighters and likely also civilians.
People who fail to take refuge in what amount to unsafe zones will be subjected to the kind of brutal bombardments that have characterized the regime takeovers of East Ghouta, Aleppo, Daraa and other former opposition-controlled area.
To be effective, civilian protected zones would require the presence and active assistance of impartial military forces, which simply don’t exist in Syria, as well as a kind of restraint neither the regime nor the Iranian-backed forces have shown. Woe betide the innocent civilian who thinks she will be safe in a demilitarized zone.
What would be better? Agreement for the Turks to take over all of Idlib and do what they can to disarm and arrest extremists would be better. Non-extremist fighters would then cooperate with the Turks and ensure the safety of the entire province, provided the regime and its friends would agree not to attack. That is what the regime should want if it looks forward to the eventual reintegration of Idlib with the rest of the country.
But Assad is not into peaceful reintegration. He is trying to prove his state so fierce (the word Steve Heydemann uses to great effect) that no one will ever try to buck his rule again. This is achievable, as the Algerian regime has demonstrated, and Egypt’s President Sisi is trying to confirm. When you’ve gone to war for more than seven years and presided over the deaths of more or less half a million people, people would be stupid not to be afraid. Now all Assad has to do is kill a few thousand more and he’ll have achieved a large part of his objective.
He will still however have a big chunk of his country outside his regime’s: control: the north and east are in the hands of the Turks and Americans, supported by Turkman, Kurdish and Arab allies. If they could somehow act in a unified way, Ankara and Washington would have some serious cards to play in the coming diplomacy over post-war Syria. We’ll have to wait and see whether they can somehow make their common interests in not returning the areas they occupy to Syrian and Iranian control prevail without a political transition in Damascus over their differences with respect to the Kurds. Either they hang together, or they hang separately, in Benjamin Franklin’s striking phrase.
Here are Putin and Erdogan announcing their agreement:
“We have found nothing to show collusion between President Trump & Russia, absolutely zero, but every day we get more documentation showing collusion between the FBI & DOJ, the Hillary campaign, foreign spies & Russians, incredible.” @SaraCarterDC@LouDobbs
An hour later he tried to mend the mistake, retweeting a picture of himself signing a “Patriot Day” declaration with this profound insight about the occasion:
Then there was this from his arrival at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for a 9/11 ceremony there:
The President cares not a hoot about 9/11 and its meaning for Americans.
That meaning has become grossly distorted in the 17 years since the Al Qaeda attacks. President Bush got it at least partly right in the immediate aftermath: Americans needed to unify and respond to the attacks but not go to war against Islam. He chose instead to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan, seeking to punish the Al Qaeda leadership holed up there.
But things then went awry. Osama bin Ladin and most of the Al Qaeda leadership escaped the American invasion. Bush turned his attention to Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Al Qaeda scattered to Yemen, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, even as more extreme competitors, including the Islamic State, emerged there and elsewhere. The US has tried to kill as many of these extremists as possible, but there are now demonstrably more of them in more countries than in 2001. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost about 7000 American lives and several trillion dollars, but failed to reduce the numbers, the appeal, and the ferocity of Islamist extremism.
President Trump is determined to make things worse. He has barred immigration, including refugees (by definition people escaping a well-founded fear of persecution), from some Islamic countries. He has loosened restraints on the use of drones, raising the number of civilians killed, especially in Yemen. He is squeezing Palestinians mercilessly, denying them vital humanitarian assistance as well as political representation. He supports autocrats in the Muslim world and ignores human rights. He denounces Muslim extremists but not white Christian ones, who have killed many more Americans in terrorist acts since 9/11 than Muslims have. He even managed to hold an Iftar dinner to break the Ramadan fast with no American Muslims, only friendly Muslim diplomats. In both symbols and substance, this Administration is anti-Muslim.
No good can come of continuing in this direction. We need new ways forward that do not mistakenly declare war on a means, “terror,” rather than an enemy, which should be violent extremism. We need to recognize that Americans are not on most days in most places at risk. We need to stop doing things that multiply the numbers of extremists and the places where they find safe haven. We need to ensure that Muslims see the United States as friendly to their religion, even if hostile to extremism conducted in its name.
This president won’t be able or willing to change course. The only question is how much worse he will make things before a leadership change saves us from the tragic direction in which we are heading: towards still more extremists in more countries determined to attack America. 9/11 should not be an occasion for vaunting empty patriotism, but for assessing our situation soberly and looking for more effective means to ensure our national security.
We are all transfixed with the anonymous Times op/ed that told us nothing new and with the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, but really the outcome there is clear: he will be confirmed, because he opposes the right to chose abortion, resists accountability for police and companies, and will vote against any attempt to subpeona this president. That’s why he was nominated, and that’s why the Republicans will confirm him.
The new news today is President Trump’s decision to keep US forces in Syria indefinitely, not only to prevent the resurgence of ISIS but also to counter Iran. This means, like it or not, that the US is committed to trying to stabilize the northeastern part of Syria that it controls with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by by Kurdish YPG fighters. And once it has stabilized the area it will need to reconstruct it, if conditions for withdrawal have not yet been created. We broke it and we own it, until there is a viable alternative that meets American requirements: no Iran, no ISIS.
This is classic mission creep, but that doesn’t mean it is necessarily bad. The options were these:
Leave northeastern Syria to its fate and watch while our friendly Kurds patch things up with Damascus and go to war against NATO ally Turkey.
Stay to deny Iran its land route to the Levant and negotiate for a political outcome in Damascus more acceptable than simple restoration of Assad’s dictatorship.
Staying entails putting US forces at risk. The current number, around 2000, will have to grow significantly to protect the stabilization and eventual reconstruction effort required to prevent the return of ISIS or some other extremist group. Staying also means trying to prevent the Kurds from attacking inside Turkey or providing assistance to their PKK compatriots there.
These are not small responsibilities. The reconstruction effort should come in part from UNDP, the World Bank , the Europeans, and the Gulf, but will in any event require a significant American contribution in dollars and personnel. Preventing the Kurds from attacking inside Turkey is partly a question of incentives: both the Turks and Kurds want the Americans to stay, so they should lay off each other. But a lot of fevered negotiation will be required to maintain the standoff, a model for which is already operating in Manbij.
Negotiation is also the key to the political outcome in Damascus. Assad is looking for total victory, assisted by Iran and Russia. But the US has some leverage if it stays in northeastern Syria. The area was Syria’s breadbasket before the war and it produced most of the country’s oil and gas. The oil is now being shipped in part to a regime-controlled refinery and fuels an electric generator serving Damascus. Assad needs the oil and gas fields back under his control, which means he and his allies may pressure the US militarily while trying to convince the Kurds that Damascus will give them a better deal.
Presidents Assad, Putin, and Rouhani agreed today to put off an assault on Idlib, giving Turkey some time to arrange withdrawal of Al Qaeda-linked extremists and thus avoiding a humanitarian catastrophe involving the 3 million civilians in the province. American pressure against the assault may have had some impact, but I suspect the Russians were hesitant to saddle their newfound Turkish friends a new influx of refugees. Best to keep Erdogan on side, in particular because he has promised to buy Russian air defenses. The Iranians and Assad will be disappointed, but they can hope Turkey will fail and the assault will only be postponed.
The new American commitment in northeastern Syria is likely to be long-term and big. The President owes the American people an honest explanation of why it is necessary and how it will be staffed and paid for. That isn’t likely to happen. Instead, Jim Jeffrey, Trump’s capable and well-informed new Syria envoy, made the announcement to a gaggle of reporters. No offense to Jim, whose experience in Turkey and Iraq make him an excellent choice for his new role, but that is not adequate for a policy change of this magnitude.
I received today this “Statement to the Public Opinion from Syrian Political & Civil Forces”:
Supported by Russia, al-Assad Regime continues the mobilization of its forces around Idlib Governorate and its countryside, to complete the Russian plans of a military windup and fait accompli imposition.
We, being Syrian institutions, organizations and activists, condemning the statements of the Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, that plainly justify a military invasion by the Regime and its allies and call for the United Nations’ participation in the resulting forced displacement, we remind everyone that any military action on Idlib, under any designation or pretext, threatens the life and safety of more than 3 million civilians, who approximately half of them were forcibly displaced from other areas fleeing the military operations of al-Assad Regime and its allies.
Signatories of this Statement call on the International Community, in general, and the United Nations and Security Council members, in particular, to undertake their responsibilities in protecting the civilians and preventing war crimes against them.
Committing ourselves into finding solutions for the protection of civilians and guarantee of their safety, we propose that the international community:
– Provide the needed support to the local actors in Idlib in order to eliminate any extremist forces in the area, in parallel with preventing al-Assad’s forces, Iran and Russia from exploiting the situation to achieve any gains on the ground and forcing them to respect the De-escalation Agreement by ceasing any land or aerial bombardments on the area.
– Support the local civic institutions, to manage the area and begin the reconstruction process, as well as to establish a free democratic model that represents the desires and expectations of the people.
The International Community and United Nations have lost many opportunities to save the Syrian People from numerous crimes committed against it, and to hold the perpetrators accountable. Despite our great frustration and lack of trust in the international entities, we still hope that these institutions and current international system undertake their responsibilities this time to save the Syrian People from further crimes and disasters.
Signatories:
Ahl Horan
Ahrar – The Working Group for Syria
Al Kawakibi Organization for Human Rights
Al Sharqia Patriotic Grouping – Political Committee
Assyrian Democratic Organization
Baytna Syria
Damir Movement
Free Syria
General Union of Syrian Students
Ghaith Charitable Organization
Idlib Political Committee
Idlib Provincial Council
Idlib Revolutionary Movement Committee
Local Development and Small-Projects Support (LDSPS)
Muatana Current
Rethink Rebuild Society
Shaml Syria Civil Society Coalition
Sound and Picture Organization
Syrian Declaration for National and Democratic Change
Syrian Democratic Coalition
Syrian Democratic Movement
Syrian Network for Human Rights
Syrian Patriotic Coalition
Syrian Patriotic Democratic Coalition
Syrian Women Network
Syrians Coalition
The Day After Association
The Patriotic Coalition of the Revolutionary Forces of Hassaka
RSS - Posts
