Tag: Turkey
Stevenson’s army, August 10
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
– RollCall says OMB has released the hold on some of the foreign aid money.
– WSJ says Turkey will send migrants back to Syria.
– FP says CIA will keep resources in Afghanistan.
– FP says Iranian intelligence services are fighting with each other.
– IG lists the damage done by the Tillerson hiring freeze at State.
– NYT notes how divided Democratic presidential candidates are on trade.
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Proliferation without borders
Dr. Pantelis Ikonomou, a former IAEA Safeguards inspector asks:
After 30 years of service as a senior officer in the International Atomic Energy Agency, the world’s watchdog for nuclear weapons non-proliferation and disarmament, an organisation that primarily you, US and Russia, created and continue to support, I dare to address to both of you a rhetorical question:
“How could an international nuclear safeguards inspector comprehend and explain to the stunned public your recent nuclear behavior, in particular your withdrawal from the bilateral Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty that you achieved in 1987 on prohibiting the development and deployment of a wide range of nuclear weapons?”
In March 2018 President Putin stated that nuclear weapons are essential for his county to maintain its position as a great world power. In order to convince the international community, he presented the terrifying capabilities of new Russian nuclear weapons that could target any place on the planet without been detected, thus, rendering nuclear deterrence a useless myth.
Six months later, in October 2018, President Trump replied that the US would unilaterally withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, claiming that Russia does not comply with its obligations.
Moscow rejected the accusations, blaming Washington for refraining from the negotiations on the extension beyond 2021 of the New START treaty, which controls strategic nuclear weapons.
In a continuous blame game the Russian president warned that any deployment of intermediate range missile by the US in Europe will force Russia to respond equally. Moreover, he made it terrifyingly clear that the increase nuclear threat could «result to the global destruction of human civilization and perhaps even of our planet».
Europe reacted immediately urging INF’s survival. The treaty’s elimination will turn Europe into a launcher and target of the ‘’new and modern’’ nuclear weapons of both the US and Russia, respectively. Furthermore, the European strategic objective of an autonomous defense policy will become difficult to achieve.
China, knowing that it will become the target of new US intermediate-rang nuclear missiles deployed in Japan and South Korea, immediately and firmly excluded its possible involvement in a new multilateral INF treaty, which eventually could embrace China’s nuclear adversary, India.
Several nervous countries, such as Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, maintain active programs to develop intermediate ballistic missiles suitable for carrying nuclear weapons.
If the two super powers, the US and Russia, assisted by the rest of the NPT nuclear weapons states (China, UK and France) won’t proceed to the creation of a new international INF treaty, they will owe the world answers to vital geopolitical questions:
- Do the US and Russia not realize that their nuclear policy contradicts their basic NPT undertaking (Article VI) «…to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament…»?
- Do they not recognize the immediate risk of nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East and north-east Asia?
- Is North Korea not enough?
- Why do they risk their own loss of global geostrategic primacy?
- Is it possible that they ignore the increasing global nuclear threat?
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A skimpy breakthrough
Today’s announcement of an agreement between Turkey and the US on a “safe zone” inside northeastern Syria is being described as a breakthrough. But skimpy would also be accurate:
From August 5-7, 2019, U.S. and Turkish military delegations met at the Turkish Ministry of Defense to discuss plans to coordinate the establishment of a safe zone in northern Syria.
The delegations agreed on the following:
a) the rapid implementation of initial measures to address Turkey’s security concerns;
b) to stand-up a joint operations center in Turkey as soon as possible in order to coordinate and manage the establishment of the safe zone together;
c) that the safe zone shall become a peace corridor, and every effort shall be made so that displaced Syrians can return to their country.
It is not clear what this really means. At the least, it suggests President Erdogan will not risk a unilateral Turkish intervention inside Syria, with the attendant risk of clashes that injure or kill American troops. That is no small thing.
But it is not clear whether the months of quarreling over how wide the “safe zone” should be and how it will be protected and managed have ended. It sounds more like the issues have been delegated to a joint operations center. No harm in that if it succeeds, but why should it if higher level officials are still at odds? Particularly important is the question of who will be in charge: Turkey, the US, or some sort of consortium? Turkish/American cooperation at Manbij, just on the other side of the Eurphrates from the proposed safe zone, has not been easy, not to mention the bigger issues (F35s, Russian air defenses, Gulen) roiling he relationship between Washington and Ankara.
The third point–the safe zone or peace corridor–is enormously problematic. Will Ankara, under pressure from Turks to reduce the gigantic refugee population, be forcing people back into Syria to populate that area? How will the Kurds who live there–and have their own armed forces–react to Arab returnees, many of whom may never have lived in the now supposedly safe zone? How will security be maintained? How will people who move there be fed, sheltered, clothed, and provided with health care? How will the territory be governed? Under what laws? What will happen with the Kurdish-led governing institutions already established in that area?
The history of safe zones is spotty. Sometimes, as in northern Iraq in the 1990s, they have been successful. Iraqi Kurdistan grew to maturity under a no-fly zone that protected it from Saddam Hussein. At other times they have been unsuccessful: witness the safe zones in Bosnia that suffered attacks from Serb forces that led to the NATO military intervention there.
In Syria, the odds are not good. The Americans have only about a thousand troops left in the northeast. President Trump is not going to want to increase their number. So the safe zone will be under the protection mainly of Turkish and Turkey-allied forces that are hostile to the governing authorities the Kurds have established there. The Kurds reciprocate: they are hostile to Turkey, where their PKK confreres have been in violent rebellion for decades. The Islamic State, while not holding territory in northeast Syria, is still present and conducting terrorist attacks. It will of course seek to aggravate any frictions between Kurds and Arabs as well as Kurds and Turks, which shouldn’t be difficult.
So yes, a breakthrough of sorts but still a skimpy one that will require a great deal of time, manpower, money, and effort to merit the “peace corridor” label. At this point, it is just as likely it will make that appellation the subject of future derision.
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Stevenson’s army, August 5
My SAIS colleague, Charlie Stevenson, distributes an almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. This is a fourth tasting. If you want to get it directly, follow the instructions below:
China seems to be weaponizing its currency in response to the Trump tariff threats.
The Guardian has a good story about how the Chinese government manages businesses.
NYT says US is standing aside while Japan and South Korea deepen their trade and political conflict.
WaPo says US is desperately trying to prevent Turkish invasion of northeast Syria.
To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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What next for the US in Syria
I spoke today at SETA with Charles Lister, Bassam Barabandi, Geoffrey Aronson, and Kadir Ustun on Syria. Here are the talking notes I prepared. I started at number 13 and didn’t use them all. The video of the event is below:
- I find it difficult to know what to say about Syria.
- I could of course just repeat what many others have rightly said: the war is not over, Assad has not won because the country is in ruins and he lacks the means to fix it, it is all tragic and more tragedy impends because the underlying drivers of conflict have not been resolved.
- I could even go further and say that President Trump’s decision to withdraw was foolish, the US must stay in Syria, because otherwise we will have no say in its future, and that those who are trying to at least partially reverse that decision are correct.
- But I really don’t believe much of that: the policy implications for the US merit deeper examination.
- Assad has defeated any chance for a transition to democracy in Damascus: who in Syria would trust others to govern them today? Assad is demographically engineering the part of the country he controls to ensure regime security and has for most practical purposes won.
- He will keep most of the refugees out of regime-controlled Syria because he knows full well he cannot allow them back. He lacks the resources for reconstruction and fears they will threaten his hold on power.
- The Americans are not going to have much say over what happens in Syria, partly because they don’t want to. Neither President Obama nor President Trump thinks Syria is worth a candle.
- They cared about ISIS and Iran, not Syria.
- It is the Astana three that will determine Syria’s fate.
- Iran is there to stay because they have to. They think propping up Assad responds to threats from Israel and from Sunni extremists. Only regular bombing will limit Iranian power projection into the Levant. The Americans should prefer that the Israelis do it.
- The Russians are there to stay because they want to. Syria has given them not only an important naval base and now an air base, but also a toehold in Middle East geopolitics. At the very least, they can now cause trouble for the Americans in most of the region.
- The Turks are there to stay because they want to chase the PKK/PYD away from their borders and enable at least some of the refugees they host to return to Syria.
- The Syria Study Group in its interim report suggested that the Americans stay in northeastern Syria and do what is needed to enable civilians to stabilize it.
- But before a decision like that can be made, the Americans need to ask themselves what it would take. The Study Group put the cart before the horse.
- The six American civilians working there on contracting for rubble removal and a few other basic necessities like demining, water and electricity before being withdrawn by the Trump Administration were nowhere near what is required for a serious stabilization operation.
- That’s what you need if you ISIS is to be prevented from returning: governance and justice decent enough to be preferable to the caliphate.
- Experience, as Frances Z. Brown suggested in Monkey Cage last week, demonstrates that much more will be needed.
- How much more?
- Jim Dobbins is the best guide I know on this subject. For a “heavy peace enforcement” operation in a territory with, let us assume, 2.5 million people, which is my guess at how many are in northeastern Syria (and at least that many in Idlib), Jim suggests a force of more then 35,000 internationals and 13,000 locals costing almost 8 billion dollars per year.
- On top of that, you’ll need dozens if not hundreds of civilians supervising and guiding the disposition of stabilization funding.
- Sure, you can skimp or trade off locals for internationals, but not without consequences. I’ve heard little about Raqqa that suggests reconstruction there is going well there.
- The Turkish reconstruction efforts in the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch territories, which are said to be “comprehensive” in SETA’s recent description of them, suggest Dobbins’ numbers are not far off.
- The simple conclusion is that nowhere near the required resources are likely to be available for a serious American stabilization effort in northeastern Syria.
- What about the Turks? They want a buffer zone of 30 km or so inside Syria. Could they be relied upon to do the necessary stabilization and reconstruction all across their southern border?
- The answer is likely yes, but not without consequences.
- Upwards of 600,000 Kurds live in northeastern Syria. A significant percentage of them would likely flee, as many did from Afrin during and after Olive Branch, and the PKK fighters so vital to the effort against ISIS would be forced back into the arms of the Syrian regime, which would no doubt expect them to do what they were created to do: attack Turkey.
- US troops remaining in northeastern Syria while the Turks repress the Kurds they think support the PKK and the Syrian regime supports the same Kurds to attack Turkey is not my idea of a place I would want US troops to be.
- What about Idlib? It looks to me as if Assad is determined to retake it, with massive consequences: millions might seek to leave. There is no real ceasefire.
- Maybe these two dire scenarios lead to a standoff? The regime might hold off in Idlib fearing that Ankara would use the occasion to go into northeastern Syria? Maybe Ankara will hold off in northeastern Syria for fear Damascus will go after Idlib in a serious way?
- Might it be possible to deploy Arab peacekeepers to both areas? Now I’m in fantasyland.
- Whatever happens, I don’t think the US presence in Syria, even if doubled or quadrupled, is adequate to the task of enabling stabilization of the territory the SDF now controls, especially as ISIS reconstitutes and the Iranians decide to test our mettle.
- We can’t get out for fear of the consequences. And we don’t want to put enough effort in to make a real difference in repressing ISIS and repelling Iranian-backed proxies. That’s not a good place for America to be.
- My recommendation would be just this: go big and fix Syria or get out and let the chips fall where they may. But neither is likely to happen.
- That will reduce us to putting US troops at risk for the sake of a possible future role in some imagined UN-sponsored peace negotiation. I argued in favor of that 18 months ago. Today it is hard to justify.
- It is fitting that Hulu has revived Catch-22 at this fraught moment.
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Religion as power
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a panel discussion March 19 about religious authority in the Middle East and its implications for US policy. The panel included Courtney Freer, Research Fellow at Middle East Center, Annele Sheline, Zwan Postdoctoral Fellow, Sharan Grewal, Fellow at Center for Middle East Policy, andYusuf Sarfati, Director of the Middle Eastern and South Asian Minor Program.
The following cases are a synopsis of studies showing the magnitude of religious authority in different Middle Eastern countries.
Turkey
Sarfati pointed out that though a layman, President Erdogan some Turks see him as commanding religious authority. His authority comes from a combination of his public performance of piety, charisma and his status as a graduate of an Islamic school, in addition to being leader of an Islamist party. At the same time, there is a wide segment of the society that does not trust him as a religious authority. There are many other outstanding religious figures who are not as well ranked as Erdogan but have gained trust as religious authorities such as Mehmet Gomez and Hayrettin Karaman, among others. Fethullah Gulen and Abu-Bakar Al Baghdadi are the least trusted and generally viewed negatively in Turkey. Unlike many other Muslim countries, religious authority in Turkey is confined to its borders and not influenced by religious authorities in Arab countries. Many Turks don’t approve religious leaders and show skepticism of religious authority. Official Islam and political Islam overlap. People believe in Islamism and support a state religion as two sides of the same coin.
Tunisia
Founded by Sheik Rachid Ghannouschi, Grewal argues that the Islamic party the Ennahda (Renaissance) has been the primary Islamic political party in Tunisia. It became a dominant political player after 2011, performing well in elections, but it is not widely seen as an authority in religious matters. Despite their linkage with and dependence on the Tunisian state, traditional religious authorities like the grand mufti and Imam of Zaytuna mosque have substantial popularity. Surprisingly, the Islamic State continues to wield considerable religious authority in Tunisia, even while domestic Salafi-Jihadis groups like Ansar-al Sharia do not.
Morocco
Sheline stated that the King Mohammed VI is considered the highest religious authority. This status reflects a taboo against questioning his authority as the Commander of Faithful. He has succeeded in establishing his religious credentials through state messaging. The King’s authority goes beyond the religious sphere. He bolsters Morocco´s soft power and strengthens strategic relationships with key allies. In the context of the war on terror, a demonstrable heritage of moderate Islam is a valuable commodity. Following 9/11 the government supported Sufism in hopes that it could serve as a counterbalance to extremist forms of Salafism. The palace’s promotion of moderation contributes to its liberalizing image while maintaining security and stability, making it an ideal partner in the eyes of the US and EU. The US should support the King’s initiative to promote moderate Islam without making it public, as that could undermine his religious standing.
Saudi Arabia
Freer asserted the most trusted religious leaders are among the official religious establishment. Shaykh Saad Bin Nasser Al-Shethri, who serves as advisor to the Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman is the most trusted. Also, Abdullah Al-Sheikh, the head of the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Issuing Fatwas, enjoys wide religious authority. Consensus exists among nationals and non-nationals due in part to the official state religious narrative. It holds considerable sway in the religious sector and society more broadly. The more institutionalized indigenous religious influence is, the more likely constituents are to adhere to their authority. While in other Middle East states, religious groups have mobilized support through their provision of social services, the Saudis do not, because of the welfare system in place. The wealthy rentier status of Saudi Arabia negates the effects of income levels on opinions about religion and religious authority.
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