Tag: United Arab Emirates
Nuance in regional reactions to the Iran deal
On Wednesday, the Wilson Center hosted a panel on “The Iran Nuclear Deal: The View from the Region.” Speakers included Muath Al Wari, Senior Policy Analyst at Center for American Progress, Deborah Amos, International Correspondent for NPR, Shlomo Brom, Visiting Fellow at Center for American Progress and Fahad Nazer, Political Analyst at JTG Inc. The event was moderated by Henri J. Barkey, Director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.
Al Wari analyzed the UAE response to the nuclear deal. He claimed the UAE concern is less about the nuclear aspect and more about the fact that Iran ran a clandestine program under the authority of a state that is willing to undermine other governments in the region. However, Emiratis have decided to look towards the future, believing President Obama secured the best deal possible. The UAE is now looking at what the deal means for future Iranian encroachment in the region and what the US and other P5 countries will do to constrain Iran. The UAE hopes that Iran will normalize its regional behavior. In the coming days, the Emiratis will study the outcomes of King Salman’s visit to the US.
Al Wari criticized the sectarian portrayal of the nuclear deal. Regional concerns about the deal are linked to the geopolitical security competition. Sectarianism is exacerbated by the competition and contributes to it. His belief is that the deal is an American tool to prevent escalation in the Middle East—the agreement is a formal check on Iranian hegemony and encroachment.
Amos explained that the deal so far is unsurprisingly irrelevant to daily life, but the consequences of the agreement will be tested on the ground. She reiterated Al Wari’s words—the Gulf States want to know if attention will be paid to non-nuclear developments that are heating up. That said, the deal unlocks significant trade potential regionally (especially for the UAE and Oman) and globally. The calculus of power has already shifted, with Europeans sending trade delegations and major American companies, such as Apple, preparing to tap into the Iranian consumer market.
Brom delved into the nuances of the Israeli stance on the nuclear deal. For Israel, Iran’s nuclear program and the possibility of it acquiring nuclear weapons has always been a central issue. Indeed, Iran’s nuclear program is the centerpiece of Netanyahu’s foreign policy. He believes he won the elections because of his strong security agenda and perceives Iran as an existential threat. Many Israelis think the combination of a religious and ideological regime with nuclear weapons could lead to Iran striking Israel. However, Netanyahu’s opinion isn’t representative of all Israelis. Many dissenters coming from the Israeli security and foreign policy community, including Brom, believe the agreement is not perfect, but still better than no agreement. A better agreement would have been unlikely.
Like Brom, Nazer also cautioned against making generalizations about regional players. He thinks it is too simplistic to assume that all Saudis think the nuclear deal will usher in an Iranian hegemony with American blessings. Instead, he thinks the Saudi position has shifted slightly. The Saudis are no longer committed to preventing the deal from being implemented. The Saudis support any agreement that prevents Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and guarantees the reinstatement of sanctions if Iran doesn’t comply. After Saudi Foreign Minister Al Jubeir’s visit to Washingon, he openly commended the robust inspection of the verification regime and provision of “snapback” sanctions.
At the same time, the Saudis are maintaining a wary position on the deal. Saudi Arabia is not depending on the US and hoping for the best. High-level Saudi officials have had meetings with Russians, Europeans and other key leaders. Prince Faisal has also said Saudis will expect the same nuclear standards for themselves and should be permitted at least the same levels of uranium enrichment capability as Iran. Prince Bandar has compared the Iran agreement to the nuclear agreement President Clinton signed with North Korea. He feels President Obama is not keeping the lessons of Korea in mind.
The US and Saudi Arabia also have differing threat perceptions. President Obama thinks Saudis need to worry less about an external threat from Iran and focus on the internal implosion stemming from a generation of youths with few hopes for the future. Conversely, the prevailing sentiment in Saudi Arabia is that Iran constitutes a serious threat. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been on polar opposite ends in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon. Nazer believes there is a serious credibility gap between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which could lead the Saudis to take matters into their own hands, as they have done in Yemen.
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Why critics of the nuclear deal are wrong
Max Fisher offers Mike Doran a platform for his case against the nuclear deal with Iran. Here are ten ways in which Mike is mistaken:
1. MD: Detente is the strategic goal, and arms control is the means to achieve it.
President Obama has made it clear he would welcome a broader detente with Iran, but he has also made it clear the nuclear deal has to be judged on its own merits. I don’t see any evidence that he is prevaricating, but if that is Mike’s claim he should produce the support.
2. MD: I don’t think it [preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon] is achievable without a significant coercive component. I think this is one of the most faulty assumptions of the administration.
Trouble is, the Obama Administration does not make that faulty assumption. It has done much more than any prior administration to increase the sanctions pressure on Iran, far more than the Administration for which Mike worked.
3. MD: [The Iranians] want sanctions relief and they’re going to get it, and they see that they’re going to get it, and they will stick with this process as long as they get direct, immediate, and very desirable benefits from it.
That is precisely the point of the negotiations: to provide sanctions relief provided Tehran gives up its nuclear weapons ambitions for at least ten years and moves itself back from a “breakout” of two or three months to a “breakout” time of a year. This is not an argument against the deal. It’s an argument for it.
4. MD: In fact, the starting point is that the Iranians want hegemony in the region, and they’re reading American policy with respect to their regional aspirations. The goal of Iran’s nuclear weapons program is not to defend against the United States or Israel — it’s to advance its regional agenda.
That’s right, and it is also a very good reason for halting Iran before it gets nuclear weapons. Again: a very good argument for the deal.
5. MD: I’m in favor of a vigorous containment program across the board, and I’m also in favor of a policy that says we have all options on the table and we mean it. The president says all options are on the table, but he doesn’t actually mean it, and I think we should mean it.
This confidence that his opponents know better than what the president says is laughable. The debate over destroying the Iranian nuclear program has clarified the limited gains it would provide: only two or three years of setback and an enormous incentive for Iran to redouble its efforts. But the notion that showing resolution by sabre-rattling would improve the prospects for a good deal is simply wrong.
6. MD: For a time the Iranians certainly believed all options were on the table. They abandoned their weaponization program, or they put it on hold, in 2003. Well, what happened in 2003? The United States went into Iraq, and I think they were probably very concerned at that point about all options being on the table.
The Iranians were concerned then about an American invasion, which is no longer a viable threat no matter who is president. But they spent the rest of the Bush Administration building and spinning thousands of more centrifuges, a fact Mike conveniently forgets.
7. MD: The very process of the negotiation is destroying the sanctions regime we established, which is the greatest nonmilitary instrument we have for coercing them.
This is laughable. The process of negotiation is absolutely vital to building and maintaining the multilateral sanctions regime. Without negotiations, the Europeans, Russians and Chinese would not be on board for sanctions.
8. MD: Iran’s status in the international community is going to be greatly improved, and then there’s going to be an international commercial lobby and a diplomatic-military lobby, which includes the Chinese and the Russians, in favor of the new order in which Iran is a citizen in good standing in the international community that they can do business with.
This is true, but misleading. That “international commercial lobby” already exists. If no agreement is reached, the sanctions are mincemeat. The notion that we can continue to hold on to them indefinitely is nonsense.
9. MD: The key question in that regard is, “When did he start to see Iran as a partner in Iraq?”
When the whole question of the status of forces agreement in Iraq was alive in 2010, [former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon] Panetta and [Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus and everybody are saying, “Keep forces on the ground in Iraq,” and the president had a different inclination. Well, if the United States is not going to be directly involved in Iraq, then who is going to protect our interests and protect stability in Iraq? And I think that, although he’s never admitted this, he assumed the Iranians would play that role for him.
I would say it was the Bush invasion of Iraq that gave Iran its big opening in Iraq. But leaving that aside: George W. Bush, not Barack Hussein Obama, negotiated the agreement for the complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. It was signed before he left office. What Mike is talking about here is an attempt to renegotiate that agreement, which the Obama Administration did pursue. But the Iraqis weren’t willing to give the US juridiction over its troops in Iraq and we weren’t willing to stay without it.
10. MD: If the Iranian regime — and I do believe they are rational — were truly put before the choice, if Ali Khamenei was put before a choice of “Your nuclear program or absolutely crippling, debilitating economic sanctions,” he would think twice. I think if he were put before a choice of “Your nuclear program or severe military strikes,” he would think twice.
So how do you get those crippling economic sanctions, whichc have to be multilateral, if you are not also negotiating with Iran? Absolutely no realistic proposal.
Here at last, the true agenda: get us into war with Iran, but note no mention of the only temporary setback to the Iranian nuclear program (and consequently the need to intervene repeatedly every couple of years), no mention of the likelihood the Iranians would redouble the efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, no consideration of the impact on the world economy, or secondary consequences (relations with China, Russia, the Europeans, Iranian responses in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria, maybe also Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE).
Here is the kicker: if you really want to go to war with Iran, you’ll be much better off doing it because they violated an agreement than just doing it. So a nuclear deal is a good idea if that is your objective as well.
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The Islamic Republic and the Kingdom
This morning’s news confirms that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has jinned up a Sunni alliance (including Egypt, Turkey, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan as well as several other countries) to battle the (sort of Shia) Houthi rebellion in Yemen, which the Shia-majority Islamic Republic of Iran backs. No one likes to label wars sectarian, but avoiding it doesn’t make them less so.
Sectarian wars are identity conflicts, which makes them particularly difficult to resolve. No one likes to compromise their identity. During conflict, the multiple (and sometimes common) identities we all sport in more normal times are often shorn in favor of a single one. Middle East experts will all tell you that seeing what is going on exclusively through a sectarian lense is a mistake. But it is a mistake that in a first approximation comes all too close to reality during conflict.
It is increasingly clear that it won’t be possible to manage the conflicts in the Middle East country by country, which is the way diplomacy normally works. War does not. Syria and Iraq are one theater of operations for the Islamic State and for the Iranian-backed militias fighting it. Lebanon could be engulfed soon. Iran supports the Houthi rebellion in Yemen in part because of the Sunni rebellion in Syria.
The Sunni/Shia dimension of these conflicts puts the Americans in an awkward spot. They don’t want to take sides in sectarian war. Their major concerns are not sectarian but rather nuclear weapons, terrorism and oil. So they find themselves supporting Iranian militias in Iraq and as well as their (allegedly moderate) Sunni opponents in Syria and Yemen. The result is that Sunnis feel abandoned by their erstwhile ally even as Iranians accuse the Americans of originating Sunni sectarianism in the Middle East. We are in a lose-lose bind.
Getting out of it is going to require more skilled regional diplomacy than we have demonstrated so far. We need to be able to do two things at once:
- bring home a serious product from the nuclear talks with Iran early next week, and
- counter Iranian aggression and proxies in Yemen and Syria
If the nuclear talks fail, expect to see escalation on all sides: in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. But if the nuclear talks succeed, that will not mean peace in our time, as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will seek a free hand in pursuing its activities abroad to compensate for limits on the nuclear program. Only preparedness to counter the IRGC will convince it otherwise.
The Administration has wisely kept the nuclear talks focused mainly on the Iranian nuclear program. But the time is coming for a wider discussion with Iran of its interests in neighboring countries and the counter-productive way in which it is projecting power through Shia proxies. We’ll also need to be talking with America’s Sunni friends, especially Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, about the opening they provide to Iran by discriminatory and exclusionary treatment of Shia in their own populations.
A classic security dilemma has emerged between Sunni and Shia in many parts of the Middle East. What one group does to make itself more secure the other group sees as threatening. Escalation is the consequence, but that won’t work. Neither Sunni nor Shia will win this war. Eventually the Islamic Republic and the Kingdom will need to reach an accommodation. How many will die before they do?
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The SuShi proxy war is likely to continue
This morning’s news that Saudi Arabia is bombing Houthi rebels in Yemen confirms what you already knew: the Middle East is engulfed in a proxy war between Iran–which supports the Houthis in Yemen, Bashar al Asad in Syria, Shiite militias in Iraq, and Lebanon’s Hizbollah–and Sunni states, including in the front lines the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as well as Saudi Arabia. Occasional Sunni-majority contributors include Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt. At the same time, Iran and its allies as well as Saudi Arabia and its allies are fighting against Sunni extremists associated with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
No wonder it is hard to keep score. This game is played in many dimensions. In the Sunni/Shia dimension, the United States has no dog in the fight, to use Secretary of State Baker’s unforgettable phrase. Our focus is on the fight against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, wherever they rear their brutal methods, because we fear they will inevitably target the “far enemy” (us) in due course. You might think it would be possible for Iran and Saudi Arabia to cooperate in that dimension, but instead they compete. Neither wants a victory over extremism to be credited to the other or to allow the other (or its proxies) to inherit the territory extremists once controlled.
The Sunni/Shia dimension and the anti-extremist dimension are not really orthogonal. Victory in one will affect the outcome in the other. The protagonists know it, which is one reason they are engaging in both. Iran would gain a great deal in the fight against Sunni states if Shia-allied forces win in Iraq and Syria. Likewise, Saudi Arabia would gain a great deal in the fight against Iran if it is able to put a majority Sunni regime in place in Syria and chase the Islamic State from the Sunni provinces of Iraq.
Yemen is a bit of a side show to the main theater of operations in the Levant. But geography makes it important to Saudi Arabia, in whose back yard it lies. If the Iran-allied Houthis are able to take over there, the Kingdom will feel the loss. By the same token, the Kingdom wants to see Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula defeated. Ironically, the Houthis have been at least as willing to engage on that front as the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, but Riyadh won’t see that as a plus. It wants to defeat both the Houthis and Al Qaeda.
Washington is in a difficult spot. It doesn’t want to be a protagonist in the Sunni/Shia war, but is viewed as one with every move it makes. Yesterday’s American air attacks against the remaining Islamic State forces in Tikrit were apparently undertaken only when Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi agreed to limit the role of Shia militias in retaking the capital of Salahuddin province. David Petraeus and others are being quoted as claiming that Iran is a far greater threat to the US than the Islamic State.
Likewise the nuclear negotiations are being seen through the lens of the Sunni/Shia conflict. An agreement that blocks Iran’s paths to nuclear weapons and provides at least a year’s warning of breakout has come to be viewed as strengthening rather than weakening the Islamic Republic. Sunni states apparently prefer military action against Iran’s nuclear program, which would guarantee that the Iranians do their damndest to get the bomb. But their goading of the US to war might be quickly forgotten in the devastating aftermath, as Iran would no doubt target its Gulf neighbors in any response.
This layered set of interrelated issues (Sunni/Shia, Islamic extremists, nuclear capabilities) is a good deal to complex for even very skilled diplomats to imagine easy solutions. The Obama Administration has essentially decided to prioritize two issue: blocking Iran from nuclear weapons and fighting Islamic extremists. We’ll know by Monday, the deadline for some sort of product from the nuclear talks, if the first issue is likely to be resolved. The second is likely to be with us much longer, if only because the Sunni/Shia conflict we don’t want to be involved in will keep feeding the extremists of both varieties with recruits.
The SuShi proxy war (between Sunni and Shia) is likely to continue.
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Not Saudi Arabia
I arrived back from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) this morning. You can attribute any nonsense in this post to the 14-hour plane ride. I went there with colleagues from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies to contribute to planning for the UAE diplomatic academy, which aims to professionalize training for the small but growing Emirates diplomatic corps. But of course I kept my eyes and ears open to learn as much as possible in an admittedly superficial three-day visit. Those who know the UAE well can skip this post.
Abu Dhabi, the capital, is centered on an island that commands spectacular beaches and an excellent view of the Gulf. Almost everything visible to a casual visitor is new. Independent only since 1971, the seven Emirates rely on Abu Dhabi’s substantial oil resources for pretty much everything in sight: spectacular highrise apartments and offices, opulent hotels, excellent restaurants and a quiescent population of 9.3 million, 85% of whom are non-citizens. Per capita GDP is a bit higher than in the US. English, Urdu, Punjabi, Thai and other foreign languages are at least as common as Arabic. The infrastructure is impressive: the 12-lane highway through Dubai (the business metropole) as well as the Burj al Khalifa skyscraper, air conditioning everywhere, green laws and shrubs irrigated with desalinated sea water, photographic
enforcement of driving regulations that sends you a text message with the amount of your fine within 20 minutes of a violation. Traffic is remarkably calm and disciplined by Middle Eastern standards. In an accident the foreigner is usually at fault.
The social contracts are clear:
- non-citizens get to stay and earn decent salaries that would be unthinkable in their home countries so long as they have employment and behave themselves;
- citizens get subsidies and good jobs if they want them, but the running of the country is left to a small elite.
Worker safety issues, especially for the many foreigners working in construction, have attracted attention. There are consultative mechanisms to allow for individual citizen petitions and complaints, but organized political opposition would be unwelcome. Public discourse values respect, not tolerance, including for the non-Muslim and non-Sunni majority (most citizens are Sunni Muslims). Hospitality is important. If someone serves you tea in a cracked cup, you know you weren’t welcome.
There is a palpable sense of common good, usually attributed to the country’s founder, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan. It was he who decided that Abu Dhabi’s oil wealth would be shared with the other British “trucial states,” which originally included near neighbor Qatar and somewhat farther neighbor Bahrain. President for 33 years after independence in 1971 (elected by the other Emirate Sheikhs), Sheikh Zayed is honored as the “man who built a nation” and began the still on-going engagement of the UAE in “global philanthropy,” which today has the Emirates engaged in supporting the Syrian opposition, the restored military regime in Egypt, the relatively liberal side of the Libyan revolution, the training of a new army for Somalia and other international causes. Whatever we give away, one diplomat told me, will eventually come back in appreciation and good will.
At home, what was until recently a traditional tribal society is changing, but only so much. There are no more bedouins or pearl divers. Men normally wear the kandura, a white robe, and white guthra (headdress). Women are being educated in substantial numbers, but the burqa and niqab are still common. Western women run on the downtown bike paths in Abu Dhabi in sports bras and shorts past completely covered Arab women pushing strollers, but I am assured that in some of the other Emirates things are not so relaxed. Arranged marriages are less frequent than in the past, but they are still sometimes used to settle conflicts between families. Social and tribal status is still an issue. I heard that the foreign ministry, which is keen to recruit women as diplomats, will pay for a male relative to accompany its unmarried employees on trips abroad.
The UAE leadership prides itself on being quick and flexible in reacting to world events. The recent fall in oil prices I was told will cause a quick reaction, presumably to cut public expenditure (the diram is tied to the dollar, so devaluation is not an easy option). Or maybe to cut oil production as well? The country runs its oil sector and its giant sovereign wealth funds with a view to ensuring stability and prosperity over the long term. I was told sovereign wealth was not tapped in reaction to the 2008 financial crisis, which hit Dubai’s rapidly appreciating real estate hard. Abu Dhabi footed the bill. Renewable energy is a serious government interest. Islamic finance is practiced.
The almost total absence of any visible security presence surprised me. People come and go in major hotels without passing through magnetometers. Security examination at the foreign ministry is cursory. At the National Archives it was non-existent. I didn’t see a single policeman or woman on the street and only saw a police car once, at the site of a traffic accident. Crime is virtually unheard of. I was assured that the invisible security presence is extensive. When called the police arrive with startling rapidity. Some rougher parts of the country have seen police abuses. But still: this is the Middle East without the usual uniforms, pat-downs and sirens.
It is easy to pooh-pooh the Emirates as more an airline than a country. The number of Boeing 777s at Dubai airport is genuinely impressive. Or to suggest that it is only the abundance of money that makes UAE what it is. But that is not right. It could be Saudi Arabia, with which it remains tightly allied, but it isn’t. The social contracts are holding, at least for now. The Islam is more moderate than radical. That is a lot better than can be said for much of the Middle East.The Emirates seem to me to have spent their money well, even if the lavishness is sometimes over the top or the taste dubious. Hard for Americans to complain about those faults.
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How to degrade and destroy
President Obama has now clarified his goal in the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): it is to degrade and destroy. His model is what was accomplished against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That should be little comfort to those who live in areas where ISIL operates. A dozen years of war have rendered parts of the border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan even more lawless and ungovernable than it was before the US intervened there starting in 2001. But it is fair enough to say that the remnants of Al Qaeda that remain there are little threat to the United States.
What will it take to defeat ISIL?
The military campaign will require a 360 degree effort against ISIL. This means an international coalition that includes not only those NATO members willing to engage but also the security forces of Iraq and Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan as well as Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), all of which are seriously threatened if ISIL is able to consolidate its position inside Iraq and Syria. The precise division of labor will have to be negotiated, but the United States should expect that its bombing of ISIL in both Syria and Iraq is only the tip of the spear. Iraq and the Syrian rebels will need to provide the biggest share of the ground forces. The others should be prepared to attack from the air or provide funding, advice and equipment.
The military campaign against ISIL will go much faster and much better if the mainly Sunni populations in the areas it controls rise against it. This is what enabled the American “surge” in 2006 and 2007 to succeed against Al Qaeda in Iraq. Then it was the Sunni tribes that rebelled and helped the Americans to destroy Al Qaeda. Any serious effort to destroy ISIL will need to make something similar happen now. But it won’t be easy: without boots on the ground, the Americans will be unable to organize or pay for a Sunni “awakening.” The Saudis and UAE have shown little aptitude in this direction, but it is high time they learned how to get what they pay for.
While confronting ISIL militarily, the coalition acting against it will need to weaken its sources of financing and recruitment. This is shadowy work that requires the best efforts of many intelligence agencies working together. The focus on foreign fighters coming from the US and Western Europe may be necessary to prevent their flow back to those places. But most of them appear to be coming from other places and need to be slowed or stopped, whatever their origins. This is an area where the Russians can contribute: Chechnyans play a significant role, as do others from the Caucusus. Rumors of Qatari financing have been rife. It is time to stop any supposedly private contributions going from Doha to ISIL or its supporters.
The toughest issue in dealing with ISIL will be preventing its return to the places where it is militarily defeated. President Obama may think leaving the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan devoid of effective governance is all right, because eventually Kabul and Islamabad will fill in. But it is going to be a long time before Damascus or Baghdad can govern effectively in the eastern provinces of Syria or the western provinces of Iraq, respectively. If you want to degrade and destroy ISIL there you are going to have to make some provision for governance, justice and public services.
This cannot be done by remote control. Someone is going to need to establish a presence in the areas ISIS currently controls, unless we want to see it go the way of Libya, whose various militias are tearing the country to shreds. In Syria, it might be the moderate revolutionaries, but then they will need protection from Bashar al Asad so long as he rules Damascus. In Iraq, it will likely need to be Sunni Iraqis who take control and govern–initially at least–without much reference to Baghdad. International humanitarian and other assistance in both countries will be vital, unless we want to see them go the way of Libya, where militias are now battling each other for control of the state. The UN or maybe the Arab League had better get ready for big challenges.
Presidents have to deal with the world they are dealt, not the one they prefer. “Degrade and destroy” will take years, not months. Obama would prefer to do retrenchment. Maybe his successor will get the opportunity.
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