Tag: United Arab Emirates
Sharp differences on Syria
Al-Monitor and Johns Hopkins SAIS teamed up last week for a full-day conference on “The United States, Russia and the Middle East”. The afternoon session had a panel on the Syrian regional crisis, which moderator David Sanger of The New York Times described as not the typical panel in Washington, with everyone getting along.
Josh Landis, Director of the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Middle East Studies, said the US is now mostly concerned with the al-Qaeda presence in Syria and the refugee problem affecting Syria’s neighboring countries. Inside Syria there are no good guys. The military cannot be a substitute for Assad. The idea that the military and Ba’th Party can stay in power if Assad is removed is fictional. These institutions are expressions of Assad. If there is no plan to remove Assad then the civil war inside Syria is going to continue. The only two alternatives for Syria would be either to partition the country or to allow Russia to support Assad with arms in order to regain control of the country. Neither option is good for the rebels. Read more
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Put aid to Egypt on viagra
I spent a couple of hours last night in mild pain watching “The Square,” a documentary tracing the main turning points of the Egyptian revolution since early 2011. The film is a good one, but the ground rules prohibited reviewing it. Opens in January I think. It’s the revolution I have doubts about.
Knowledgeable colleagues at the event disagreed with me. Yes, they said, mistakes have been made, but the Egyptians are learning and things will come out all right, because there are good people prepared to make good things happen.
Of course. Ahmed Maher, who spoke at the Middle East Institute conference last week, is clearly one of them. The producer, director and human rights lawyer who answered questions at the showing last night certainly count among them. So too do the nuanced and devoted revolutionaries they chose to focus on in the film. Read more
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Peace picks, November 18-22
DC’s top events of the week:
1. Oil Security and the US Military Commitment to the Persian Gulf
Monday, November 18 | 9:00am – 2:30pm
George Washington University Elliott School, 1957 E Street NW, Lindner Family Commons Room 602
9:00-9:20: Introduction
Charles Glaser, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
9:30-11:00: Threats to U.S. Oil Security in the Gulf: Past, Present and Future
Salim Yaqub, University of California-Santa Barbara
Thomas Lippman, Middle East Institute
Joshua Rovner, Southern Methodist University
Chair: Rosemary Kelanic, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
11:15-12:15: The Economic Stakes: Oil Shocks and Military Costs
Eugene Gholz, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin
Kenneth Vincent, George Washington University
Chair: Charles Glaser, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
12:45-2:15: Possibilities for U.S. Grand Strategy in the Persian Gulf
Daniel Byman, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Caitlin Talmadge, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
Rosemary Kelanic, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
Chair: Charles Glaser, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
The U.S. strategic objective of protecting Persian Gulf oil has generated little controversy since the Gulf became a focus of U.S. military deployments over three decades ago. This may seem unsurprising given the widely-appreciated importance of oil to the global economy. Nevertheless, quite dramatic changes have occurred in the regional balance of power, the nature of security threats, and the global oil market since the U.S. made its commitment-raising the possibility that the U.S. role should be revisited. This conference examines two critical questions for U.S. grand strategy in the Gulf. First, should the United States continue to rely on military capabilities to preserve the flow of Persian Gulf oil? Second, if the U.S. security commitment remains strategically sound, what military posture should U.S. forces adopt? The conference panels examine the key rationales driving current U.S. policies, the costs and benefits of alternative approaches, and options for revising the U.S. military stance in the region.
Lunch will be served.
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The Gulf still wants a hug
Even though John Kerry made his pilgrimage to Riyadh and the United Arab Emirates last week, the Gulf is still complaining. Israel gets more face time. Gulf complaints go unheard. The US isn’t sufficiently committed and steadfast. Abdullah al Shayji gripes:
The overture with Iran seems to be heading towards relaxing the crippling sanctions regime, which could embolden a beleaguered Iran. Moreover, the US is also making overtures to the sectarian government in Iraq as Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki was well received in the White House.
This is pretty rich. Easing of sanctions would only happen if Iran freezes its nuclear program. Would the Gulf really prefer war? Or containment of a nuclear Iran? Maliki may be sectarian, but the Gulf monarchies are not? He was so well received in the White House that many here thought he went home chastened and empty handed.
But those are not the real issues. As Professor Shayji puts it:
What worries the GCC states regarding the US Middle East policy is not only over Iran’s nuclear programme, but US lack of concern for GCC’s interests by limiting negotiations over the nuclear issue and not factoring in Iran’s meddling in the GCC affairs. The haste with which US tries to allay the Israelis fears and not the GCC’s is also disconcerting.
This too is pretty rich. Even if I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is way off base in demanding that Iran give up all enrichment, I’d have to regard Israeli fears as more profound and existential than the GCC’s. And anyone in the Gulf who hasn’t understood that Israeli security is first among Middle East issues when it comes to American diplomatic priorities must have slept through the last sixty-five years.
The GCC is right however to be concerned with Iran’s meddling. The US will have to deal with that as well as a host of other issues: support for terrorism in general and Hizbollah in particular, military engagement in Syria, and domestic human rights violations just to name a few. But the nuclear issue comes first because it is the one most threatening to US national security. I’d have expected the Gulf to agree with that priority, not join forces with Netanyahu in resisting any sort of nuclear agreement.
It is striking how comfortable the GCC has gotten with the umbrella of American hegemony. The US has sidelined Iran, the Arab Gulf’s historical antagonist, for decades. President Bush, not the current administration, gave Iran its biggest diplomatic break of modern times with the invasion of Iraq. President Obama has ratcheted up the sanctions in a way that the Gulf should appreciate.
But Iranian isolation is not the natural state of affairs, and it is not one that will persist forever. The Gulf needs to be thinking hard about how it will deal with Iran once it emerges from sanctions and begins to compete again for power, influence and oil market share. A few more pipelines circumnavigating Hormuz would be one attractive option, for example.
I’d have thought that the tens of billions in arms purchases the GCC have made would provide a modicum of self-confidence. If Iran can be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons, it will be decades before it even comes close to matching the current level of GCC military power. But the GCC seems to wear its armaments like a thawb: more elegant and prestigious than practical.
If the Gulf wants a hug, the best way to get it from Washington today would be to demonstrate that its sympathy with the Syrian uprising can be turned into success both on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. From a Washington perspective, that would mean Gulf countries should cut off support to Sunni extremists and instead strengthen the relative moderates prepared to run a democratic, non-sectarian Syria. That’s a tall order for the Sunni monarchies, but it would get a big hug. Complaining about an agreement that freezes Iran’s nuclear program will not.
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The Syrian Coalition speaks
University of Arkansas Professor Najib Ghadbian, the Syrian Opposition Coalition representative to the United States, stopped by SAIS today for an all too rare public presentation, followed by Q and A. I moderated, though I confess both speaker and audience distinguished themselves in moderation. Revolutionaries should always be so reasonable. The event should be up on C-Span soon.
Najib outlined the main problems the Coalition faces in its effort to create an inclusive, secular and free democracy:
- The humanitarian catastrophe: 2.5 million Syrians are refugees, 5 million are internally displaced. Opposition funding has gone predominantly to meet their needs. Access is a major issue, as liberated areas are under frequent attack. But the Coalition’s Assistance Coordination Unit is now functioning well after some initial difficulties.
- Radicalization: Regime killing and weak support from outside Syria for moderates has strengthened extremists, who have proven effective on the battlefield. Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the former more Syrian and the latter more closely affiliated with Al Qaeda, are big and growing problems. ISIS in particular is responsible for mass atrocities attributed to the opposition.
- Governance: In liberated areas, local revolutionary councils are trying to fill the vacuum left by withdrawal of state institutions, some more successfully than others. The Coalition is expected to form and approve an interim government at its next meeting in Istanbul in early November. This will be a technocratic stopgap until the transitional government called for in the June 2012 Geneva communique is formed.
- Ending the conflict: The Coalition favors a political end to the conflict, but it must be one that leads to a democratic outcome. This is not possible with Bashar al Asad still in the presidency. The idea of his conducting elections next year is completely unacceptable. In order to go to a Geneva 2 conference next month or whenever it is scheduled, the Coalition will need the support not only of the US but also Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Coalition will also want to see the withdrawal of Hizbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, both of which are fighting inside Syria.
The Coalition needs to meet these challenges by providing humanitarian assistance, isolating and countering extremists, delivering government services and uniting to negotiate an end to the conflict. It is unlikely any negotiation can be successful unless there is a change in the military situation on the ground. The Coalition-linked Supreme Military Council needs increased resources, training and professionalization. Funding to extremists should be blocked. The Coalition will not try to expand in their direction.
Asked about protection for minorities, in particular Alawites, after Bashar al Asad is gone, Najib suggested that international peacekeepers or some form of elite units might be required. In any event, it is clear that the Asad regime is not protecting Alawites so much as it is putting them at risk. There are prominent Alawites within the opposition. Security sector reform, including consolidation of Syria’s 16 existing security agencies into a single internal and a single external service, will be a priority. The Day After report and ongoing project will be helpful, especially on security sector reform and rule of law.
Syria is not nearly as divided ethnically (or in sectarian terms) as Bosnia at the end of its war. Most Kurds are with the opposition. Administrative decentralization will be important in the post-Asad era, but federalization of the Iraqi variety is not in the cards because the Kurdish population is not as concentrated in one geographic area.
From the United States, the Coalition is looking for strong and more consistent support. While the Coalition supports US/Russia agreement, Washington made a mistake to embark on dismantling the regime’s chemical weapons capability without also doing something about Asad’s ferocious use of the Syrian air force against liberated areas. Conventional weapons have killed many more Syrians than chemical weapons. The military training being conducted in Jordan for the opposition should not be secret. It should be taken over by the Defense Department and enlarged to a much grander scale. US leadership and coordination is needed to ensure that the disparate supporters of the Coalition are all working in the same direction, as recommended in the recent International Crisis Group report.
I spent a summer in Damascus not too many years ago studying Arabic. The desire of ordinary Syrians, and even those close the regime, for freedom and democracy was palpable. The people I talked with would be pleased to hear what the Coalition representative had to say. But they would ask how much longer the killing will last.
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Tilting at pyramids
Those who follow Egypt these days are discombobulated. Its military-backed government is forging ahead to exclude the Muslim Brotherhood from existence, never mind political participation. It wants to make all Islamist parties illegal. The Brotherhood is uncompromising. Former revolutionaries are touting what looked like a coup as “popular impeachment.” Secular democrats who don’t buy that are under increasing pressure.
The frequent answer to these developments is to cut off American military aid, sending a signal to the Egyptian military that the US will not tolerate its excesses and to the broader Islamic world that Washington is not willing to sacrifice democracy on the alter of security. Many of my friends in Washington believe we should have done this long ago, though they fail to put forward a serious plan for what happens next.
The latest call for an aid cut-off is more nuanced, long-term and sophisticated. Shadi Hamid and Peter Mandaville recognize that unilateral US action in the absence of a broader political and diplomatic strategy will not work. They argue instead that the US should prioritize democracy rather than security: Read more
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