Tag: United Nations
Nation-building isn’t a four letter word
Donald Trump yesterday followed in a long tradition of American presidential candidates and presidents who have forsworn nation-building.
George H. W. Bush said he was sending the marines to Somalia in 1992 to restore order and enable feeding the population. When Washington discovered that we couldn’t get out without leaving chaos behind, we turned the nation-building over to a UN mission (run by a US Navy Admiral) that failed. We are still fighting insurgent terrorists in Somalia.
Bill Clinton said in 1995 we would send US troops to a NATO mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina for only a year, to oversee implementation of only the military aspects of the Dayton peace agreements. He discovered the obstacles to peace implementation didn’t divide neatly into civilian and military components. US troops stayed for almost 10 years and some still remain. They likewise have stayed in Kosovo much longer than initially projected. In both Bosnia and Kosovo, their presence has had positive effects.
George W. Bush declared during the 2000 election campaign that US troops don’t do nation-building. But once he had invaded Afghanistan and Iraq he discovered that we couldn’t get the troops out without it. He then launched the two biggest and most expensive nation-building efforts since the Marshall Plan after World War II.
Barack Obama has been more disciplined than his predecessors: he pulled US troops out of Iraq almost completely (in accordance with an agreement and timetable negotiated and signed by his predecessor) and has tried to get them out of Afghanistan. The negative consequences of failure to build an inclusive state in Iraq, including Prime Minister Maliki’s turn to sectarianism and the rise of a Sunni insurgency, are documented in the Washington Post this morning. The consequences in Afghanistan are all too obvious: the Taliban are back in force and the Islamic State is trying to gain traction. Obama has said that one of his worst mistakes was failing to provide adequate assistance to Libya after the fall of Qaddafi.
When Trump yesterday declared an end to nation-building, he was repeating what his predecessors have said, and mostly regretted. The American people are reluctant to govern others, even if they are quick to tell others how to govern. Trump followed that tradition too, by announcing that he would somehow make sure that lesbians, gays, transgender and queer people are treated with respect abroad and honor killings stopped.
It is of course unfair to blame all the consequences of reluctance to do nation-building on American presidents.
First, because they are reflecting the real preferences of their constituents. Americans want their resources expended at home, not abroad. Many believe that 25% of the Federal budget is spent on foreign aid, even though the actual figure is less than 1%. If I thought one-quarter of my tax money was going overseas, I would want foreign aid cut too.
Second, because the task they are trying to avoid really is difficult and expensive. It is properly called state-building rather than nation-building, a term presidents prefer because it sounds pejorative. But what we needed in Somalia, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya is a legitimate organization that could govern on a particular territory. The people on that territory might or might not constitute a “nation.”
Given what we know about terrorist groups and their affinity for weak or fragile states that cannot fully control their territory, state-building is not optional. Without it, post-war Syria or Yemen will, like post-war Iraq and Afghanistan, provide haven to people who wish harm not only to their own state but also to us.
That doesn’t mean the US has to be responsible for the state-building. You break it, you buy it is the prevailing rule. The Russians and Iranians in Syria along with the Saudis and other Gulf states in Yemen should be thinking about that as they bomb with abandon. The UN is already stuck with the job in Libya, where it appears to be making slow headway in gaining traction for a national unity government.
But what kind of state-building will Russia and Iran, or the Gulf states, do? Not the kind of state-building that even Donald Trump says he wants. What presidents call nation-building may not be what they want to do, but it is not a four letter word either. If you want to keep America safe, you are going to have to figure out how to get it done.
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Yemen talks need rethinking
The most recent round of peace talks between the Houthis, supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Salih, Yemen’s government in exile lead by Abd Rabbuuh Mansur Hadi, and the regional powers involved in the GCC campaign in Yemen has gone nowhere. Hadi’s government in exile has departed from Kuwait. They signed a recently proposed UN deal and left it up to the Houthis to ratify the agreement and keep the talks moving.
The Houthis have not, and will not. This should come as no surprise. The Kuwait talks in their present form cannot lead to a political solution for three reasons:
1. The assumptions and structure that underpin the talks preclude an equitable settlement. On April 17, 2015 the Security Council adopted Resolution 2216, which has served as the basis for all Yemen peace talks since then. Then UNSC president Jordan (a party to the GCC coalition that has supplied planes and arms to pro-Hadi forces) proposed the resolution. It calls for the Houthis to withdraw from all territory they have seized since 2014 and to surrender their weapons.
That’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Particularly troublesome is that unconditional Houthi surrender has become a precondition for further political negotiations, not an end goal. Once the Houthis surrender their weapons and retreat from seized territory, they lose their bargaining chips in the negotiations. The Houthis initiated the current conflict because they felt they were not being heard in the political process. They aren’t going to trust Hadi to include them in Yemen’s future without the threat of force. The UNSC resolution also reiterates the legitimacy of the Hadi government and extols the GCC Initiative that removed Salih from power, led to the National Dialogue Conference, and created a draft constitution.
Widely credited with helping to avoid civil war in Yemen after the 2011 uprising, the National Dialogue Conference failed to represent the demands of the groups that had fought for Salih’s removal. Women, young people, the Houthis, and representatives of the movement for southern independence were all marginalized. Despite an initial unanimous agreement to a federal structure for Yemen, the process fell apart when it came to deciding the precise terms. A small, unrepresentative committee Hadi hand-picked redrew Yemen’s 21 governorates into a 6 regions. Criticism was widespread: the Houthis, southerners, the salafi Rashad Union, and others questioned the new map.
This led to the Houthi take over of Sana’a in September 2014. Going back to the GCC Initiative without addressing the grievances of young activists, Southerners, and especially the Houthis will accomplish nothing. A new starting point for a more representative political process is needed.
By far the most damning aspect of UNSC 2216 is its exoneration of the Saudi-led campaign. The Resolution makes no mention of a multilateral ceasefire, even while noting the deteriorating humanitarian situation. In fact, the GCC air campaign is not mentioned at all, even though the UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, Ivan Simonovic, reported the day prior that the majority of casualties were civilians. Demanding that only the Houthis put down their weapons without asking the same of “pro-Hadi forces” will never work.
2. The Kuwait talks do not represent the forces fighting on the ground. The war in Yemen is widely portrayed as a war with two sides:
- the Houthis and forces loyal to Ali Abdullah Salih;
- Allegedly “Pro-Hadi forces,” who include southern secessionists, tribes in central Yemen who are fighting more to remove the Houthis than to reinstate Hadi, and people in the Houthi stronghold of Sa‘ada who oppose the Houthis on religious and political grounds.
A large portion of the forces fighting the Houthis share many of their grievances and also felt side-lined by the elite-dominated GCC Initiative, but oppose the Houthis’ turn to violence and effort to dominate opposition to Hadi. Many do not want to see Hadi re-installed as president, but none of them have been represented at talks in Kuwait or Geneva. While “pro-Hadi forces” are united for now by a common enemy, if the Houthis retreat Hadi will lose what little influence he commands on the ground.
3. The war has stalemated on the battlefield, but both sides still believe they can use force to extract more concessions at the negotiating table. When the Yemeni government in exile walked away from the talks the first time, the Houthis escalated their shelling of the Saudi border. There is no genuine commitment on either side to reaching a political solution for the sake of the Yemeni people.
Throughout all negotiations, Hadi has not budged an inch. He demands a full return of his government and has offered no concessions to his opponents. He sees the negotiations as a zero-sum game. Any power-sharing deal with the Houthis and other groups in Yemen would come at a cost to his monopoly. With the GCC and much of the international community behind him, Hadi has no reason to accommodate Houthi interests.
The Houthis, on the other hand, lost international legitimacy when they violently chased the Yemeni government from Sana’a. Their most recent proposal, to form a joint body to oversee a political transition to a national unity government, went nowhere. Their subsequent move to form a governing council with supporters of Ali Abdullah Salih lost them any sympathy they might have enjoyed from the international community.
Peace talks in Yemen need rethinking. The international community needs to stop seeing the GCC as an impartial arbiter when it is in fact a party to Yemen’s war. The negotiations need to include all the stakeholders, including southerners and civil society actors. Then it might be possible to begin talking about trust-building measures that could lead to partial Houthi and Salih withdrawal and disarmament as well as aid delivery to besieged Ta’iz. Without these changes, Yemen’s war will continue and its abysmal humanitarian situation will continue to deteriorate.
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Peace Picks August 8-12
- Technology: Improving Elections One Bit Or Byte At A Time? | Tuesday, August 9th | 3:15 pm -4:45 pm | Pew Charitable Trusts – Research Facility| Click HERE for more information | Election apps, online tools, electronic poll books, and more, are changing every aspect of the elections process. What role do legislators play in adopting new technology? What is the price for implementing new voting tools? And what about the human factor—how does all this impact voters and poll workers? Speakers will include David Becker of the Pew Charitable Trusts, Washington, D.C.; Matthew Mastersonof the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Maryland; and Amber McReynolds, Denver Elections Division, Colorado
- Women And The SDGs: Partner Perspectives | Tuesday, August 9th | 4:00pm -6:00pm | Woodrow Wilson Center| Click HERE to register | Please join Plan International USA and the Woodrow Wilson Center for a practical discussion on how various partners can and should work together to move the SDG needle for women and girls. The panelists will share their perspectives and the challenges they face, and discuss what the SDGs really mean for women globally. To enhance the conversation, 26 women leaders from 18 countries participating in Plan’s Global Women in Management program will also be in attendance to share their views from the field. Speakers include Tony Pipa, Chief Strategy Officer at USAID; Natalie Co, Senior Manager at Accenture Development Partnerships; Roger-Mark de Souza, Director of Population, Environmental Security, and Resilience, Woodrow Wilson Center; and Xolile Manyoni, Project Coordinator/Co-founder, Sinamandla, South Africa (Global Women in Management participant, Plan USA). The discussion will be moderated by Ann Hudock, Senior Vice President for International Programs at Plan International USA. The discussion will be from 4-5pm, with a reception to follow from 5-6pm
- Teaching The Middle East Through Art, Music, And Culture | Wednesday, August 10th | 9:00am -3:00pm | Elliott School of International Affairs| Click HERE to register | This workshop will help K-12 educators develop strategies to look beyond the dominant narratives of conflict and violence in the Middle East and instead teach students about the region through its wide array of peoples and cultures. Along with presentations from leading scholars, we will engage discussions and activities, and distribute information to help educators access resources on teaching about the Middle East. Speakers include Ted Swedenburg, Professor of Anthropology, University of Arkansas and Hisham Aidi, Lecturer, Columbia University.
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Russian/American cooperation in Syria
My recent travels caused me to miss publication of the draft US/Russian agreement on Syria. You can skip the “Terms of Reference for the Joint Implementation Group.” It contains the nitty gritty details of how Moscow and Washington will choose ISIS and especially Jabhat al Nusra targets while constraining the Syrian air force.
The more interesting part starts on p. 6 in the section on “Practical Approach for Russian-American Cooperation Against Daesh [ISIS] and [Al Qaeda affiliate] Jabhat al Nusra and Strengthening the Cessation of Hostilities.” Even that begins with more Joint Implementation Group stuff, but then goes on to conclude with this:
b) translation of the CoH into a durable, nationwide ceasefire, phased with steps on the political transition, inclusive of provisions on the disposition and separation of forces, control of heavy weapons, regulation of the flow of weapons into Syria , independent monitoring and verification, and enforcement; and
c) a framework on political transition in Syria consistent with UNSCR 2254, to include provisions on how and when a transitional government with full executive authority formed on the basis of mutual consent will be established, security and intelligence institutions will be reformed, and constitutional and electoral processes will be conducted.
The Europeans are said to be circulating a paper with more substance on this last point. The failure of the US to put the issues of ceasefire and political transition up front, and to leave them in this rudimentary afterthought, reflects the Administration’s priorities. It wants to focus on killing extremists, not on stabilizing Syria or ending the war.
Steve Heydemann has already blasted this approach, which has no hope of achieving its counter-terrorism objectives without focusing also on displacing Bashar al Assad, whose efforts to maintain himself in power feed extremism in Syria and ensure the war will continue. But President Obama has made himself eminently clear: he has no intention of displacing Assad, fearing what might come next.
That’s where the Syrian opposition needs to focus: on convincing the US that it can offer a viable governing alternative, at least in those areas where ISIS and Jabhat al Nusra are not present and the cessation of hostilities can be made to hold. The US is providing resources to police, schools, civil defense, local councils and nongovernmental organizations in these areas, but everything is done piecemeal, without any central direction or oversight.
Kurdish “cantons” along Syria’s northern border with Turkey have already achieved a large measure of what is required. They have chased extremists out and established fairly effective governing bodies. But they also collaborate with Assad, thus avoiding attacks, and have ethnically cleansed Arabs from some areas, in order to establish Kurdish dominance. The Kurds may merit the US support they are getting to fight ISIS, but only if they stop the ethnic cleansing and end their collaboration with the Assad regime.
The non-extremist Arab opposition has been far less successful in ensuring security in the areas it controls, due to continued regime and Russian bombing and shelling. If an agreement with the Russians can stop those attacks and allow humanitarian relief to flow, there will be some hope that opposition authorities can begin to govern more effectively.
But the fragmented approach the US has taken so far seems guaranteed to be ineffective in helping the opposition to establish legitimacy with the populations in areas it more or less controls. Washington has already abandoned several efforts at building a unified Syrian opposition: the Syrian National Council, the Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (Etilaf) and the Syrian Interim Government. The landscape is littered with other piecemeal efforts: the Assistance Coordination Unit, the Local Administrative Councils Unit and the Syrian Recovery Trust Fund, to name a few.
Washington needs to get serious about constructing a viable governing alternative to the Assad regime. This should be thought of as the nucleus of a transitional governing body, one capable of implementing the cessation of hostilities, reforming the security and intelligence services, and organizing the constitutional and electoral processes (see b and c above). The High Negotiations Committee, which has represented the opposition in recent UN meetings, would be my current candidate to take charge of these preparations. But to be effective it will need more structure and organizational integrity than it has today. Washington should try to ensure it gets what it needs.
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Stability rather than integration
I was a fly on the wall yesterday and overheard a discussion of Libya. Here are some of my takeaways:
- The UN-sponsored political process has gotten about as far as it can get under current circumstances. The Presidential Council is in Tripoli and the country’s two expired legislatures are more or less defunct.
- General Haftar, who leads the so-called Libyan National Army headquartered in Benghazi, will not be able to displace the Presidential Council, but he also isn’t prepared to accept the subordinate role (as foreseen for the military chief in Article 8 of the UN-sponsored Libyan Political Agreement).
- So the most likely outcome is divided governance for now, superimposed on an elaborate array of municipal and tribal arrangements that are far more important to most Libyans than those claiming national authority.
- Legitimacy in Libya does not stem from elections but rather from effective and inclusive governance. The international community has to do what it can to help Presidential Council Chair Sarraj deliver the goods.
- Over the long-term, subnational dialogue and structures will also be vital to stability in Libya, which should be the international community’s relatively modest goal.
- The next step at the national level should be a Libyan/Libyan dialogue on security issues, mainly between the Misratan militia and Haftar. This should aim to determine practical arrangements for security, in particular in Sirte once the Islamic State is defeated there as well as for the oil fields and pipelines.
- Power-sharing is not as good an idea as defining the territory on which different militias will hold sway.
- The Egyptians and United Arab Emirates have provided support to Haftar, but they can’t “deliver” him, partly because if they try he will turn to Moscow. The Russians would like an opportunity to gain a toehold in North Africa.
- Haftar could be more of a problem if his sponsors abandon him than if they maintain their support and try to influence him.
- The Turkish role in Libya is in doubt in the wake of the coup attempt. Erdogan, who had already begun to reconfigure Ankara’s relations with Russia and Israel, may also revise his position vis-a-vis Syria and Libya.
- So long as the international community gives priority to fighting ISIS, it will be difficult to gain attention to the more fundamental and long-term problem of how Libya is to be governed.
- Prospects for a major international intervention in Libya have dimmed, though the threat of mass migration persists: as many as 800,000 people in Libya are thought to be intending to cross the Mediterranean.
- Europe is increasingly turning its attention to preventing sub-Saharan migrants from reaching Libya by strengthening economies and governance in Mali, Niger and elsewhere.
- US and European special forces engagement on the ground in Libya, which aims principally at fighting ISIS, could also be useful in informing international efforts at promoting Libyan/Libyan dialogue and stabilizing the situation.
- The key to success is gaining an improved understanding of what motivates different actors: how can they be incented or disincented?
- While Libya’s revolutionary aspirations have largely been dashed and its polity badly divided, the society still has indigenous tribal and civil society capacities that could prove vital in stabilizing its three main regions (east, west and south) now and eventually re-knitting them into a single state.
International goals for Libya should be modest. Resources are limited. The “international community,” often divided, has lost a lot of clout and credibility in Libya, even if the UN plan has gone farther than some might have expected. Stability rather than democracy should be the immediate objection. Deconfliction rather than integration.
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Don’t forget Hezbollah
Here is the draft of the State Department dissent message on Syria, on which the New York Times based its coverage yesterday. So far as I can tell the final version is not publicly available, but this draft is polished. The argument is basically that the US has sufficient moral and strategic reason to attack Syrian government forces with stand-off weapons with the goal of getting President Asad to abide by the internationally mandated cessation of hostilities and initiate serious negotiations on a political transition, as required by the Geneva I communique and numerous subsequent international decisions. The dissent memo admits some downsides: a deterioration of relations with Russia and possible “second order” effects.
Those downsides require more consideration. There is no international mandate to attack Syrian government forces. Intervention in this case would in that sense have even less multilateral sanction than the NATO attack on Qaddafi’s forces in Libya, where there was a UN Security Council mandate, albeit one that authorized “all necessary means” to save civilians rather than to change the regime. Asad has not directly attacked the US, even if his reaction to Syria’s internal rebellion has created conditions that are inimical to US interests by attracting extremists and undermining stability in neighboring countries.
The Russia angle is also daunting. Moscow may well react by intensifying its attacks on the opposition forces the US supports, who are already targeted by Russian warplanes. Unilateral US intervention against Syrian government forces would also help Moscow to argue it is doing no worse in Ukraine, where it supports opposition forces behind a thin veil of denials that its forces are directly involved. The US is not ready to respond in kind to Russian escalation in Ukraine, if only because the European allies would not want it. Kiev might be the unintended victim of US escalation in Syria.
Second order effects could also include loss of European, Turkish and Jordanian support, because of an increased refugee flow out of Syria, as well as increased Iranian support for the Houthi rebellion in Yemen, destabilization of Bahrain and Shia militias in Iraq. Greater chaos in Syria could also help ISIS to revive its flagging fortunes and al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra to pursue its fight against the Syrian government.
These downsides are all too real, but so is the current situation: Russia, the Syrian government, Iran and Hezbollah are making mincemeat of the US-supported Syrian opposition while more extremist forces are gaining momentum. President Obama is reluctant to attack sovereign states that have not attacked the US directly without an international mandate of some sort. That is understandable. But doing nothing military to respond to a deteriorating situation is a decision too, one with real and unfortunately burgeoning negative consequences for US interests.
Hezbollah is the way out of this quandary. It is not a state. It is a designated terrorist group that has killed hundreds of Americans, and many others as well. The Americans say they are fighting terrorist groups in Syria. Why not Hezbollah? Its ground forces there have become increasingly important to the Syrian government’s cause. Getting Hezbollah out of the fight would arguably have as much impact on the military balance as strikes on the Syrian army, which is already a declining and demoralized force.
Washington need not start with military action. It could lead with diplomacy, telling Moscow and Tehran that we want Hezbollah to leave Syria tout de suite. If it fails to leave by a date certain, we could then strip it of its immunity and treat it like the other terrorist groups in Syria. Moscow might even welcome such a move, since Hezbollah efforts in Syria strengthen Iran’s hold, not Russia’s.
Tehran would be furious, claiming Hezbollah is in Syria at the request of its legitimate government. Hezbollah would likely try to strike US, Israeli or even Jewish targets in the region or beyond. It has managed in the past to murder Jews as far away as Argentina. Doing so would confirm the thesis that Hezbollah is a terrorist group and redouble the need to act decisively against it.
No suggestions for what to do or not do in Syria are simple. The situation has gotten so fraught that any proposition will have complicated and unpredictable consequences. But the State Department dissenters missed an opportunity to duck some of the President’s objections and strengthen their own argument by focusing on a terrorist group, rather than the regime’s own forces. Don’t forget Hezbollah.
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