Tag: United Nations
Fight and muddle
It took longer than anticipated, but it appears now that the cessation of hostilities in Syria is ending, mainly due to regime attacks on relatively moderate opposition forces in the center of the country. Fighting has also erupted in the far northeast, where Kurdish and regime forces had long divided the turf between them but are now going after each other.
The opposition’s High Negotiation Council has been leaving the UN-sponsored talks in Geneva, disappointed that in the minimal progress on humanitarian access and release of detainees, as well as the regime’s refusal to discuss political transition. I suspect they stayed long enough to avoid any American backlash, but we’ll have to wait and see. Technical level talks on some issues are said to be proceeding.
On the regime side, President Assad is feeling strong in the aftermath of Russia’s fall offensive, which succeeded in preventing the opposition from reaching the Alawite heartland it was aiming for. Both Moscow and Tehran have now doubled down on their support for Assad. No matter how often they deny being wedded to him, neither Russia nor Iran can hope for a successor regime even half as friendly to their interests as he has been. They know they are cooked in the long term if Syria becomes even remotely democratic, as the substantial Sunni majority will no doubt remember what they’ve done and seek eventually to exclude them from any substantial influence in the country.
What this amounts to for the US is a short term loss even if it can hope for a long term gain. The cessation of hostilities worked mainly by reducing Russian and regime attacks, which this fall were responsible for most of the violence, and freed the relatively moderate opposition to do what the Americans have long wanted them to do: attack the Islamic State (ISIS). They were somewhat successful, especially in northern Syria but also in the south. That was good news for Washington. So too were the demonstrations that broke out in some cities against Jabhat al Nusra, Syria’s Qaeda affiliate.
Now the big question is whether the Americans have done what is normally done during a cessation of hostilities: prepared its Syrian allies for the renewal of violence. If the relatively moderate opposition has been strengthened, it will be difficult for the regime to make further progress or even hold the territory the Russian offensive helped it to gain. Particularly important is whether the opposition has acquired antiaircraft weapons, which could tilt the military balance against the regime even if the still active Russians remain relatively unscathed. The regime uses vulnerable helicopters to drop so-called “barrel bombs,” which devastate civilian areas.
The situation in the region remains tense and confused. Turkey continues to be more concerned with countering the Syrian Kurds (as well as their own) than with fighting the Islamic State. Saudi Arabia still seems more focused on its support for what it considers the legitimate government in Yemen rather than support for the Syrian opposition or the fight against ISIS. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu took the opportunity of a cabinet meeting held on the Golan Heights to declare that they would never be returned to Syria, thus undermining the rapprochement between Israel and the Sunni Arab states even more than Israel’s growing cooperation with Russia.
President Obama remains determined to minimize American exposure in Syria and the Middle East generally, even as he beefs up aid and advising to both Baghdad’s security forces and the Kurdish peshmerga in Iraq, where the jabber about an impending assault on Mosul belies the shortcomings of the Iraqi army. If his meeting with Gulf states this week produced a new approach in Syria or Iraq, it has not yet become apparent. Washington seems resigned to muddling through until the January end of this administration, when more likely than not Hillary Clinton will begin to serve Obama’s third term. She will then have to decide whether to follow through on her pledges to take greater risks in Syria not only against ISIS but also against Assad by imposing a no-fly zone over part of the country.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Peace Picks April 18-22
- A Conversation on Jerusalem and the Future of the Peace Process with Daniel Seidemann | Monday, April 18th | 12:15-1:30 | Middle East Institute and Johns Hopkins SAIS | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Conflict Management Program of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) are pleased to host internationally renowned Jerusalem expert and activist Daniel Seidemann in a discussion with Al Arabiya TV’s Muna Shikaki about ongoing settlement activities in Jerusalem and challenges to an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Seidemann has observed that Jerusalem is becoming “the central arena for Israeli-Palestinian skirmishing of such intensity that developments there jeopardize the very possibility of a two-state solution and threaten to undermine both local and regional stability.” In the absence of a political dialogue, Israel is extending physical barriers and discussing ideas to more thoroughly separate the communities, particularly in Jerusalem. In this period of growing crisis, what steps can advocates of a two-state solution – in the region and in the U.S. and Europe – take to preserve the prospect? Daniel Serwer (SAIS and MEI) will introduce the program.
- Beyond Migration: The Refugee Crisis in Europe and the Challenges of Immigrant Integration | Monday, April 18th | 3:30-5:00 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Despite decades of immigration, even the most multicultural countries in Europe are struggling with the scale of the current refugee crisis, and the challenge of integrating the newcomers. This crisis, one of Europe’s biggest of the past century, has the potential to alter the political fabric of the continent and undermine the foundation of post-WWII transnational institutions. The political and humanitarian consequences of the EU’s deal with Turkey have drawn much attention. But what about those refugees who have already made the trip and are now settling in Europe, if only temporarily? Looking back, what lessons can European governments learn from successes and failures in integrating earlier generations of immigrants? Join us for a discussion of the dilemmas of immigration control in Europe, as well as the longer-term issues of immigrant integration, identity, and belonging. Speakers include Henri J. Barkey, Director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, James Hollifield, Public Policy Fellow at the Wilson Center, and Riva Kastoryano, Senior Research Fellow, Center for International Research, SciencesPo, Paris.
- High Stakes at the Gulf Summit: What President Obama Should Get from the GCC Meeting | Tuesday, April 19th | 2:00-3:30 | Center for Transatlantic Relations and Human Rights First | REGISTER TO ATTEND | On April 21 President Obama will attend the Gulf Co-operation Council Summit in Saudi Arabia, with a series of crises confronting the Gulf monarchies. Syria, Yemen and Iran will be key components of the discussions, as well how to prevent violent extremism. Join us for a panel discussion featuring regional specialists on what Obama should achieve in the GCC meeting, and why it matters so much. Introductory remarks will be made by Ambassador Andras Simonyi, Managing Director, CTR. Speakers include Hala Aldosari, Visiting Scholar, the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, Brian Dooley, Director, Human Rights Defenders, Human Rights First, and Matar Ebrahim Matar, former member of the Bahraini Parliament. Mihai Patru, Senior Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations, will moderate.
- The Idea of Culture and Civilization in Contemporary Turkish Politics: Public Debate, Policy and Foreign Relations | Wednesday, April 20th | 9:30-2:30 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Join us for a conference that explores new ideas among Islamist and secular intellectuals in contemporary Turkey and inquire whether novel understandings exist about the relationship between Islam and modernity, East and West, and the position of Turkey itself within them. The conference will also investigate the impact of these understandings on public debate domestically in Turkey and on its foreign policy, specifically its relations with the United States and Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. This event consists of three panels. Speakers and panels may be found here.
- The Value of Values: Reconsidering the Role of Human Rights in U.S.-China Relations | Wednesday, April 20th | 2:30-4:00 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Issues of ideology, values, and human rights are again moving to the top of the United States’ China agenda and underlie many frictions in U.S.-China relations. The competing virtue narratives and disparate systems of the United States and China fuel suspicions in the military, economic, and global governance spheres. Please join us for an examination of values, rights, and ideals in the U.S.-China relationship and in the evolution of regional and world orders. Speakers include J. Stapleton Roy, Founding Director and Distinguished Scholar at the Wilson Center, Sharon Hom, Executive Director, Human Rights in China, Zheng Wang, Global Fellow, and Robert Daly, Director, Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.
- Western Defense Reassurances to Gulf Arab After the Iran Deal: Are We on the Same Page? | Thursday, April 21st | 10:00-11:30 | International Institute for Strategic Studies | REGISTER TO ATTEND | You are invited to an IISS discussion meeting on Thursday, April 21st, on Western defense reassurances to Gulf Arabs after the Iran deal. Panelists include Ellen Laipson, Distinguished Fellow and President Emeritus of the Stimson Center, Michael Eisenstadt, director of The Washington Institute’s Military and Security Studies Program, Caroline Hurndall, Head of the Middle East Team at the British Embassy, and Bilal Saab, Resident Senior Fellow for Middle East Security at the Atlantic Council. The panel will discuss whether post-Iran deal arms sales to Gulf Cooperation Council countries meet the goal of reassurance, whether arms sales from different NATO counties are complementary or competitive, and how the sales are affecting the geopolitics of the region. Following the hour-long panel discussion, there will be a 30-minute Q&A session with the audience. The full event will be on the record and webcast live on the IISS website.
- Protecting Religious Minorities | Thursday, April 21st | 1:30-3:00 | United States Institute for Peace | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Propelled by the atrocities against religious minorities in several Muslim-majority countries in recent years, particularly at the hands of the Islamic State group, senior religious leaders meeting in Morocco in January issued the Marrakesh Declaration to prevent such violence in the future. Join the U.S. Institute of Peace and its co-hosts on April 21 as renowned Islamic legal scholar Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah, who designed the legal framework for the declaration and convened the Morocco meeting, discusses the next steps in ensuring the terms of this call to action can be implemented. The violence wrought by violent extremists creates an imperative for people in the Muslim world across sectarian, ethnic, and national lines to affirm positive teachings within the tradition, address historical points of disagreement and transform the underlying causes of violent extremism into peaceful change.The Marrakesh Declaration courageously acknowledges the oppression and violence against religious minorities within some predominantly Muslim countries. Inspired by the Charter of Medina, which was established in the time of the Prophet Muhammad to guarantee religious freedoms, the declaration presents a way to apply a religious legal and theological framework to uphold human rights. But much of the success of the Marrakesh Declaration will depend on how it is implemented. In this discussion co-hosted by the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers and Sheikh bin Bayyah’s Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, he will address the urgency of the Marrakesh Declaration in light of current events. He also will outline plans to work with individuals and organizations to use the declaration as a source of authority and accountability to advance the goals of this call to action.
- A Stronger UN for a Peaceful World—Conversation with Ambassador Natalia Gherman | Thursday, April 21st | 4:00-5:00 | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The Women in Public Service Projectand the Kennan Instituteinvite you to a discussion with Ambassador Natalia Gherman, candidate for United Nation Secretary General. Amb. Gherman will outline her unique perspective and goals for new UN leadership, before taking audience questions. Ambassador Natalia Gherman has previously served as acting Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Moldova. As a Chief Negotiator, she led Moldova towards the Association Agreement, Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, and visa liberalization regime with the EU. She served as Ambassador to Austria and Permanent Representative to the UN Agencies in Vienna and the OSCE, and Ambassador to Sweden, Finland, and Norway.
- The Changing Role of Egypt’s Private Sector | Friday, April 22nd | 9:00-10:30 | Middle East Institute | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to host a discussion about the evolving role of Egypt’s private sector and the emergence of new business models to meet the demands of sustainable development. Egyptian business leaders Mohamed El-Kalla (Cairo for Investment and Development), Dina Sherif (The Center for Entrepreneurship, AUC) and Tarek Tawfik (Federation of Egyptian Industries) will be joined by American attorney and investment adviser Samar Ali (Bone McAllester Norton PLLC) for an examination of the changing nature of private enterprise in Egypt. Egypt’s new generation of entrepreneurs and corporate leaders are increasingly prioritizing sustainable development, accountability, and responsible business practices as key tools for economic growth. The panel will discuss the drivers of change, the challenges that private business faces from the state, and how the U.S. government and business community can encourage the new trend. Randa Fahmy will moderate the discussion.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Anyone but Jeremic
I am getting a lot of questions about Vuk Jeremic’s candidacy for UN Secretary General, which the Serbian government is supporting. Here is what I have to say:
I think Vuk Jeremic is ill-regarded in Washington, both from his time as Foreign Minister and his time as President of the General Assembly. His support lies in Moscow, not the US. I am frankly surprised that a government aiming at EU membership would put him forward.
Jeremic’s most important contribution to peace in the Balkans was his mistake in asking the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on Kosovo’s declaration of independence. The ICJ concluded unequivocally that the declaration breached no international law. That defeat of Belgrade’s claim led to the dialogue with Pristina and the ongoing process of reintegration of the north with the rest of Kosovo, whose constitutional legitimacy on its whole territory Belgrade has accepted.
I suppose Belgrade, where he is not in particularly good odor with the current government, puts him forward partly to assuage the Russians and partly to get him off their backs. Neither of those is a good reason for Washington to support him.
People will tell you Jeremic is hardworking and knows the UN well. Both are true. And for the US they are two additional reasons not to want him as Secretary General. He would work hard and possibly have significant success in making America’s goals unachievable, not only in the Balkans but elsewhere as well. He didn’t keep commitments to the US while he was foreign minister. He certainly wouldn’t do so as UN Secretary General.
From the American perspective, there are lots of good candidates this time around. Any one of them would be better than Jeremic.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Accept, acknowledge, move on
Yesterday’s Serbian government statement responding to the guilty verdicts against former Republika Srpska leader Radovan Karadzic walks a tightrope. It implicitly acknowledges the legitimacy of the court’s decisions in this particular case but refuses any implication of collective responsibility and complains about the failure to hold people responsible for crimes against Serbs:
…every crime must be punished, as well as any individual who took part in them, but that any kind of politicisation and placing collective guilt on individual nations for the crimes committed by people with names and surnames is impermissible.
…the Serbian government does not want to react to the content and explanation of any single verdict of the Hague Tribunal, but that, after many years of work of that court, a bitter taste remains due to the fact that the masterminds of the policy of crimes against Serbs have not been punished in any way.
I know lots of people who might have liked the statement to have been more explicit and to have accepted Serbian government responsibility. In particular the Srebrenica genocide was carried out under the command of a Yugoslav National Army (JNA) officer, Ratko Mladic, who was at least equally responsible alongside Slobodan Milosevic as well as Karadzic. But I am tiring of waiting for Belgrade to acknowledge official responsibility and confident history will record the truth of the matter. I even hope it will some day be taught in Serbian schools.
Americans should be understanding: it is only recently that we are acknowledging official responsibility for atrocities against our continent’s indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans.
The Serbian government is correct in rejecting collective guilt. While those who voted repeatedly for Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic bear some indirect responsibility for what they did with the power entrusted to them, I know lots of Serbs who had the courage and dignity to object. I’m reminded of Zoran Djindjic’s first appearance in Washington after the fall of Milosevic. When an audience member prefaced a question by stating that Serbs were not collectively responsible, he responded that it would nevertheless be necessary for history to consider how Milosevic came to power and the extent of the support he enjoyed.
The complaint about the failure to hold others responsible for crimes against Serbs is unfortunately accurate. It would be a mistake to view everyone as equally guilty. But Albanians, Croats and Bosniaks unquestionably committed crimes against Serb civilians in the 1990s, for which their commanders should have been held responsible. The International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) will not be fondly remembered for many reasons: it has been too slow, too inconsistent, too aloof and too wedded to tortuous process rather than just outcomes. Maybe each of its individual decisions can be defended as just, but I fear the overall result is justice that looks dictated by victors rather than facts.
Karadzic was unquestionably guilty morally and now legally of genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of war. While well within its rights to complain that others have not been held accountable for their own misdeeds, the Serbian government is wise to accept, acknowledge and try to move on.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Better than nothing
Welcome though it must be, it is difficult to applaud today’s guilty verdicts at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslovia (ICTY) for Radovan Karadzic, the wartime president of Republika Srpska. Coming more than 20 years after the end of the Bosnian war, this is certainly justice delayed. Karadzic, who hid for 15 years and has been on trial for five, will now appeal and eventually serve out the rest of his life in relative luxury in a first-class European prison. Few of his victims or their surviving families will feel much “closure” from this outcome. His supporters will see the ICTY verdict as selective and prejudiced against Serbs.
Worse, people who support his political program of independence for Republika Srpska are very much in charge there. I can’t get too excited about the naming of a university dormitory in his honor. What bothers me far more is RS President Dodik’s repeated advocacy of independence for an entity that was founded on ethnic cleansing, murder, rape and genocide committed against Bosniaks and Croats that Karadizic commanded from 1992 to 1995. Since then, only the current Syrian war has done as much damage proportionally as the deaths and displacement inflicted on Bosnia during those years.
Dodik is an elected official and no doubt represents the views of a majority of his Serb constituency. It might even be argued that naming a university dormitory for Karadzic is damning with only the requisite faint praise. But Karadzic was convicted of one count of genocide (acquitted on another), five of crimes against humanity and four violations of the rules and customs of war, including murder, terror, unlawful attacks against civilians and taking of hostages. How easy should the students sleep in such a dormitory?
This is not the same as an American university named after slaveholders George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. America today doesn’t celebrate them for holding slaves but rather for other contributions to a society still trying to come to terms with what we recognize as the crimes against humanity they and their contemporaries committed. Washington was our revolutionary military commander and Jefferson the author of the declaration of independence that declared all men created equal, quite the contrary of his personal behavior.
Karadzic and Dodik have demonstrated much more consistency than our founders. They have not deviated from claiming that Republika Srpska belongs to the Serbs who rightfully wrested most of the towns and much of the rural area from Muslims, Croats and others who had lived there for centuries. For them all people are not created equal and military success is its own justification. Those ideas are inconsistent with today’s standards, as enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the now voluminous laws of war. Dodik’s modest virtue is that he merely espouses odious ideas. Karadzic’s crime was that he acted on them.
The conviction puts Belgrade in an awkward spot. I expect lots of nationalist Serbs there to praise and defend Karadzic and denounce the tribunal. But I certainly hope the Serbian government understands that its aspirations to EU membership are inconsistent with even modest official complaints. The Serbian parliamentary election campaign may tempt some to don the nationalist mantle. But for anyone wanting to maintain good relations with Washington and Brussels doing so would be a big mistake. It is bad enough that Karadzic for years managed to hide in Serbia. Compounding that felony would be a bigger mistake.
I understand those who will say that justice delayed is justice denied. But in this case justice delayed is better than the only realistic alternative: no justice at all. It would have been worse had Karadzic managed to remain at large, in Serbia or elsewhere, or if he had–like Slobodan Milosevic–died in prison. I’m not celebrating: these verdicts come far too late. But I’m not disappointed either: Karadzic led a criminal enterprise whose basic ideas Dodik still espouses. For the sake of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the Balkans region, better to have a clear decision of the Tribunal than not to have anything at all.
PS: For those who have the stamina, 1.75 hours of verdicts:
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
More gore than glory
Today marks five years since the start of the then peaceful Syrian uprising, which has covered no one in glory and many in gore: a quarter million dead, more than half the country chased from their homes, more than 4 million refugees and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage and billions in lost economic production. Large parts of Syrian cities have been reduced to rubble. The Islamic State occupies a substantial slice of the country while somewhat less lethal extremists control other, smaller slices, all too often in league with people who might have preferred to be counted as moderates.
No one can be proud of what the past five years have wrought.
President Putin has however announced himself satisfied with what the Russians have achieved in the past six months. He has ordered the withdrawal of at least some forces from Syria, though he will keep the base they have operated from as well as the air defense system they installed. The Russians will be able to return in force quickly if need be.
Some Russian objectives have certainly been achieved. Moscow:
- blocked opposition advances in Latakia that might soon have brought down Assad
- stymied any American efforts to install a no-fly or “safe” zone
- demonstrated that little can be decided in Syria without Russian cooperation
- countered growing Iranian influence on the Assad regime
- increased its own leverage on Assad.
The Russian withdrawal, even if only partial and reversible, is a strong signal to Assad that he needs to change tack and get serious at the negotiating table in Geneva, where proximity talks started yesterday.
But it would be a mistake to expect too much from the Russians.They cannot buy into creating what Vice President Biden calls “a credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian system, a new constitution and free and fair elections.” Doing so would guarantee installation of a Sunni-dominated regime that would quickly defenestrate the Russians at the first opportunity. The best that can be hoped from Moscow is that it will agree to some Alawaite general to replace Assad, thereby maintaining the autocracy as well as Russia’s interests and privileged position in Latakia and Tartous.
Washington, which clearly has hurt its own interests by failing to act earlier on Syria, has seemed for months to be backing off the demand that Assad must go, but the Syrian opposition remains committed to that goal and major parts of it will continue fighting until he does. The Geneva talks may somehow bridge the gap on the future of Assad, presumably by leaving him in place temporarily but insisting that he face a serious election in 18 months time, as the UN Security Council has mandated.
It is however hard for me to see him sitting still while a free and fair election is prepared, unless he can be certain that the opposition will go to the polls so divided that he can again win. More likely, he would just prepare the ballots and boxes carefully. Who is going to monitor an election in a Syria?
The only people courageous enough to do so are the intrepid folks who staff Syrian civil society organizations. They are reporting lots of ceasefire violations, but violence is down because the Russians and Iranians have stopped their massive offensive and are picking off the morsels they want piecemeal rather than wholesale. The Western press has focuseed on the relative calm, not the continuing advances. That is not surprising, since they haven’t got many journalists on the ground inside Syria.
What is the best we can hope for? It would certainly be good if De Mistura gets some sort of commitment to the UN plan, which calls for a transitional government, a new constitution and elections. That would be real progress, if only because it would set up benchmarks on a clear path forward. But I am not holding my breath. There may still be more gore than glory ahead.
RSS - Posts
