Tag: United Nations
Peace picks June 15-19
1. Calculating the Costs of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict| Monday, June 15th | 12:00-1:15 | Wilson Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | This event will explore both the economic and the non-economic factors surrounding the conflict that might influence the parties’ decisions and the long-term implications for Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and the international community. Speakers include: C. Ross Anthony, Senior Economist, RAND Corporation and Director, RAND Israeli-Palestinian Initiative; Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, Director, Arab-Israeli, U.S. Institute of Peace; Aaron David Miller, Vice President for New Initiatives, The Wilson Center; Ambassador Charles Ries, Vice President, International, RAND Corporation. Presentation by C. Ross Anthony and Ambassador Charles Ries.
2. Global Cooperation Under Threat: Adapting the U.N. for the 21st Century | Monday, June 15th | 1:30-3:30 | Brookings Institution | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The Foreign Policy program at Brookings will host Susana Malcorra, Chief of Staff to the United Nations Secretary-General for a discussion exploring how the U.N. is adapting to new geopolitical, transnational, and sub-state challenges. Speakers include: Susana Malcorra, Chief of Staff to the United Nations Secretary-General; Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Fellow of Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution; Bruce Jones, Acting Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy program, Brookings Institution.
3. The Banyan Tree Leadership Forum with K Shanmugam, Foreign Minister of Singapore | Monday, June 15th | 2:30-3:30 | Center for Strategic and International Studies | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Mr. Shanmugam will discuss Singapore’s bilateral relations with the United States, regional relationships, and the opportunities and challenges facing Singapore. Speakers include: Mr. K Shanmugam, Singapore’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Law.
4. Can Afghanistan Stabilize as U.S. Forces Plan Their Exit? | Tuesday, June 16th | 10:00-12:00 | United States Institute of Peace | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The United States’ current policy in Afghanistan mandates a “responsible withdrawal” of U.S. forces by January 2017, when President Obama leaves office. With 18 months to go, a sense of crisis is mounting in Afghanistan as the economy sags, Taliban attacks increase, and the eight-month-old unity government remains deadlocked. Speakers include: Dr. William Byrd, Senior Expert in Residence, USIP; Ali Jalali, Former Minister of the Interior of Afghanistan, Senior Expert in Residence, USIP; Scott Smith, Director, Afghanistan and Central Asia Programs, USIP; Dr. Moeed Yusuf, Director, South Asia Programs, USIP. Moderated by Dr. Andrew Wilder, Vice President, Center for South and Central Asia, USIP.
5. Making the Case for Peace: 2015 Global Peace Index| Wednesday, June 17th | 9:30-11:00 | Center for Strategic and International Studies | REGISTER TO ATTEND | What is the state of global peace in 2015? What are the main threats to peace and how can we prevent violence in the future? What are the implications of these trends for foreign policy and aid interventions? The 2015 Global Peace Index discussion will explore these questions, detailing recent trends in militarization, safety and security, and ongoing conflict, with a focus on analyzing the factors that underpin peaceful societies. Speakers include: Ambassador Rick Barton, Former Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations; Melanie Greenberg, Executive Director, Alliance for Peacebuilding; Matt Wuerker, Editorial Cartoonist and Illustrator, Politico. Moderated by Aubrey Fox, Executive Director, Unites States, Institute for Economics and Peace. Global Peace Index results presented by Daniel Hyslop, Research Manager, Institute for Economics and Peace.
6. Gulf Youth and the City | Wednesday, June 17th | 12:00-1:30 | The Arab Gulf States Institute | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Gulf cities have followed similar paths of urbanization and architecture shaped by state planning and commercial development. Recent events across the globe, from the Occupy movements to the 2011 Arab uprisings, have brought the role of cities in political life to the forefront. However, with few exceptions, Gulf cities are known more as glittering global consumer capitals than places of civic engagement or political struggle.With a dynamic younger generation rising in the Gulf, what is the public’s role, especially youth, in the remaking of their cities? Speakers include: Farah Al-Nakib, Director, Center for Gulf Studies, American University of Kuwait; Diane Singerman, Associate Professor, Department of Government, American University. Moderated by Kristin Smith Diwan, Senior Resident Scholar, Arab Gulf States Institute.
7. The New Politics of Religion and Gender in Israel | Thursday, June 18th | 2:00-3:30 | Brookings Institution | REGISTER TO ATTEND | This year’s Israeli elections provoked resurgent debates over religion and saw the emergence of powerful female voices in the political debate. Join the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings on June 18 to engage with three of these dynamic Israeli figures, as we launch a new agenda of research and events examining important changes in Israel’s politics and society. Speakers include: Adina Bar Shalom, President and Chairwoman, Haredi College of Jerusalem; Merav Michaeli, Member of Knesset; Rachel Azaria, Member of Knesset, Former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.
8. Fighting Terrorism in the Age of ISIS | Thursday, June 18th | 5:00-6:30 | Center for Strategic and International Studies | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Please join the Smart Women, Smart Power initiative for a discussion of ‘Fighting Terrorism in the Age of ISIS’ with Fran Townsend, Former Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser to President George W. Bush. Speakers include: Fran Townsend, Former Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser to President George W. Bush. Moderated by Nina Easton, Senior Associate, CSIS, Editor and Columnist, Fortune, Chair, Most Powerful Women International.
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Don’t throw me in that briar patch
The New York Times is exercised about the “reckless” legislation approved in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday that would give Congress an opportunity to vote on an Iran nuclear agreement, which is supposed to be concluded by the end of June. The American Iranian Council is also uncomfortable. The Administration is “not thrilled” but the President won’t use his veto, which likely would be overridden.
I think Congressional review of the nuclear deal is a good thing, for several reasons.
The process is unlikely to derail an agreement, since the President could exercise his veto if the Congress disapproves. Mustering a two-thirds majority to override such a veto on a deal that verifiably stalls Iran’s progress towards nuclear weapons for 10 years or more is going to be difficult. I can hope that at least a third of the Congress will look objectively at the situation and consider carefully the alternatives, though I won’t be surprised if someone writes to remind me of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s influence and Woodrow Wilson’s failure to get approval for the League of Nations.
Without a Congressional vote, the deal would be entirely dependent on executive action. As my SAIS colleague Eric Edelman points out, it would be odd indeed if the Iranian Majles and the UN Security Council got to vote on the deal and not the US Congress. Can a democracy not match those two less than fully democratic institutions in allowing a vote? Of course it is precisely because they are not democratic that they can be relied upon to approve the deal. But that is the trouble with democracy: it needs to live up to its own standards.
There is certainly no constitutional requirement for Congress to act. Presidential authority over foreign relations is strong. Executive agreements are the rule, not the exception. But if a deal runs the Congressional gauntlet without too much damage, it would then become nigh on impossible for a future president to undo it, as Republican presidential nominees are promising to do. This is important. Why would Iran’s Supreme Leader take the risk of signing on if there is a 50/50 chance, more or less, that the next president will renege? This legislation makes the odds more like 80/20, which strengthens the hand of our negotiators and enables them to insist credibly on an agreement that can pass muster in Congress.
Dan Drezner hopes for parallels between the nuclear agreement and NAFTA, which in 2008 Democratic candidates were promising to renegotiate. That was a campaign promise quickly forgotten. I don’t find that particularly comforting. Marco Rubio seems a lot more determined and consistent in opposing the nuclear deal than Democrats were in opposing NAFTA. Being older than Dan, I might recall the 1977 Panama Canal treaty, which was the subject of even greater hyperbole. None of the dire consequences predicted have come to pass. We have continued to use the canal, which is now being widened to accommodate its customers.
I hope I can be forgiven for the title of this piece. But it does strike me that the Republicans have inadvertently put the Administration in precisely the place it should want to be.
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The case against the nuclear deal
I spent lunch listening to a panel of bright people at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs discuss the Iran nuclear deal, about which they have posed some good questions. Questions are the right approach to any agreement with ramifications as wide and as important as those of the proposed “framework” agreement.
SAIS colleague Eric Edelman underlined that there is no agreement yet. That is clear from the divergent “fact sheets” emerging (and not) from the P5+1 deliberations with Tehran. Nothing is agreed until it is written down (and I would say signed). Particularly important points that are still unsettled include what will be done to “neutralize” the low enriched uranium (LEU) above 300 kilos that will remain in Iran (rather than being shipped abroad as Eric said Iran had previously agreed), the precise arrangements for IAEA verification, and clarification of Iran’s past military nuclear activities. Extending the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA)–the temporary agreement under which Iran’s nuclear program is stalled at the moment–would be better than the “framework” agreement.
Congressional approval is vital. Otherwise, Iran will not find the agreement credible, because any subsequent American administration may want to change it. It would be anomalous if the Iranian Majles and the UN Security Council got to vote on the agreement but not the Senate.
Ray Takeyh focused on the Supreme Leader’s speech last week, which was harder line on immediate sanctions relief and other issues than Iran’s hardliners have been, even if it appeared to leave the door open a crack for a more general rapprochement with the US. This raises a difficult question: on whose behalf are the Iranian negotiators negotiating? If Foreign Minister Zarif represents only President Rouhani and not the Supreme Leader, then what validity will an agreement have? There is reason to doubt the cohesion of the Iranian regime. The Supreme Leader’s primary political objective is preservation of the regime’s ideology, which is an ideology of resistance. His successor can be expected to have the same view.
It was left to John Hannah to state the hardline US case against the agreement. At best, it would postpone by 10-15 years an Iran just a screwdriver’s turn away from nuclear weapons, leaving it free at the end of that period to accelerate its enrichment rapidly and turn the screwdriver whenever it wanted. There is no reason to believe Iran will have moderated its stances on the US and regional issues during that time. Sanctions relief will necessarily come much sooner than most Americans will want. The agreement will precipitate a nuclear arms race in a region where confidence in US support has been damaged beyond repair in this Administration.
The alternative to the “framework” agreement is a better agreement, Hannah averred. John Kerry just doesn’t know how to negotiate, using US military power and economic leverage to the maximum. What is needed is a concerted US effort to counter Iran throughout the region, starting in Syria.
But it is also arguable, he said, that a military attack that sets the Iranian nuclear program back by two or three years would be better than anything we can get from the “framework.”
Panel concluded, the retired lawyer sitting next to me asked whether China wouldn’t just leave the sanctions regime and start unrestrained imports from Iran if an agreement is not reached. Well, yes, I agreed, it could and it would (though it would have to buy the oil in a currency other than dollars). That is precisely the point: there is no way the sanctions regime can be kept functioning unless the US demonstrates maximum effort to get an agreement. You may think John Kerry a dufus, but he has taken America’s best shot. And if you want America to bomb Iran’s nuclear program, doing so in response to Iranian violations of an agreement is a far better way than just doing it.
That does not, however, mean that any agreement will do. The questions Eric asks about LEU, verification and military nuclear activities are good ones that need answers. I don’t know how John Hannah knows that the Iranian regime will be just as hardline in 10 or 15 years as it is today, but I am pretty sure it will be hardline and accelerate its nuclear program after bombing. Nor do I know how he knows about the timing of sanctions relief, though I think he has a point on Syria: a stronger stand there against the Assad regime would give the Iranians something to think about. Ray Takeyh’s suggestion that the Iranian regime lacks cohesion is to me a positive sign, not a negative one, though in a quick chat afterwards he suggested it will be temporary, with the Supreme Leader’s hardline winning the day.
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A Greek in Skopje
As regular readers know, I spoke last Saturday via Skype to the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) conference in Skopje. Also addressing the conference were several Europeans. Here are the notes Ambassador Alexandros Mallias, a former Greek diplomat, used:
Ali Ahmeti builds bridges while others build statues
Ιt is an honour for me to be invited to the DUI first Thematic Congress and to such a fascinating and distinguished panel.
Allow me at the outset to thank Ali Ahmeti.
I will never forget our first meeting, 13 or 14 years years ago, somewhere in Tetovo, while he was still prohibited to leave his ”safe haven” and visit Skopje .
Since then, Baskimi Democratik per Integrim (DUI) managed to transform itself from a guerilla movement to a well established and performing political party .
Ali Ahmeti himself is much respected as an accountable and thoughtful political leader, in Skopje, in Brussels and in Athens as well .
While others are spending money, political capital, energy and time in building statues, Ali Ahmeti managed to build bridges, including with Greece. In fact, he is the only political leader from your country that has paid several official visits to Athens since 2007.
I have no intention of talking today about the 2001 events. My views and personal account have been published in the newspapers here in Skopje, in Tirana, in Prishtina and in a more detailed manner in the book I published in 2013 .
As modesty is not a flower often growing in Greek gardens, allow me to state that the fact that DUI included the then Balkan Affairs’ Political Director of Greece in today’s panel speaks for itself. It reflects the engagement and positive role played by Greece on stage and behind the scenes in 2001.
I want also to acknowledge here around this table the presence of personalities who by their word and by their sword, by their commitment and by their deeds shaped or influenced the political shaping and reshaping of the Balkans. They have also much contributed to the stabilization process of your country. To my regret, this is today deliberately forgotten. Read more
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The Libyan dialogue: ending the impasse
The UN-sponsored Libyan dialogue has entered a final and ‘decisive’ moment according to chief mediator Bernardino Leon. Last week, Leon shuttled from Morocco (where the main political dialogue is taking place) to Brussels (meeting with representatives of Libyan municipalities) through Libya in his herculean multi-track effort to salvage the Libyan peace process. Last Tuesday, in the absence of an agreement by the parties, Leon released a six-point plan indicating what such an agreement might look like:
- A unity Government headed by a president, and a Presidential Council composed of independent personalities not belonging to any party or affiliated with any group acceptable to all parties and by all Libyans. The main members of the Presidential Council will be the president and his two deputies.
- The House of Representatives as a legislative body representing all Libyans under the full application of principles of legitimacy and inclusion.
- A High State Council inspired by similar institutions existing in a number of countries. A fundamental institution in the governance of the State.
- Constitutional Drafting Assembly.
- National Security Council.
- Municipalities Council.
While these points are neither comprehensive nor specific, they would represent significant achievements. Unsurprisingly they are also fraught with difficulty.
The first point has long been seen as the main aim of the dialogue process. Leon has suggested that a list of potential members of the unity government is under discussion and might be agreed upon by the end of the week. Not surprisingly, this point is the source of considerable disagreement: in the polarized Libyan political field, finding personalities acceptable to all parties is hard. According to the governments in Tripoli and Tobruk, their opponents are described respectively as Gaddafi supporters or Islamist terrorists.
The second point is also likely to spurn a significant degree of controversy. By insisting that the House of Representatives be Libya’s legislative body, Leon’s plan is essentially rejecting the legitimacy of the parallel parliament in Tripoli, the General National Council (GNC). The Tripoli government argues that the GNC is the only legitimate parliament, drawing support from a Supreme Court decision from last fall (although the process and implications of that decision have been questioned). Meanwhile, the House of Representatives operating out of Baida in East Libya remains the sole internationally recognized legislative assembly in Libya. It has been suggested that the GNC, or elements from it, may be included in the High State Council and that balance between the two assemblies would thereby be achieved. More details are needed to see exactly how this balance pans out.
The fourth point would likely mean an extension of the current Constitutional Assembly, operating out of the Eastern city of al-Bayda. The Constitutional Assembly has long been regarded as one of the few non-politicized institutions in Libya, although its president, Ali Tarhouni, arguably is closer to the Tobruk government than to the authorities in Tripoli.
The two last points of Leon’s plan arguably reflect the parallel tracks in the negotiations, involving militias on the one hand, and Libyan municipalities on the other.
It appears that the threat of Islamic State (IS) expansion into Libya has pushed the parties to come to the table. Militias loyal to both Tobruk and Tripoli are currently engaged in fighting IS: the former against an increasing IS presence in Benghazi, and the latter against their main base in Sirte.
Both sides however appear capable of ‘multitasking’: Khalifa Heftar, Tobruk’s military lead, recently launched a campaign to liberate Tripoli while Tripoli jets have carried out airstrikes on Zintan, whose militia is allied with Heftar. A number of these airstrikes have been launched with the intention of derailing talks: in the latest round in Morocco, the departure of the Tripoli delegation was delayed due to bombing of the capital’s only remaining airport.
A return to a political solution still appears a long way off. Even in the event that the UN succeeds in bringing about a unity government, such a government will risk being just as fragile as the transitional governments that preceded it. Unless the fundamental problems of Libyan politics are dealt with – particularly the issue of integrating the militias within the framework of the state – real progress will not be achieved.
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A better plan than premature recognition
I confess to being a fan of both Matt Duss and Michael Cohen, respectively President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace and a Fellow at the Century Foundation. Like them, I am also a supporter of the two-state solution and a territorial settlement based on the 1967 borders, with mutually agreed land swaps. But they are wrong in thinking that the United States should recognize the state of Palestine. The time will come, but the situation is not yet ripe for this major diplomatic move.
Even they seem to have their doubts about giving Palestinian President Abbas the recognition “seal of approval.” But the best arguments against diplomatic recognition have little to do with Abbas, who they admit refused an American-proposed framework for a settlement, resists Palestinian Authority responsibility for Gaza’s borders and has postponed elections indefinitely. The bigger problem is that there is no Palestine to recognize: governance is split between the West Bank and Gaza and the purported state territory (and capital) is uncertain. The fact that 130 countries have recognized Palestine demonstrates that the “organized hypocrisy” we know as sovereignty is poorly organized at best.
The better move for the United States is to dust off the settlement framework it presented to Abbas in March 2014, complete the details, add a deadline for declaration of a Palestinian state and try to get it approved in the UN Security Council, which is something the current French Presidency would welcome. This would correct one of the original shortcomings of the Middle East peace process: the UN General Assembly, not the Security Council, decided the 1948 partition. It would also be an unequivocal step towards a two-state solution, without however giving Abbas the shiny trophy of American recognition he covets but does not merit.
Israel would of course oppose Security Council approval of a peace plan and ultimatum, even if it left open key issues for Palestine and Israel to resolve in subsequent negotiations. Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to hold on to the West Bank indefinitely, his post-election “correction” notwithstanding. Washington needs to break definitively with this ambition, signaling to the Palestinians and the Arab world generally that America will not be held hostage by its Israeli ally’s hunger for all the land west of the Jordan River. With Republicans in Congress lining up behind Netanyahu, it is vital and urgent that the Administration irreversibly sign on to a Security Council plan that makes Palestinian sovereignty inevitable, without however recognizing it prematurely.
The odds of successful implementation of such a Security Council resolution with Netanyahu in power are minimal. But the move would push both Netanyahu and Abbas in the right direction: towards direct, bilateral negotiations of outstanding issues, perhaps with the aid of a UN special envoy. The Americans have exhausted their willingness to mediate the Israel/Palestine dispute. It is time to return it to the United Nations, where it really belongs.
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