Tag: United Nations
The choice is a deal or many attacks on Iran
Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with President Obama has attracted lots of attention, mainly for his threat to use military force to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, about which the President said he is not bluffing. But what does it tell us about the prospects for a diplomatic solution to the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program? Not much, except for this key bit:
…the only way, historically, that a country has ultimately decided not to get nuclear weapons without constant military intervention has been when they themselves take [nuclear weapons] off the table. That’s what happened in Libya, that’s what happened in South Africa. And we think that, without in any way being under an illusion about Iranian intentions, without in any way being naive about the nature of that regime, they are self-interested. They recognize that they are in a bad, bad place right now. It is possible for them to make a strategic calculation that, at minimum, pushes much further to the right whatever potential breakout capacity they may have, and that may turn out to be the best decision for Israel’s security.
This is important because the President here is outlining the diplomatic solution he thinks possible, albeit in the vaguest terms.
What does he mean? Many countries have made the commitment that the President is referring to. They usually do it by signing and ratifying the Non-Proliferation Treaty (or in Latin America the Treaty of Tlatelolco) and agreeing to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. Brazil and Argentina made this commitment in the 1990s. So far as I am aware, no country has agreed to give up enrichment or reprocessing technology–it isn’t even clear what it would mean to do so, since the know-how resides in scientists’ brains and not in any given physical plant.
The trouble with Iran is that it has already signed and ratified the NPT, and apparently violated its commitments by undertaking uranium enrichment outside the inspection regime, according to the IAEA. So President Obama will be looking for additional commitments reflecting a genuine decision by Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons, presumably based on the calculation that they would be better off without them.
How could that be? Acquisition of nuclear weapons creates several security dilemmas for Tehran: the United States will target Iran (we have foresworn first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states, but not against nuclear weapons states), Israel will not only target Iran but also launch on warning, and other countries in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Egypt?) are likely to begin seriously to pursue nuclear weapons. Acquiring enrichment technology but giving up the nuclear option would provide Iran with a good deal of prestige without creating as many problems.
U.S. intelligence leaks this past week claim that Iran has not in fact made the decision to acquire nuclear weapons, thus leaving the door open to an agreement along the lines the President seems to be suggesting. Iran would have to agree to rigorous and comprehensive IAEA inspections as well as a limit on the degree of enrichment it would undertake well below weapons grade, which is 90 per cent and above.
The question is whether the internal politics of the three countries most directly involved (United States, Iran and Israel) will allow an agreement along these lines. As Martin Indyk points out, they are engaged in a vicious cycle game of chicken: Israel threatens military action, the U.S. ratchets up sanctions to forestall it, Iran doubles down on the nuclear program, causing the Israelis to threaten even more….
If war is to be avoided, someone has to break this cycle, putting a deal on the table. Daniel Levy suggests that Netanyahu is not really committed to Israeli military action but is trying to stiffen Obama’s spine. Obama is constrained because of the American elections from appearing soft on Iran. He has to appear ready and willing to use military force, especially when he appears before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) tomorrow and then meets with Netanyahu Monday.
This leaves a possible initiative to Tehran, which is free to move now that the parliamentary elections have been held. They are likely to mark a defeat for President Ahmedinejad, who has appeared to be the Iranian official most willing to deal on the nuclear program in recent months. Supreme Leader Khamenei is more committed to the game of chicken. He may even think nuclear weapons are necessary to his regime’s survival, a conclusion Indyk thinks is rational in light of what has happened with North Korea on the one hand and Libya on the other.
I have no doubt President Obama is not bluffing, even if he is also trying to leave the door open to a diplomatic denouement. But of course Khamenei could come to the opposite conclusion. Even a successful bombing of its nuclear program will increase Iran’s commitment to getting nuclear weapons, without setting it back more than a year or so from the goal. Let’s hope one or the other–better both–decide to blink and cut a deal that ends Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions definitively and avoids a military effort that will have to be repeated at shorter intervals for a long time to come.
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The revolution needs better terrain
How do you know when the revolutionaries are losing? When the world starts lining up to arm them. The latest to join this parade is the respected former National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, who rightly argues that the moral argument is overwhelming. The problem is that the strategic argument is not.
To his credit, Steve recognizes the counterarguments:
Arming Syrians seeking their freedom would have its costs. Bashar al-Assad will brand it as outside intervention and wrap himself in the Syrian flag. His efforts to rally especially uncommitted Syrians in defense of Syrian sovereignty will further divide an already-riven society. And it may not force the Assad regime from power anytime soon.
He even adds:
Saying that Assad has lost legitimacy and ultimately will fall is cold comfort. The longer this struggle goes on, the more militarized it will become. The more militarized it becomes, the more Syria’s future will be dictated by who has the most guns, not who gets the most votes. Look at the Libyan Transitional National Council’s struggle to control that country’s militias, and contrast that with the more democratic evolution in Tunisia.
And the more militarized the Syrian struggle becomes, the greater the opportunity for al-Qaeda. Events in Somalia and Yemen show how al-Qaeda thrives on chaos and violence. For the sake of preserving human life and a democratic future for Syria, the Assad regime needs to go now.
I agree with all of that, but the fastest and most effective way of making him go quickly is not arming the opposition. That would take years and at best create an insurgency, one that will frighten away the business and minority support that is so vital to the revolution’s success in Syria. There is no sign yet of NATO, U.S. or EU interest in intervening militarily to support it. Historically, most insurgencies are defeated, though it takes a long time for that to happen. That is the worst of all possible worlds for the United States: a lengthy military contest, increasingly fought along sectarian lines, with likely spillover to Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.
What is the alternative? Those who want to displace Bashar al Assad need to shift the contest from the terrain on which he is strong–the military battlefield–on to the terrain where he is weak: political legitimacy and authority. This requires massive shows of popular support for displacing him, which are impossible under the wartime conditions the regime created in Homs over the past month.
The first requirement is a ceasefire. But a ceasefire is meaningless without neutral observers. The 160 or so Arab League observers/peacekeepers who have been withdrawn since the defeat of the UN Security Council resolution are nowhere near sufficient. Thousands will be needed. Why would Bashar let them in? Because he does not want the responsibility and expense of maintaining law and order, or feeding and housing people in the neighborhoods his forces have battered. He’ll want to keep close tabs on the effort and complain repeatedly about its ineffectiveness.
That’s all right so long as the international presence creates a relatively safe space for the citizens of Syria to begin governing themselves without respecting the authorities in Damascus. There will be less need for strikes or demonstrations–far better to focus on establishing and operating education and health systems that deliver services more effectively than the regime’s, which will have all but disappeared in the most ruined areas. Essentially, the internationals would be helping to create liberated areas. Bashar could object and even attack them, but if he does so he runs a far greater risk of international intervention than he has so far.
International legitimacy is another area in which Bashar is vulnerable. The Russians are the key in that sphere. Here is Putin’s latest:
“We don’t have a special relationship…It is up to the Syrians to decide who should run their country. We need to make sure they stop killing each other….”
Asked if Mr. al-Assad can survive, he said: “I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s obviously a grave problem. The reforms are long awaited and should be carried out. Whether the Syrian government is ready to reach a consensus, I don’t know.”
It is almost quaint for Putin to be talking about an autocratic government needing to reach a consensus, but apart from that false note this gives Bashar al Assad something important to worry about: whether he can hold on to the Russian veto in the Security Council after this weekend’s Russian presidential elections.
Internal and external legitimacy: that is the terrain on which Syria’s citizens need to contest Bashar al Assad.
PS: If you mix demonstrations with regime force, this is what you get (allegedly today in Homs):
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A Kosovar friend sent me this triumphalist claim of Serbian victory in the recent agreement between Belgrade and Pristina on how Kosovo will be identified at meetings in which Serbia also participates:
Serbia’s success in putting an asterisk connoting the numbers “1244” in front of future Kosovar delegations to European meetings means the terms under which Kosova* participates in “Europe” explicitly recognizes the language in a resolution that preserves a measure of Serbian sovereignty over its former province. This advertisement of such sovereignty – dormant as it may be – marks tacit American acceptance of the defeat of its diplomacy of the past six years. The asterisk means America has relegated its client in Kosova* to something like the status currently enjoyed by Taiwan.
The author is my respected colleague of many years, David Kanin, who happens now also to teach at Johns Hopkins/SAIS, as I do.
But David is dead wrong. He is trying to make more of an asterisk than the little fellow ever imagined he might be. And more than he is. The only thing the asterisk guarantees is the undying hostility of most of Kosovo’s population, which will no doubt begin to add one to Serbia*.
David’s claims are wrong in many ways.
Serbs and their supporters have been telling themselves since 1999 that that 1244 preserves “a measure of Serbian sovereignty over its former province.” This is wrong, which is immediately apparent from their use of the appellation “its former province.” Even they recognize that something irreversible has happened to Kosovo. The reference to Yugoslav (now Serbian) sovereignty is in the preamble of 1244 and has no legally binding status. It simply reaffirms a commitment made at the time of the resolution:
Reaffirming the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Circumstances change. The United States and many other countries have decided that commitment no longer holds. You may not agree with that change of heart, but nothing in 1244 prevents it.
Far more important is that 1244 clearly refers in its operative paragraphs to a political process for deciding Kosovo’s future status. Among other mentions, there is this one that refers to the responsibilities of the “international civilian presence”:
Facilitating a political process designed to determine Kosovo’s future status, taking into account the Rambouillet accords (S/1999/648);
In a final stage, overseeing the transfer of authority from Kosovo’s provisional institutions to institutions established under a political settlement;
That process, conducted under the aegis of Marti Ahtisaari, was completed years ago, with full participation (but not final approval) of Russia and Serbia. What the asterisk signifies to anyone who reads past the preamble (which has no legal standing) to the operative paragraphs of the resolution is that Kosovo has completed the process foreseen there with a clear and now widely but not universally accepted result.
Russia and Serbia are of course perfectly entitled not to recognize that result, but so are others entitled to recognize the new state. The notion that Kosovo, now recognized by 88 other sovereign states, has no more status than Taiwan is risible, though I hasten to add that I will be happy for the day it has Taiwan’s economy and even governance. The International Court of Justice has advised that its declaration of independence was not in violation of 1244, a claim that Serbia made loudly and repeatedly. To pretend that preambular language with no legal significance outweighs not only the operative paragraphs but also an ICJ advisory opinion is to live in fantasyland.
What the agreement does for Kosovo is to get it a contractual relationship with the EU, including a “feasibility study” for a Stabilization and Association Agreement, thus neutralizing the heretofore effective veto of the five non-recognizing EU member states. While they can continue to not recognize Kosovo, they are now part of an organization that is treating it as a sovereign and independent state capable of undertaking obligations that only such states can undertake. This is no small matter, not outweighed somehow by an asterisk.
Is 1244 still in force? Yes, since it hasn’t been altered or withdrawn. But like many Security Council resolutions most of its terms have been fulfilled and it will fade into irrelevance. The only benefit to Serbia of the asterisk I see is that it will make it harder to forget 1244, which unfortunately for Belgrade provides the legal basis for answering the otherwise difficult question, why is Kosovo entitled to independence and not other provinces? The answer is 1244 and the political process for determining final status foreseen there.
I’ve challenged David to a duel. He has accepted. We won’t do it at dawn. But I hope we’ll meet soon in public at SAIS to cross swords and maybe provide some enlightenment to both sides of this issue.
In case anyone wonders: my title is intended to convey the vast over-valuation of the asterisk in David’s piece.
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Annan Anon
Today’s news from Syria is bad, really bad for those of us who hope to see a more open and democratic regime there. The usual sources in Baba Amr, the Homs neighborhood that Bashar al Assad has been shelling for a month, have gone silent, apparently because elite Syrian army units are closing in from all sides. Electricity has been cut off. Violent resistance there will be, but sporadic and largely ineffectual. Expect widespread mistreatment of the civilian population, where the regime is trying to re-install the wall of fear that kept people in line for decades.
In the meanwhile, Kofi Annan, the newly appointed joint envoy of the UN and the Arab League, met in New York with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, in the aftermath of still another UN Security Council meeting that failed to reach agreement on his mandate. Annan was modest in his goals:
It is a very difficult assignment. It is a tough challenge and the first thing we need to do as the secretary general has said is to do everything we can stop the violence and the killing to facilit[tate] humanitarian access and to ensure the needy are looked after and work with the Syrians in coming up with a peaceful solution which respects their aspirations and eventually stablizes the country.
My Twitterfeed is disappointed in his failure to mention transition (away from the Assad regime), but Annan is doing what a good diplomat should: lowering expectations and trying to ensure himself at least a first meeting with Bashar. He needs to keep his public remarks in line with the minimalist goals that Russia and China support. UN envoys don’t last long if one of the Perm 5 members of the UNSC object to what they are saying and doing, or a key interlocutor refuses to meet with them.
Kofi Annan knows as well as any of us that stabilization of Syria is not going to be possible with Bashar al Assad still in power. He betrays it with that adverb: “eventually.” Getting Bashar to step aside from power will not be easy. It will require convincing him that he is safer out of power than in it. Several Arab presidents have already chosen that route (Tunisia’s Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh). Muammar Qaddafi preferred to fight, with well-known consequences. But Bashar will not like any of those precedents: exile in Saudi Arabia, a trial in his home country, exile in Ethiopia and murder victim are not attractive propositions. Maybe Tehran will be?
He will try to sell himself to Annan as a reformer: like the Bahraini and Moroccan monarchies or Algeria’s President Bouteflika, all of whom are engaged in modest reforms intended to co-opt protesters and maintain their regimes intact. Bashar will attribute his obvious excess use of force to the need to fight terrorism, a favorite excuse for violating human rights in this country as well as in Syria. There is just enough evidence of Al Qaeda in Iraq involvement in a few of the bombings in Syria to put some wind in that sail.
We should not expect Annan to get past Bashar’s defenses easily or quickly. As fallacious as the claims may be, he will have to listen and appear to appreciate them. Then, he needs to try to internationalize the situation as much as possible, by getting Arab League and UN monitors back into Syria to prevent renewed violence once a ceasefire is in place. He also needs to maintain his credibility with the Russians, so that he can talk with them about how their interests in port access and arms sales might be better served by a future, democratically-validated regime than by a declining Assad.
Annan will also need to reach out to the protesters in Syria and assure them that their pleas are heard and that their interests will be best served by returning to nonviolence, with international monitors in place to offer what protection they can, which is admittedly not much. In the meanwhile, the Free Syria Army and other militia groups will be arming, but hopefully not fighting. If the protesters resort to violence, Annan’s position will quickly become untenable as the regime returns to the battlefield.
Why is this not more like the situation in Libya or Kosovo, where the rebellions armed themselves and fought the regime tooth and nail? The answer is that the Syrians can be close to certain that no air force is coming to their rescue. The Americans and Europeans are showing no appetite for it. The Turks and Arabs seem almost as reluctant. If any of them were to change their minds and decide to throw their military weight behind the protesters, the situation would be different. But that is unlikely to happen.
Annan’s chances of success are low. But we should wish him the best in his efforts, which should begin as soon as possible. Delay or failure would mean continuation of a war the regime is bound to win.
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A serious military option
Chalk up one more for arming Syria’s rebels and creating safe corridors. To his credit, Roger Cohen also cites the counter-argument:
I hear the outcry already: Arming Assad’s opponents will only exacerbate the fears of Syria’s minorities and unite them, ensure greater bloodshed, and undermine diplomatic efforts now being led by Kofi Annan, a gifted and astute peacemaker. It risks turning a proxy war into a proxy conflagration.
What he does not do is consider a serious military option: decapitating the Syrian regime with a forceful strike against its command and control.
This mystifies me. Safe areas, enclaves, humanitarian corridors–whatever you call them–have consistently and repeatedly failed. They create target-rich environments, which in this case means the Syrian armed forces will attack them vigorously. Nor is arming the Free Syria Army likely to produce a balance of forces, as Cohen suggests. Just ask the Libyans: they’ll tell you they would have lost to Muammar Qaddafi had NATO not intervened from the air.
There is another option: once you’ve taken down the air defenses, a necessary first step no matter what, you can proceed to take down the command, control and communications of the regime. This was what changed the tide of war in Bosnia in the summer of 1995. Specifically, it was when NATO hit the communications nodes of the Bosnian Serb Army that it became incapable of defending the long confrontation line with the Bosnian Army. Something similar happened in the NATO/Yugoslavia war: hitting various security force headquarters in Belgrade and dual-use infrastructure signaled the kind of seriousness that convinced Slobodan Milosevic his regime was in peril. He yielded in Kosovo.
The problem is that you don’t know what will come next. Milosevic survived for more than another year, though he then fell to his own miscalculation in calling elections. There is no guarantee that you’ll get Bashar al Assad in a military attack, and even less certainty about what will happen if you do. He might well survive and would be unlikely to allow any serious electoral competition thereafter. These guys do learn from each other.
So here’s a thought: combine the threat of such a direct attack on the regime with Kofi Annan’s diplomatic efforts, offering Bashar a choice between a punishing attack on his security forces’ command, control and communications and a ceasefire with free access to all areas in Syria for humanitarian relief and international journalists. If he fails to deliver, you’ve still got the trump card in your pocket.
Of course if he calls your bluff, you’ll have to go ahead with the military attack, even without a UN Security Council resolution. A bit of diplomacy might at least generate an Arab League request, but it is hard to picture the Russians coming on board. If they do, well and good–I doubt Bashar survives even 48 hours once Moscow abandons him. If they don’t, you’ve still got to go ahead.
If you are not willing to do that, you are thrown back, as I am, to diplomatic means, wisely discussed this morning by David Ignatius in the Washington Post. Let’s not waste analytical talent and high-priced real estate in America’s leading newspapers on half-hearted military propositions that just won’t work. If you want war, go to war, not to humanitarian corridors.
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Kofi time
Huffington Post has just published my latest on Syria:
With Kofi Annan chosen to be the joint UN/Arab League Special Envoy and today’s Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis, the stage is set for a more serious diplomatic effort to bring the Syrian crisis to a close. Kofi’s marching orders include:
The Special Envoy will provide good offices aimed at bringing an end to all violence and human rights violations, and promoting a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis.The Special Envoy will be guided in this endeavor by the provisions of the General Assembly resolution A/RES/66/253 and the relevant resolutions of the League of Arab States. He will consult broadly and engage with all relevant interlocutors within and outside Syria in order to end the violence and the humanitarian crisis, and facilitate a peaceful Syrian-led and inclusive political solution that meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people through a comprehensive political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition.
This broad mandate, which the five permanent members of the UN Security Council have approved, implicitly points in the direction of the Arab League plan that Russia and China previously vetoed, even if it does not explicitly mention the need for Bashar al-Assad to step aside. The ambiguity is intended to hide the differences of view on the UNSC, but clearly no political solution can meet the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people with Bashar still in office.
Kofi will surely meet with Bashar al-Assad. The question is whether he will be able to tell him that the P5 want him out. Colum Lynch notes that in his last trouble-shooting effort Kofi arranged for power-sharing in Kenya. Bashar has spilled far too much blood in Syria for the opposition to accept sharing power with him. The Russians should by now be wondering whether their best bet for holding on to port access and arms sales in Syria is Bashar. Once they decide differently, Kofi will have the support he needs for defenestration.
Anne-Marie Slaughter today in the New York Times calls for “no-kill” zones established by the Free Syria Army (FSA) near Syria’s borders with Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. This would require a major effort to arm the FSA and provide it with special forces advisors. The notion that this can be done “to protect all Syrians regardless of creed, ethnicity or political allegiance” without precipitating the chaotic ethnic and sectarian civil war that Anne-Marie herself recognizes as the worst outcome is unrealistic. And doing it without taking down Syria’s air defenses would condemn the effort to failure.
Only the U.S. can quickly and effectively destroy Syria’s Russian-supplied air defense and severely damage his artillery, which is bombarding his opponents. At yesterday’s Syria event at the Center for National Policy, colleagues evoked the image of President Clinton reacting to the shelling of Sarajevo, suggesting that President Obama might do likewise.
We too readily forget that Clinton waited three and half years — until Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole started taking him to task for not carrying out his campaign promise to bomb the Serbs — before initiating the military action that ended the war in Bosnia. I doubt even a Republican candidate bemoaning what is happening in Syria would get the White House to drop other priorities in favor of another Middle East war.
The Syrian opposition doesn’t have years, or even months. It needs protection quickly. The best bet is a vigorous diplomatic effort by Kofi Annan.
Today in Tunis the Friends of Syria called for a ceasefire, humanitarian relief to the cities under attack, deployment of UN peacekeepers and the beginning of a dialogue process aimed at a political settlement. They also named the Syrian National Council “a” legitimate representative of the Syrian people and promised further sanctions and diplomatic isolation of Damascus. They did not call for arming of the opposition, which has been left up to individual states. The Saudis made it clear they thought it a good idea (and they will presumably do it).
Few believe Bashar al-Assad will cave. I won’t be surprised if he eventually does, though I’m not prepared to predict when. His army and other security forces are exhausted and won’t want to enter the cities they have been shelling from afar. If Bashar can get the international community to accept responsibility for feeding the inhabitants and maybe even maintaining law and order, he may count himself lucky. His security forces could then lick their wounds and prepare to fight another day, while blaming the internationals for anything that goes wrong.
Syria is showing us the limits of military force. It is a blunt tool that in this instance is likely to bring about the civil war that we should most want to avoid. Diplomacy won’t be pretty. It will require negotiations with Bashar al-Assad and acceptance of compromises that are odious. But it is our best bet for the moment. Kofi time.
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