Tag: United Nations
There are still things to do about Syria
I’m an enthusiast, as most Americans I know are, for our ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, so here is his Skype performance with Andrew Tabler yesterday at The Washington Institute:
TWI is good about writing up its events quickly, so I won’t attempt that. Just a few high points:
- There is a lot of chatter about revolutionary violence, which inevitably will lead to more regime violence, alignment of minorities with the regime and ultimately sectarian conflict;
- The newly established Syrian National Council (SNC) needs to develop a serious program for how it will govern that promises protection for minorities, establishes broad legitimacy within Syria and attracts international support;
- Concerted multilateral pressure targeting regime individuals, the central bank, the state-owned Commercial Bank and oil sales will hamstring the regime and weaken the allegiance of both the merchant class and some military elements to the regime;
- Regional pressure and openness to refugees, especially from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, can also help.
While Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution, they are now urging reforms and might be convinced to go along with international monitors focused on establishing the facts of what is going on. If Bashar al Assad then refuses them, it will reflect badly on him.
Policy conclusions:
- Discourage violence, help the opposition with the tactics of nonviolent civil resistance, including general strikes;
- Help the SNC develop its governance program, with ownership clearly staying with the Syrians;
- Tighten up sanctions;
- Form a regional Friends of Syria including neighboring countries;
- Talk with the Russians and Chinese about international monitors with a UN mandate.
PS: Some courageous Syrians, said to be demonstrating Friday in Damascus:
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Norway has voted, but outcome is in doubt
With thanks to Adam Kaplan at Sister Cities International, here is the best I’ve seen on the political situation in Liberia: “Feted on the international stage, but accused of hollow promises at home,” from The Independent. It is a sad commentary on the American press that until yesterday it had produced nothing comparable, even in anticipation of tomorrow’s elections. And they wonder why so many of us are turning to Twitter and the web for our news?
On the economic side, the IMF has put up two progress reports on Liberia’s poverty reduction strategy, one that covers April 2008-March 2009 and a second that covers April 2009-March 2010. The message from both is good progress, accelerating. That’s the message from the latest UN Security Council resolution as well, even if it saw fit to err on the side of caution and extend UNMIL to September 2012.
PBS Newhour did come to the rescue of American media’s honor with a piece on the elections last Tuesday evening:
But this is also blatantly pro-Johnson Sirleaf and mentions only one of her several competitors. And why can’t they adjust their cameras so that black peoples’ faces can be seen better? Gwen Ifill would also benefit.
All the international approbation for Johnson Sirleaf does not guarantee her a victory in Tuesday’s election or the November 8 runoff (if no one gets 50% in the first round, which seems likely with 16 candidates). She is compromised by an early gesture of support for Charles Taylor and other complicated legal issues ably discussed by Colin Waugh, as well as the perception that she has done little about corruption in the Liberian government. But I confess it is a sign of progress that Liberians are worrying about corruption rather than about political violence.
There will be time enough to discuss Johnson Sirleaf’s main challenger if there is a second round of the elections. This first round is a kind of referendum on her first term. Her chances will improve if she comes out a strong first, the electoral mechanism operates reasonably well and election day is peaceful.
The Nobel Prize is not likely to hurt her prospects.
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Where does Libya go from here?
My piece from Reuters, published today:
With the press focused on scenes of joy in Tripoli and Benghazi, continued skirmishes with regime loyalists, and speculation about where Gaddafi might turn up, it is time to lift our sights and focus on the really difficult transition ahead. If another autocrat succeeds Gaddafi, the transition could be over soon. But if Libya embarks on an effort to create a more democratic state, unified and inclusive in many dimensions, we’ll need to wait the better part of a decade to know whether it has succeeded or not.
There are no magic formulas for how to go about this. Each contingency has its own requirements. We have seen many more partial failures than full successes: think Iraq and Afghanistan.
Certainly in Libya security will be job one. The immediate goal is public order, so that people can move freely without fear of large-scale violence. But there was public order of a non-democratic sort in Gaddafi’s Libya. What the rebels have done in areas liberated in recent months is as clever as it is remarkable: they have organized local councils to try to ensure security and other immediate requirements. This does not always happen in civil wars but it suggests a way forward. There were at least four councils in Tripoli before Gaddafi fell. Can they step in to organize local communities to protect themselves from the inevitable aftershocks of Gaddafi’s fall?
Even if that works, it is only a temporary expedient. Libya will need a retrained and re-oriented police force, one that seeks to serve and protect rather than intimidate and repress. International assistance in this regard has become the rule rather than the exception, but there is little unused international capacity, because of Afghanistan, Kosovo and other requirements. It is tempting to suggest that Arab countries take on this task, but difficult to imagine that they will do it in a way that encourages the kind of community policing that is needed. Even training and retraining 1,000 per year, it will take at least the better part of a decade to put in place a police force Libyan democracy would want.
Even well-trained police are no use if there are no courts where the people they arrest can be fairly tried and sentenced, as well as prisons to put them in. Courts require not only judges but also prosecutors and defense attorneys, not to mention court recorders, registrars and bailiffs. If the formal court system fails to provide fair and rapid justice, Libyans will turn to informal methods of dispute resolution, especially where tribal structures are strong in the countryside. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but there are difficult issues to be resolved concerning the interaction between tribal and formal justice systems, and the treatment of women in tribal systems.
The justice system is an important part of the state, especially in post-war situations, but it is not the only thing that needs fixing. Libya has only rudimentary state institutions apart from the oil ministry. There is no constitution. All power lay in the hands of Gaddafi and his family. So there will be a need to build the state almost from the ground up. There may be advantages in this, as there will be less to sweep away. The Transitional National Council (TNC) that has led the rebellion has published a good, relatively liberal and democratic constitutional charter. But the TNC needs to reformulate itself to be more representative of parts of the country that have been liberated only recently, including Tripoli. And its capability to implement its good intentions is not yet clear.
The TNC would like to prepare a new constitution within six months and hold elections within a year to help establish democratic legitimacy. The problem with this idea is that a democratic environment and culture cannot be created in such a short time frame, which favors those with an existing organizational infrastructure like Islamists (who will use the mosques) and disfavors those with shallower roots in Libyan society, like secularists. This tension is still being played out in Egypt. It might also be wise to consider holding local elections first, since they produce results more immediately reflective of citizens’ needs and provide a test of both the electoral mechanism and political outcomes. But in the end Libyans will need to decide. I will not be surprised if the one-year time frame gets extended to two, and the real outcomes are not apparent until the second elections, presumably four years later.
All this requires money. Libya’s economy is essentially 100 per cent dependent on oil and gas. It will take time to get production back up to pre-war levels. In the meanwhile, the TNC will need access to the frozen assets of the Gaddafi regime. This is not a simple matter. In many countries, including the United States, it requires not only a decision of the president but also a presentation to the sanctions committee of the United Nations. There are ample funds — well over $30 billion are frozen in the United States alone. But getting them to the TNC, and ensuring that they are spent accountably and transparently will not be easy. There are few well established oil and gas producing states that have managed that trick.
The people of Libya in the meanwhile are living in dreadful conditions. Food, water, health care and electricity are lacking, especially in vulnerable populations like the poor and displaced. The TNC needs somehow to begin to deliver goods and services, especially in the major cities. Libyans will be celebrating for a few days, but then they are going to start to wonder how they are better off. That is a question that will persist even once immediate needs are satisfied. Ten years from now Libyans will be discussing whether justice has been done to those who committed crimes under the Gaddafi regime, and whether the traumas of that regime and the civil war have been healed.
All these decade-long challenges will require an alert and informed Libyan citizenry. The activism and energy that they have shown in resisting the Gaddafi regime needs to be continued and channeled into the development of civil society organizations that can mediate between the citizens and their new state. Hundreds of such organizations have already emerged in Benghazi and other liberated areas. More will emerge in Tripoli. They are vital to keeping a democratic transition on track.
The international role in all of this is still unclear. The United States is trying to limit its burdens. It has too much to do elsewhere and no truly vital national interests at stake in Libya, even if it might have some specific interests in preventing Libya from becoming a source of arms trafficking and a haven for international terrorists. European interests are more compelling: oil and gas, related investments, and the desire to prevent migration from Libya becoming an issue in European domestic politics. The Arab League and its members also have an interest in seeing Libya back on its feet as soon as possible.
The international community, which so far has based its efforts on UN Security Council resolution 1973, needs a clear set of goals and a reasonable division of labor to guide it in the future. Getting Libya right in the post-war decade is going to require a lot of European and Arab support, and the Americans need to be ready to pitch in where they have unique capabilities.
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Good show, now what?
While my twitterfeed remains skeptical that the U.S. has any leverage to get Bashar al Assad to step aside, I think the Administration put on a pretty good diplomatic show in the last day or two, with more to come. In addition to the US moves, the UN published a fact-finding report that Colum Lynch appropriately describes as “scathing.” The Europeans and Turkey seem to be lining up to say the right things.
More important is what Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Europeans do now. The Administration is hinting that the Europeans will block their own Syrian oil imports. This they can do because it is not much oil, but it accounts for more than a quarter of Syria’s revenue. Turkey’s National Security Council today called for democratic change in Syria, but that likely won’t have much impact as the Foreign Minister has already issued several final warnings to Bashar al Assad. What is needed is some action from Turkey in blocking trade or investment, which would signal clearly to Syrian businesspeople that the end is near. The Saudis can make life hard for Bashar in many ways, not least just by indicating that it supports the protesters, as the King did late last week.
New York will be the center of the international action the next few days. The Americans are pushing a Security Council resolution. The Human Rights Council is to meet Monday to discuss the fact-finding report. That should provide an occasion for lambasting the Syrian regime. Legitimacy counts, even for autocracies. When the UN is taking you to task for murdering your own citizens with their hands tied behind their backs, legitimacy comes into question.
Today in Syria is also key. Already this week there have been demonstrations in Aleppo, Syria’s largest and most important commercial city. A big turnout there and in Damascus would confirm that the judgment that it is time for Bashar to step aside. How widespread the demonstrations are will also count. The international moves may elicit a big response among the Syrians.
What we can’t really know is how all this will affect the small circle around Bashar al Assad. It would take only a few of them to abandon his cause for Syria to turn quickly in a new direction.
The problem is what to do with Bashar. Pressure is building for the Security Council to refer him to the International Criminal Court. I am not as opposed to an indictment as many diplomats, who believe it would only strengthen his resolve to hold on to power. That it may do, but it may also make those who work for him begin to wonder whether carrying out his orders to kill civilians is a smart thing to do.
I have my doubts though that evidence can be gathered in a time frame that would make an indictment meaningful. More likely, a referral would be followed by a long delay, which would make matters worse rather than better (remember the Hariri case, and the case against President Bashir of Sudan?).
So what happens next? Bashar al Assad won’t step aside until his security forces crack more dramatically than they have so far. I don’t know anyone who can even pretend to know when that will happen, but the American/Turkish/Saudi/European/UN pressure being brought to bear this week is pushing things in the right direction.
Paul Pillar, in a piece published yesterday by The National Interest focused on Gary Locke, the new American ambassador to Beijing, notes:
The incidental influence that the United States exerts simply through people around the world observing its behavior is consistently underestimated, just as the influence the United States can exert intentionally by exercising its economic, military, or other instruments of hard power tends to be overestimated.
My twitterfeed is underestimating America’s “incidental influence” on events in Syria. I don’t know whether it will be enough, but it will make Bashar al Assad very uncomfortable for the next few days, at the very least.
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Planning for Libya 2.0
I continue to plug preparation for post-Qaddafi Libya, which I looked at in some detail in a Contingency Planning Memorandum the Council on Foreign Relations published 10 days ago.
Foreign Policy last night published a new, updated piece I did for them, under the appropriate subhead:
Make no mistake: Qaddafi will be ousted, and probably sooner rather than later. That’s why the hard work of rebuilding Libya must start now.
Finally, it seems that Libya’s rebels have momentum on their side: They have pushed back Muammar al-Qaddafi’s forces on multiple fronts and are poised to encircle the capital of Tripoli. Libyans, and the entire world, will no doubt cheer the country’s liberation, but it’s not time to celebrate yet. Even if Qaddafi falls sooner rather than later, the immediate post-war period will still pose serious risks to both Libyans and the international community.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. A botched transition to a new regime could imperil the security and welfare in a post-Qaddafi Libya, discredit the NATO intervention, provide haven to international terrorists, lead to a new dictatorship, and even break up the country. We know from the experience in Iraq how costly a poorly planned transition can be.
The most pressing requirement will be reestablishing security. There’s no sign as of yet that Qaddafi intends to go quietly. On Aug. 15, he implored his supporters to “pick up your weapons, go to the fight for liberating Libya inch by inch from the traitors and from NATO.” Even if the regime collapses, remnants of his armed forces may take these words to heart. Tripoli presents the greatest challenge. While liberated areas in other parts of the country have stabilized quickly as Qaddafi’s forces and sympathizers fled, there is no guarantee that the same will hold true for the capital. Many regime supporters and mercenaries have gathered there, and could mount the kind of “stay-behind” operation that brought chaos to post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
Security cannot be maintained for long without at least a rudimentary system for police, courts, and incarceration. These new institutions will be forced to grapple with internecine warfare among rebel or tribal factions, revenge killings, and criminal gangs. The Qaddafi-era institutions may suffice in the immediate post-war period, but thorough reforms will be needed if the rule of law is to be established on a more permanent basis.
Humanitarian requirements are also likely to be acute in Tripoli as well as other newly liberated population centers. Even in liberated areas, casualties and humanitarian requirements have not yet been fully assessed. Electricity outages are already reportedly severe in Tripoli, while Misrata has been in need of food shipments. Following Qaddafi’s fall, it will be vital to quickly restore basic services to these neighborhoods. Providing food, water, shelter, and health care for the most vulnerable — including what may amount to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people — will also be key. An angry citizenry does not make for a smooth transition.
Kickstarting Libya’s economy will require getting its energy production and exports back online as quickly as possible. But it is not just a matter of getting the oil and gas flowing: A more transparent and accountable system for spending the resulting revenue, much of which used to disappear into Qaddafi family accounts, will be needed to help forestall quarrels over the proceeds and set the country on a more sustainable path. The post-Qaddafi regime will need to do a full accounting of its assets and try to ensure that some of them are not “privatized” by officials seeking to line their pockets.
Establishing transparent, accountable, and inclusive institutions of governance will be the responsibility of the Transitional National Council (TNC), which has now received diplomatic recognition from the United States as well as much of Europe and the Arab world. This will be key to determining Libya’s political future. The TNC’s inclinations are clearly in the democratic direction, but it has been rent by factionalism and disorganization. The killing of the rebel military chief Abdel Fatah Younes by what appears to be a dissident faction within the rebel ranks is only the most visible example of this internal chaos. In order to maintain its claim to legitimacy, the new government will need to swiftly incorporate new people from recently liberated areas and heal long-standing tribal and minority wounds.
The TNC should consider including officials formerly belonging to Qaddafi’s army and security services, who otherwise may try to spoil the transition. Just as de-Baathification harmed international efforts to construct a stable government in Iraq, premature de-Qaddafiization could create more problems than it solves. On the institutional level, it needs to lay out a roadmap for preparing a constitution, organizing national and local elections, and convening a parliament. This is a tall order for a government that recently disbanded its executive committee in the wake of Younes’s murder. Even in Egypt, where a solidly unified military remains in charge, the timing and order of these political events has posed knotty issues.
The international community has a role to play in this transition as well. It must lend its help to Libyans in overcoming the many challenges that they will face. The process should begin at the United Nations, where the coordinated effort to protect Libya’s civilians first began. A Security Council resolution could affirm that Libya should remain a single country, should be able to sustain and defend itself, should be committed to using the wealth of its natural resources in an equal and beneficial manner, and should be governed by inclusive institutions that respect the will of all its people and their human rights. This kind of internationally supported transition framing will help to ensure common purpose and coordination among the dozens of governments and hundreds of organizations likely to become involved, some of which are already providing assistance in liberated areas.
The United Nations, which authorized the NATO intervention, has both the funding and the credibility with Libyans to play a leadership role in the transition. From Washington’s perspective — which is no doubt to avoid getting embroiled in more nation building — it is also a relatively economical way to get things done, as the United States usually pays no more than one-third of the U.N. costs.
The European Union also has serious capabilities — in particular, the ability to deploy hundreds of paramilitary police needed to stabilize a city like Tripoli — which will likely need to be brought to bear. Several important European Union members, such as Italy, France, and Germany receive oil and gas supplies from Libya or have invested in Libyan energy production, and therefore have a vested interest in seeing the country manage its transition effectively. Europe, however, is preoccupied with its own financial difficulties. Libyan assets frozen in the United States and Europe will eventually provide ample financing, but wealthy Arab oil producers may be needed to meet Libya’s most immediate requirements.
The United Nations and the European Union should lead in assisting the Libya transition, but that does not exempt the United States from contributing. American logistics and intelligence have been vital to the NATO military operation and will likely also be crucial in the post-Qaddafi period. The United States is not completely devoid of interests in Libya, after all — it does not want sensitive materials from Libya’s nuclear and chemical weapons programs to get loose, for known terrorists to seek haven there, or for any Stinger-type anti-aircraft weapons to escape into the world arms markets. The United States will also want to make sure that NATO is prepared to step in if chaos threatens to break up Libya, re-install a dictator, or unleash a humanitarian crisis across North Africa and the Mediterranean.
Libyans have much to look forward to celebrating after a long and difficult conflict. But the really difficult challenges still lie ahead. The more we think through the challenges and prepare for them now, the easier it will be to meet the requirements later.
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Qaddafi near the end, Bashar still bumping along
It’s only been a week or so since I published a Council on Foreign Relations paper on preparing for post-Qaddafi Libya. It looks as if we are going to be there before the end of the month, if not in Tripoli itself in most of the rest of the country. A high-level defection, talks in Tunisia between the regime and the rebels, an ineffectual Scud missile launch by Qaddafi’s forces and rebel penetration of more western Libyan towns all signal that Qaddafi is near the end of his road.
That will of course be cause for celebration, but the really tough challenge–a successful transition to a more democratic regime that can govern and defend united Libya while respecting the rights of all its people–lies ahead. The Transitional National Council (TNC) that Europe and the United States have recognized as the legitimate governing authority has good intentions and even some good plans, but implementation in the confused period after the fall of Qaddafi will be difficult at best.
It seems to me that the international community is already well behind the curve. It needs a new UN Security Council resolution laying out the goals, parameters and leadership for the post-Qaddafi period. The EU, preoccupied though it is with the problems of the euro, needs to be thinking about deployment of a paramilitary police force at TNC request to ensure public order in Tripoli, at least temporarily. Hoping it won’t be requested or needed is not a good plan.
The internationals are in worse shape in Syria, where they haven’t managed to pass even a Security Council resolution denouncing Bashar al Assad’s horrendous assaults on his own population. The Turkish national security council is planning to meet Thursday to consider “radical” moves on Syria. Foreign Minister Davutoglu has pronounced what he terms the “final word,” which presumably means that action is coming soon. Speculation centers on a Turkish military incursion across the border into Syria, presumably to protect civilians in neighboring villages. In that event, all Bashar has to do is concentrate his attacks on the population in areas the Turks would find it hard to reach.
The more important move could come in the form of Turkish economic sanctions that signal clearly to businesspeople in Damascus and Aleppo that they need to convince Bashar al Assad to stop. But that isn’t easy for the Turks, who are enjoying their role as the burgeoning economic power of the region and will not want to give anyone reason to think twice about doing business with Turkish companies. It would be far easier for the Turks if any economic sanctions were multilateral and decided at the United Nations.
I am in Istanbul this morning–it really is a thrilling city of fabulous economic activity. Turkish geopolitical confidence is growing, but taking on Syria either militarily or economically when your foreign policy is focused on “zero problems” with neighbors is not easy. Still, I have to hope Ankara decides this week to save Europe and the United States from their own ineffectiveness.
PS: A demonstration in Aleppo, this evening:
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