Tag: United States
Crisis breeds strange ideas
Secretary of State Kerry today floated the idea that has been kicking around: Bashar al Asad can avoid an American attack if he gives up his chemical weapons, within a week. The Secreatary was quick to add that he does not expect Asad to do this. Now the Russians are suggesting that Syria’s chemical weapons be put under international control.
Does the idea have virtue?
Not on the face of it. There are lots of chemical weapons and precursors in Syria, perhaps as much as 1000 tons according to French intelligence. Moving even one ton of such material securely in the conditions that prevail in Syria at the moment would be a challenge. Moving hundreds of tons would take months. Where would you move them to? A special facility would have to be built to destroy the material. I somehow doubt any of the neighbors is prepared to host it, and store the stuff until the facility can be built.
The Russian proposal focuses not on moving the material but putting it under some as yet undefined international control. I suppose that means international observers or inspectors to watch the chemical weapons stockpiles and report if they are used. The difficulties of doing this even in peacetime conditions are apparent from the difficult history of nuclear inspections in Iraq. How would anyone know that all the chemical weapons stocks had been reported? But doing it under wartime conditions seems truly impractical. I don’t think I’d want to be the international inspector embedded with Syrian forces protecting the chemical weapons stockpiles and trying to ensure they are not used.
German intelligence is suggesting that Bashar al Asad did not himself authorize the chemical attack on August 21. But that contradicts what Bashar al Asad has said to Charlie Rose: Bashar claimed that any such chemicals, if they existed, would be firmly in centralized control. That is surely true, as these weapons exist above all to protect the regime and to strike at Israel in a regime-threatening situation. If control of the chemical weapons has loosened to the point they can be used without the regime’s approval, things are worse in Syria than we had imagined. Intervention might be justified on that score alone, though it could not be limited to air attacks.
The main virtues of John Kerry’s floated idea, and the Russian proposal, are to delay further the prospect of an attack and to demonstrate that the Obama Administration is prepared to go the extra diplomatic mile to avoid military intervention. The time may well be needed to twist arms in the House of Representatives, which is playing its assigned role by reflecting the reluctance in the American population. The extra diplomatic mile is needed to show that there is no alternative to military action, or to provide a face-saving alternative if the Administration fails to get Congressional approval.
On the diplomatic front, the US needs to go, once again, to the UN Security Council to lay out its case and seek its concurrence in military action. The Russians and Chinese will not go along, but there is really no harm in demonstrating to Moscow and Beijing, and to the world, that they do not control the use of American power any more than we control the use of theirs, which Moscow has used against Georgia and Beijing uses often to assert its territorial claims against American allies in the East and South China Seas.
But going that route requires prior approval of military action in the US Congress. That seems a tall order at the moment. John Kerry is trying to convince us that the effort will be a small one:
We will be able to hold Bashar al-Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war. That is exactly what we are talking about doing – unbelievably small, limited kind of effort.
The trouble with that argument is it is inconsistent with going to Congress for approval and with the notion that Syria’s use of chemical weapons puts American security at risk by breaking an international taboo. Nor is there any guarantee that things can be kept small. The enemy has a vote. If Bashar escalates, we’ll need to respond.
Bashar giving up his chemical weapons, putting them under international control, a small intervention to solve a big problem. Crisis breeds strange ideas.
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No evidence I used CW on my people
That’s Bashar al Asad’s defense, according to Charlie Rose:
The full interview will be broadcast tomorrow. All we’ve got so far is Charlie Rose’s account, in which he typically spends more time reciting what he asked than what Bashar al Asad said.
But the defense is worth parsing. It is not a categorical denial, which would have read something like this:
Neither I nor anyone under my command has used chemical weapons in Syria against anyone.
Instead Bashar has left lots of loopholes:
- Someone under his command may have used them
- No evidence has been presented connecting him to their use
- The opposition might have done it
- They were used against terrorists, not loyal Syrians
Charlie Rose being the worst interviewer with a good name on TV, I don’t expect him to have explored any of these loopholes in the interview, but we’ll have to wait to be certain.
The purpose of this interview is to make it harder for President Obama to gather the votes needed in the House of Representatives in favor of a resolution approving the use of force. I don’t expect it to make things much harder than they are already proving to be. No one in the US really doubts the facts, or Bashar al Asad’s responsibility. Even if he did not know about this specific attack, he is the responsible commander.
The issue for Americans is not what happened but rather “why us?” Why do we have to take on a burden that more properly belongs to the international community as a whole, or to parts of its like the Arab League that have so far ducked taking action. It does little good for John Kerry to be coming out of meetings with the Arabs and announcing that he has support from the Saudis or others. It is time we heard directly and forcefully from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, Jordan and others involved or threatened by what is going on in Syria. And our diplomats should be trying to get all of them to put skin in the game: don’t all those nice warplanes we’ve sold them deserve a test in battle?
Even if they say “yes,” the primary responsibility for any military intervention will rest with the US. We cannot be the world’s policeman, but we do have to be the world’s fireman. The conflagration in Syria threatens to spread throughout a good part of the Middle East. Present policy–humanitarian assistance in unprecedented quantities, arms to the rebels from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, pushing for greater unity and coherence among the moderate opposition, support to governance efforts in liberated areas–has proved insufficient. Not useless, but unequal to the goal of getting Syria to a negotiated political settlement.
That goal drops farther and farther out of reach with every attack and every death in Syria. The opposition, which at one time wanted the Syrian state preserved, is increasingly focused on destroying it. Sectarian and ethnic divisions are widening. Resentments are growing. Syria is becoming a collapsed state, even if the center of its capital remains, as Charlie Rose reports, relatively calm. Only kilometers away there are large portions of the countryside already under opposition control.
The longer this persists, the worse it gets. I would favor one more diplomatic effort in the UN Security Council, something I expect the House of Representatives will insist on. But the time is coming for the United States to try to put out the fire, with difficult to predict consequences, or allow it to continue to burn, with consequences that are all to easy to predict.
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Too narrow broadens
The Syria war resolution approved in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee goes a long way to correcting the problems in the original draft. The too narrow definition of American goals has been broadened to include changing the momentum on the battlefield. It looks as if the Administration has the votes to get this version approved in the Senate, provided it is not filibustered.
The question will be whether the broader definition of American goals is just too much for the House, where the increasingly isolationist Tea Party is strong among Republicans and more liberal Democrats likewise oppose getting involved abroad. It is one of the ironies of this Administration that it is paying the cost of George W. Bush’s mistake in going to war in Iraq. The House Republican leadership, while supporting the resolution, will not impose party discipline to ensure its passage, leaving voting entirely up to individual members. Minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who has come out swinging for the resolution, faces a tough uphill battle to get an overwhelming majority of Democrats to support the resolution. That won’t be easy.
My guess is that the key to success or failure lies with, whether you like it or not, Israel. Some think the Israelis are ambivalent about removing Bashar al Asad. Their politicians may be. But their intelligence apparatus has concluded that Bashar has to go sooner rather than later, to better the odds of preventing an extremist takeover. The Israelis have been smart to keep their mouths shut in public, but they are no doubt lobbying hard in private for vigorous military action that would reinforce the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons as well as help to end the war. Failure of the US Congress to approve military action, or hesitation by the President to take it, would reduce the credibility of an American military threat against the Iranian nuclear program, as Secretary of State Kerry made eminently clear in his testimony in the Senate.
The President can take military action without Congressional approval, but failure of the Congress to act would make an already messy process incomprehensible to most of the world and further reduce the likelihood of finding support among friends and allies. The Arab League, while denouncing the use of chemical weapons, has so far not called for military action. With the United Kingdom restricted from participation by its parliament and Germany and Italy reluctant as usual about military action, European support essentially comes down to France and maybe a few smaller countries. Plus Turkey, whose interests clearly lie in the earliest possible end to the war in Syria.
Russia remains adamantly opposed to military action, even if President Putin is sounding Moscow’s usual meaningless grace notes about not necessarily standing forever with Bashar al Asad and wanting to discuss the matter with President Obama. Iran is in an tough spot. It is a diehard opponent of chemical weapons use, as Saddam Hussein gassed Iranian forces in the 1980s, during the Iraq/Iran war. But its high officials, echoed by Moscow, are still insisting the August 21 attack came from the Syrian opposition, not the regime. This creates an opening. If the Americans can present Russia and Iran with detailed, incontrovertible evidence that the regime was responsible, logic would dictate that they at least stop their extensive military support to Bashar al Asad and his Hizbollah allies. But of course logic doesn’t necessarily govern situations like this one.
The action this week will be first and foremost in the House and then in Saint Petersburg, where the world’s major economic powers will be meeting at the G20 Summit. If and when a resolution passes in the House, there will be a moment–likely less than a day–for a quick diplomatic maneuver by Russia and Iran to agree to a diplomatic conference that would remove Bashar and save Moscow and Tehran from the embarrassment of an American air attack like the ones in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan that altered the military balance on the ground. If the diplomacy fails at that point, it will have another chance, but only after whatever happens happens. The law of unanticipated consequences will then be in full force.
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Peace picks, September 3-6
It was Labor Day in the US yesterday and Rosh Hashanah (New Year’s) for Jews worldwide Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday. So a quiet week in DC:
1. The Need for Speed? Debating Conventional Prompt Global Strike, Carnegie Endowment
September 3, 2013 Washington, DC
12:30 PM – 2:00 PM EST
The long-held U.S. goal of striking distant targets with non-nuclear weapons in just minutes has always been controversial. In the current fiscal environment, however, an impending decision to acquire Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) weapons will be especially hotly debated. While the conversation surrounding CPGS has largely focused on one particular risk—the possibility of Russia’s misinterpreting a prompt conventional weapon as nuclear-armed—the program raises a much broader set of issues that merit debate, from the need to respond to adverse changes in the security environment to the management of escalation in a serious conflict.
James M. Acton will examine the big picture by exploring the full range of questions—military, strategic, technological, and financial—raised by CPGS. The discussion will also mark the release of Acton’s new report Silver Bullet? Asking the Right Questions About Conventional Prompt Global Strike. George Perkovich will moderate.
Copies of the report will be available.
2. Narrative Roundtable: From Narratives of Violence to Narratives of Peace: The Renunciation of Violence as a Discursive Phenomenon, George Mason University
Tuesday, September 3rd, 2-4pm
The Metropolitan Building
3434 N. Washington Blvd
5th Floor, Room: 5183
Refreshments will be served
Much work has been done on the prevention of violence, but less focus has been granted towards encouraging individuals already affiliated with violent organizations to leave. One reason may be the inherent difficulty of getting people who have already formed an identity around violence to change. However, such change does occur among some individuals, and this roundtable will explore how we can understand—and encourage—this transformation through the lens of narrative dynamics.
During this roundtable we will explore the complex process of how individuals who have renounced violence make sense of their transformation by framing their change as a process of narrative identity transformation. The presentation will be grounded in dissertation research that applied a morphological analysis of the narratives of former gang members, right-wing extremists, and terrorists. The findings will be explored to highlight possible ways this process of renunciation can be facilitated through the presence of specific discourses around transformation.
BIO:
Agatha Glowacki is currently a PhD Candidate at George Mason’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (SCAR). She has worked for various US government agencies on issues pertaining to terrorist radicalization, including extremist propaganda and programs to prevent violent extremism. Her work on terrorist disengagement inspired her dissertation research, which has focused on the narrative processes of renouncing violence. Agatha earned her Master’s degree in European Studies from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, where she was also a U.S. Fulbright Scholar. She received her BA in Government from Harvard.
3. After Snowden: The G-20 Forum and the Crisis in US-Russian Relations – What Next? Heritage Foundation, 12-1 pm September 4
The Kremlin delivered a diplomatic blow to U.S.–Russian relations when Moscow granted former NSA analyst Edward Snowden a temporary political asylum. Now, the White House has cancelled a U.S.–Russia summit that was scheduled for early September, and Obama’s Russian “reset” policy is facing its moment of truth. The crisis in Syria and the Snowden affair puts Russian President Vladimir Putin in the position of strength vis-à-vis Obama—which is where Putin wants to be in relation to foreign counterparts. As in the case with the Iran sanctions, Afghanistan transit, the Tsarnaev brothers information, the arms transfers to Bashar el-Assad, it is Putin who has something that America wants, and it is the U.S. that is coming to Russia to beg. With Putin in the strong bargaining position, the White House is maneuvered into the position of weakness, looking even worse than Jimmy Carter.
Yet it comes at a price. The U.S.–Russian relations are strained as never before, and any destabilizing factor creates a serious problem. While pragmatists believe that the White House and the Kremlin have too much to lose, the damage has been already done—and is getting worse. Of course, the U.S.–Russian relations are based on pursuit of national interest. However, they are increasingly poisoned by the ideological rejection of the West and the U.S. by the Russian ruling elite. The domestic crackdown, including anti-NGO legislation, the ban on orphan adoption to the US, prosecution of political opponents – all these complicate the ability of Russia and the US to do business together.
In addition, the G-20 gathering in St. Petersburg will be another photo-op event to discuss a wide range of international economic issues. Yet, a clear focus is needed not to repeat the debates in other fora. What should the US – and especially the US Congress – do to protect America’s interests and support our friends in Russia? What should the G-20 leaders do to restore economic growth? Join us for a discussion on the upcoming G-20 summit and U.S.-Russia bilateral relations.
More About the Speakers
Featuring Keynote Remarks by
The Honorable Dr. Evelyn N. Farkas
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, United States Department of Defense
Followed by a Panel with
Ariel Cohen, Ph.D.
Senior Research Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, The Heritage Foundation
Donald N. Jensen, Ph.D.
Resident Fellow, The Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University
Kyle Parker
Policy Advisor for Eurasia, The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
James M. Roberts
Research Fellow For Economic Freedom and Growth Center for International Trade and Economics, The Heritage Foundation
Join the Arms Control Association (ACA) and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for an assessment of Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the elements required for a deal that could provide both sides with a “win-win” outcome.
Copies of the newly updated edition of ACA’s 44-page briefing book on “Solving the Iranian Nuclear Puzzle” will be available at the event.
Colin Kahl
Colin Kahl is an associate professor in the Security Studies Program in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he teaches courses on international relations, international security, the geopolitics of the Middle East, American foreign policy, and civil and ethnic conflict. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
David Albright
David Albright is founder and President of the non-profit Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington, D.C. He regularly conducts scientific research, publishes in numerous technical and policy journals, and is often cited in the media. His book Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies was listed by The Atlantic as one of the best foreign affairs books of 2010.
George Perkovich
George Perkovich is vice president for studies and director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His research focuses on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation, with a concentration on South Asia, Iran, and the problem of justice in the international political economy.
Daryl Kimball
Daryl Kimball has been Executive Director of the Arms Control Association since September 2001. Mr. Kimball is a frequent media commentator and has written and spoken extensively about nuclear arms control and non-proliferation. In 2004, the National Journal recognized Kimball as one of the ten key individuals whose ideas shape the policy debate on weapons proliferation.
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What Congress should do
I have resisted comparisons between Syria and Bosnia, or Syria and Kosovo, as the global and regional circumstances are different. It does no good to draw conclusions that just don’t apply in a distinct situation. Bashar al Asad is not Slobodan Milosevic, the Middle East is not the Balkans, Yeltsin’s Russia is not Putin’s Russia, Obama’s United States is not Clinton’s. Distinct times and places make for dicey comparisons.
But as the Congress considers what to do about Syria, some of its members will no doubt want to think about the Balkans, where American bombing campaigns twice ended wars that seemed interminable. So better to help them get it right than to suggest they ignore the precedents.
My starting assumption is that Bashar al Asad did in fact use chemical weapons against Syria’s civilian population on August 21 and several other occasions. If like Vladimir Putin, you think this “utter nonsense,” stop reading here.
If Congress decides to authorize military action, it needs to understand what President Obama has known for a long time: we stand on a slippery slope. How Bashar al Asad will react is anyone’s guess, but we know that Milosevic reacted to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia by escalating his effort to ethnically cleanse Albanians from Kosovo. Likewise, the Bosnian Serbs reacted to the red line known as the “Gorazde rules” intended to protect UN designated safe areas by attacking Sarajevo. NATO responded by escalating in turn. If Bashar al Asad repeats chemical attacks, or sponsors terrorist attacks against American assets around the world, Washington needs to be prepared to escalate.
But bombing and escalation are not a policy. Nor is a well-targeted and time-limited bombing campaign an appropriate response to mass murder of civilians with chemical (or any other) weapons. Bashar al Asad is not a military problem. He is a political one. The military is a blunt instrument that should be wielded within the context of a broader political strategy to end his rule in Syria, block an extreme Islamist takeover, and put Syria on course towards a more open and democratic society.
The bombing in Bosnia was extensive, eventually reaching the communication nodes of the Bosnian Serb army. It was those tertiary targets that changed the course of the war, because the Serbs were unable to protect their long confrontation line with the Federation forces once they lost their classified communications capability. But even this extensive bombing might have been fruitless, or borne bitter fruit, had it not been accompanied by a diplomatic strategy, which today we associate with the Dayton agreements and Richard Holbrooke but at the time was associated with President Clinton and National Security Adviser Tony Lake.
Likewise in Kosovo, the NATO bombing followed on Yugoslav rejection of the Rambouillet agreement. The war ended with UN Security Council resolution 1244, which was the political counterpart of the military-technical agreement providing for withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from Kosovo. Resolution 1244 imposed UN administration on Kosovo to develop democratic institutions and rule of law, with a view to an eventual political decision on Kosovo’s final status. NATO did not set removal of Milosevic as a war objective. But he was gone within one and a half years as the result of an election he called and a mass nonviolent movement that demanded he accept it.
I am not privy to the Administration’s military planning, but a serious political strategy would continue to aim for a power-sharing arrangement that shoves Bashar al Asad aside. The diplomacy would likely benefit from broader military action (against the Syrian air force, Scuds and artillery) than is currently contemplated, especially if it aimed at tilting the battlefield in the opposition direction. I don’t know if the Congress is willing to point in that direction, as it might require deeper American commitment than we can afford at present. But at the very least Congress should insist on stronger support for the Syrian opposition.
Is there an American interest in getting more deeply involved? Continuation of the war will likely cause state collapse in Syria as well as weaken Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and possibly Turkey. Al Qaeda affiliated extremists in both Iraq and Syria will be the beneficiaries. Kurdish irredentism is a likely consequence. The Syrian war has the potential to reshape the Levant in ways that are inimical to American interests. If Congress is going to worry about military action in response to chemical weapons use by Syria, it should also worry about a political and military strategy to counter longer-term threats to Middle East peace and stability with potentially gigantic costs to the United States.
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Lemonade
President Obama has had more than his share of lemons lately:
- the British parliament defeat of participation in military action against Syria,
- Russian President Putin calling the conclusive report of the US intelligence community indicting Bashar al Asad for chemical the August 21 chemical attack “utter nonsense,”
- Congress asking good questions and pestering for more consultations, and
- the UN Secretary General asking that he await the report of the chemical weapons inspection team.
He has now surprised us all with the oldest trick in the book: when you have nothing but lemons, make lemonade.
This makes a lot of sense. Insisting on a Congressional resolution of approval puts the Congress on the hook and meets the letter and spirit of the law, which is what a University of Chicago constitutional law professor should want to do. A successful resolution will quiet his critics and compensate for the loss in London, putting the Brits and opponents in Congress to shame. The UN time line for completing its technical work seems to be less than two weeks, so its conclusions should give the lie to those who claim chemical weapons were not used. An opportunity to upbraid Putin during the G20 Summit in Saint Petersburg September 5/6 should be welcome.
Trouble is, lemonade is not what is needed in Syria. Bashar al Asad may well read delay as lack of resolve and even use chemical weapons again. What does Obama do then? Rush the resolution through Congress, or go ahead without waiting? The part of the Syrian opposition most friendly to US interests may be disquieted, while extreme Islamists profit from the US delay by pointing to American unreliability. While the President said nothing about it in the Rose Garden, he should be accelerating assistance to the Free Syrian Army in ways that give it more confidence of US backing.
Lemonade is also not what US credibility needed. This may be a temporary problem, so long as the Congress approves military action and the Administration delivers a serious blow. But friends and enemies in the region and beyond will be calculating what this means for them: the Israelis first and foremost, but also the Turks, Iranians, Russians and North Koreans. Friends will be discomforted. Enemies may take heart.
The President is also at risk. If the defeat in the British parliament dealt a blow to David Cameron, a defeat in the US Congress would pull the rug out from under Barack Obama. I trust he is confident he can win, but until he does his prestige is on the line. A loss would leave him hurting just as Congress turns to a budget fight that promises to be a real bruiser.
So turning to Congress is smart, even ingenious, but not without serious risks. But proceeding apace without satisfying Congress had serious risks as well. So lemonade is on the menu, whether it is what you wanted or not.
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