Tag: United States
The EU needs a unified polity
The European Union unquestionably deserves the Nobel Prize for its past accomplishments. To cite just a few: peace between France and Germany, post-World War II European economic development and prosperity (no it wasn’t all due to the Marshall Plan), absorbing a reunified Germany and what used to be called eastern Europe into the European architecture, most of the staffing of peacekeeping operations in the Balkans (and many other parts of the world) in the 1990s and 2000s (and most of the aid money)…
The question is whether the much-expanded EU of 27 countries can do for the next generation what it has done for the last two. While I count myself a euro-enthusiast, I doubt it. Without a decisive move towards greater political unity, the EU is hamstrung. And the politics in many European countries–from Germany to Greece–militates against greater unity.
The EU’s current problems arise essentially from its inability to make quick and wise decisions. There is a dramatic contrast between European slowness in responding to the euro’s problems and the American reaction to its 2008 financial crisis. Consensus at 27 is difficult to achieve, even in the best of circumstances. When the decisions involve redistributing big economic and financial burdens, politics in the member states will rarely align.
Europe has created a unified economic space, but it lacks a unified political space. As we happen to be enjoying an American presidential campaign, it should be clear what this means. Even with the archaic electoral college process, which bends the campaign into a focus on the relatively few “battle ground” states, it is clear that Romney and Obama are conducting campaigns that try to appeal throughout the country. Europe is essentially stuck with a political system resembling the one we had under the Articles of Confederation, but its economic system is continent-wide. There are no European officials elected in constituencies that extend beyond the national borders of the member states.
This matters to Americans, because Europe is one of our biggest markets (as we are to Europe), a giant source of investment (also as we are to them), an educational and cultural partner of the first order, and still our most important military alliance, even if EU military capabilities have naturally atrophied with the continental peace its members now enjoy. Slow American economic growth today is due in part to Europe’s current financial crisis and its economic consequences. The NATO mission in Afghanistan relies in part on European contributions, as did the NATO-led effort against Muammar Qaddafi.
I am about to go off to moderate a talk by the Macedonian defense minister, Fatmir Besimi. His troops guard NATO headquarters in Kabul, even though Greece has blocked his country’s membership in the Alliance. That, too, is an example of Europe’s continuing political division and how it hampers a stronger, more effective European Union.
I can offer no solution. The Europeans will have to find it for themselves, as they have often in the past. It is not going to be easy. America did it by writing a new constitution behind closed doors in Philadelphia. That won’t work in the Twitter age. I hope this Nobel Prize, ironically awarded by a committee in Norway (which has declined EU membership), will inspire Europeans to unify their political space.
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Fat chance
I generally shy away from trumpeting my son’s fine writing over at Mother Jones, but this graphic from his latest post caught my eye:
For those who may wonder what the relationship is between American presidents and attacks on U.S. diplomatic targets, that’s just the point: there is none, even if it looks to me as if the numbers might support the thesis that democratic administrations suffer fewer such attacks on average than their predecessors. But the Romney campaign is claiming its man would prevent such attacks by projecting strength. Fat chance.
Note to Paul Ryan: Marine guards are not trained to protect ambassadors. Their primary responsibility is to protect the information in the embassy. In a crisis, they help protect the embassy itself, but primary responsibility for that lies with the host government. If host government protection is inadequate, the embassy beefs up private security guards and the ambassador gets a personal security detail of people trained for that purpose (usually private contractors), not marine guards.
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Why riot?
You don’t have to be a foreign affairs expert to see that there are political reasons for the Innocence of Muslims-inspired protests around the Muslim world in what has been termed “the video incident.” America’s recent wars in predominantly Muslim countries have heightened tensions. U.S. support for Israel also contributes.
But this can’t be just about politics. The video offended Muslim sentiments. If these protests were really about politics, why were they not more widespread and why did they not take on a more explicitly political guise?
Americans find it difficult to understand the religious justification for these protests. Either they are reduced to cultural relativism (“things are different in the Muslim world”) 0r they wonder if Muslims are so weak in their faith that any offense to their prophet pushes them to mass violence. Neither produces interesting answers.
What Westerners fail to appreciate is the cultural milieu in which Islam originated and propagated. Islam emerged from a pre-existing oral tradition of poetry. The influence is apparent in the Holy Qur’an, which often reads like poetry:
Say, “I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind,
The Sovereign of mankind,
The God of mankind,
From the evil of the retreating whisperer –
Who whispers [evil] into the breasts of mankind –
From among the jinn [spirits] and mankind.” (Surat an-Nas 114)
Recitation of the Qur’an is art, and those with the Qur’an memorized are respected. In early Islam, that was the only way to experience the Qur’an. It is believed Muhammad was illiterate, so when he received the Qur’an from the Angel Gabriel he memorized it and taught it to his followers. The sunnah, or the large body that encompasses the words and actions of the Prophet and some of his close followers, was also initially memorized and passed along orally.
Memorization and oral transmission were the privileged modes of gaining and disseminating knowledge. How was it to be determined whose oral transmission was legitimate? What would be done if two people remembered something differently? In the case of the sunnah an incredibly complex system developed for evaluating the legitimacy of different ahadith (pieces of the sunnah, particular stories about things the Prophet said or did). Was it possible that a certain transmitter could have had contact with another in order to pass along a hadith? Did both transmitters live in the same era and were they known to have traveled in the same region?
The issue of legitimacy also brought into question each transmitter’s character. Ignoring other variables, one might trust what one transmitter said the Prophet did over another if the first had a reputation for honesty while the second was known to lie. The legitimacy of the information a transmitter passed along was intimately connected to the transmitter’s reputation: how honest he was, how often he prayed, whether his teachings were consistent. Character is vital to legitimacy in the Islamic tradition.
The connection between the legitimacy of the content and the character of the content’s originator or transmitter implies that criticism of the latter calls the former into question. If a transmitter is not of high moral standing, there are implications for whether the ahadith he transmitted are considered legitimate. Insulting the Prophet, the original transmitter, calls into question his message, or all of Islam.
In the Shi’i tradition a religious leader’s character is very important, especially in a Muslim’s choice of Ayatollah. Because of the occultation of the last imam, Ayatollahs are selected to demonstrate how a Muslim should live her life until the last imam returns. The importance of an Ayatollah modeling good character is captured in the title given to a well-respected Ayatollah, marja-e-taqlid, which translates as “source of emulation.”
This is strange from the Judeo-Christian perspective, which privileges text. Jews are exigent about error-free copying of the Torah. Western culture worries about plagiarism. Improperly expropriating text undermines an author’s credibility and may call into question everything she has written. We have little need to worry about an author’s character to decide whether a text is valid or not.
It is therefore not surprising that the Judeo-Christian tradition includes insulting, teasing, or at least recognizing the faults of religious leaders without it negatively reflecting on their mission. In the Jewish tradition, many of the prophets are far from moral perfection, but their character flaws do not affect the sanctity of their purpose. Most Christians had a good laugh at the late-night TV jokes about Jesus’ possible wife. The ancient Greeks often mocked the gods.
There is of course no justification for the killings associated with the recent demonstrations. But the importance of transmitters in preserving the Islamic tradition provides some insight into the anger a number of Muslims are feeling around the world, an anger that so many in the West cannot begin to understand.
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Is there a political solution in Afghanistan?
Allison Stuewe writes:
The members of yesterday’s panel hosted by the Middle East Institute believed that a political solution is desirable but concluded nevertheless that the question of whether or not one is possible is harder to answer than it seems. The panel was more inclined to raise additional questions than provide definitive answers.
Marvin Weinbaum of the Middle East Institute, the event’s moderator, introduced some of the questions: Is a political solution possible? Are there incentives that would facilitate an agreement among all interests involved in the Afghan conflict? What will the U.S. or other participants in the peace process have to sacrifice to reach a negotiated solution? Has the opportunity for productive U.S. involvement in conflict resolution passed? Or should we still be pushing for a political solution? Are we failing to see the possibilities? Will U.S. government efforts to find a political solution be viewed in the region as a gesture of desperation for an easy exit?
Ambassador Omar Samad, previously Afghanistan’s ambassador to France and Canada and currently a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, structured his presentation around two questions that must be addressed in the peace process. First, he asked, what is the Afghan conflict? Is it an insurgency, civil war, or proxy-driven conflict? Is it about resources, ethnicity, geopolitical rivalries, anti-terrorism, or historical narratives? From the Afghan perspective, which looks at the conflict with history in mind, it is all of these.
In the 1960s, the country was stable, with a constitutional and democratic order. The communist coup and subsequent Soviet invasion ended three generations of peace and destroyed the government, infrastructure and human capital while killing over a million Afghans. The U.S.-backed resistance was successful in defeating the Soviets, but when the Soviets left and the United States lost interest, a void remained. Radical Islam thrived. As it became clear an agreement would not be reached between the powers that emerged after the Soviet defeat, the interests of external players became more pronounced. Pakistan and Iran had their own political agendas and used Islamic extremism to achieve their own ends.
9/11 was a game changer. The tragedy showed the world that there are consequences to ignoring conflict in Afghanistan. Previous mistakes should not be repeated in the current attempt at conflict resolution. The Bonn Agreement creating what Arif Rafiq, scholar at the Middle East Institute, views as a consociational government pointed in the right direction. There are divisions between Afghans based on ethnicity, language, and religion, but these divisions are shallow and reflect only part of Afghanistan’s history. Ambassador Samad believes there is an Afghan national identity, history and sense of belonging to the same state. It is unlikely that Afghanistan will collapse. What it needs is an inclusive political system.
Ambassador Samad’s second question was about the meaning of a “political solution.” Does this mean an intra-Afghan, regional, or international solution? From the Afghan perspective, all three are critical to ensuring future stability. A peace plan must be Afghan-inspired and include input from regional interests, but these imperatives will be hard to accomplish without international support. There will be a transition in 2014 when President Karzai concludes his term and much of the United States and NATO presence is withdrawn. We have between now and the end of 2014 to address security issues, ensure citizens will be able to vote, plan for legitimate elections, and invite the Taliban to participate in politics as equal citizens of the Afghan state.
Shamila Chaudhary of the New American Foundation (but previously at the National Security Council) contributed a former policymaker’s perspective.
American politics have hindered the search for a political solution. At the beginning of the war, the U.S. treated the Taliban and al-Qaeda as essentially the same terrorist organization and refused to negotiate on principle. We know now that there were divisions in the Taliban even over the 9/11 attack and that the U.S. government ignored some of what might have been indications that Taliban members were willing to talk. The military’s “fight, talk, build” strategy has made negotiation difficult. Congress is angry that it has not been consulted more. Despite Administration efforts, many members are unwilling to acquiesce to two Taliban requests: the transfer of Guantanamo detainees associated with the Taliban and the recognition of a Taliban office outside of Afghanistan. The rise in “green-on-blue” attacks, the Taliban attack on Camp Bastion in September and last year’s attack on the Embassy Kabul have made negotiation with the Taliban harder for the Americans, who won’t be able to engage seriously until after the U.S. election.
The second obstacle Chaudhary identified was Pakistan. Pakistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar spoke in Washington last month, clarifying Pakistani goals: an Afghan-led political solution that is satisfactory to Islamabad, no further destabilization in the border areas and the return of Afghan refugees still residing in Pakistan. Pakistan is in a bind because it does not have sufficient Afghan partners to guarantee these interests. Pakistan wants to curb pro-Indian sentiment and block moves towards an independent Pashtunistan in the border areas. Islamabad relies heavily on the Haqqani network, a group associated with the Afghan Taliban that could turn on Pakistan at any time. A productive agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan would include acceptance of the Durand line, limits on India’s security presence in Afghanistan and assurances that the border areas will not become an anti-Pakistan, pro-Indian hotspot.
Arif Rafiq thought a political solution possible but was pessimistic about the likelihood of one happening. He listed many reasons for his doubts: the Bonn framework is slowly unraveling. President Karzai, once respected as a leader from a prominent family, is now a divisive figure. Though he has said he will step down as planned, it appears he is working to consolidate his power and choose a successor who will allow him to continue to influence politics. He faces real challenges: Mullah Muhammad Omar’s Afghan Taliban does not want Karzai to be a part of peace talks and the opposition National Front not only opposes President Karzai but also envisions a constitutional overhaul to establish a federalized parliamentary democracy.
The surge is over and it did not accomplish what it set out to do. The Afghan army is not ready to take over primary security responsibility for the whole country. If anything, the surge emboldened militia groups and resulted in a huge influx of weapons. The insurgency is alive even if fragmented (there are divisions between Mullah Omar’s Taliban and Gulbiddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami). The Taliban did not participate in the Bonn talks of December 2011. “Exploratory” talks among the Taliban, President Karzai and the U.S. have been on hold since March. There is no indication that Mullah Omar’s Taliban intends to participate in elections. The NATO-led coalition of the willing is fraying.
Rafiq did note some reasons for optimism. The U.S. helped build a functioning, if not fully effective, Afghan parliament . Pakistan needs the U.S. presence in Afghanistan to limits cross-border risks. It might be possible to exploit splits in the Taliban, some of whom are looking for the international legitimacy they lacked when they ruled most of Afghanistan. Most Afghans reject the emirate that the Taliban advocate.
The panel agreed time is running out. Political transition in Washington, Islamabad and Kabul is eating into the time available. Despite the Taliban’s motivations and goals, all participants noted that any political solution has to be open to all citizens. A political solution requires an Afghan state that balances the center and periphery and meets the bottom line goals of the neighbors and the major international powers. It is not going to be easy to solve this equation.
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George W. Bush’s playbook
I can do no better in summing up Mitt Romney’s foreign policy speech today than he does himself in the penultimate sentence:
The 21st century can and must be an American century. It began with terror, war, and economic calamity. It is our duty to steer it onto the path of freedom, peace, and prosperity.
Here’s the problem: the terror, war and economic calamity Romney refers to occurred not on Barack Obama’s watch, but on George W. Bush’s. And Governor Romney’s foreign policy prescriptions, like many of his domestic policy prescriptions, are drawn from George W. Bush’s playbook.
The few innovations in Romney’s speech at Virginia Military Institute today are hardly worth mentioning. He wants to see the Syrian revolutionaries get more arms, in particular anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, but he fails to say how he will prevent these from being used against us, except to say that those who receive them will have to share our values. That should fix everything in the arms bazaars of the Middle East.
He says he will support a two-state solution for peace between Palestine and Israel. Nice to see him return to the mainstream from the extremist wings of Israeli and American politics, which is where he was during the “47%” fund-raising dinner in Florida when he suggested we would kick the can down the road and maybe skip the two-state solution altogether. Trouble is, the people he pitched that line to are supporting his campaign with fat checks. He says there will be no daylight between America and Israel, which is code for saying that the Jewish settlements will continue to expand, since that is what Netanyahu’s Israel wants. I fail to understand an American presidential candidate who outsources U.S. policy on the Palestinians to Israel.
In Libya he’ll track down the killers of our personnel, which is exactly what Obama promises to do. I’d just be curious how those 15 Navy ships he plans to build each year will help in the effort.
He pledges to condition aid to Egypt but makes the conditions both vague and easy to meet: build democratic institutions and maintain the peace treaty with Israel. There are lots of problems with President Morsy’s Egypt, but you won’t be able to hang him for either of those offenses, yet.
In Afghanistan, he calls the withdrawal the president has pledged a retreat but makes it clear he is not proposing anything very different.
Then there is this on foreign assistance:
I will make further reforms to our foreign assistance to create incentives for good governance, free enterprise, and greater trade, in the Middle East and beyond. I will organize all assistance efforts in the greater Middle East under one official with responsibility and accountability to prioritize efforts and produce results. I will rally our friends and allies to match our generosity with theirs.
The trouble here is that the Ryan budget guts the foreign affairs budget, including foreign assistance. There won’t be any American generosity to be matched with theirs if Romney is elected. This is where Romney departs definitively from Obama and shows his reliance on George W.’s playbook.
I hasten to add that I’d be all for organizing our assistance efforts in the greater Middle East under one official. That would be a good idea.
One last issue: with all this overload of American values as the basis for our foreign policy, I’m curious what Romney plans to do about Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco and other less than fully democratic friends in the region? They get no mention in this speech, but of course they really can’t be mentioned in a speech that gives unequivocal backing to both our friends and our values. What would Romney do when there is a choice between the two? Keep silent would be a good guess.
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The brighter side
Kosovo’s Minister for Economic Development, Besim Beqaj, stopped by last week to talk at SAIS. I was too busy with Yom Kippur and a wife’s illness to write him up quickly, but I doubt any of what he said is yet out of date. So here is my summary, with apologies for anything I’ve gotten wrong (the numbers are particularly difficult to keep track of–I’ll print corrections if you send them to me):
Kosovo found itself at the end of the NATO/Yugoslavia war in 1999 with a devastated economy and two big challenges: post-war reconstruction and transition from badly broken socialism to a free economy. Beqaj himself started his career as a teacher in the parallel education sytem, which undertook the schooling of Kosovo’s Albanians during the 1990s outside the official Belgrade-sponsored system. At the end of the war, 120,000 houses were damaged out of a housing stock of 400,000. Ninety-five per cent of the refugees and displaced people returned quickly, within two months.
Kosovo needed a state. Today it has one that declared independence in 2008 and substantially completed the implementation of Ahtisaari’s Comprehensive Peace Settlement proposal this year. Governance is decentralized, minority protection is enshrined in law, and 91 other states have recognized Kosovo, which is already a member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and will soon be a member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Kosovo’s breach last year of its IMF agreement has proven temporary. Within eight months it was back under an IMF program and will stay there.
The state-building process is not yet complete. The long pole in the tent is rule of law. Kosovo has asked for the EU rule of law mission (EULEX) to stay for two more years. Education needs a major upgrade. Unemployment is high, especially among the young.
Still, Kosovo has enjoyed high growth rates (estimated at 4.4% in 2012), 40% of its budget is devoted to capital investments in infrastructure, GDP has grown to 2700 euros/year, debt is under 7% of GDP and foreign direct investment last year amounted to 400 million euros. The road to Durres in Albania is a major improvement. The next infrastructure priority is the road to Skopje, which will start construction soon (I was relieved to hear that!).The Central European Free Trade Agreement provides access to a market of 25 million, in addition to trade agreements with both Europe and the United States.
The National Council for Economic Development has set five goals:
1. Maintaining fiscal stability (legislation limits government debt to 40% of GDP);
2. Improving the environment for investment by reducing red tape and empowering the private sector;
3. Privatizing state enterprises, with priority going to telecommunications (a competition is now in process), the energy sector and mining (much improved airport operations are already in private hands);
4. Revitalizing agriculture and food processing;
5. Developing human capital, including civic education.
All legislation implementing these and other priorities must be aligned with European Union requirements. Ninety per cent of Kosovo citizens would approve a referendum in favor of EU membership.
Kosovo still faces serious difficulties. The Serbian campaign against diplomatic recognition has hurt the state’s prospects and its ability to provide for practical things like “green card” insurance coverage for people who want to travel outside Kosovo by car. Smuggling into Kosovo and back into Serbia) on small roads in the north is costly to both Pristina and Belgrade. As much as $200 million euros in electric bills remain unpaid by Serbs living in the north, which remains a major issue.
It was left to me to ask the obvious question: what about corruption? The Minister replied that the perception is worse than the reality. He pointed to UNDP/USAID polling that suggests only 8% of the population has personal experience of corruption. Eighty-two per cent of the population knows of corruption only through the media or through talking with friends and relatives.
Alas, that same polling shows low levels of satisfaction (among both Serbs and Albanians) with the government, which gets most of the blame for the still difficult economic situation. Besim Beqaj and his colleagues still have a tough road ahead.
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