Tag: United States
It’s not only Libya
A lot of people seem to be surprised that Libyans have taken up the cudgels against the Benghazi militias thought to have attacked the U.S. consulate there, killing the American ambassador and three of his colleagues. Readers of peacefare.net will not be so surprised, as I’ve repeatedly described the situation there as evolving in a positive direction, with a lot of appreciation for what the United States and NATO did to defeat Muammar Qaddafi. I wrote to friends Thursday just before the news of the uprising against the militias broke:
I’ve been there (in both Benghazi and Tripoli) twice in the last year. I certainly have never had a warmer reception as an American in an Arab country. Most Libyans, especially Benghazis, understand perfectly well that the U.S. and NATO saved them from Qaddafi. And they appreciate it. I drove repeatedly through demonstrations in Benghazi during the election period–there was zero hostility to Westerners. Ditto at the polling places. And ditto last September right after Qaddafi fled Tripoli, when I enjoyed a great Friday evening celebration in Martyr’s (Green) Square.
The Libyan transition has been going reasonably well, on a time schedule they themselves have set, with resources that are overwhelmingly their own. Yes, the militias are a problem, but they are also part of a temporary solution. There would be no order in Libya today without them. They guarded all the polling stations during the elections and eventually reestablished control over the consulate compound after the attack.
We’ll have to wait for the incident report to know, but I would bet on the attack having been a planned one (contra Susan Rice) by armed extremists associated with opposition to the elections and possibly with secession of Barqa (Cyrenaica)….The Libyan [political science professor] Chris Stevens met with the morning he was killed gave me an account of these small extremist groups, mainly headquartered in Derna, the evening after the elections [in July 7]. The state has, however, lacked the organization and force necessary to mop them up, which might in fact be a difficult operation. They are wise not to try until they know they can succeed.
They will now have to do it. We should be helping them where they need help.
It would be a mistake to take the uprising against the extremist militias as the final word. There is likely to be retaliation. What has happened so far is not law and order. It is more lynch mob, though no one seems to have been killed. We should not take much satisfaction from retribution. What is needed is justice, which requires a serious investigation, a fair trial and an appropriate punishment.
Also needed are reliable, unified and disciplined security forces: police, army, intelligence services. This is one of the most difficult tasks in any post-war, post-dictatorship society. Demobilization of the militias really is not possible until the new security institutions are able to start absorbing at least some of their cadres. Reform of security services and reintegration of former fighters are two sides of the same coin: establishing the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
It is astounding that the United States, after 20 years of demand from weak and failing states in the Balkans, Middle East and South Asia, still lacks adequate institutional means to assist in establishing foreign security forces that behave properly towards their citizens. We are especially weak on police, whose training and equipping is largely contracted to private companies that hire individuals who have never previously worked together and may have dramatically different ideas about what a proper police force does. The Americans are also weak in assisting interior ministries, since we don’t use them ourselves. I have little idea what we do assisting foreign intelligence services, since the effort is classified and has attracted little journalistic or academic attention. We have some significant experience and capacity to help with military services and defense ministries, but we could use a good deal more.
Police of course are not much use unless you’ve got courts and prisons to process the accused, along with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and prison guards. Not to mention laws, implementing regulations, legal education, bar associations and the ineffable but important “culture of law.” Installing a modern system for rule of law is a 10 or 20 year project.
The Libyans are facing a challenge similar to what we have seen in Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Haiti, South Sudan and likely several more places I’ve omitted. There are pressing rule of law challenges in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen as well as obvious needs in Bahrain, Algeria, Jordan, Pakistan, Nepal, and Burma (Myanmar). When will we recognize that we need a permanent capacity to respond comprehensively and appropriately?
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Less bang, fewer bucks
“Violence is not the way to resolve political disputes,” declared GlobalSolutions.org President Bob Enholm at yesterday’s event, co-sponsored with Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping, about the need for U.S. engagement in peacekeeping operations. This statement set the tone for the panel, which featured three experienced peacekeepers including Lynn Holland, the first American woman to participate in a UN peacekeeping operation. The speakers focused on the advantages of peacekeeping and reasons the U.S. should increase its participation.
Holland, now at PAE, came to peacekeeping through police work in the United States. She volunteered to join for two weeks a project in Haiti that would train police personnel. After six months, she decided that she could not go back to writing tickets in the U.S. so she followed what she described as a “calling” into several other countries as a peacekeeper, including Bosnia, Kosovo and Liberia. From this she learned that peacekeeping operations must be tailored to each situation and comprehensive. It only creates problems to train more police officers without also training judges and corrections personnel. Holland believes there are advantages to using women peacekeepers. After she negotiated a ceasefire in Kosovo, one of the protagonists told UN personnel that the effort would not have been successful if it had been led by a man.
William Stuebner of IDS International listed the reasons the U.S. should be more involved in UN peacekeeping operations. Successful peacekeeping work quarantines conflict, saves money, and depoliticizes responsibility. Additionally, Stuebner argued that it is just the “right thing to do,” though he acknowledged this argument carries little weight in Washington.
Deborah Owens, who has served in Somalia, Rwanda, and the Balkans, emphasized that peacekeepers live “close to the ground” getting their hair cut at local salons, visiting local restaurants, and staying in normal apartments, which allows them to understand the local issues in a more nuanced way. Finally, peacekeeping missions have established a presence in conflict zones that would be hard for other countries to enter without inciting violence.
As for what the U.S. could do to help more, Stuebner pointed to training, assisting with transportation, intelligence and special troops. The U.S. should also continue to pay its assessed dues. It is a misconception in the U.S. that we contribute a significant number of peacekeepers when in reality, on the list of countries that contribute the most blue berets (UN peacekeepers) we were number 58 as of August.
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The closer
We hear a lot more about international intervention missions opening than we do about their closing. This is not as it should be. While some of them are conceived as holding operations without clear end-states, most these days are intended to achieve something. Then they should close.
Four and a half years after Kosovo declared independence, Pieter Feith stopped by Washington to report on what his International Civilian Office (ICO), which closed last week, achieved in implementing the Comprehensive Peace Settlement (Athisaari plan) and consider what still needs to be done. This is Pieter’s second closing: he also implemented an Ahtisaari plan for Acheh in Indonesia, closing the European Union mission there in 2006.
To make a long story short, the Albanians accepted the Ahtisaari plan for Kosovo independence but the Serbs rejected it. The Kosovars declared independence anyway, in coordination with supporters like the United States and most of the European Union, as well as its immediate neighbors. That support was conditional on implementing the Ahtissari plan, under the supervision of the ICO.
The result is a state with its critical institutions in place: not only a constitution with ample protection for minorities as well as a parliament and executive with guaranteed minority representation, but also a constitutional court that has taken some courageous decisions, a privatization agency, a property claims commission, judicial and prosecutorial councils, a Serbian-speaking radio and television channel, a Kosovo Security Force about to be declared fully operational by NATO, ample decentralization, five new majority Serb municipalities (with Serb mayors and police chiefs). The border with Macedonia, long a source of friction, has been demarcated. Those who say, and some do, that Kosovo hasn’t made any progress are talking nonsense.
Kosovo now has a single legal framework. The Ahtisaari plan is history. All the provisions that could be implemented by Pristina acting alone have been passed in parliament. But there are some things that are beyond Pristina’s reach, most notably control of the northern bit of Kosovo, which is still in Serb hands (though whose is sometimes uncertain). The best Pristina has been able to do so far is establish a municipal administrative office for the north that is providing services (business permits, drivers’ licenses) as well as initiating infrastructure and other projects. Going farther will require developing a strong consensus among the political parties in Kosovo on a common platform for the north.
The division of the north from the rest of Kosovo cannot be allowed to continue, creating a new and interminable “frozen conflict” and possibly opening a Pandora’s box of destabilization (of Macedonia and Bosnia in particular). Pristina needs to reach out to the north, with help from the EU, KFOR (the NATO force that still has 5-6000 soldiers in place) and EULEX. Decentralization will be part of the solution, as it has been in the rest of Kosovo. The health and education sectors have to continue to have close relations with Belgrade, but these should be made transparent. The EU, in particular the Germans, will insist on progress in the north as a condition for proceeding towards Serbian and Kosovar membership.
The EU, guided by the Stabilization and Association process and eventually by the accession process, will now be the main international engine in Kosovo, emphasizing rule of law (its EULEX mission at its peak had 2000 employees), transitional justice and reconciliation. This last is of particular importance and requires a grassroots effort that is regional in scope. REKOM, Natasa Kandic’s project, merited particular mention. The EU will also be strong on regional integration of transportation and energy systems. There will be no grand EU Marshall plan or other “leap of imagination” in Kosovo.
The American role is still strong. It will need to gradually diminish, allowing the Kosovo institutions to take on more responsibility. The EU will be the main monitor of implementation in Kosovo, as it prepares for the visa waiver, a Stabilization and Association agreement and eventual membership.
On lessons learned, Feith offered a savvy few:
1. Missions need to focus on exit strategy from the beginning (“achieve and leave” was the motto in Kosovo). Providing support is good, local ownership is better.
2. Combined European and American support for ICO gave it leverage.
3. Lack of UN Security Council approval and Belgrade agreement to the Ahtisaari plan was a serious hindrance, but not an insurmountable one.
4. Partly to avoid the implication that Kosovo was not fully sovereign, the ICO never used its “corrective” powers to veto legislation or fire officials (though it did appoint officials). This was useful for gaining local ownership.
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Entitlement at home and abroad
The Mitt Romney video has set me thinking about entitlement. I have sat at a lot of fancy dinner tables in fabulous digs with the wealthy and powerful on several continents. The conversation is remarkably similar: success often breeds self-confidence and disdain for the powerless.
I do know people who feel we should all be entitled to food, housing and healthcare, not to mention education, free speech, equal opportunity and other things that even the right would agree with. But I know many more people who want to work for those goodies. As Mitt Romney so cleverly tried to turn it around yesterday, most people want to earn enough to pay income tax. In fact, the reason Repubican administrations have generally favored lowering taxes on the poor–even giving them subsidies–is to encourage them to work.
More interesting are the people in the video, whose clinking silver and china are a fitting accompaniment to Romney’s Ayn Randish refrain. They are the ones who seem to me to feel entitled: to their wealth, to their privilege and to their influence. Few of them likely pay more than Mitt Romney’s 14-15% in income tax. Folks with $50k to spend on dinner have smart lawyers and accountants who keep them well under a working person’s tax rate. Romney’s comment that he would be better off running for president as a Latino betrays this profound sense of entitlement: he imagines himself as a Latino with the same inherited wealth and privilege he in fact grew up with, not one who had to work his way up, as did his once welfare-receiving father.
There is a similar sense of entitlement among Romney and the guests when it comes to foreign affairs. Romney says it is difficult to imagine a Palestinian state because then the Palestinians would control the border of the West Bank with Jordan and even an airport. It is a short logical leap to the conclusion that Israel should continue the occupation of the West Bank without accepting the Palestinians as citizens, thus institutionalizing permanently the privileges of occupation. If this is not entitlement, I don’t know what is.
The Republicans’ favorite Israeli leader, Benyamin Netanyahu, betrays a similar sense of entitlement when he demands that the president of the United States specify a “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program. It apparently hasn’t occurred to the man David Gregory crowned “leader of the Jewish people” that the president of the United States is first and foremost accountable to the American people. I want a president who does what is best for America, even if I am Jewish. Obama has made it clear he will not permit Iran to get nuclear weapons. The American political system will hold him accountable to that commitment. The notion that a president might specify a trigger for going to war in order to satisfy a foreign leader is truly distasteful to me.
Romney and Netanyahu should have a look in the mirror. It is the privileged who too often feel entitled. Most of the underprivileged do not. Palestinians or poor Americans, most want equal rights and opportunity. It would be a lot smarter to offer them something substantial than to expect them to vote for you if you don’t.
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שנה טובה! لله أكبر
It is Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh month, when Jews celebrate the new year and creation of the world. Don’t ask me how or why the world was created in the seventh month. I have no idea.
I’d like to wish a happy new year (שנה טובה, shana tova) to all my readers: it was a beautiful fall morning in Washington, one that belies the horrors of the repression in Syria, the murderous attack in Benghazi, the violence against American embassies, consulates and bases in Tunis, Cairo, Khartoum and elsewhere. We are fortunate indeed to enjoy a peaceful capital, one that approaches the November election with some anxiety but no real fear. I can write what I like, say what I like, publish what I like, worrying only about who might sue me rather than who might kill or arrest me. This is not my privilege, but my right.
I talked yesterday with a Venezuelan who left her country because of a well-founded fear of persecution and found asylum in the United States. She anticipates Chavez will win again in her country’s elections next month. I’ve seen her look of pain and longing for home in the eyes of Bosnians, Kosovars, Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians and I don’t know how many other nationalities. My immigrant grandparents never had it though: they were glad to leave places that are now in eastern Poland and Belarus for a better life, as they had previously left Russia, and likely Spain before that. My grandmother refused to tell me where she was born. When I came back and asked what her native language was, she told me (in heavily accented New Yorkese), “Don’t be smart. I told you I did not want to talk about that!”
I feel reasonably safe in predicting that the year ahead will see many more people displaced and unable to return home. Some will be fortunate enough to find asylum in the U.S. or some other decent place. Some may even adopt my grandmother’s attitude: I’m better off now, why should I look back? But all too many will not. They will suffer violence, brutality, poverty, hunger, thirst, dislocation, discrimination, abuse. They will fight for their rights, rebel against oppression, flee for their lives. If you believe the statistics, the world is a good deal more peaceful and a good deal more democratic than it was in the last century. But there are a lot more people and a lot of bad things are still happening to a substantial percentage of them.
Jews devote most of the new year to worship of the deity. The basic message is the same as the Muslim one:
الله أكبر
Allahu akhbar. God is great.
But it is not a god who creates the problems that lead to mistreatment of people, or a god who will solve them. Sometimes nature contributes with a drought, a storm, an earthquake or something of that sort. But most of the problems that still plague large parts of the world are man-made. Even worse, they are often made with good intentions. All the people I know who have committed war crimes can give you decent rational explanations of why the did what they did: to protect their own people, to prevent massacres in the future, to respond to provocations. Their reasoning often hides greed for money or power. It almost always requires that they not be judged by the standards they use to judge others.
So the part of this morning’s synagogue service I liked the best was not the praise of our common, much-praised deity, but this part:
When will redemption come?
When we master the violence that fills our world.
When we look upon others as we would have them look upon us.
When we grant to every person the rights we claim for ourselves.
שנה טובה الله أكبر
Happy new year. God is great.
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GOP critique: trade and Iraq
This is the sixth installment in a series responding to the Romney campaign’s list of ten failures in Obama’s foreign and national security policies. Here is a list of the previous posts:
1. Taking the Romney critique seriously
2. GOP critique: Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan
3. GOP critique: leaks and cuts
4. GOP critique: Israel and Syria
5. GOP critique: Russia and Latin America
I’ll likely do one more to wrap up.
Failure #9: Getting Beaten Badly By Competitors On Trade
Beating up President Obama about trade is difficult. It requires that you ignore a sharp increase in U.S. exports:
Exports of goods and services over the last twelve months totaled $2.171 trillion, which is 37.5 percent above the level of exports in 2009.
U.S. exports have increased for 10 consecutive quarters to a record high. This is one of the truly bright spots in the economic recovery.
Instead, you focus on the lack of new trade agreements and the hyperactivity of our competitors: 46 between the EU and China, nine signed by the European Union and 18 others in negotiation, 4 signed by China and 15 others under negotiation. You worry about the United States not being included in a non-existent Asian economic bloc, even though the United States is not in Asia. And you don’t give any credit for the three trade agreements the Obama administration successfully got ratified in Congress, after renegotiating them to get better deals for U.S. industry.
I don’t get it: how do signed trade agreements get valued more than actual goods and services exported? If it were the other way around, with a dozen trade agreements signed but exports constant or declining, would the GOP be happily praising Obama?
Failure #10: Putting Our Interests At Risk By Mismanaging The Transition In Iraq
Last but not least: Iraq.
The Romney campaign would have it that the Obama administration failed to negotiate an agreement that would have permitted U.S. forces to stay in Iraq after the end of 2011 to solidify progress. That much is true. The question is whether things would have been better with 10,000 or 20,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq. The U.S. military and the Iraqi military thought so. But popular and elite opinion in both countries was against it. No one but the Kurds spoke up in favor in Iraq. There was ambivalence in both political parties in the U.S. as well. The Iraqi government wasn’t willing to provide the U.S. soldiers with immunity from prosecution, and the U.S. government wasn’t willing to keep them there without it.
The withdrawal of the U.S. troops was not abrupt, as the Republicans claim. It was gradual and proceeded according to elaborate planning, meeting a deadline set by the Bush administration. It is true that “the day after the…withdrawal of U.S. troops, Iraq’s Prime Minister took worrying actions to consolidate power. He leveled terrorism charges against the Sunni Vice President, causing the Vice President to flee the capital and sparking a political crisis that continues to this day. Iraq still faces worrying insurgent attacks. And the encroachment of Iranian influence in Iraq is a threat to our interests in the region.”
It is not clear however that keeping the U.S. troops in Iraq would have prevented any of this. The growth in Iranian influence in Iraq dates from shortly after the U.S. invasion. George W. Bush, the never-mentioned president, deserves most of the credit for that. We had more than 100,000 troops in Iraq for a long time. Did that do much to stop Iranian influence? Iraq does still face worrying insurgent attacks. Would the United States have been better off with tens of thousands of its soldiers still at risk? What would they have done about the judicial charges against the Sunni vice president? I’ve been warned by people in the know not to assume that he is innocent, though I’m personally still inclined towards that presumption, until his appeal is decided. But how and why would U.S. troops have intervened against an indictment by an Iraqi court?
The Republicans think a military training presence and a new U.S. ambassador in Baghdad would fix all of this. There is no U.S. ambassador partly because they did not like the one the President named. Presidents don’t normally “install” ambassadors. They nominate them and get the advice and consent of the Senate before they are sent to post. Until that happens, there is a Charge’ d’affaires–a deputy ambassador–who tends to our interests. There is a substantial military training presence in Iraq still, though I confess I’ve found numbers hard to come by. I’ll bet on its amounting to a few thousand, with contractor support.
I agree that “Iraq is a nation in the heart of a strategically vital region where we spent much precious blood and treasure to protect our security and ensure liberty.” But it was high time that the Iraqis govern and defend themselves.
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