Tag: United States
Luck needs a policy
We got lucky Friday: the ceasefire in Syria mostly held. But luck is not a policy. Today things are falling apart. Belligerents adhere to ceasefires for many reasons, including to give themselves a break and to reorganize and rearm. When they see their antagonists doing likewise, they may figure they are losing relative advantage and go back to fighting. Certainly it is unwise to rely on good intentions, especially when one of the antagonists is Bashar al Assad.
What is to be done? The monitors the UN Security Council approved today are part of the answer. Inserting them will give the international community eyes and ears that it today lacks. That will tamp down violence and provide a means of holding one or the other side accountable when it happens. Some may doubt whether the Arab League observers did much good, but certainly the situation in many places deteriorated badly after their withdrawal. No ceasefire is going to last long in Syria without a means of policing it.
The Annan plan has important elements other than the ceasefire, which still need to be implemented. Hillary Clinton is precisely correct to be arguing for withdrawal of heavy weapons from Syrian population centers, freedom of expression, humanitarian access and freedom of movement for international journalists. But don’t expect Bashar al Assad to comply with these additional provisions of the Annan plan unless a lot of pressure is brought to bear and Moscow puts its foot down.
It is vital that Free Syria Army–the not so organized armed wing of the rebellion–hold its fire, giving the diplomatic machinery a chance to start up. If the opposition turns to violence–even in response to regime violence–the prospects for a negotiated solution will dim quickly.
What the opposition needs to do now is show its strength nonviolently–yesterday’s widespread demonstrations were a great start–and prepare for negotiations. Its lack of clear leadership and structure are an advantage while protesting, but fragmentation will turn to disadvantage once negotiations start. It is also important that the opposition make as many friendly contacts with the security forces as possible while the ceasefire holds, hoping to prevent them from returning to repression once it breaks down. If the opposition can make Bashar al Assad doubt the reliability of his security forces, good things can happen.
The critical wording of the provisional Security Council resolution was this (I haven’t yet been able to verify where this wording is in the resolution that passed within the hour):
…a Syrian-led political transition leading to a democratic, plural political system, in which citizens are equal regardless of their affiliations, ethnicities or beliefs, including through commencing a comprehensive political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition;
This is obviously, and importantly, intended to signal to Syria’s many minorities that they will be treated correctly in the transition. Reference to the “whole spectrum” of the Syrian opposition opens the door to inclusion of groups not part of the Syrian National Council, which does not have adequate representation of on-the-ground protest groups. But it will also open the door to what could be interminable arguing over who should be at the table.
Uniting the opposition behind a single set of negotiating positions and a broadly representative delegation is the next critical step, if the six-point plan has even partial success. The responsibility is more for Syrians than foreigners, but I can at least hope that the U.S. and Europe are trying hard to insist on a single platform, carried to the negotiations by people representing the full spectrum of diversity in Syria. Luck needs a policy if is to last.
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U.S.-Iraq relations after the withdrawal
I’m speaking at noon with Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman and former Iraqi UN Deputy Perm Rep Feisal Istrabadi at the Middle East Institute (the event is at SEIU, 1800 Massachusetts). Here are the notes I’ve prepared for myself (but I’ll vary it depending on what they say):
–Tony Blinken, speaking last month at Center for American Progress, said: “Iraq today is less violent, more democratic and more prosperous…than at any time in recent history.”
–There are some indications that violence, especially from Al Qaeda in Iraq, is up since late last year. But even if true, Tony’s statement sets a low bar and the gains are still reversible.
–If our goal is a “sovereign, stable, self-reliant country, with a representative government that could become a partner in the region, and no safe haven for terrorists,” we are not there yet.
–On security, Iraq still endures an unacceptably high number of attacks: deaths per month in politically motivated attacks are way down from the peak, but they are still sufficient to keep sectarian tensions high, which is what Saddam Hussein loyalist Izzat al Duri said was intended in his recent video.
–The economy is not really in good shape. High Iraqi oil production helps Baghdad’s budget and moderates world prices, which Americans like, but it does not an economy make.
–Democracy in Iraq does not yet include an independent judiciary, protection of basic human rights, vigorous parliamentary oversight, effective provincial and local governments or fulfillment of many constitutionally mandated procedures.
–Looking to the future, there are three fundamental threats to Iraq that might vitiate U.S. efforts there:
- First is the threat of breakdown: an Iraq that becomes chaotic and dysfunctional, a more or less failed state like the one Prime Minister Maliki took over in 2006.
- Second is the threat of breakup: an Iraq that fragments along ethnic and sectarian lines, with broad regional consequences as each of the neighbors seeks advantage.
- Third is autocracy: fear of breakdown or breakup may motivate Maliki, or someone else, to centralize power and refuse to transfer it in accordance with the will of its people, expressed in verifiably free and fair elections.
–None of these Iraqs can be the kind of partner the United States seeks, but I won’t spend much time on the first two possibilities. It is the third that worries people these days.
–We need an Iraq that respects the rights and will of its people.
–The question is what influence we have, apart from the usual diplomatic jawboning, which Jim Jeffrey and the embassy have mastered beyond a shadow of doubt.
–There are four specific potential sources of U.S. influence in today’s Iraq: arms, aid, oil and what—for lack of a better term—I would call relationships.
—Arms transfers, some people say, give us “leverage”: we should make providing our support conditional on Iraqi adherence to democratic norms, or meaningful power-sharing, or depoliticization of the security forces.
–Those are all worthy objectives, but this seems to me easy to say and difficult to do. Once you’ve embarked on a program of transferring F-16s, it is going to take a big issue to override the vested interests involved. Conditionality would encourage the Iraqis to get their arms elsewhere.
–The best we can do it seems to me is to make it clear—preferably in writing in advance—that none of the weapons systems the U.S. provides can be used against Iraq’s own citizens exercising their legal rights.
–We should also make it clear that we will cooperate only with a professional army under civilian control. But Iraq’s specific governing arrangements are no longer ours to determine, so long as they remain representative and democratic.
—Aid is a more flexible tool. It should be targeted towards democracy and rule of law. I would focus on encouraging a more independent judiciary and promoting a civil society that will demand real democracy while carefully monitoring government expenditures and corruption.
–To be clear: there is no reason why the U.S. should still be spending hundreds of millions in Iraq for economic and agricultural development. The Iraqis have more than enough incentive, and their own resources, to do those things.
–Iraqi resources come from exported oil, more than 90% of which is shipped through the Gulf under Iranian guns, even when the existing pipeline to Turkey is operating.
–This is where we have so far failed clamorously: shipment of Iraq’s oil by pipeline to the north and west—once Syria undergoes its transition—would help to reduce Iranian pressure on Iraq and align Iraqi interests with those of Europe and the United States.
–Of course this means Iraq’s oil, and eventually gas as well, would have to traverse Kurdish and Sunni-populated territory, which means domestic political reconciliation is a prerequisite.
–Some will see that as an insurmountable obstacle. I see it as a challenge, one well worth overcoming. Iraq should be tied umbilically to Turkey and the Mediterranean, not to Hormuz.
–Finally: relationships. American influence inside Iraq comes in part from good relationships with the main political players, with the obvious but I hope declining exception of the Sadrists.
–While they may still resent the occupation, Iraqis of most stripes look to the Americans for protection. Iraqis of all stripes believe that the United States is vital to re-establishing their country’s regional role.
–We should be ready and willing to help, expecting however that Iraq will align with the United States where it really counts: right now, that means supporting the P5+1 effort on Iran’s nuclear program and the Arab League plan for Syria.
–And it means pumping as much oil as possible into a world market concerned with the prospect of war with Iran.
–Just a word in conclusion about the long term. Maliki, whatever his virtues and vices, is not for ever if democracy survives in Iraq.
–We need to use the Strategic Framework Agreement to ensure that our institutions and Iraq’s institutions, our people and Iraq’s people, our economy and Iraq’s economy, our culture and Iraq’s culture, are tied closely together.
–I’ll be glad if the Assistant Secretary tells me I am wrong, but I have the impression that we still have not learned how to fully exploit the potential of this agreement to sharply increase the interconnectedness between Iraq and the United States.
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No nukes or war
Tomorrow’s P5 + 1 (that’s the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China + Germany) talks in Istanbul with Iran promise to be the beginning of the end of the story of the Iranian nuclear program. Either these talks will open the door to negotiating a settlement over the next few months that definitively ends Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons, or we’ll be headed down a path that leads to an Israeli or American attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, with unforeseeable consequences.
According to David Sanger and Steven Erlanger, the opening P5 gambit will ask for closing a recently completed underground enrichment facility at Fordo, no enrichment above 5% and shipment out of Iran of all uranium enriched to higher levels.
That is not enough for my friends at the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs. Michael Singh argues:
Rather than maintaining a narrow focus on closure of the Fordo plant and suspension of Iran’s program of highly enriched uranium, the United States should insist that Iran suspend all of its uranium enrichment activities, take steps to address International Atomic Energy Agency concerns about its nuclear work, including coming clean about its weaponization research, and submit to intrusive monitoring and verification. Far from extreme, these points are what are required by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929 and preceding resolutions, to which Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany (the P5+1) have previously agreed. The Obama administration should also insist that Iran roll back the work it has done since those resolutions passed — such as by transporting its enriched uranium stockpiles out of the country, dismantling the Fordo facility and stopping work on advanced centrifuges.
Singh’s colleague Simon Henderson argues that allowing any enrichment in Iran would leave the door open to nuclear weapons development.
These are more like the terms that could be imposed on a thoroughly submissive Iran than on the defiant and feisty one that actually exists. In Istanbul, several of the P5 are likely to be willing to accept significantly less. While Singh and others argue that Iran is on the ropes and facing a credible military threat from Israel if not the U.S., there is no reason to believe that Israel has the capacity to inflict any more than a temporary setback to the Iranian nuclear program. An American attack might be more consequential, but it would still have to be repeated every year or two ad inifinitum to prevent a redoubled nuclear effort in Iran from eventually succeeding.
The vital issue for the United States should be this: has Iran committed itself clearly and unequivocally not to develop nuclear weapons and to allow the kind of intrusive inspections that would allow the international community to ascertain the current state of its nuclear weapons-related efforts and verify compliance in the future? Iran is not going to give up enrichment entirely, and dismantling the Fordo plant is really unnecessary if it is subject to tight IAEA inspections. Even the 5% enrichment limit should be negotiable, provided Iran demonstrates that it needs more highly enriched material and the enrichment facilities are under inspected regularly.
We have every reason to expect Iran to compromise, but it is not wise to seek its surrender. Doing so will split the P5 and wreck the prospects for multilateral approval of military action, should Iran be unwilling to commit itself unequivocally and veriably not to develop nuclear weapons.
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Grasping at straws
That’s what the thinktanksphere is doing on Syria: Bruce Jones at Foreignpolicy.com offers a hazy scenario in which the Syrian army allows a Turkish-led “stabilization force” in with a wink and a nod, even without a UN Security Council mandate. Fat chance. Only if Bashar al Assad thinks he has won a total victory and needs the internationals to pick up the pieces.
What no one wants to admit in Washington is the obvious. The most likely scenario is Bashar al Assad continuing in power and fighting a low-level insurgency against Free Syria Army units. This is a very bad scenario for the United States and anyone else in the world concerned about stability in the Middle East, which is just about anyone who uses oil. We have already seen refugee flows to Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Deadly shots have been fired across the border into Lebanon and Turkey.
Of these countries, only Iraq is an important source of oil, but that is no small matter with gasoline at or above $4 per gallon in the U.S. and Iraq pumping all it can (around 2.7 million barrels per day). With Saudi Arabia and Qatar talking openly about arming the opposition in Syria, how long do we think it will take for Syria and Iran figure out ways to retaliate? Even hard talk can cause increases in oil prices. Damascus and Tehran, which are heavily dependent on oil revenue, are hoping that the threat of regional chaos will enrich their coffers, weaken the American economy and make us accept Bashar al Assad’s continuation in power.
This is not an easy situation, and it may endure. We need to be clear about what does and does not further U.S. interests. The goal should be the end of the Assad regime. That would serve not only U.S. interests, but just about everyone else’s except Iran’s. Even Russia is not going to find Assad’s Syria the reliable partner it was in the past. But while Bashar persists we need to try to ensure that the means used to achieve his downfall do not cause more harm than necessary. Arming the Syrian opposition plays into Bashar’s narrative: terrorists are attacking a regime ready to reform.
Recommitment of the opposition to nonviolent seems impossible to many at this point, but in my view it could be game-changing. A real opportunity exists tomorrow, when the UN-sponsored ceasefire is supposed to take effect. The Syrian government says it will stop all “military fighting” as of 6 am tomorrow. Admittedly this leaves big loopholes: how about police and the paramilitary forces known as Shabiha? Who is there to verify compliance? But the right response from the opposition is to make a parallel announcement that it will halt all military action at the same time. That will provide an opportunity for a return to peaceful demonstrations.
The possibility is less imaginary than might appear. Most Syrians are not taking up arms against Bashar al Assad, and those who do are not having a lot of success. Here is a nonviolent “flash” demonstration said to be in front of the Syrian parliament yesterday, with demonstrators holding signs that say “stop the bloodshed”:
The revolutionary leadership would do well to ask the Free Syria Army to take a break tomorrow morning and see what happens. If nothing else, doing so will gain the revolution significant credit internationally.
Admittedly I too am grasping at straws. But it seems nothing else is left.
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Brčko needs EU forces, not vowels
Last week saw a lot of journalists in Sarajevo for the 20th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian war. They tended to emphasize the downside: persistent ethnic division and tension. Tim Judah, who has never stopped going to Bosnia, sees the glass as half full, or better.
This is especially true for the northeastern Bosnian town of Brčko and the surrounding “district” (population about 80,000), the object of many bad wartime jokes about the need for a humanitarian shipment of vowels. It was the site of terrible atrocities at the beginning of the war and much skirmishing nearby during it, due to its strategic position in the narrow corridor linking the two wings of what is now Republika Srpska (RS), the Serb-dominated 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s territory.
Brčko was the hard nut that could not be cracked at Dayton, so it became the subject of a post-war arbitration process and American-led “supervision,” which provided decisions on issues the local politicians found too difficult and ensured more inclusive power-sharing arrangements than they would have concluded on their own. A U.S.-led arbitral tribunal decided in 1999 that Brčko would belong to both the RS and the Federation, which controls the other 51% of Bosnia’s territory. This really meant it belonged to neither. International supervision has gradually eased off, and later this spring the assembled powers that still guide the Dayton peace process (the Peace Implementation Council) will consider whether to end it. They likely will keep in place the arbitral tribunal, which decides the larger strategic questions concerning Brčko’s status (now formalized in the Bosnian constitution).
Things are far from perfect in Brčko–I am told it is still governed under an ethnic “key” that gets down to the level of interns and even its hotels sport ethnic identity–but its children go to more integrated schools than in the rest of Bosnia and power is shared in a way that each of the three ethnic groups seems to accept. The place has gone from the nut that couldn’t be cracked to the glue that holds Bosnia together. The RS cannot hope to leave Bosnia unless it controls Brčko. Federation control would spell the end of RS. Brčko District has to remain distinct.
This makes the end of supervision a more delicate moment than would otherwise be the case. The European Union, some of whose more powerful members are anxious to get rid not only of Brčko supervision but also the High Representative who oversees Dayton implementation, would be wise to take notice. The EU still has troops stationed in Bosnia but spread around the country in militarily insignificant contingents. Better to concentrate them in Brčko, thus signaling to both Bosniaks (Bosnia’s Muslims) and Serbs that no effort to “take” Brčko will be tolerated. Such a move might also satisfy Turkey, which supplies a good number of the troops and has hesitated to end Brčko supervision.
Some will argue that no one is prepared to start a war, so why is EUFOR (the European force) needed at all? Certainly neither Croatia nor Serbia, the neighbors most inclined towards war in the 1990s, is interested in blotting their EU copybook by trying to gain territory in Bosnia. Milorad Dodik, the RS president, wants independence and says so repeatedly, but Serbia won’t back him. He can gain more by cooperation with the EU on membership than he can by going to war. Zagreb is disinclined to support Bosnian Croat pretensions, since Croatia is scheduled for EU membership next year.
The Bosniaks, so unprepared for war in 1992, are another question. It should not be assumed that they will be as passive as they were 20 years ago. A serious Dodik move toward de jure independence would provoke some Bosniaks to violence. Taking and holding Brčko would be vital to prevent RS from leaving Bosnia.
If the EU wants the Americans and the Bosnians to take it seriously, it will concentrate its remaining forces in Brčko District, signaling to all concerned that Bosnia will not be allowed to fall apart, or fall into conflict. The move would also help convince the Americans that the Europeans know what they are doing. We’ve all learned to do without the vowels. Brčko needs EU forces.
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Make sure time is not on his side
President Obama issued a statement Friday (that’s when we say things we don’t want too widely noticed) marking the 18th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide:
…we pause to reflect with horror and sadness on the 100 days in 1994 when 800,000 people lost their lives. The specter of this slaughter of mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters haunts us still, and reminds the nations of the world of our shared responsibility to do all we can to protect civilians and to ensure that evil of this magnitude never happens again.
The irony here should not be lost: we are in the midst of a much slower and less bloody but still brutal repression of civilian dissent in Syria, where the toll amounts to something over 10,000 during the past year. No one has called it genocide, but it is certainly what the trade knows as politicide: an effort to murder political opponents, especially of the Sunni Islamist persuasion, into submission. Human Rights Watch reports today on extrajudicial executions.
I can imagine the discussion among the White House staff. Some will have argued: let’s get the President to put out a statement on Rwanda that is also applicable to Syria today. Maybe that will get some action. Others will have added that phrase at the end about the magnitude of the evil, hoping to avoid the obvious implication that we really ought to do something to stop Bashar al Assad. The result is a statement that sounds vigorous but implies nothing.
Don’t get me wrong: I understand full well why the White House would hesitate to take military action in Syria. But we should be asking ourselves if we are doing everything in our power short of military force to end Bashar’s brutal crackdown as soon as possible. The Obama Administration will claim it is doing its best. Here is a checklist to make sure:
1. Provide financial, communications and intelligence support to the Syrian opposition provided it unifies and keeps its efforts as peaceful as possible. This should include real-time intelligence on the operations of the Syrian army, which is necessary for protection of civilians.
2. Encourage the opposition to flesh out its National Covenant with more specific provisions to protect minorities and regime loyalists from revenge killing should Bashar al Assad step aside.
3. Make sure sanctions are implemented strictly not only by the United States but also by other countries , especially members of the Arab League. Iraq, which has not signed up for them so far as I can tell, should be high on this list. Syrian oil reportedly traversed the Suez Canal recently, contravening sanctions.
4. Use our significant information operations capabilities to ensure that Syria’s dissident voices are heard throughout the country and that the Syrian military and business elite are encouraged to defect from the regime. If we have begun such efforts, they are a deep, dark secret.
5. Work diplomatically to bring the Russians around to the view that their interests in port access and arms sales will be served best by abandoning Bashar. This we are surely doing, but are we ready to offer Moscow a serious quid pro quo?
6. Get Kofi Annan to beef up his request for ceasefire observers to 1000 and help him deploy them quickly, with the capability to move quickly around the country and communicate instantaneously from wherever they are.
7. If the ceasefire fails to take hold by April 15, as now seems likely, return to the UN Security Council to seek a resolution condemning the Assad regime, calling for Bashar to step aside and instituting an arms embargo against the regime.
8. Seek to block arms and money transfers from Iran to Syria, even if there are no formal multilateral restrictions.
9. Prepare for a major post-conflict Arab League peacekeeping mission, which will be necessary to separate the Syrian army and the Free Syria Army and to protect minorities, in particular Allawis, Druze, Christians and others who have supported the Assad regime.
I doubt any of this will work quickly. Bashar al Assad feels he is winning, has started to back away from the Annan ceasefire supposed to go into effect this week, and no doubt hopes to restore his authority, as his father managed to do after killing tens of thousands in Hama in 1982. Splits in the opposition, including a Kurdish walkout, will give him renewed confidence. But the Syrian regime is on the economic ropes and will not be able to eliminate a resistance that is now widespread and broadly (but not universally) supported by the population. We need to hang tough for the long haul, as we did in Burma, making sure time is not on Bashar al Assad’s side.
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