Tag: United States
Tunisia merits pressure
Distinguished colleagues have addressed a letter to President Biden about Tunisia:
Dear Mr. President:
We write to you with growing alarm over Tunisia’s dramatic turn towards repression and authoritarian rule. During the recent Summit for Democracy, you eloquently spoke about the urgency of our current moment: “We’re at an inflection point in history, where the decisions we make today are going to affect the course of our world for the next several decades.”
Tunisia is part of this global story and struggle. At the start of your term, Tunisia was the last remaining democratic success story of the Arab uprisings. Today, its democracy is dying. What happens in Tunisia in the next critical weeks will reverberate in the region, signaling to competitors like China and Russia that the future of the Middle East aligns ever more closely with their own authoritarian vision.
The situation is dire. Since his coup in July 2021, President Kais Saied has dismantled every democratic institution in the country, pushing through a hyper-presidential system with no checks on his power. He has intensified his crackdown against dissidents, casually labeling them “cancers” and “traitors” and hauling them before military courts. He has jailed his opponents from across the political spectrum, including Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi, Democratic Current leader Ghazi Chaouachi, and National Salvation Front leaders Chaima Issa and Jawher ben Mbarek, among others. And he has incited violence against migrants and Black Tunisians, embracing racist conspiracies. We urge you to take practical steps to reverse these dangerous trends.
The United States should not reward such behavior with aid, loans, praise, and photo-ops. Lending our taxpayer dollars and legitimacy to Saied will only encourage other populist leaders to believe that they too can get away with dismantling democratic institutions. If the U.S. is truly serious about shoring up democracies worldwide, it must send a signal that there are real costs to democratic backsliding.
The Biden administration should immediately suspend all U.S. assistance to the Tunisian government, as it is legally bound to do after both military coups or civilian coups in which the military plays a decisive role. This has happened in Tunisia when the army shuttered the democratically-elected parliament. The U.S. should impose Magnitsky sanctions on Saied and his enablers, including the ministers of interior, defense, and justice, and not provide any funds, training, or equipment to these ministries while they persecute journalists, activists, and dissidents. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) was correct to halt work on Tunisia’s $500 million Compact agreement, but formal suspension of the partnership by MCC’s board—chaired by Secretary of State Antony Blinken—would send an even stronger signal.
The pending $1.9 billion IMF loan—which would provide an economic lifeline to Saied’s regime—also represents an important lever. The United States should ask the IMF Executive Board to refuse a final agreement until Tunisia meets specific political conditions, including releasing political prisoners and establishing a genuinely inclusive national dialogue and political roadmap. After all, Saied’s government will be hard-pressed to follow through on its proposed economic reforms without the support of the major political parties, labor unions, and civil society organizations.
We believe such sustained pressure represents the best possible way to halt Tunisia’s authoritarian turn. The swift and universal condemnation of Saied’s racist rhetoric against migrants in February did lead his government to take some measures for their protection. Even if Saied is too dogmatic to change course, however, increased international pressure might lead those around him to stop facilitating his crackdown, limiting the damage he can do to the system. It can also signal to the opposition—as well as everyday Tunisians who are too afraid to speak out—that the U.S. is watching, and not bankrolling their repression.
Our goal should be to incentivize Tunisians across the political spectrum and across state institutions to reconsider the dangers of dictatorship, which, once entrenched, will be difficult to undo. To be sure, if Tunisia ended up defaulting on its debts, ordinary Tunisians would undoubtedly be affected. But they are already suffering under a seemingly never-ending economic crisis, which has only worsened since Saied’s presidential coup in July 2021. An economic strategy that is personalized and subject to the whims of an unpredictable leader is a recipe for continued chaos.
Some fear undue pressure from Washington could drive Tunisia into the arms of China. Such concerns are misplaced, given Beijing’s own constraints at present as well as the historic alignment of Tunisian state institutions with the West. Moreover, even with support from China, Tunisia will still need an IMF loan and U.S. assistance for its economy to recover and attract private investment. Washington must also recognize that the way we compete with China is not just to try and outspend them. Our approach must be to distinguish ourselves from China by bringing our values to the table.
The current crisis in Tunisia is emblematic of a broader trend the U.S. is likely to face going forward: new forms and manifestations of autocracy—often supported by our strategic rivals—challenging democratic values. Your administration has admirably and clearly declared which side it stands on in this debate. Today in Tunisia it has an opportunity to act on those convictions.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Amb. Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia
Amb. Jeffrey Feltman, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs
Amb. Jake Walles, former U.S. ambassador to Tunisia
Amb. Robert Ford, former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Algeria
Amb. Cynthia P. Schneider, former U.S. ambassador to The Netherlands
Elliot Abrams, former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor
Stephanie T. Williams, former UN Senior Advisor on Libya and former US diplomat
Michele Dunne, former Director for North Africa, National Security Council (NSC)
David J. Kramer, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights & Labor
Tom Malinowski, former U.S. representative (D-NJ)
Kenneth Wollack, Chairman, National Endowment for Democracy
Matt Duss, former senior advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders
Francis Fukuyuma, Stanford University
Larry Diamond, Stanford University
Sarah Leah Whitson, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN)
Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Sarah Yerkes, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Shibley Telhami, University of Maryland
Courtney Freer, Emory University
Shadi Hamid, Brookings Institution
Sharan Grewal, College of William & Mary
Note: Organizational affiliations are listed for identification purposes only.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Syria is in good company in the Arab League
The Arab League decided yesterday in Cairo to readmit Syria. The League had suspended Syria’s membership in response to its violent crackdown on demonstrators in March 2011. President Assad will presumably attend the May 19 Summit in Riyadh. This comes on top of several bilateral normalization moves, including by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Conditions aren’t likely to be fulfilled
The readmission is supposedly conditional. Though I’ve been unable to find the official statement, press reports suggest the conditions include allowing humanitarian assistance and return of refugees, clamping down on Syria’s burgeoning Captagon drug exports, and the beginnings of a political process called for in UN Security Council resolution 2254.
I’ll be surprised if much of that comes to pass. Assad could and should have done all those things long ago. Preventing humanitarian assistance, blocking return of refugees, financing his regime with drug smuggling, and blocking any transition are all part of his strategy. Readmission to the Arab League is unlikely to change his behavior, which aims at restoration of his personal authority on the entire territory of Syria.
Fighting abates but conflict continues
That is still far off. The mostly Islamist remains of Syria’s opposition control parts of northwestern Syria while Turkish troops control several border areas, where they have pushed hostile Kurdish forces farther east and south. Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces control a large part of the east, with support from the U.S. Damascus requires Iranian and Russian support to maintain sometimes minimal control over the west and south. Israel continues to bomb Syria pretty much at will, to move Iranians and their proxies away from its border and to block military supplies to Hizbollah in Lebanon.
None of these conflicts is settled, but fighting has abated from his heights. None of the forces involved has the will and the wherewithal to change the current situation. Assad no doubt hopes that normalization with the Arab world will solve his economic problems and enable him to mount the effort required to regain more territory. He may negotiate to regain territory from Turkey in exchange for promises to clamp down on the Kurds. He’ll wait out the Americans, who aren’t likely to want to remain in Syria much longer.
Autocracy restored
If Assad is successful in restoring his autocracy, he won’t be alone in the Middle East. It is a long time since the Arab Spring of 2011. Tunisia’s fledgling democracy is gone, as is Egypt’s. Bahrain’s democratic movement was snuffed out early. Yemen’s and Libya’s “springs” degenerated into civil war. Sudan is headed in the same direction. Iraq has suffered repeated upheavals, though its American-imposed anocracy has also shown some resilience. Saudi Arabia has undertaken economic and social reforms, but driven entirely by its autocratic Crown Prince. The UAE remains an absolute monarchy.
Only in Morocco and Qatar have a few modest reforms survived in more or less stable and relatively open political environments. They are both monarchies with a modicum of political participation. Though Qatar allows nothing that resembles political parties, there is limited room for freedom of expression. Morocco is a livelier political scene, but the monarchy remains dominant whenever it counts.
America has already adjusted
The Biden Administration has already adjusted. It is treating democratic values as tertiary issues with any Middle Eastern country with a claim to good relations with the US. There is no more talk of Saudi Arabia as a rogue state. Washington is silent on the restorations of autocracy in Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain. The Americans want to see negotiated solutions in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan. Those are more likely to restore autocracy, or something like Iraq’s power-sharing anocracy, than any sort of recognizable democratic rule.
The Americans are not joining the Syria normalization parade. They are not blocking it either. Washington no doubt figures the conditions are better than nothing. We’ll have to wait and see if that is true.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Justice can’t substitute for politics
Anwar Albuni, Director of the Syria Center for Legal Studies and Research in Berlin, gave an overview today at the Middle East Institute of prosecutions in Europe for serious crimes over the past 12 years of revolution, repression, and civil war in Syria. These include at least 60 indictees for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including Bashar al Assad if I understood correctly, as well as many others for money laundering.
Justice as a substitute for political progress
Albuni’s view is that these prosecutions worry the Syrian leadership and send a powerful message to human rights abusers worldwide. He hopes that in the absence of any progress in the constitutional talks in Geneva, the prosecutions in Europe and one potential prosecution in Chicago will exclude abusers from the political process and prevent diplomatic normalization with the Syrian regime. The Russians and Chinese are blocking any action in the UN Security Council. But he hopes the General Assembly may create a special court, at least to prosecute use of chemical weapons.
The diplomatic normalization the Arab countries are pursuing with Syria should be, he thought, expected. The Gulf in particular wants no democracies in the region. Its monarchies even supported extremists in Syria in order to prevent a real democracy from emerging there. An audience member noted that Turkiye today is on a similar wavelength and is preventing Syrian witnesses from leaving Turkiye to testify in European courts.
Hope is not a policy
I might be inclined to hope Albuni is correct. But I don’t see much evidence for his perspective. There are certainly instances where indictments have given pause to abusers, but Syria isn’t likely to be one of them. Twelve years of civil war with only a few dozen lower-level convictions is not going to stop Bashar al Assad from his homicidal ways any more the International Criminal Court indictment will stop Vladimir Putin from kidnapping Ukrainian children.
Human rights abuses are not incidental for Assad and Putin. They are part of the war-fighting strategy and well-documented, including by an organization on whose board I sit. Bashar used chemical weapons because he found them effective. Like barrel bombs, they are cheap and indiscrimately deadly. If you are trying to terrify a civilian population, that is what you want.
Assad won’t soften
So it is unlikely that justice will do for Syria what politics has failed to do so far. Getting some of the worst abusers out of the picture and sending a message to the rest is a good idea but will just as likely stiffen Assad’s resolve as weaken it. Assad knows that softness will get him nowhere. The prosecutions may make some of his cronies think twice, but like Putin’s they can easily find a window to fall out of.
Syria’s Arab neighbors are likely to continue diplomatic normalization, in exchange for Assad’s fake promises of cracking down on the drug trade his regime now uses in lieu of taxes. The Americans show no interest in normalizing but are turning a blind eye. They are convinced that the Arab neighbors will do it even if Washington objects. The constitutional committee is likely to remain stalemated, because Assad thinks he has won the war. He has nothing to gain from the political process. Justice, justice you shall pursue, but don’t expect it to solve political problems.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
The Balkans are coming apart
I’ve been too committed to book-writing to comment much lately, but the deteriorating situation in the Balkans prompts this post.
Bosnia faces the risk of secession
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serb member of the state presidency, Milorad Dodik, is reiterating his intention to declare independence. He nominally seeks incorporation into Serbia. His current issue is that the state judiciary won’t allow him to expropriate public land in Republika Srpska (RS), which he needs as collateral for the loans he will be refinancing from Russia and other dubious sources this summer.
But that contingency should not distract from the main objective. Dodik has long aimed to be free of the scrutiny that comes from both the state and the international community. His theft of RS resources and abuse of the funds Russia supplies make him vulnerable to prosecution. Dodik needs to free himself from Bosnia and find a home where he won’t risk arrest. It is unlikely Serbia will open its doors, as that would offend Brussels and Washington too much. But Dodik will be content with an independent RS.
Kosovo does too
In Kosovo, the situation has gone from bad to worse. Serbian President Vucic has demonstrated in two ways that he controls the Serbs who live north of the Ibar River. First, Sunday’s elections were peaceful. That could not have happened without his orders. Take it as confirmation that Belgrade ordered all the rioting there in the past. Second, the overwhelming majority of Serbs did not vote. Vucic ordered that too. Those citizens who did vote elected four Albanians as mayors in Serb-majority municipalities. Vucic and his prime minister reacted with the fury of ethnic nationalists offended that the minority decided the outcome, because of the boycott they ordered.
I wouldn’t want to be one of those mayors. They will get little or no cooperation from either local Serb officials or the majority populations. Vucic’s fury is intended to hide the fact that he will continue to de facto govern the four northern Serb-majority municipalities from Belgrade, using its network of security agents and organized criminals. Pristina will have a hard time getting anything done there.
Montenegro has already fallen
Vucic has already captured Montenegro. He has used savvy hybrid means with Russian support to elect a new president. Jakov Milatovic claims to be pro-EU but is more than affectionate towards Serbia. The Serbian Church, pro-Serbian political parties, and populist mobilization against corruption combined to chase from office Milo Djukanovic. He had held power for most of the last three decades, governing with ethnic minority group support. Upcoming June 11 parliamentary elections will give Milatovic a deeply pro-Serb, anti-minority majority in parliament.
Montenegro is a NATO member. Serbia claims militarily “neutral” status. This should be enough to prevent any annexation, but it also weakens the Alliance, inserting in its midst another spoiler like Hungary.
No accident
It is no accident that parallel efforts at removing Serbs from non-Serb governing authority are occurring in three countries. President Vucic is pursuing the “Serbian world,” that is a state for all Serbs that incorporates territory that lies in neighboring countries. This is “Greater Serbia,” Milosevic’s goal, by another name. In Bosnia, he needs only allow Dodik to do his thing. In Kosovo, he is taking advantage of Prime Minister Kurti’s reluctance to begin negotiations on a “self-management” mechanism for the Serbs in Kosovo. In Montenegro, elections have delivered what Vucic wanted.
While the Americans and Europeans continue to avow that Serbia is embracing the West, in fact Vucic has turned his country definitively to the East. For the “Serbian world” to become a reality, Belgrade needs to hope Russia will win in Ukraine. That would provide the precedent Vucic needs for annexing parts of Kosovo and Bosnia. He will also need China to provide the financing Greater Serbia will require. Montenegro he needn’t annex–just remarry to recreate the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, which existed 2003-06. Or cohabitate with lots of bilateral agreements an inch short of amalgamation.
The weak-kneed Americans and Europeans
Vucic knows the Americans and Europeans won’t want to accept de jure a Greater Serbia. But he hopes they will learn to live with a de facto one. They in turn are proving soft. Washington has been trying to ignore Dodik and mollify Vucic. American diplomats vigorously advocate for the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities he sees as the vehicle for Serb “self-management.” The Americans have also revivified military cooperation and provided lots of financing through multilateral European development banks. Complaints about corruption in Serbia are few and far between. This appeasement has gotten no positive results.
Splits handicap the Europeans. Hungarian Prime Minister Orban acts as a protector for both Vucic and Dodik, preventing sanctions against both. France and the Netherlands have slowed enlargement prospects for Macedonia, Albania, and Bosnia. That diminishes the EU’s appeal also in Serbia and Montenegro. The five EU member states that have not recognized Kosovo prevent a real consensus in its favor, even in the relatively non-controversial vote this week at the Council of Europe to Pristina’s membership process.
A change of direction is needed
The US and EU are failing in the Balkans. They need to change direction. Their basic analysis is flawed. They have been relying on Serbia as the pivotal state in the region to bring stability, in cooperation with Croatia and Albania. But Serbia is a revisionist power. It wants to govern all Serbs in the region. Croatia and Albania have lesser ambitions, but in the same direction: to control their compatriots in neighboring Bosnia and Kosovo.
Washington and Brussels need a far more vigorous, united, and principled approach. That would support the rights of individual citizens, whatever their ethnicity. It would counter ethnic nationalism wherever it abuses minorities. It would reinforce the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the region’s states. And it would welcome to the West only those who demonstrate real solidarity with the West.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Stevenson’s army, April 20
– Axios has a preview of Treasury Secretary Yellen’s speech on China at SAIS this morning.
– NYT says Xi is rebuffing US.
– US gives more to Ukraine.
– Prigozhin says Russia has accomplished its mission.
– Reuters has Russia recruitment ad.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Stevenson’s army, April 6
–Conflicts in Poland over Ukraine policies.
– Poland ready to give more MiGs.
– Putin blames Ukraine war on US.
– NYT has detailed graphics on Russian offensive.
– FP details Chinese spying.
– Vox has history of US industrial policy
– Reuters says China to inspect ships in Taiwan strait.
-Israeli concerns over Milley Iran comment.
– Semafor has report on Coast Guard’s global role.
– Freedom caucus & Progressives have some common goals.
Charlie added a Thursday bonus:
– WH has released a 12 page review of the Afghanistan withdrawal. AP summarizes.-
-FP says we need an economic war council for dealing with China.
-Lawfare praises State rules for military AI.
– FT says US opposes roadmap for Ukraine in NATO.
-Economist has fascinating story about improvements in camouflage.
– I’ve come across several Georgetown youtubes on the all-volunteer force at 50.
-Poli sci prof confirms decline in committee legislating
– Another reports benefits in grandstanding.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
RSS - Posts
