Tag: United States
Obama laps to the wrong side of history
While he is wisely not spiking the football, President Obama is still taking a few victory laps. The problem is that there are other races still going on in the stadium. He is supposed to be competing in those as well: the autocrats in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria should not be left to win their competitions. How do we think they will behave if they are successful in their current efforts to repress the demonstrations?
The picture is different in each of these countries. Obama has made it clear enough that Gaddafi must leave Libya, but the NATO military effort seems to be falling short and the diplomatic maneuvering hasn’t yet produced the desired result. In Yemen, the slippery president has refused to sign an agreement negotiated with the Gulf Cooperation Council to step down and has returned to beating up on demonstrators. King Hamad bin Isa al Khalifa in Bahrain is busy bulldozing Shia mosques, as if that will make the 70% Shia population go away. In Syria the supposed reformer Bashar al Assad has killed hundreds, rounded up thousands and subdued towns one by one using grossly excessive military force against civilians.
We are not hearing much from either President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton about these developments. I would argue that the outcome of the still ongoing rebellions in the Arab world are more important to U.S. vital interests than the killing of Osama bin Laden, who wasn’t living much better in Abbottabad than he would have in Guantanamo (though he was clearly in better communication with his network). Yemen is already a weak state where terrorists hide and Syria provides support to Hizbollah and Hamas. Libya has undertaken state-sponsored terrorism in the past and may well revert in the future. Bahrain? How does the Sunni king expect his Shia majority population to react once he is finished depriving it of its political rights as well as many houses of worship?
I won’t propose a full package of solutions. What it seems to me is needed is simpler than that: a Presidential decision to make the cause of democracy in the region his own, and a tasking to the State Department to come up with the (non-military) propositions that will make it real. Failing that, Obama risks lapsing to the wrong side of history.
PS: Jackson Diehl treats the Syrian case well in this morning’s Washington Post, as does Brian Whitaker in The Guardian.
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Tangible progress meets lack of capacity
The April “1230” Department of Defense progress report on Security and Stability in Afghanistan summarizes its findings this way:
…International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and its Afghan partners have made tangible progress, arresting the insurgents’ momentum in much of the country and reversing it in a number of important areas. The coalition’s efforts have wrested major safe havens from the insurgents’ control, disrupted their leadership networks, and removed many of the weapons caches and tactical supplies they left behind at the end of the previous fighting season. The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) continued to increase in quantity, quality, and capability, and have taken an ever-increasing role in security operations. Progress in governance and development was slower than security gains in this reporting period, but there were notable improvements nonetheless, particularly in the south and southwest. Overall, the progress across Afghanistan remains fragile and reversible, but the momentum generated over the last six months has established the necessary conditions for the commencement of the transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces in seven areas this summer.
Can we trust this qualified optimism? Or should we join veteran Afghanistan watchers like Joshua Foust in thinking this is “insane wishful thinking”?
This what ISAF portrays as tangible progress that is breaking the momentum of the insurgency. Their own data says the exact opposite. Whether you think this is deliberately misleading on their part—basically, whether you think they’re lying—or just insane, legitimately insane wishful thinking, is up to you. I’ll be up front say I can’t tell which I think, and which I find more worrying.
I confess I lean towards scepticism, but for reasons different from those Foust gives. He notes that the violence figures are higher than ever before and that insurgent ops tempo has not declined. I imagine he would point to the ongoing Taliban offensive in Kandahar over the weekend as further evidence that their momentum has not been broken.
This angle of criticism I find unconvincing. The 1230 report is correct in thinking that increased efforts by the Coalition will necessarily increase violence temporarily, as it did in Iraq during the “surge.” The deeper critique of the 1230 report lies in its own indications of the difficulties the Afghanistan campaign is facing beyond the immediate realm of “safe and secure environment.”
The problem here starts with the President, who has made it clear that he wants to “defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten the United States and U.S. Allies in the future.” But he has not made clear how Afghanistan is to be governed, or even what kind of government would be capable of preventing al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan and threatening vital U.S. interests. Like all post-Cold War presidents before him, Mr. Obama is trying to avoid what George W. Bush pejoratively called “nationbuilding,” which would better be termed “state-building.”
The trouble is that it can’t be avoided if we want to get out of Afghanistan with even a modest degree of confidence that it won’t in the future again become a haven again for al Qaeda. Digging deeper into the 1230 report, it becomes quickly apparent that the governance dimension is presenting serious difficulties. The Ministry of Defense is making progress, but the Ministry of Interior (which controls the police) is not. Here is a hint of the depth of the problems (p. 20): “Literacy training is now mandatory in every initial entry training course, with the goal to graduate each new trainee at a 1st grade level.” And further on: it is estimated “the 1st grade literacy level of enlisted soldiers and policemen will rise from 14 percent to over 50 percent in the next ten months.” In other words, 86 per cent of enlisted soldiers and police are currently no more than literate at the first grade level.
No wonder they are having problems. And there is competition out there:
The Taliban developed a code of conduct in 2009 to serve as a guide for insurgents in Afghanistan, particularly in areas of strong government influence, in an effort to win the hearts and minds of the population. Insurgents have been setting up local commissions to collect taxes and attempt to provide more attractive governance options, such as providing conflict resolution via shadow governors and judges trained in sharia law. In spite of this guidance, ISAF and ANSF security gains and operational tempo have forced the insurgency to change its approach by shifting to more intimidation and assassination tactics. Insurgents employ these tactics to create the perception of deteriorating security and to demonstrate to local residents, as well as the media, that the Afghan Government and ISAF are incapable of providing security.
Somehow I doubt that forcing the Taliban to shift to intimidation and assassination is seen by the locals as bringing credit to the Coalition. The fact is that Afghan government capacity to deliver services at the local level or to provide justice or conflict resolution is still small to nonexistent. “Slow” and “measured” is the kind of progress reported on these issues.
Therein lies the problem as I see it. I am willing to believe that the Coalition has arrested the insurgents’ fighting momentum. But “build” has to follow “clear” and “hold.” There is ample indication in the 1230 report that “build” is lagging, even that it is falling farther behind as the military side of this campaign makes some “tangible progress.” But what good is that if we and the Afghan government lack capacity to take advantage of progress to establish the kind of governance that will keep al Qaeda out?
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While we weren’t watching
I admit it is hard to shift attention away from the consequences of Osama bin Laden’s death. America and Pakistan have embarked on a great debate. Sticking with the claim that they knew nothing about either OBL’s whereabouts or about the American operation to kill him, Pakistan’s government now has to explain its apparent incompetence. The Obama Administration has to explain why we should provide billions in assistance to a country that incompetent, or worse, one that harbored OBL.
These debates will go on for some time but is unlikely to change much. Congress will fulminate, but President Obama will not want to reduce aid, for fear of making the situation worse, and he will stick to his drawdown schedule in Afghanistan, starting small. Maybe in Pakistan the debate will have a broader impact: its military and intelligence services deserve a thorough airing out, though they are likely to survive with their prerequisites intact.
More interesting for the long term are the things that were, and were not, happening in the Arab world while we weren’t watching.
In Syria, the crackdown is proceeding, with hundreds more arrested in apparently indiscriminate security sweeps of major provincial centers of unrest. Bashar al Assad shows every sign of continuing. Aleppo and Damascus, Syria’s two biggest cities, remain relatively quiet. Friday will tell us whether the repression is succeeding.
In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has managed to slip out of an agreement negotiated with the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia plus other oil-rich gulfies) to step down in 30 days. It is unclear whether the GCC, the political opposition or the protesters can do much at this point to resurrect the agreement, so it is likely both demonstrations and repression will continue.
In Libya, a kind of tottering stalemate has developed, with Gaddafi continuing to pound the western town of Misrata and to hold off the rebels in the east. Turkey has turned against the Colonel, but it is unclear whether that will make much difference. For all the much-vaunted rise of Turkey as a regional player, Ankara seems to have trouble making its weight felt with either Bashar al Assad or Muammar Gaddafi.
In Bahrain, repression is also in full swing, with the Americans seeming to bend to Saudi pressure not to object too strenuously. The regime there, in the past one of the milder ones, has been arresting doctors and nurses who provided medical treatment to protesters.
So it looks as if counter-revolution is succeeding for the moment across the region. It would be ironic if OBL’s death were to coincide with failure of the protests that showed promise of harnessing the discontents that used to be channeled into terrorism. Mr. Obama, where was that right side of history last time we saw it?
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Slippery slope, moral hazard and tall order
The big questions for me in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death are how it will affect America’s relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as the Arab Spring. I leave it to others to consider the impact on Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and the terrorist enterprise in general, but I have to assume that the already weakened enterprise will suffer some further fragmentation and demoralization, even as it tries (and occasionally succeeds) to exact revenge.
Pakistan has got some explaining to do. It seems likely someone in the Pakistani government knew that Osama bin Laden was hiding out in a garrison town not far from Islamabad. There is no sign they tipped off the Americans, their putative allies. How come? How many other Al Qaeda principles harbored in Pakistan? And if no one in the Pakistani government knew that OBL was there, that would suggest true incompetence, no? So too would failure of the Pakistani government to intervene to block the American operation, if the Americans are telling the truth about not having informed the Pakistanis.
My best guess is that some Pakistanis (army? intelligence service?) knew where bin Laden was hiding. They likely also knew about the American operation, or at least knew something was “going down.” So they both hid him and allowed him to be captured. That sounds like the kind of duplicity we’ve witnessed for years, practiced to our detriment. Glad it was at someone else’s expense this time. The unexcited and even congratulatory reaction of official Pakistan to the news suggests this was the case.
So what do we do now? Is it business as usual with the Pakistanis? Or is it time for a shift toward a more demanding stance? Should we make military assistance conditional on greater cooperation? Surely someone in the Congress will push that idea. The problem is we would then have to be prepared carry out the threat, which would surely reduce military and intelligence cooperation further. That’s a slippery slope. Are we really reduced, as Madeleine Albright suggested on the PBS Newshour this evening, to “working with” the Pakistanis?
Maybe. With OBL out of the way, Al Qaeda is a lot less interesting to the Pakistanis, whose purposes inside Afghanistan might just as well be served by the Taliban without all the international complications OBL necessarily engendered. Besides, they’ve now got lots of homegrown jihadis to throw against India when the need arises. OBL wasn’t so good in that direction anyway.
What about Afghanistan? President Karzai, in his usual uncharitable mood, took the occasion of OBL’s death to suggest that the Americans and their allies have been wasting a lot of time and Afghan lives looking for him inside Afghanistan. Meanwhile, American senators were suggesting that OBL’s death might make it possible to draw down American troops in Afghanistan faster than currently contemplated, leaving Karzai to his fate. Of course the two ideas are compatible: Karzai would like less U.S. military effort, and so would the Americans.
This “beggar thy ally” approach on both sides does not bode well for continuing anything like the current level of effort in Afghanistan, where the Taliban are proving resilient and resurgent. I confess to temptation: maybe we should try withdrawing faster than had been anticipated, making it clear to Karzai that we are in part responding to his pressure. He pushes us out because he has been pretty sure we wouldn’t take him up on it. If he thought we might, he would be getting his act together faster.
This is what is called “moral hazard.” Leon Panetta, about to become Defense Secretary, was big on the idea of giving the Iraqis a quick time line for U.S. withdrawal when he served on the Iraq Study Group (I’m not breaking confidence–he said so publicly on many occasions). I wonder if he might adopt the same posture on Afghanistan. Of course David Petraeus, whether in his current job or his future one, is likely to be on the other side of that argument.
As for the Arab Spring, it seems to me that OBL’s death should reduce the fear some have of Al Qaeda exploitation of the demonstrations and weaken the argument that we need autocrats to repress international terrorists. Those arguments have not gained much traction with me these past few months, but I hope those who believe them will reexamine the situation and come to the obvious conclusion: the faster we can help get something like democratic regimes up and running in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria the better off we will be. I wish I could say the same about Bahrain, but it seems to have fallen hostage to the regional sectarian standoff. We’ve already got what most would consider a tall order.
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Let’s not make mistakes now
Relief, even pleasure, I understand, but there is a real risk of drawing incorrect conclusions from the killing of Osama bin Laden. Here are just of few of the mistakes that I already see being made:
- Triumphalism. This is not an American triumph of historic proportions. It is the culmination of 10 years of assiduous intelligence work that proves how really difficult it is to find an individual, though once you’ve found him killing is relatively easy.
- Justice. I might regard his death as just, but this is not justice, as the President claimed. Justice requires a process, even in a case as apparently justified as this one.
- Victory in the war on terror. Obviously there is the real potential for terror to continue and even escalate. Just as important: terror is a means, like military force. Victory is when ends triumph, not means: democracy over totalitarianism, for example. “War on terror” is the wrong framing, as we say in the conflict management business.
- Pakistan was cooperating with al Qaeda, or on the contrary deserves credit. We can’t be sure of either, yet. But they certainly have some explaining to do, since bin Laden was “hiding” near Islamabad in a military-oriented community. President Obama suggested that their intelligence cooperation was helpful, but it is not clear what that means.
- Pakistan did or did not know about the operation. I find that it hard to believe that Pakistan did not know, but if they didn’t it tells us something about their military and intelligence capabilities. More than likely they were told something was happening and to keep out of the way, but they may not have been told exactly what.
My son, Adam Serwer at the American Prospect, reminds on Twitter that I predicted some time ago that bin Laden would not be found in a cave, or in a hole like Saddam Hussein, but rather in a luxury villa. I got that right.
Now it is important to restrain ourselves and treat this event as the death of a mass murderer whose minions continue to threaten Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We need to stay grounded and figure out, better than we have for the past ten years, what will reduce the risks we face. Maybe it is less war–on terror, or in Iraq and Afghanistan–and more assiduous intelligence work. Let’s not make mistakes now.
PS: I’d like to agree with Lawrence Wright, who says “Democracy and civil society are the cure for the chronic misery of Muslim countries that has fed the rise of Islamic extremism.” But the fact is that Pakistan has quite a bit of democracy and civil society. Islamic extremism, which once had little purchase there, is definitely on the rise. Certainly it is true that the Arab Spring offers an alternative narrative to young Muslims, but societies in transition to democracy are notoriously prone to war and other pathologies. I don’t think we can disband the special forces and rely on civil society to restrain extremism.
PPS: Far worse is Jennifer Rubin, whose celebratory triumphalism and crediting of harsh interrogation techniques (with no evidence) seems calculated to appeal to her public’s worst instincts while offending the rest of the world as much as possible. I needn’t even mention her crediting of George W. Bush, whose efforts she says were far more important than you know whose.
PPPS: For those, like me, who did not wait up for the official announcement last night:
PPPPS: See also http://yfrog.com/gzlctaoj
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I don’t get it
Why is the Obama Administration so hesitant about supporting the demonstrations in Syria?
Yesterday’s UN Human Rights Council resolution on Syria was good: it clearly and unequivocally condemned the mistreatment and killing of protesters. The Administration understands the difference between right and wrong in this matter. Russia and China opposed the resolution, which signals why the UN Security Council is having such a hard time making a statement. I can’t really fault the Administration for that, and I imagine Susan Rice is working hard to get around their opposition.
But why does the Administration impose sanctions targeted on just three Syrian officials? Why does the President not speak out more forcefully? What more would Bashar al Assad have to do to get on the wrong side of history? Are 400 deaths not enough?
Talking to a U.S. government official yesterday, I got some hints: the Administration is worried about sectarian chaos that might spread to Iraq, it wants to maintain stability in Syria’s mutually hostile but nonviolent relationship with Israel, it has its hands full with Libya (not to mention Yemen and Bahrain) so doesn’t want another problem. It is trying hard not to raise expectations among the Syrian protesters that will likely be disappointed. It is especially important that the demonstrators understand that no military intervention is going to happen, so they had better keep their protests nonviolent.
All of that is fine, but it is creating a moral hazard on the other side: Bashar al Assad feels he can do as he pleases because no one will really try to stop him. He is likely also hinting that if only left in place he’ll be more forthcoming with Israel once things calm down.
It is hard for me to credit this hint, as there have been so many disappointments in the past. Nothing about Bashar’s past behavior suggests that he is a true reformer, or a leader capable of an historical advance in relations with Israel. Those who believe he is–Senator John Kerry most explicitly among them–have a burden of proof that has not been met.
The crackdown in Syria has been so pervasive and effective that there are few good first-hand accounts and interviews with protesters. This piece from the New York Review of Books is the best I’ve seen. I’ve also confirmed independently the report therein that at Deraa, an epicenter for the protests, the fourth division of the Syrian Army fired on the fifth, because of its refusal to fire on the demonstrators. The fourth is an elite group led by Bashar’s brother while the fifth is mainly conscripts, like most of the army. But it will take more than an incident or two to bring the security forces around to the realization that Bashar is leading the country in the wrong direction.
The NYRB piece cites these as the protesters’ immediate demands:
the lifting of emergency law; the release of political prisoners; the right to form new political parties and to protest peacefully; the right of freedom of speech and of the media; an end to corruption; permission to exiled dissidents to return to Syria; and the bringing to justice of those responsible for killing, arresting or torturing protesters and political opponents.
Longer-term goals are also being prepared. They may not be calling consistently for the end of the regime, but the regime is certainly making it clear that the objectives sought are incompatible with the continuation of Ba’athist rule.
Which side is history on?
PS: I hope on this guy’s side:
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