Tag: United States
America the exceptional
Lunch today was another double header, but a somewhat disappointing one. The Center for American Progress event on American exceptionalism and the Brookings event on preventing political violence were solid reminders that American analysts do not always get it right.
At CAP, the issue was not so much whether America is exceptional–Bruce Jentleson, Robert Kagan and Nina Hachigian agreed it is–but what that should mean in today’s world. Jentleson was at pains to emphasize that American exceptionalism should not be an anesthetic, as he implied the Republicans use it, but a stimulant. We need less boasting (an “end to arrogance”) and more “besting,” that is less glorification of the past and more effort to compete in a more multipolar context.
Kagan, in the strangest statement of the event, said America is the only country whose nationalism is based only on ideology–in particular the ideology of the Declaration of Independence. That may be true in the Foreign Service I served in, but not in a country where birthers question where the president was born and patriots fly the Confederate flag. The question, he suggested, was not so much whether America is exceptional but whether it wants to continue to play the central role in the world order that we took on after World War II.
Hachigian, whose unflagging optimism is on good display in the book she wrote with Mona Sutphen, also asserted that America is exceptional geographically, economically and in the realm of ideas, but it is not infallible. It has to find new ways to lead, getting others to take on more responsibility and divising ways in which rivalry can lead to positive sum outcomes.
The panel gave the Obama administration a B in its efforts to find a new form of American exceptionalism, under the slogan “winning the future.” Jentleson thought the aspirations to get cooperation from others have been often disappointed, and that Washington is still not listening to others enough. Kagan thought it a big challenge to get cooperation in a period in which we are returning to greater nationalism and interstate conflict. Hachigian gave the Adminiistration credit for learning as they go.
Why was I disappointed in all this? I confess I left early and maybe it got better. I personally am strongly attached to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, but I don’t really think America is in any absolute sense exceptional. We need to remember that the document was written by a slave owner who didn’t even free his mistress on his death. We are imperfect practitioners of our fabulous ideals.
And sometimes other people are practitioners of them. Kagan was comfortable asserting that nothing in the world really happens without us. I think he must be living in a universe different from mine. The only Arab rebellion going really badly at the moment is the one we are engaged in.
The fact is that much of the world is adopting our ideals and even practicing them. And other parts of the world are doing well without adopting American ideals. We are in relative economic, political and likely military decline. Our geographic advantages mean less than they did 200 years ago, and our cultural and educational supremacy is long gone, if it ever existed. No presidential candidate can talk that way, but any president will have to deal with the consequences, which have broad policy and budgetary implications. More on that when I get to the Defense Department budget, hopefully tomorrow.
Read the next piece up for my second lunchtime event on preventing political violence.
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Embracing Solomon’s baby
As the Americans prepare to leave Iraq, most of the journalistic focus–insofar as it exists at all–is on the security situation there, which is far from completely calm. But that is not what most people who know Iraq well are most concerned about. They worry mainly about Kurdish-Arab disputes, which take many forms: quarrels about distribution of oil revenue, the authority of Baghdad’s government and courts, the degree of Kurdish control over oil development and the extent of the territory under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government, a sub-national entity with a wide degree of autonomy. It is all inter-connected. Whichever one you start with, you’ll end up discussing the others in due course.
Sean Kane at the United States Institute of Peace has chosen to take up Iraq’s “disputed territories,” arguably the toughest of the Arab-Kurdish issues, first. In a long and detailed disquisition, he demonstrates assiduously that quite a few of the territorial disputes are resolvable on the basis of voting patterns since 2005 as well as historical/cultural antecedents. The report will be presented and discussed at a webcast event this morning featuring also Emma Sky and Joost Hiltermann. One unusual feature of the report is the posting online of several Iraqi reactions to it. They make interesting reading.
Having disposed of some of the “easier” problems, Sean comes to the difficult core issue: Solomon’s baby in this context is Kirkuk, which is the object of Arab, Kurdish and Turkomen ambitions that appear irreconcilable. Here he proposes that either the entire province be given a “special” status (allowed under the Iraqi constitution) and shared between Erbil and Baghdad, or that much of the province be divided between the two and only Kirkuk City become a “common” city. These solutions bear a distinct resemblance to the so far successful effort to share the town and county (opstina) of Brcko in Bosnia between the two constituent entities of the Bosnian state. In practice, this has meant a special status now recognized in the Bosnian constitution. Something like this for either all of Kirkuk province or the town of Kirkuk would allow both sides to claim victory and neither to enjoy all of the spoils. In due course, the solution might be ratified, along with mutually agreed divisions of territory, in a referendum provided for in the Iraqi constitution.
All of this is eminently reasonable and notably helpful. Where things get more problematic is in drawing conclusions for American policy. There is the great temptation to condition American security assistance to the Kurds and Arabs on their respective good behavior with regard to their dispute. On some level, this will surely be the case: the United States will not want its materiel deployed in an intra-Iraqi dispute and will likely tie some strings to the relevant agreements to try to prevent that from happening. But it would be hard for the U.S. to yank its training of the Iraqi army, navy or air force in response to developments between Erbil and Baghdad. Washington sees that training–and the ample armament that goes with it–as vital to Iraq’s regional role, especially vis-a-vis Tehran. Washington is not going to cut off its nose to spite its face, or throw Baghdad into Tehran’s arms.
More promising is the positive incentive approach Emma Sky says has been used in the past to encourage peshmerga integration. She has proposed in the same paper (also published by USIP) conflict resolution, management and prevention mechanisms that merit more attention than they have so far gotten. As Emma knows better than most civilians, wishful thinking is not a plan.
But that does not mean the internationals necessarily need to keep their hands on this problem either–it could be that leaving the Kurds and Arabs to manage it themselves is not only feasible but preferable. What I haven’t seen is a careful, independent assessment of the different options. The U.S., UN and Iraqis need to get their heads together sooner rather than later on how to handle Arab-Kurdish disputes, especially as resistance to a continuing U.S. troop presence after the end of this year seems to be strengthening.
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Syrians need even more courage
AJ English is doing what it can to cover events in Syria from nonprofessional footage, as journalists have been kept out:
Brian Whitaker, whose al-bab.com is one of the best blogs covering the Arab world, is being widely cited today for saying about Syria:
For the regime, the only tool left now is repression, and in the long run that will seal its fate. The question is how long.
Of course in the long run we are all dead, but I wish I shared his confidence that repression will not succeed. One need only recall popular rebellions that did not succeed in Burma, Thailand, Belarus, Venezuela and elsewhere to be reminded that autocratic regimes sometimes do manage to repress their opponents. The outcome in Syria is not yet obvious to me, much as I might wish Whitaker correct.
As President Obama has suggested, Bashar al Assad is being egged on and assisted by Tehran, which will regard the Syrian repression as a quid pro quo for Saudi intervention in Bahrain. This is cynical and ugly, but sometimes cynical and ugly succeeds. As Babak Rahimi says in a piece for the Jamestown Foundation yesterday:
If successful in its reaction to the events in Syria, Tehran will be able to reinforce its national interests and expand its reach in the region. If Syria is unsuccessful in subduing its revolt and goes the route of Egypt, then Iran will lose a major strategic ally and access to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which could have a major impact on Iran’s position in the Middle East.
If Babak is correct, and I think he is, it is puzzling that the Americans have waited so long to express their displeasure with the repression in Syria.
Of course it may well be that the demonstrators are better off without overt American assistance, which the regime would no doubt use to tar them as foreign stooges. But that label for the moment seems more appropriate for Bashar al Assad, who is clearly getting Iranian encouragement and support.
The Syrian demonstrations yesterday were widespread, but not overwhelming in numbers, and the regime showed little hesitation in mowing down its opponents, killing upwards of 75. That however is a smallish number in the history of repression in Syria. Bashar is trying desperately to prevent Damascus from erupting. It is not pre-ordained that he will fail–a lot of people in Damascus owe their jobs to the regime, which has husbanded the spoils less greedily than Gaddafi in Libya.
Syrians still need to decide how much they want change, and how much change they want. No one should presume to tell its citizens that they have to risk their lives. That is for them to decide, I hope in numbers so large that the outcome Whitaker predicts will come sooner rather than later.
PS: Courage does not appear to be lacking. This crowd chanting “the people want to topple the regime” is in Zabadani, near the Lebanese border, tonight:
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Not so Good Friday
I had originally said it was best in Syria, but as the news of dozens of deaths at the hands of security forces comes out that would be wrong. The demonstrations were not massive (thousands rather than hundreds of thousands) but widespread. Wissam Tarif circulated this from Zabadani, a Damascus Suburb, with demonstrators chanting “people want to topple the regime”:
President Bashar al Assad seems unlikely to fall right away, but the protests have already gone farther in Syria than many people anticipated. As I noted originally, what they lack still is mass–they are too small for safety, which of course discourages more people from joining them. The security forces have already killed a dozen or more today. PS (note added at noon): it looks like at least two dozen now. PPS (note added at 3:30 pm): it looks like more.
In Yemen, President Saleh is still playing rope-a-dope, seeming to accept proposals for transition while imposing conditions he knows the opposition won’t accept. The GCC is proving ineffective in mediating, but there is no surprise in that. But the demonstrations today are big in both Sanaa and Taiz.
Today’s big news in Libya is the American introduction of Predator drones into the fight, a unique capability some believe will make a difference by enabling more precise targeting in built-up areas. I do hope it will work, but Admiral Mullen is talking stalemate. Jeffrey White at the Washington Institute argues well that stalemate favors Gaddafi. NATO needs to end this war successfully, and soon.
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DC lunch: women of courage
Yes, I did make it to both lunchtime events today, Mona Makram-Ebeid at the Middle East Institute and Shirin Ebadi at the Carnegie Endowment. Hard to beat that for a ringside seat to observe the changing Middle East.
A former member of the Egyptian parliament now at the University of Cairo, Professor Makram-Ebeid was at pains to underline the liberal, democratic, non-sectarian, non-religious character of the Egyptian revolution, which sought “dignity, justice, freedom and human rights.” The problem is that in the aftermath Egyptian institutions are still fragile, the constitution is still one that gives the president the power to eliminate freedom, and the forces competing for influence include the army, the Muslim Brotherhood and the various liberal democratic opposition forces, which are notably less strong and more fragmented than the other two.
The liberal democratic opposition wants a date certain for constitutional reform as well as a new electoral law that makes the system more proportional (rather than majoritarian). They did not like the army’s insistence on amending the old constitution and submitting it to referendum, but that is water under the bridge. What they need to do now is to prevent a “rift between the people and the army” while they prepare themselves for elections by unifying and attracting Muslim moderates. No strong liberal democratic force can emerge without Islamic elements within it. The older secular parties are weak. Turkey and Indonesia provide examples of democratic Islamic states, but Egypt will develop its own model.
The Muslim Brotherhood, she thought, would be more manageable within the system than outside it. The National Democratic Party of Hosni Mubarak is still a serious threat, as are the Salafists and jihadists who have suddenly emerged. The Army is the key to ensuring these elements do not disrupt the transition to democracy.
What does Egypt need from the U.S.? Moral support and economic assistance, the latter in the form of renegotiation of Egypt’s debt (with generous forgiveness) and retrieval of stolen assets. This will be larger than the official aid package, which should focus on promoting democratic civil society. Egypt will try to resuscitate tourism and hopes Egyptian expatriates will help. Cairo will have to be careful in rooting out corruption not to damage the productive economy.
Professor Makram-Ebeid finished with a flourish, quoting MLK:
The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.
The second game of my lunch time double header was a conversation with Iranian Nobel Prize Winner Shirin Ebadi. She would have appreciated that arc of history bending towards justice, but started off with another bon mot:
If you can’t eliminate injustice, at least tell everyone about it
Living now in exile in Atlanta, she has done just that in The Golden Cage. But today’s event was more about Iran than about the book.
Bottom line: Iran is like the fire under embers.
By which I took her to mean that it may burst into flame at any moment, even though it seems under autocratic control at the moment. She still believes, and works for, the motto of the revolution: “independence and freedom.” But that is not what the current government is delivering. Iranians have lost freedom since the time of the Shah. They don’t freely elect their representatives and their government is busy helping Bolivia and rebels in Senegal, things that have nothing to do with the welfare of Iranians.
Women, who have a high level of culture in Iran and constitute 65% of university students, face discrimination: the testimony of two women is required in court to equal the testimony of a man, their lives are compensated at half the rate of a man’s, they need written permission of their husbands to travel. It is no surprise that many women are found in the Green Movement opposition.
She prefers nonviolence as the means in Iran; the goal is democracy and human rights. It is not yet clear whether this can be achieved within the current constitutional regime or will need a new one. Many rights are guaranteed in the constitution in word, but not implemented in practice by the government. The government uses violence against the citizens; governments that do this will fall.
Asked whether she would opt for peace or justice in a post-revolution Iran, she replied it would depend on circulstances. She was vigorous in denouncing the Iraqi government’s attack on the Mujahadeen el Khalq (MEK) at Camp Ashraf, insisting they are refugees and should not be forced back to Iran, where they would be mistreated. She refused to be drawn out on whether the MEK is a terrorist organization, saying only a court could decide that.
U.S. sanctions, she thought, are not really “sanctions,” i.e. punishments. The U.S. has the right to regulate its trade. Iran may not like it, but Washington is within its rights.
The nuclear program is not a particular source of pride for Iranians, who view it as hurting them because of sanctions and in any event don’t want to see another Fukushima reactor incident in Iran. Besides, they’ve got more important things to worry about. Like private internet access, which is nominally allowed by the law but not yet implemented.
She was in no mood to give advice to President Obama (and I imagine would prefer to give it privately), but did say that she appreciated his Nowruz (New Year’s) message, which had the right approach.
I admit: lunch took more than an hour. But it was worth it! It would be hard to find two more eloquent exponents of a revolution in progress and one not yet quite started.
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What good is the European Union?
Yesterday afternoon SAIS hosted a discussion of “Europe, Italy and the Libya” crisis to celebrate the publication of Federiga Bindi’s Italy and the European Union. I couldn’t stay the whole time–I had to go teach my post-conflict reconstruction seminar–but I’ll try to give a sense of the hour and a quarter of the proceedings that I was able to attend.
The question on my mind, and I suppose on the minds of many of the Americans in the room, was “what good is the European Union?” When we need help from it, can we get it? And to what extent does it even exist on an issue like Libya, where disarray has been more apparent than the Common European Security and Defense Policy? Will the EU be prepared to take over the post-conflict reconstruction once the war is over? No one will be surprised I trust that the answers are uniformly gloomy.
I confess that the three Italian presenters are people I know and respect, as is Marta Dassu’, who chaired. The gloom I felt should not really be blamed on them–they are more observers than participants.
Roberto Toscano, former Italian Ambassador in Tehran now at the Wilson Center, led off noting that the heady days when we were talking with abandon about “revolution” are already over. In Egypt, the Army and at least part of the Muslim Brotherhood seem to be conspiring to chill revolutionary fervor while in Libya we really don’t know who the rebels are. The outcomes there could be partition, or a failed state. Contradictions and double standards hound the intervention there. There are questions also about Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. Our interests in these places often conflict with our principles. Maybe we went too far with humanitarian intervention in Libya, and also in Ivory Coast. Can we say we are protecting civilians and then use military means that necessarily kill some of them?
I was relieved when Roberto finally got around to mentioning the positive part: people who have been subjects are demanding their rights as citizens, things are beginning to change even if we are nowhere near the end of the transition process. And then the inevitable but obvious: the EU will find this a difficult challenge to meet and will require a major military, political and security effort.
Erik Jones of the SAIS center in Bologna, in response to a query from Marta, denied that the U.S. financial crunch would affect the American effort–after all, Defense is the one department of the government still getting an increase, and the Iraq and Afghanistan war expenditures are not included in the budget deal. U.S. leadership, he went on to note, will still be needed. There is a broad political consensus in the U.S. in support of U.S. global leadership, but President Obama has been wise to seek contributions from others. In focusing on that, though, he failed to do all that was needed to line up domestic support for the Libya operation.
The key issues for the U.S. have to do with the timing of when it gets involved, and when it gets out. It is now out of the direct combat operations but continues to provide unique capabilities like intelligence and refueling, even including close air support in some instances. One of the contradictions in U.S. policy is that it asks the Europeans not to duplicate U.S. capabilities, but then the U.S. is stuck doing things that the Europeans can’t do. The Americans really don’t care who does what among the allies, so long as someone picks up a good chunk of the burden. The Europeans though are preoccupied with who does what–whether it is the French or British, the EU or the member states.
The big problem now is when to declare victory. This is especially important to the Europeans, since what frightens them most is the prospect of emigration from North Africa. The longer the war goes on, the more likely that problem will grow. Maybe regime change isn’t necessary?
Federiga Bindi noted that the public discourse in Italy, which for many years shied away from discussion of the national interest because it was associated with the Fascists, now allows for the discussion, but without firm conclusions to date. Italy’s history in Libya is fraught with problems, from the time of the 1911 occupation, through the colonial period, to Gaddafi’s accession to power and expulsion of the Italians. Italy depends on Libya today for important slices of oil and gas supplies and would have preferred a negotiated solution. But that won’t work now, and the Foreign Minister at least (but perhaps not the Prime Minister) is betting on the Benghazi authorities, whom Rome has now recognized.
Italian interests are much more complex than French and British interests. Essentially Paris and London had nothing to lose by intervening, Federiga thought, while the EU has remained largely silent and Turkey is using this and other developments as a means of emerging as a regional power.
Francesco Olivieri, who now represents the Italian electrical company ENEL in Washington but is a thoroughly experienced Italian diplomat, doubted that oil and gas had much to do with the intervention. Libyan exports at 1.6 million barrels per day were not very important during the recession, the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis has sharply reduced Japanese demand, and OPEC has increased production to make up in part for the shortfall. Whatever the outcome of the Libya crisis, its oil and gas will reach the market, as it did under Gaddafi.
One real issue, Francesco suggested, was what happens to the $60 billion dollars per year, more or less, that flows to Tripoli in payment for its oil and gas. This could be used for bad purposes if the wrong kind of regime ends up in power. A second big issue is the problem of refugees–so far the numbers are manageable, but the EU should recognize that it has a common purpose in making sure it stays that way.
European friends: I appeal to you to stop worrying about whether we should have intervened or not, about why the French went first and the British soon thereafter (with the Germans ducking out), about whether oil and gas were the real issue (or not), about Italy’s complicated relationship with Tripoli, about our interests and our values. This is all water under the bridge.
The issue now is to make this “humanitarian intervention” come out right. There are two things required for that: get Gaddafi and his family out of there (I suspect the Americans, as Hillary Clinton has been implying, are still taking the lead on that, likely with help from the Turks) and begin planning for the post-war stabilization and reconstruction. That is something the EU can really help with, as it has lots of experience in many difficult places.
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