Tag: Yemen
When nothing fails so much as success
The New York Times front page yesterday featured reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch criticizing US drone attacks in Pakistan (in particular North Waziristan) and Yemen, respectively. At the same time, the Washington Post published Linda Robinson’s op/ed claiming that they will be used relatively less in the future. It seems we have come to prefer on-the-ground special forces raids, whether we conduct them or our partners do.
It is nice to know that after hundreds of drone strikes abroad we’ve come to realize that there is nothing antiseptic about them. No matter how precise, they cannot be 100% accurate. They kill people we don’t intend to kill. That is what the Amnesty and HRW reports are focused on: the immediate threat to civilian non-combatants. The two reports document meticulously that we are not only hitting our intended terrorist targets. We are hitting other people too, sometimes in ways that breach the laws of war and declared US policy. Those are major concerns for Amnesty and HRW, which argue their case–as one would expect–mainly on legal and human rights grounds.
Those are not my major concerns, much as I deplore the loss of innocent lives. Conventional military means would also kill people other than those targeted, likely many more than drones do. Nor can I regret that drones save American servicepeople from harm. That’s what most advances in military technology do–enable us to kill more of the enemy while preventing them from killing more of us. War is not a pretty, or a glorious, business. Read more
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The gulf with the Gulf
Yesterday was Gulf day. I spent part of the morning reading Christopher Davidson, who thinks the Gulf monarchies are headed for collapse due to internal challenges, their need for Western support, Iran’s growing power and their own disunity. Then I turned to Greg Gause, who attributes their resilience to the oil-greased coalitions and external networks they have created to support their rule. He predicts their survival.
At lunch I ambled across the way to CSIS’s new mansion to hear Abdullah al Shayji, chair of political science at Kuwait University and unofficial Gulf spokeperson, who was much exorcised over America’s response to Iran’s “charm offensive,” which he said could not have come at a worse time. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was already at odds with the US. The Gulf was not warned or consulted about the phone call between Iranian President Rouhani and President Obama. Saudi Arabia’s refusal to occupy the UN Security Council seat it fought hard to get was a signal of displeasure. The divergences between the GCC and the US range across the Middle East: Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine, in addition to Iran.
On top of this, US oil and gas production is increasing. China is now a bigger oil importer than the US and gets a lot more of its supplies from the Gulf. Washington is increasingly seen as dysfunctional because of its partisan bickering. Its budget problems seem insoluble. American credibility is declining. The Gulf views the US as unreliable. Read more
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Anything but Syria
Danya Greenfield, moderator of Thursday’s Atlantic Council event on Yemen, joked that it is nice to discuss something other than Syria. Panelists at the Rafik Hariri Center and Project on Middle East Democracy event included:
- Peter Salisbury from the Chatham House Yemen Forum,
- Christopher Jennings from USAID, and
- Fatima al Asrar, an independent policy analyst.
The discussion focused on the political and economic changes in Yemen since the mass protests of 2011 and the removal of Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in 2012 as well as the international community’s assistance role.
The ousted president, Salisbury said, used patronage to keep local authorities under his influence, resolve conflicts and maintain unity in a traditionally decentralized country. He allowed only those who pledged their allegiance to him access to businesses. Even after liberalization of the economy in the 1990s, only his allies could have businesses with access to foreign markets. Abdullah Saleh built a loyal political and economic elite.
This system left no money for infrastructure and development and most of the population in extreme poverty. Inequality became an issue when the opposition fielded an opponent in the 2006 presidential elections. But it was only after the 2011 uprising that the international community, concerned with security issues, got engaged.
Current President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi has removed top military officials and elites, destabilizing the country and putting more power in the hands of tribal militias. The opposition Islah Party and the ruling General People’s Congress have been unable to cooperate. The transition in Yemen will take years and even decades, with a real possibility of return to the old system of elite rule that existed under Abdullah Saleh.
Jennings discussed what USAID has been doing in Yemen to maintain security in the country. The 2011 protests brought real potential for change and reform. There is a real commitment to have an inclusive and transparent National Dialogue, which has been unique among the Arab transitions, and to democracy. USAID has attempted to move away from a “check-box” approach. It has focused on expansion of the political process to ensure the inclusion of groups such as women and youth. USAID programs are not just targeting the old elites under Abdullah Saleh but also working with local and district officials and civil society organizations, which however sometimes pursue the objectives of donors rather than their target constituents. Yemen’s stability depends on governance and economic reforms and the eventual writing of a constitution. Radicals hinder that process, but USAID is committed to maintaining the momentum of reform and completing the transition process.
Al Asrar sees a real opportunity for reform in Yemen. With Abdullah Saleh removed from power, the barriers to foreign aid are gone and the Friends of Yemen have promised $8 billion in aid, in accordance with a “mutual accountability” framework. Before the protests of 2011, Yemen was facing many economic challenges, which have exacerbated during the transition period. Al Asrar argues that the Yemeni government needs to take the lead and steer donors to its needs. Political and economic processes need to merge. The Yemeni government does not see its partnerships with the international community as being reliable because donors pull their aid at any sign of instability, leaving many Yemenis without essential resources. Yemen is a fragile state, but foreign governments need to find ways to give predictable aid.
Greenfield concluded that there is a consensus Yemen needs a long-term approach. There is reason for optimism – Yemen has not fallen to divisions and civil war like Syria. Yet, the transition period has still not met the demands of the youth that protested and demanded participation of all Yemenis in the political process.
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Solid kernels in a not so good idea
My SAIS colleague Ed Joseph and Aaron David Miller earlier this week put forward a proposal for a Union of Arab Democracies that merits examination despite its deep and fatal flaws. There are nuggets therein worth preserving.
The idea in their words is this:
Egypt and its fractious neighbors desperately need a unifying vision that can inculcate respect for democratic norms across glaring differences. Although Arab nations have no interest in joining the European Union or NATO, the Arab world can draw on the model of Eastern European transition, with fledgling Arab democracies devising their own supra-national organization dedicated to advancing democracy. Like the E.U. in its infancy, this Union of Arab Democracies (UAD) could start with limited objectives and evolve toward ambitious goals, including, ultimately, pan-Arab political union.
Waving their magic wand, Ed and Aaron then tell us all the good things that would happen if such an organization were to come into existence, despite the shambolic history of pan-Arab political union proposals.
If Egypt and the other Arab uprising countries were capable of creating such an organization, they wouldn’t need it. The weakness of the proposal is all too apparent when Ed and Aaron get to proposing that Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority (known to me as Palestine) would be the leading democracies, with transitioning countries (Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen) and supposedly “liberalizing” countries (Morocco, Jordan and possibly Oman) tagging along. What a democratic club! Several are more likely to find themselves joining an Islamic union than a democratic one.
Nevertheless, there is a core idea here that is important: transitions need a destination. When the Berlin wall fell, the former Soviet satellites of eastern Europe and the Baltic “captive nations” quickly set their aim on meeting European Union and NATO standards. This gave direction and impetus to countries that would otherwise have wandered as aimlessly as the North African revolutions are doing today.
The way to answer the question “transition to what?” is not to have nascent Arab democracies try to figure it out for themselves. They cannot reasonably aim for membership in NATO or the EU, but they should be able to aim at two easier targets: the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe or, as my Turkish colleague Aylin Unver Noi suggests, the Council of Europe.
OSCE comprises 57 states and plays an important role in the Balkans and the more Asian parts of Eurasia. Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia are already among its “cooperating partners.” Several OSCE members are no farther along in democratizing than their Middle Eastern partners. With 47 member states, the Council of Europe regards itself as the continent’s leading human rights organization. It has a human rights court with some real enforcement capacity that could provide minorities in the Middle East with real recourse if their mother countries were to join.
The idea of extending OSCE and the Council of Europe to the southern littoral of the Mediterranean may seem far fetched, but efforts to construct more ad hoc arrangements have not worked well. Neither the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership nor the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative gained much traction before 2011, Aylin says, and their relevance will be further reduced by the Arab uprisings.
Another of the world’s more restrictive clubs, the rich people’s Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) , has opened its doors to newly developed states like Korea and Mexico, much to their benefit and the benefit of the organization. Opening the OSCE and Council of Europe to new Middle Eastern members, who would need to meet clearly defined criteria in order to get in, would be a worthwhile experiment. It would give the Arab uprisings, if they want it, a destination as well as a tough-minded qualification process, which is really what Ed and Aaron were calling for.
So “no” to the Arab Democratic Union. “Yes” to Arab democracy that aims to meet the not too exacting standards of the OSCE and respects human rights as defined by the Council of Europe.
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Bad but not hopeless
News from the Arab uprisings this morning is particularly grim:
- In Egypt, the police and army are attacking pro-Morsi demonstrators, causing what appear to be well over 100 deaths;
- In an unconfirmed report, Italian Catholic priest and opposition enthusiast Paolo Dall’Oglio is said to have been killed by opposition Islamists in Syria;
- The American mission in Yemen remains closed as the US continues its heightened drone war against militants.
Add to these items the Islamist government in Tunisia finding itself unable to protect non-Islamist politicians from assassination and Libya’s continuing difficulty in gaining control over revolutionary militias and you’ve got a pretty ugly picture.
I don’t want to minimize any of this. It is all real and problematic. But it is not catastrophic. Revolutions have their bad moments (and days, months and years). Some of them end badly. There is no guarantee that won’t be the case in the Middle East, with some or all of the uprisings.
Egypt is in the most peril. It has not found a steady course but lurches between extremes: either military-backed secularists or Muslim Brotherhood/Salafist dominance. Co-habitation of the two has proven unworkable. It is hard to picture how today’s crackdown can put things right. The Islamists will find it harder to compromise. Secularists and minorities will fear even more a return of the Brotherhood to power. Read more
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Washington’s fault
Even for someone who served abroad as an American diplomat, the Egyptian penchant for conspiracy theories about Washington’s supposed role is astonishing. So too is the crudeness of Egyptian anti-Americanism. While I was treated to a good deal of poor taste and baseless speculation about American machinations while serving as an American diplomat in Italy and Brazil, the admixture of hope for good relations with the United States was significantly greater there. Egyptians seem genuinely to dislike the US and attribute many of their ills to it.
It is difficult to understand how people as clever as the Egyptians have failed to break the code of American behavior: Washington understands that it has relatively little influence over what happens in Egypt and is prepared to accept whoever comes to power with a modicum of legitimacy and promises to steer the country towards something like a democratic outcome with as little violence as possible. That’s what happened when Mubarak fell, it is what happened when Morsi took over, and it is what happened when the demonstrations and General Sissi pushed him out.
Washington is following the Egyptian lead. If American behavior seems erratic and incomprehensible to Egyptians, that is largely because the revolutionary course the Egyptians have chosen is so unpredictable. The result is that all sides in Egypt are convinced the Americans are arrayed against them. Neither secularists nor Islamists in Egypt seem inclined to look in the mirror to see the origins of what ails their country. Both prefer to blame it all on Washington, which has been less than adroit in countering the vituperation.
This is not to say there is no basis whatsoever in the conspiracy theories. Ambassador Patterson likely did try to get General Sissi to negotiate some sort of deal with the Muslim Brotherhood. Deputy Secretary of State Burns did not spend several days in Cairo recently lounging around the embassy–he surely pushed for Sissi to clarify the future roadmap for preparing a constitution and holding new elections. The Americans will be concerned to see things in Egypt move towards relatively democratic stability, with the state’s monopoly on the legitimate means of violence restored (especially in Sinai). They may make mistakes of judgment about how that would best be accomplished, but to imagine that they want Morsi back in power, or Sissi to continue in power without elections, is just plain wrong.
I don’t begrudge Egypt its enthusiasm for its latest military rock star. General Sissi has clearly tapped some deep vein of political gold in the Egyptian body politic. But we should all recognize this cult of personality for what it is: a budding autocrat whose similarity to Gamal Abdel Nasser should raise eyebrows not only in Washington. My dean Vali Nasr predicts that the Americans will soon be back to a policy of supporting Middle Eastern autocrats against more and less radical Islamists.
I hope not. The Arab uprisings are a tremendous opportunity to encourage greater freedom in a part of the world that has seen little of it. Things are now going sour in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, and Egypt, not to mention poor Syria. Each circumstance is distinct, but in all of them the genie will be difficult to put back in the bottle. What is needed from the United States is consistent backing for democratic processes, which require relatively stable and orderly environments. The only thing we should want to be blamed for is support to those who seek human dignity and open societies.
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