Tag: Yemen
The buck still stops with the Syrians
It has taken longer than Syria-watchers predicted, but President Obama today finally called on Bashar al Assad to “step aside” in Syria. This is an interesting formulation that implies he could remain nominally president but allow reforms to move forward. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon seems to have also taken that line yesterday with Bashar in a phone call.
Let’s look at the options from Bashar’s perspective. Egyptian President Mubarak stepped down and now finds himself on trial. Libyan non-president Qaddafi refused to step down and now is fighting a war he is likely to lose. Yemen’s President Saleh is recovering from wounds his opponents inflicted in retaliation for his military attacks on them, but he has managed to continue to dominate Sanaa from Saudi Arabia, using his son and other loyalists as proxies. Only former Tunisian President Ben Ali is managing an untroubled, but powerless, retirement somewhere in Saudi Arabia. None of those options looks as good as “step aside,” though I have my doubts the protesters would accept Bashar remaining even nominally in power for more than a brief transition period.
President Obama also signed an executive order that
- blocks the property of the Syrian government,
- bans U.S. persons from new investments in or exporting services to Syria, and
- bans U.S. imports of, and other transactions or dealings in, Syrian-origin petroleum or petroleum products.
The trouble of course is that there is little Syrian government property in the U.S., few new investments or service exports to Syria and almost no U.S. import of Syrian oil or oil products.
For President Obama’s new rhetorical line to be effective, other countries–especially Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Europeans–will need to play hard ball with the Syrian regime. Both the Turks and Saudis have sounded recently as if they are willing to do that, and the Europeans in their own complicated way seem to be moving in the same direction.
Diplomacy is getting other people to do what you want them to do. As many in the blogosphere are noting, Washington’s direct influence on events in Syria is small. President Obama himself said:
The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing, and slaughtering his own people. We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.
So that’s where the buck stops: with the Syrian people, who have shown remarkable courage and determination so far. Here they are in Aleppo yesterday:
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Three blind mice
I first used this title 15 years ago in a piece for the Secretary of State’s Morning Summary about Presidents Tudjman, Milosevic and Izetbegovic. It drew a personal word of interest and praise from President Clinton. That doesn’t happen often, so a lowly office director tends to remember when it does. And maybe resurrect the charmed title at an appropriate moment.
Today’s three blind mice are chiefs of state Bashar al Assad, Muammar Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Syria, Libya and Yemen, respectively. While it is easy now to imagine that things will get worse in these three countries before they get better, it is clear enough that they would be better now if their chiefs had stepped aside long ago to allow orderly transitions. Sunday the Syrian armed forces made a clear summer day in Hama sound like this:
Bashar al Assad therefore rates a word of particular opprobrium: he and his brother Maher are showing themselves heirs to the blood-shedding tradition of their father Hafez. This should not surprise, but people have come to think Bashar is somehow better than the rest of his homicidal family. It just isn’t so.
Things are arguably worse in Libya and Yemen. A kind of multi-faceted tribal, regional and sectarian chaos reigns in the latter, on top of a popular protest movement that remains vigorous and terrorist bands who harbor in the hinterlands. In Libya, the killing by we know not whom of General Abdel Fatah Younes, a rebel military leader who came over from the Gaddafi regime, has raised lots of questions about the Transitional National Council (TNC) that leads the rebellion, which apparently had to fight off Gaddafi forces inside Benghazi over the weekend.
These three Middle Eastern potentates are blind not just to the interests of their countries but also to their own. A few months ago it would have been possible to arrange a decent exit for these embattled chiefs of state. Now the International Criminal Court has indicted Gaddafi, Saleh is nursing wounds in Saudi Arabia and Bashar al Assad cannot hope to escape responsibility for several thousand deaths of peaceful demonstrators. Only Saleh can hope to live out a peaceful old age, and only if he gives up on his ambition to return to Yemen.
What we are lacking here is the farmer’s wife, who is supposed to cut off their tails with a carving knife. By this I mean some international party that can persuade chiefs of state who have lost the consent of the people they govern to step aside. In the midst of this Arab spring Ban Ki Moon was reelected as United Nations Secretary General, but he has not been empowered to negotiate what the international community clearly seeks: abdication of these chiefs of state. He has a clear mandate only with respect to Gaddafi, and that is for a ceasefire and withdrawal rather than abdication.
Several “mediators” have sought compromise solutions. The African Union and Turkey have tried with Libya, Turkey has tried with Syria, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia and its wealthy monarchy friends) has tried with Yemen. None of this has worked so far. What we are witnessing is a failure of diplomacy, which should make us think harder about how to strengthen international norms and institutions that can deliver results more effectively.
That is precisely what is not happening, though I happily credit U.S. ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford (who testifies this week in Congress) for his courageous display of support to the demonstrators. Instead, the U.S. Congress is considering budgets that would slice diplomacy to the bone and limit contributions to international organization. I can’t really say there are 535 blind mice, since some members of Congress understand better than I do what is needed. But the collective decision is likely to disarm the farmer’s wife, leaving her standing there without even a carving knife to discipline the unruly despots of the 21st century.
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Have we got the Arab Spring right?
The Middle East Institute, which kindly lists me among its “scholars,” asked me to address the question of whether President Obama has established the right policy in his May 19 speech in his May 19 speech for reform and democracy in the Middle East and whether implmentation is adequate. This MEI meeting was part of a broader effort to look at the implications of the Arab Spring. Here are the notes I used yesterday to respond, slightly embellished with hindsight (see especially note 19).
Reform and Democracy
Middle East Institute
July 29, 2011
1. President Obama was clear enough in May: he said, “it will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy.”
2. And he added: “our support must also extend to nations where transitions have yet to take place.”
3. Nor was there any doubt what “reform” means: “The United States supports a set of universal rights…[including] free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders.”
4. This he made clear is on top of our “core” interests in the region: “countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce and safe-guarding the security of the region; standing up for Israel’s security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace.”
5. So is the Administration living up to its own rhetoric? Is the policy framework right? Is the bureaucratic response adequate?
6. My view is that basically the policy framework is correct. As someone whose foreign service career was spent mainly in Europe, I in fact am a bit surprised that this was not the policy framework all along.
7. Values and interests have always been pursued in tandem in Europe, though not always without conflict and tradeoffs. I served 10 years in Italy, where we often compromised our values in favor of our interest in keeping the Communist Party out of power.
8. Of course there is more conflict between values and interests in the Middle East, especially when it comes to countries that have not yet seen much of the Arab Spring: the GCC countries in particular.
9. I see no sign that we’ve really adjusted our bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates to this policy framework.
10. Nor do I see signs that Saudi Arabia has embraced reform: this week’s Economist reports on efforts there to restrict new media by “inciting divisions between citizens”, “damaging the country’s public affairs”, or insulting senior clerics. The Shura Council is considering a draft anti-terrorism law that would criminalize “endangering national unity” and “harming the interests of the state,” imposing harsh penalties. Our embassy won’t be encouraged to reform by the fact that this proposal originates with Prince Nayef; repression can’t be more of a problem for us than for the Saudis.
11. As for other countries, I would hesitate to make the judgment on my own.
12. In Tunisia, we seem to be doing the right things. But the Project on Middle East Democracy/Boell Foundation report suggests effectiveness is spotty in a lot of other places:
- Aid is restricted by US policy concerns (Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hizbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, fifth fleet in Bahrain)
- Host government concerns (Yemen, Egypt)
- US aid is a declining percentage of the whole (Egypt $17B from Gulf)
- Indifference (Morocco)
- Violence (Yemen and Libya)
- Excessive focus on government bodies and not enough on real democratic development
14. I think part of the problem is the bureaucratic structure, which is not only fragmented but also too much under State Department and chief of mission control.
15. If you are going to get serious about supporting reform, especially in coutries where interests militate in the other direction, you are going to have to break the strait jackets diplomats put on you. I am not a fan of interagency mechanisms when it comes to democracy support.
16. We are going to see a whole lot more support for reform the more independent the sources of funding are—ask anyone (except George, who was disappointed in the results) whether Soros was effective in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
17. I would rate NED and its family of organizations as a preferable conduit for democracy assistance (relative to State or USAID), at least until the revolution has actually occurred. And yes, Fulbrights should be regarded as part of our democracy and reform support efforts.
18. In the end, though, the most important instrument for influencing the course of events in some countries will not be our democratization support efforts, but the U.S. military, whose training and assistance were certainly influential in Egypt and could be in places like Bahrain and Iraq.
19. It goes without saying that we can only be effective if there is an indigenous movement for democracy and reform, one that has taken on the responsibility of defining for itself what those words mean. We should not be imposing systems that we invent, but helping others to discover what will suit their needs for accountability, transparency and inclusivity.
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The rich get richer
Yesterday’s conference on investment prospects in the wake of the Arab Spring over at the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) was a lively couple of hours–these economic types are briefer and more to the point than their political counterparts–but the bottom line was gloomy: the GCC states and Iraq are likely to attract the lion’s share of investment while Egypt and Tunisia (Syria, Yemen and Libya weren’t even mentioned) go begging in the short term. There was disagreement on longer-term prospects, with Ian Bremmer registering a strong minority view that the geopolitics are unfavorable, both because of Iran and the Israel/Palestine conflict.
An upbeat and indefatigible Afshin Molavi started off underlining that we live in a world of surprisingly interconnected risk, that there is a lot of diversity in what we should not really label “Arab Spring,” and that the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) has a young population, many unable to get married because of the lack of jobs and looking for “dignity.” Growth has now slowed, hurting their prospects.
Citibank’s Hamid Biglari said investors have adopted a wait and see attitude toward the more revolutionary part of the region and are shifting their attention towards the GCC and Iraq, whose prospects are good if Baghdad can get security under control. Multinationals are not pulling out. Egypt is a larger and better known market than Tunisia, which however is more homogeneous, more secular, more middle class and better educated. Tunisia is more likely to succeed economically, but Egypt is the bigger prize. The immediate concerns of investors are about legitimacy and whether the new governments will treat the old elite decently, but it will be a decade before “equilibrium” returns.
Ian Bremmer of Eurasia Group admitted enthusiasm for the Arab Spring (“it feels good”) but noted that Ukraine and Georgia felt good at first too. Tunisia seems to be moving in the right direction, Egypt less so but will likely muddle through. Iraq is the most exciting investment opportunity in the region. U.S. influence is declining, and Saudi influence is increasing. Saudi policy objectives and conditionality will differ from those of the U.S. Overall though the immediate political risks have been overvalued. The problem is in the longer term, both because of Iran and the Israel/Palestine conflict. Europe and the U.S. will increasingly be occupied with other problems.
Cairo-based Walid Bakr of Riyada Enterprise Development, Abraaj Capital, was more optimistic in the medium and long term. Egypt’s big market and tourist attractions are not going away. Half the population is under 24, well educated and internet savvy, with lots of entrepreneurial spirit. The revolution has unleashed strong feelings of national pride and dignity. Youth is the engine of growth and can contribute to the all-important creation of small and medium enterprises so vital to job creation and wealth distribution.
Dubai-based Yasar Jarrar of PwC Middle East underlined that we are still at the beginning of the changes in the Middle East, which suffered a long period of stagnation (not real stability). The GCC countries are moving well to kickstart job creation for youth, major infrastructure investments and dialogue between their governments and the citizens. But it is going to be a long spring in a region that really does matter. Philip Haddad of Mubadala Infrastructure Partners agreed that we need to take the long view, but in the meanwhile as much as $38 billion is being invested in infrastructure, which is not bad.
The Omani ambassador, Hunaina Sultan Ahmed al-Mughairy, led off with a very upbeat assessment of the Sultanate’s prospects. The message was “yes, we can” reform ourselves, if we put our minds to it. Jean Francois Seznec of Georgetown said he was very pessimistic about Bahrain, where the basic issue is governance. In recent weeks, only 5% of the hotel rooms in Bahrain have been occupied.
There was a good deal of agreement that the issue everywhere is at least in part governance. Citizens did not feel they were benefiting under the old regimes, because of a lack of accountability. Political and economic reform need to go together, but it is not clear that new parliamentary democracies will credit competence and choose economic reform, which is discredited because it is associated with the old regimes.
Wrapping up, Ravi Vish of MIGA confirmed the importance of governance, addressing social inequality and the income gap, and job creation, mainly through a stronger and more entrepreneurial private sector. He also reviewed MIGA’s portfolio of political insurance products, for which demand is naturally rising in the region.
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Diplomacy stirs
I won’t claim it is due to what I asked three days ago on peacefare.net (where are the diplomats?), but there are stirrings in the last day or so of American diplomacy. Ambassador Robert Ford made his way to Hama in a show of support show of support for the Syrian demonstrators there, along with French Ambassador Eric Chevallier. Anti-terrorism “czar” John Brennan met with Yemen’s President Saleh in Saudi Arabia and let it be known he had asked Saleh to sign the Gulf Cooperation Council agreement that would begin a transition with Saleh stepping aside. Less visible: U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz has cancelled a scheduled Middle East Institute event this week, I understand in order to meet with Libyan National Transitional Council people in Doha about planning for the post-Gaddafi era.
All good, if a bit late and less decisive than I might like. Ford is in a particularly sensitive spot, as the Syrian-government sponsored “national dialogue” is supposed to have started today, with a good part of the street opposition staying away. The Americans still have not asked for President Assad to step aside, and it seems unlikely he would even if they did. That said, there is likely more to be gained from the American perspective from a successful transition to a more democratic society in Syria than just about any place else, since it would presumably offer less cooperation to Iran and Hizbollah. Ford needs somehow to signal clear support for transition without getting out ahead of the demonstrators or President Obama, who inexplicably hangs on to the hope that Bashar al Assad will undertake serious reform.
Brennan’s visit with Saleh to read him the riot act and get him not to return to Sanaa is likewise a good move, but one that comes late in the game. Saleh shows no signs of wanting to sign an agreement he has repeatedly promised to sign. Brennan is the right guy to deliver the message because he controls the military assistance to counter-terrorism in Yemen that Saleh values. But I trust he is also lining up the Saudis not only to say the right things but to do them: they should not allow Saleh to leave for Yemen and they should make it clear his allowance will be zeroed out if he manages somehow to get back to Sanaa.
As for Libya, it is high time Europeans, Americans and Arabs put their heads together to plan the post-Gaddafi era. As I’ve previously note, there is a lot to do, and the international community is thoroughly occupied elsewhere. But somehow we’ve got to put together a serious post-conflict reconstruction effort in Libya, if only to prevent a failed transition: restoration of a Gaddafi or Gaddafi-like dictatorship, split up of the country, or breakdown into chaos. Any of these outcomes would discredit the Security Council-authorized, NATO-led intervention and put American interests at risk, if only by providing our terrorist enemies with a new platform. We need a Libyan-led post-Gaddafi effort, one that can command broad legitimacy not only in Benghazi but also in Tripoli. Easier said than done, but I’m glad to the effort beginning to move ahead.
PS: For those with Arabic, and even for those without (watch Brennan’s unhappy face) here is a video report on Brennan’s meeting with Saleh:
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Where are the diplomats?
In Libya and Yemen, presidents are hanging on way past their “use by” date. Ali Abdullah Saleh appeared today on TV, both defeated and defiant. Muammar Gaddafi is defiant and seemingly delusional. In Syria, Bashar al Assad may not be quite as far along to perdition as the other two, but he seems to have chosen their path: hang on until physically removed from the scene (and in Saleh’s case even after being transferred to a hospital in Saudi Arabia).
Military means are not working well against Gaddafi or Saleh. This is not entirely surprising: Gaddafi obviously prides himself on personal resistance to the use of force and doesn’t give a hoot what happens to his country. Saleh seems like-minded. I wouldn’t even want to imagine what Bashar al Assad thinks: he no doubt was brought up to believe the use of force is vital to a ruler, and he is well on his way to imitating his father’s use of it. What is needed in all three cases is a stronger diplomatic effort.
It is hard to believe that the Saudis can’t deprive Saleh of enough money and other support to make him choose retirement over an attempt to return to Yemen. The question is why they don’t use the leverage they’ve got, and what can we do to get them to use it? The American Ambassador reportedly threw his support behind the Gulf Cooperation Council plan for transition in Yemen. My hope is that he is working assiduously to get it implemented.
Gaddafi seems to have stockpiled enough cash and gold to survive a long time, but he too should be realizing about now that the cause is lost. The British, African Union and maybe others have been sporadically engaged in trying to devise a plan to get Gaddafi out. They need to redouble those efforts, making it clear that any sweeteners will soon be irrevocably lost if he doesn’t grab hold tight now.
Republicans in Congress are asking for the recall from Damascus of Ambassador Robert Ford, certainly among the State Department’s finest Arabists. This is wrong-headed. They should be asking the Ambassador to do more, not less. His visit to Hama in support of the demonstrators today was a step in the right direction. Far better that he do enough of this kind of thing to get expelled rather than be withdrawn by Washington.
We should keep the lines of communication open to all these miscreant presidents. But there should be no doubt whose side Washington is on: the people of these three beknighted countries are asking their presidents to make way for more democratic societies. That’s what the diplomats should be helping to make happen.
PS: Here is the greeting Ambassador Ford got in Hama:
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