Tag: Turkey

Stevenson’s army, July 13

I’ll be away for several days and unable to curate the news. Here are a few items for today:

F16s to Turkey may depend on F35s to Greece.

– WSJ says several Russian officers have been “detained”

– Here’s the list of amendments still up for action by the House on the NDAA

– RollCall says House appropriations committee allows first pay raise since 2009

– Dan Drezner ponders why Biden’s low approval

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).

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Stevenson’s army, July 11

– NYT sees Biden playing the long game to restore balance in US-China relations

– WaPo tells how Biden at al. got Erdogan to agree to admit Sweden to NATO

– US today said Turkey would get F16s  [It’s curious that the Biden people aren’t — yet — claiming credit which they probably deserve.]

– SAIS Prof Mary Sarotte says German model won’t work for Ukraine in NATO

– Ed Luttwak also has an analysis of the Ukraine war.

– House Rules Committee is deciding which of 1400 amendments will be allowed for House NDAA debate. DOD weighs in with SAP [statement of administration policy] on items already in the bill.

– I was struck by Peter Beinart’s discussion of Israel’s long term options, and especially by Finance Minister Smotrich’s 2017 master plan as well as his recent comments.

– I was dismayed by the Gallup poll showing a further deep drop in US confidence in higher education.

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).

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Syria is in good company in the Arab League

Towards the end, I trust she meant Sudan and Syria, not Saudi Arabia, were on the agenda in Cairo

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.

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Stevenson’s army, April 19

– Discord docs say Egypt paused on arms to Russia after US pressure.

– Tucker Carlson used altered docs.

– Russia claimed only 1% of faked profiles caught.

– Saudis & UAE buy Russian oil.

– US will sell F16 equipment to Turkey

– Ukraine war changed IMF.

China is retaliating against US companies

– Politico lists likely contenders for top military jobs.

– Bob Gates says US needs to be much better at strategic communications.

– Researchers say partisan media works.

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).

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Renewing the old may be better than new

A distinguished group of colleagues has offered “a new policy framework” for Syria to President Biden and Secretary Blinken. It advocates a more robust Western effort in Syria focused on security (including both stabilization in the northwest and northeast as well as continuing the fight against ISIS), increased humanitarian and early recovery assistance, and continued pushback against the Assad regime.

US troops would stay in northeastern Syria. Implicit is that President Assad would remain in power in Damascus, but the group opposes “normalization,” which several Arab states are pursuing.

The virtues

There is great virtue in many of the specific ideas offered. More cross-border assistance, if need be outside the UN framework, is needed. Better international coordination and cooperation with Turkiye is vital. Repatriating ISIS prisoners and their familities is important to reducing the threat of resurgence. Accountability for war crimes and missing people is indispensable.

These are not new ideas. The group is essentially recommending that the Biden Administration take more seriously its existing objectives and pursue them more aggressively. They take it to task for failing to meet its own objectives:

The Biden administration’s foreign policy priorities of great power competition, international and Middle East stability, human rights, humanitarianism, or combating food insecurity are insufficiently advanced through the current Syria policy.

The new policy framework is mostly the old framework, renewed.

The defects

That said, there are some defects as well. The group advocates a formalized ceasefire, without however specifying how it would be monitored and enforced. They also advocate renewed civilian stabilization assistance in the northeast, where conflict between Iranian proxy forces and the Americans is growing. Civilian assistance requires civilian presence, which is becoming more difficult, not less. They urge accounting for 100,000 missing Syrians, without however specifying a mechanism.

A lot of what the group suggests would require more Western focus on Syria. The more than ten years of war and chaos there as well as the requirements in Ukraine militate against Europe and the US paying greater attention. Three American presidents have decided that US interests in Syria are not a priority. The group is not asking for a major new effort. But even a marginally increased push in Syria may lie beyond what President Biden’s limits. Pressure for removal of the US troops is more likely to increase than decrease.

Alternatives

What are the possible alternatives? That is always an important question, especially when the obstacles to success are formidable. Let me offer a few, without however recommending any of them:

  1. Negotiated withdrawal of US troops: At some point, maybe now, US troops in northeastern Syria will reach the point of diminishing returns in the fight against ISIS. The US could negotiate with the Russians and the Syrian regime withdrawal of US troops in exchange for commitments to their Kurdish and Arab allies, promising “normalization” in exchange. Of course there would be little guarantee that the commitments would be kept once the withdrawal is complete.
  2. A big push for stabilization and reconstruction in the northeast: The US could pour a few billion into civilian stabilization and reconstruction directed by their Kurdish and Arab allies. This would create a de facto state in the northeast, financed on a continuing basis by revenues from the oil produced there. That parastate would attract however the enmity of both the regime and Turkiye, making its survival in the long term parlous.
  3. Back a Turkish takeover of the entire border area and the northeast: President Erdogan has long been threatening another invasion of segments of the northern Syria border Turkiye does not already control. Washington could back his ambition in exchange for commitments to its Kurdish and Arab allies. Such commitments would however likely prove worthless. The Turks see the Kurds as terrorists, not freedom fighters.
  4. Renew the civilian and military effort against the Assad regime: The US and Europe could urge Gulf partners to renew the armed rebellion against President Assad and Syrian activists to return to the streets. But neither the Arab partners nor anti-regime Syrians are anywhere near ready to do this.

It is easy to see why the group that wrote yesterday’s statement stuck with more modest proposals. All the more dramatic ones have obvious downsides.

Conclusion

It is not satisfying to propose more and better when you know that something else is needed. But under current circumstances, enewing the old may be better than new.

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Stevenson’s army, March 27

– Israel in turmoil.  US weighs in.

Senator blocks DOD nominations in abortion fight.

– Military Times looks at vaccine refusers.

– NPR tells of military interest in the Arctic.

– Breaking Defense says Turkey is losing interest in S-400.

– AP says China is winning friends in Utah.

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).

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