Month: October 2011
Harvard wins in Liberia
The November 8 runoff for President in Liberia will apparently pit Ellen Johnson Sirleaf against Winston Tubman. Nobel Prize winner Sirleaf won the first round handily, with over 40% of the votes (based on a preliminary and partial count). Election day was peaceful and the electoral mechanism seems to have performed reasonably well. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) observer mission said “on the whole, the elections of October 11, 2011 were conducted under acceptable conditions of freedom of voters and transparency of the process.” Maybe not the highest praise, but good for a country in dire economic conditions and still recovering from several ferocious civil wars.
This is a credit to the Harvard-educated (Kennedy School MPA) Sirleaf, who is certainly now the odds on favorite. But her opponent is not to be minimized. Also Harvard-educated (law school), he heads a ticket that includes as candidate for vice president George Weah, Liberia’s star footballer. Weah beat Sirleaf in the first round of the last presidential election but lost to her in the second. Tubman and Weah criticize Sirleaf for failing to revive the economy, tolerating corruption and once backing Charles Taylor, the former president who is on trial for war crimes. She says they would disrupt the great progress Liberia has made.
The votes of the third-place finisher, Prince Johnson, will influence the outcome. Johnson, whose iconic moment was presiding over the torture and murder of former President Doe, is now a born again Christian. I wouldn’t want to know the price of getting him to throw his support to one or the other of the candidates.
But whoever wins, the story is likely to be a relatively good one, provided the second round occurs in the same fairly benign atmosphere that prevailed in the first. It will do Sirleaf no good to win if the election is not clean and peaceful. In any event, Liberians seem anxious to continue what Sirleaf has started, which is one of the best post-war evolutions of the past twenty years. Some will complain that many of the drivers of conflict are still in place, as are many perpetrators of violence. But there is something to be said for people who want to look forward, and even more to be said for those who genuinely want to root out the violence and cronyism that has plagued Liberia for far too long.
So the news is pretty good, which means you won’t read a lot about it in the American press, which is leaving Liberia to AP. But my hat is off to the UN peacekeepers and civilians of all stripes who have worked hard in recent years to normalize Liberia, which is a tough, poor and deprived country. So much goes wrong in this world, we should take notice when things come out right.
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Interagency writing contest (no kidding)
Col. Arthur D. Simons Center
PO Box 3429
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027
email: Office@TheSimonsCenter.org
Simons Center announces public writing competition
FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. The Col. Arthur D. Simons Center for the Study of Interagency Cooperation announces its Interagency Writing Competition for 2012. The competition is open to the public and recognizes papers that provide insight and fresh thinking in advancing the knowledge, understanding, and practice of interagency coordination, cooperation, and collaboration at the tactical or operational level of effort. Deadline
for submissions is Friday, March 16, 2012.
Entries must be focused on one of two special topics:
- The interagency role in preventing conflict when dealing with failing or failed states; or
- The validity of the “whole-of-government” approach in dealing with the full range of homeland and national security threats.
How to enter:
- Submit an unclassified, original paper examining any aspect – broad or specific – of one of the special topics. Papers should be between 4,000 and 8,000 words in length.
- Previously published papers, papers pending consideration elsewhere for publication, or papers submitted to other competitions still pending announced decisions are ineligible.
- Manuscripts should be single spaced in Microsoft Word format using Times, 12-point type. All graphs, charts, and tables should be submitted as separate files in the format they were created.
- Manuscripts can be submitted through the Simons Center website (www.TheSimonsCenter.org/competition) or emailed to editor@TheSimonsCenter.org with the subject line “Interagency Writing Competition” by March 16, 2012.
A panel of Simons Center judges will evaluate entries on originality, substance of argument, style and contribution to advancing the understanding and practice of interagency cooperation at the operational and tactical levels of effort.
The first place entry will receive $2,000, an engraved plaque, a certificate of recognition and publication in one of the Simons Center publications series. Second place will receive a $1,000 award, a certificate of recognition and consideration for publication. Third place receives $500, a certificate and also consideration for publication by the Simons Center.
For more information contact the Simons Center at editor@TheSimonsCenter.org or by calling 913-682-7244. Information about the Simons Center’s mission, organization, and publications is available at www.TheSimonsCenter.org.
Contact:
Ray Barrett
(913) 682-7244
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IranTel: how should the U.S. respond?
I tweeted this question yesterday: “Do those who think Quds too smart for this operation think we are dumb enough to blame it on them without evidence?” The operation in question is the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.
My Twitterfeed was divided on the answer. About as many retweeted the question as replied “yes.” Those who replied yes had several reasons, mainly linked to the idea that the U.S. is looking for an opportunity to go to war with Iran. Past U.S. behavior, including WMD in Iraq, was mentioned. I am old enough to have lived through the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Remember the Maine.
Several said maybe, that more evidence is needed to decide. I’m with them. There have been several alleged terrorist plots over the past decade that have collapsed like souffles. But we need to ask for more details and confirmation to decide whether this will be one of them. I hope energetic young reporters looking for their first Pulitzer are hard at work [note to Adam Serwer: get busy!]
That said, if the Administration believes that Iran backed this cockamamie plot, it needs to come up with an appropriate response. It has already added four Quds force dodos to the sanctions list. That’s enough if you think those people were directly involved but without higher approval. It’s not enough if you think this was truly an approved operation.
The Pentagon is letting it be known it regards this as a diplomatic and legal issue, not a military one. I don’t see anyone in the Administration ready even for a cruise missile attack on Quds force headquarters, though I suppose we might not know about that until it was over. They seem intent on naming and shaming, likely through a UN Security Council resolution. That’s a good idea, as it would get Russia and China lined up for further sanctions on Iran. But it isn’t going to be easy. Ambassador Rice has proved adept in the past. Let’s hope she can repeat.
What more can be done? We’ve got some time while the journalists sort out whether the plot was real and how deeply it reached into the Iranian power structure, so let’s consider the options
- Republican Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois is calling for a ban on transactions with Iran’s Central Bank.
- Another possible sanctions target is Iran’s oil exports of 2.4-5 million barrels per day.
- Tom Gjelten is reporting that Saudi Arabia might jack up its oil production to bring down Iranian oil revenues.
- State Department is trying to get other countries to tighten existing sanctions, which apparently failed to stop a payment from the Quds force to what it thought was a Mexican cartel account through a third country.
Blocking transactions to and from Iran’s Central Bank would have a devastating impact on the Iranian economy, but it is hard to see how we are going to convince Iran’s major trading partners to join such a move. We’d need to make some sort of exception for food and other humanitarian goods, unless we are ready to find ourselves accused of starving the Iranian population into submission. Iraq’s Oil for Food program is a precedent, one that was rife with corruption and exploitation by the regime we were supposed to be sanctioning.
China gets over 500,000 barrels of oil per day from Iran, 15% of its consumption. Beijing is not going to give that up easily. Nor will Japan, India or South Korea–Iran’s other major markets for oil.
Saudi Arabia may not have enough excess capacity to boost oil production much. If they try, current weakness in the market risks could send prices spiraling downwards past what even the Saudis will appreciate.
Tightening existing sanctions sounds practical, but it is not the stuff of a clear and compelling diplomatic signal.
So let’s have a contest: excluding the four things I’ve mentioned here, and leaving aside military action, what measures should be included in the options for President Obama in considering how to respond to Iran’s plot with what it thought was a Mexican cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador?
Do I dare call it the IranTel plot?
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Keeping focused
While Iran’s defenders are pooh-poohing the charge that Iran’s Quds force backed a plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to the United States, its detractors see escalation in the covert war with the United States.
Certainly if the charges are true, it is hard not to see the plot as escalation. But it is important to remember that there are at least two, if not more, belligerents in the covert war. Murder of Iranian nuclear scientists, the Stuxnet virus that seems to have slowed the nuclear program, U.S. capture of Iranians who claim diplomatic immunity working inside Iraq, and support to ethnic rebellions inside Iran all indicate that paranoid Iran really does have enemies.
It is important now for Washington to show some cards. The alleged plot supposedly involved Iranian hiring of Mexican drug cartels to carry out the dirty work. A cooperating alleged perpetrator seems to have identified Quds force operatives and arranged financial transfers from them. Putting at least some of the evidence into the public domain would go a long way to removing skepticism, which is rife even among those who are no friends of Iran.
This development comes at an awkward moment. Iranian President Ahmedinejad has been flashing an offer that some American analysts would like to take up, if only to call his bluff:
[Ahmedinejad] has stated on a number of occasions that his country will cease domestic efforts to manufacture fuel for one of its nuclear reactors if it is able to purchase the fuel from abroad. The United States should accept this proposal — publicly, immediately and unconditionally.
That seems highly unlikely at first blush: how do American diplomats make nice with Ahmedinejad while announcing to the world that Iran’s security forces have been plotting murder, even mass atrocity if one version of the alleged plot had taken place, inside the United States? But it is precisely at a moment like this–when Iran is going to find itself weakened and isolated–that the international pressure might be sufficient to force progress on the nuclear issue, with the added potential benefit of further fragmenting a regime whose president and “supreme leader” are already on the outs. Maybe taking up the offer privately, cautiously and conditionally would work too.
Preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons is a vital American interest, all the more so if the regime there is prepared to contemplate mass atrocity on American soil. We need to not lose sight of that objective while holding Iran accountable for whatever role it had in the alleged plot to murder the Saudi ambassador. Focusing on two objectives at once is not easy, but nonetheless necessary.
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Not too much to ask
In today’s hierarchy of international challenges, Bosnia and Herzegovina ranks low. It is an out of the way place, off the main axes of current concerns: terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, oil, shifting sands in the Middle East, economic crisis. It had more than its 15 minutes of fame in the 1990s, when war in Bosnia attracted worldwide attention, NATO intervened and the international community at Dayton imposed and sustained a settlement that has more or less lasted until now. Isn’t that enough?
Vlado Azinović, Kurt Bassuener and Bodo Weber argue forcefully in a report published this week by the Atlantic Initiative and the Democracy Policy Council that it is not. They see real risks of renewed instability and spell them out in striking detail: dismantling the Office of the High Representative and the extraordinary powers he once wielded, inflammatory rhetoric, capacity of the Bosnian state institutions (including the police and judiciary), the impact of the global economic crisis on the country’s weak economy, the Bosnian armed forces and the extraordinary dispersal in the country of weapons, football hooligans, minority returnees and Islamic radicals. If war ever does break out again in Bosnia, no one is going to be able to claim there was no warning.
They also outline what they view as a necessary policy shift in the international community approach to Bosnia:
At the policy level, this shift would mean accepting, at least implicitly, that the path pursued since 2005 has failed and must be redesigned, starting from the identification of the strategic goal. That goal must be that BiH function well enough to meet the requirements to join the EU and NATO. Until that goal of durable functionality is reached by popular consent and demonstrated, it should be clear to all in BiH that the Dayton rules will continue to prevail and be enforced. That the country will not be allowed to fall apart, and that efforts in that direction will bring appropriately strong responses, needs to not only be articulated forcefully and clearly, but be believed.
What will that take?
– Additional troops from EU and non-EU members. EU/NATO member PIC SB countries not presently participating in EUFOR should make significant contributions.
– Sufficient helicopter lift for a quick reaction force based at Butmir of at least platoon, preferably company strength.
– Forward deployment in company strength to obvious potential flashpoints: Brčko and Mostar.
– Regular patrols between Tuzla airfield and Brčko, also to areas of minority return.
– De-emphasis of EUFOR activities not directly linked to the Chapter 7/Annex 1A SASE mandate.Restoration of credible deterrence would not only prevent a return to violent conflict, but would create the potential for forward movement on the political and social fronts by stripping the entrenched political elites of their current ability to leverage fear. This would create space for citizens and potential leaders who want to find a way to make the country function consensually. Restored, credible deterrence is the sine qua non of any political and social progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This all makes a good deal of sense. We are not talking giant resources here but a relatively modest increase in European commitments, including from non-members of the EU.
But the forces pushing against it are heavy. The United States is understandably frustrated with years of trying to convince the Bosnians to fix the Dayton constitution and anxious to confront more substantial risks to American national security. Distracted by the eurozone crisis, Brussels is happy to delegate Bosnia to its bureaucracy and entangle Sarajevo in the details of getting ready to make itself a candidate for EU membership. The longer that takes, the better from the perspective of those EU members hesitant about enlargement.
So we can’t expect much. I’m hoping that at least EUFOR will strengthen its forces in the northeastern Bosnian town of Brcko, which would be a primary objective of opposing Muslim and Serb forces if there is ever a return to conflict. The more important adjustment is less tangible but not less meaningful: making all concerned understand that Bosnia will remain a single country and enter both NATO and the EU as such, or not at all.
This should not be beyond Brussels’ capacity to communicate, even with its current distractions. And Washington will back it up. It is not too much to ask.
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Norway has voted, but outcome is in doubt
With thanks to Adam Kaplan at Sister Cities International, here is the best I’ve seen on the political situation in Liberia: “Feted on the international stage, but accused of hollow promises at home,” from The Independent. It is a sad commentary on the American press that until yesterday it had produced nothing comparable, even in anticipation of tomorrow’s elections. And they wonder why so many of us are turning to Twitter and the web for our news?
On the economic side, the IMF has put up two progress reports on Liberia’s poverty reduction strategy, one that covers April 2008-March 2009 and a second that covers April 2009-March 2010. The message from both is good progress, accelerating. That’s the message from the latest UN Security Council resolution as well, even if it saw fit to err on the side of caution and extend UNMIL to September 2012.
PBS Newhour did come to the rescue of American media’s honor with a piece on the elections last Tuesday evening:
But this is also blatantly pro-Johnson Sirleaf and mentions only one of her several competitors. And why can’t they adjust their cameras so that black peoples’ faces can be seen better? Gwen Ifill would also benefit.
All the international approbation for Johnson Sirleaf does not guarantee her a victory in Tuesday’s election or the November 8 runoff (if no one gets 50% in the first round, which seems likely with 16 candidates). She is compromised by an early gesture of support for Charles Taylor and other complicated legal issues ably discussed by Colin Waugh, as well as the perception that she has done little about corruption in the Liberian government. But I confess it is a sign of progress that Liberians are worrying about corruption rather than about political violence.
There will be time enough to discuss Johnson Sirleaf’s main challenger if there is a second round of the elections. This first round is a kind of referendum on her first term. Her chances will improve if she comes out a strong first, the electoral mechanism operates reasonably well and election day is peaceful.
The Nobel Prize is not likely to hurt her prospects.
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