Month: May 2012
Glass half full
Amr Hamzawy, now a secularist member of the Egyptian parliament, returned to the Carnegie Endowment where he once worked on democratization issues today with a more optimistic version of what is going on in Egypt than the one I reported earlier this week.
Democratic transition is always messy, but Amr suggested four facts important to judging whether things are improving or not:
1. Egypt is way behind its original timetable for transition, which called for turnover of the government from the military to civilians within six months. It will take 17 or 18 months, provided the first round of the presidential election occurs later this month, as now planned. Preparation of the constitution, which should have preceded the presidential election, will now occur afterwards, giving the new president the abundant powers the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces now exercises and influence over the constitutional outcome. In addition, the constitution-drafting body has now been blocked in court, because of its legitimacy deficit. It did not include sufficient non-Islamist or women’s representation.
2. Human rights violations continue “nonstop.” Civilians are still tried in military courts, even more than was done under Mubarak. Military crackdowns on demonstrations are deadly and brutal.
3. Egyptian politics are nevertheless dynamic and diverse, with citizens fully engaged. There is currently a spirited debate on whether the presidential election should proceed. There is also ample debate within the various political forces, with the Islamists far from unified. There is no general moderating trend. The Muslim Brotherhood (Freedom and Justice Party) is becoming more pragmatic on the constitution and rights, but more conservative on social issues. The Salafists (El Nour) are very conservative on personal freedom but good on freedom of association and also on NGOs.
4. Non-Islamist political forces are strengthening and cooperating more with Islamists, who increasingly recognize the importance of consensus to the legitimacy of what they do, including in constitution-writing. There are plans for various non-Islamist parties to merge under the umbrella of Mohammed el Baradei’s constitutional party, something they could not do before the elections because they needed to test their relative electoral strength. The Islamists will not benefit much from their current time in power, because they are not delivering on their inflated promises. Their popularity has peaked. The Americans are wrong to focus their attention so strongly on the Muslim Brotherhood. The non-Islamist forces in parliament will soon deliver a liberal draft law on nongovernmental organizations as well as legislation against torture and sexual harassment. Al Azhar, the most important religious authority in Egypt, has done papers on democracy and personal freedoms that are very good and will influence the political forces, which have generally endorsed Al Azhar’s views.
Of course there are many other shortcomings: security sector reform hasn’t begun, rule of law is weak. Christians are not well-represented in the current parliament and some are leaving Egypt, but others are engaging more in the political sphere to regain lost ground.
Having ended natural gas exports to Israel, Egypt will maintain the Camp David peace treaty but no more so long as settlement activity continues.
There are difficult years ahead, but the Egyptian transition has not yet failed.
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Is Al Qaeda Inc. bankrupt?
It is hard for me to imagine adding anything original to the flood of commentary on the Letters from Abbottabad, as West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center calls them. As the New York Times put it,
The frustrations expressed by Bin Laden as he issued instructions sometimes in vain might be familiar to any chief executive trying to keep tabs on a multinational corporation that had grown beyond its modest origins.
Osama even worried about which currencies to keep ransom proceeds in. Mario Draghi will be pleased to learn that Al Qaeda’s reserves were kept in euros as well as dollars. I guess its only a matter of time before they add Chinese renminbi.
In what I’ve read so far, which is not much, Bin Laden’s advice on leadership stands out:
As you well know, the best people are the ones most agreed on by the people, and the key attributes that bring people together and preserve their staying behind their leader are his kindness, forgiveness, sense of fairness, patience, and good rapport with him, as well as showing care for them and not tax them beyond their ability.
What must always be in the forefront of our minds is: managing people at such times calls for even greater wisdom, kindness, forgiveness, patience and deliberation, and is a complex task by most any measure.
This is quoted from the last of the letters, labelled no. 19 in the translations.
Getting people to do what Al Qaeda does obviously requires much more kindness than portrayed in American movies. This is an important lesson. The evil groups of people do is almost always done for some purpose the members of the group regard as good, not evil. Leadership is what convinces them that they are acting for a good purpose, so it needs to behave well towards those it wants to rally. At other points in the letters, it is clear that Bin Laden was unhappy with Al Qaeda and affiliated attacks on Muslims. He wanted his cadres to focus on Americans, because they are the real enemy.
Americans hope to defeat Al Qaeda. Certainly it has suffered a good deal of damage, self-inflicted as well as drone and special forces-inflicted in the last few years. But it is unlikely to disappear entirely, any more than homegrown right-wing terrorism, much reduced from its heyday, has disappeared entirely from the United States. The real question the Bin Laden papers pose is how much more effort we should put into what the Bush administration called the Global War on Terror, which we are still fighting in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan and other places.
Only a closer examination of the entire trove of letters and other documents could enlighten us as to the answer. I doubt the American public will ever get that privilege. The published letters have presumably been carefully chosen. They can give us only an incomplete picture of Al Qaeda. We’ll have to rely on the assessments of our (not always) intelligence community and the wisdom of our elected leaders to make the decision on whether Al Qaeda Inc. is bankrupt.
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A never ending story
It is hard not to sympathize with Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese human rights activist. The front-page photos show him literally holding hands with American diplomats as he leaves the embassy in Beijing, looking for protection and a bit of guidance from those better equipped with power and sight as he hesitantly reenters his native China to seek medical treatment.
But then it is hard not to sympathize with the diplomats, who less than a day later discovered that Chen has changed his mind and wants to leave China after all, having discovered that his family was mistreated and he can expect worse.
It is far more difficult to sympathize with the Chinese government, which abuses not only Chen but much of its population. Chen’s breach was to protest forced abortions. How much longer can the Chinese continue medieval practices and expect an increasingly prosperous and aware population not to protest?
The high-level U.S. delegation in China, including Secretary of State Clinton and Treasury Secretary Geithner, has no doubt sighed with relief. Their mission is to discuss security and economic matters that are far more immediately relevant to U.S. national interests than mistreatment of Chen. In any event, he is now out of the U.S. embassy and therefore on his own.
Mitt Romney, parading himself as more or less a foreign policy realist, no doubt would agree with the Obama Administration’s choice of interests over values, but he certainly isn’t prepared to say so. The blame game is in full swing, with Romney criticizing President Obama for failing to protect Chen. Hard to imagine how President Romney would decide which of the 1.4 billion Chinese the United States should protect. If the answer is only those that make it into the U.S. embassy, he’d better be ready to quadruple the already strict security to keep the hordes out. There is simply no substitute for governments that abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights without other governments intervening.
This story may not be over. Why shouldn’t the Chinese let Chen go to the U.S. with Hillary Clinton, as he has apparently asked? Dissidents who leave China quickly lose credibility and audience there. Keeping him around under tight surveillance will create a long-term irritant. If the geniuses who man the Chinese security apparatus decide to do that, they can expect more trouble–Chen was more skillful than most in escaping from his house arrest and making it all the way to Beijing and into the American embassy.
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Ingredients of success
I’m spending the day at the “The Arab Spring: Getting It Right,” the annual conference of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy in lovely Crystal City. Here are a few highlights.
The first session focused on the ingredients for successful democratic transitions. Here are my quick notes:
Dan Brumberg, Georgetown, in the chair:
- Systemic problems need systemic solutions: if you get rid of torture, you need forensics.
- Need process of consensus and pact-making.
- Religion is an important dimension of identity that needs to be part of that process.
Jason Gluck, USIP: constitution-making
- People need to know why they need a new constitution. What are the core principles they want enshrined there?
- Egypt: battles over timing, constitutional committee reflect lack of answers. Exclusiveness undermines the constitution-writing body.
- Tunisia: using simple majority, not consensus, in committees writing the constitution, with little outreach to civil society beyond Tunis.
- Libya: only four months for constitution-writing, which doesn’t allow deep consideration or public participation. Inclusivity is in doubt.
- Process matters more than constitutional content. Because it makes for legitimacy. Making a constitution is a political, not a legal exercise. It incarnates core values of the state and society.
- Not a drafting exercise but a national dialogue about needs and aspirations.
- Inclusive, participatory, consensual, transparent, deliberative processes are more likely to have good results.
Alfred Stepan, Columbia: transition needs these elements:
- Legitimate constitution written by a representative group.
- A government results from popular vote.
- Powersharing (with military or religious authorities) is not necessary
- The government has to have real authority over policy.
- Civil society more important in deconstructing autocracy than in reconstructing the state, which requires political society and leadership.
- Major transitions (end of WWII, 1989) have required international support, but Arab awakening is getting much less external assistance.
- Brumberg: ironically, opposition consensus building happens more in autocratic society like Tunisia rather than in more open one like Egypt.
Tunisia has been successful because parties have been talking with each other and developing consensus (pact-making) for a long time (since 2003)
Laith Kubba, National Endowment for Democracy: getting it right means avoiding chaos or crisis. Indicators:
- Military “neutralized” and under civilian control: Tunisia OK, Egypt not and militias are the problem in Libya.
- Security apparatus has to shift from protecting regime to protecting state.
- Economic equity has to increase.
- State institutions need to emerge that allow society to be free, including at local level.
- Democratic culture, including associations, free but responsible press.
- New elites emerging in political parties, youth groups, think tanks.
- Education improving.
Big risk: those who reject democratic culture as a foreign import.
Comment from a Tunisian participant, whose name I missed:
- Traditional solidarity was important in Tunisia. Reduced likelihood of revenge.
- So too was role of women.
The second session focused on regional and global impacts:
Radwan Ziadeh, Syrian National Council and Carr Center, Harvard
- Syria is not like Tunisia, Yemen or Libya. It is now more like Bosnia: international community hesitancy, political opposition cannot deliver so Free Syria Army is taking over, regime crimes are systematic.
- Hoping for protection of civilians in a safety zone along Turkish border by an Administration that includes people who made the mistakes in Bosnia.
- Three hundred observers are insufficient.
- Need for military action without UN Security Council approval, but UNGA (137 countries) and Friends of Syria provide cover.
- Everyone looking for U.S. leadership, but Washington is inhibited by domestic considerations, lack of oil interest.
- Arabs lack resources and legitimacy to act.
Brian Grim, Pew Research Center: Religion and the Arab Spring
- Government restrictions on religion are increasing in more countries and those with greater population before Arab spring.
- Problem is especially strong in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), where constitutional guarantees for religious freedom are not strong and apostasy laws are prevalent, enforced both by governments and social hostilities.
- Restrictions on conversion 80% in MENA, where both government violence and social hostilities are prevalent.
Caryle Murphy, Woodrow Wilson Center: A View from the Gulf (especially Saudi Arabia)
- Arab Spring affects Saudi Arabia externally: Egypt, Bahrain, Iraq.
- Saudi effort is to manage and keep it away from the Gulf.
- Foreign policy activism: GCC confederation? First step with Bahrain?
- Riyadh is disappointed in the U.S., lack of confidence in U.S. willingness to intervene.
- Arab Spring also affects Saudi Arabia internally: TV, internet and Twitter have made young Saudis more aware of the rest of the world and want to be more like it. Ditto those studying abroad.
- But impulse is still evolutionary, not revolutionary. Unemployment is the big youth problem. Government is aware but will it move fast enough to accommodate youth demands for jobs and more freedom?
- Society still very conservative, political consciousness very limited, including both secularists and Islamists.
- Petitions for constitutional monarchy, Umma party formation led to government clampdown.
- Eastern Province: Shia very unhappy.
- Religion is a focus of debate, which is important because it is the foundation of legitimacy.
Aylin Unver Noi, Gedik University (Turkey): Regional Alignments
- Ankara has shifted foreign policy towards Middle East.
- Sunni resistance camp emerging, pro-Palestinian, Islamist-led, democratic governments.
- Revolution in Syria would cause it to join this camp, as Jordan might.
- Turkey concerned with Kurdish aspirations, especially PKK activities in Syria.
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Red lines drawn
The audience for the President’s speech last night on the Strategic Partnership agreement with Afghanistan was the American electorate, but the agreement itself is more interesting for the messages it sends to President Karzai, the Taliban and the Afghan people. In part it sets out American red lines, that is limits beyond which the Washington is not prepared to go. There are also some Afghan red lines, drawn to hem in the Americans. What are they?
Here’s a sample extracted from the text:
Afghanistan reaffirms its strong commitment to inclusive and pluralistic democratic governance, including free, fair and transparent elections in which all of the people of Afghanistan participate freely and without internal or external interference….Afghanistan reaffirms its commitment to protecting human and political rights…Afghanistan reaffirms its commitment to ensuring that any kind of discrimination and distinction between citizens of Afghanistan shall be forbidden…Afghanistan shall ensure and advance the essential role of women in society, so that they may fully enjoy their economic, social, political, civil and cultural rights.
These clauses are clearly intended to limit what can be agreed in the talks with the Taliban, as well as to fence in Karzai. No selling out women and minorities.
Contrary to what some have claimed, the agreement does not cover the status of U.S. forces, which continues under existing agreements until a new one is negotiated, with a goal of doing so within a year. The existing agreements are to remain in force until the new one is negotiated, which is good since the one-year goal may not hold.
The agreement also sets out some Afghan red lines. The United States
…reaffirms that it does not seek permanent military facilities in Afghanistan, or a presence that is a threat to Afghanistan’s neighbors. The United States further pledges not to use Afghan territory or facilities as a launching point for attacks against other countries.
The “permanent military facilities” is a bit of a sop, since the U.S. claims none of its overseas bases are permanent. They just tend to stay around for a long time. Afghanistan will have sought the pledge about launching attacks to reassure Pakistan and Iran, but “pledges” are less than complete commitments, and of course Afghanistan can always agree (overtly or covertly) to such operations.
The U.S. says it will try to get money for the Afghan security forces year by year. No amount is specified, but it is likely to be a few billion. The U.S. also says
…it shall regard with grave concern any external aggression against Afghanistan.
If someone attacks, the Afghans get consultations to decide on an appropriate response. This is pretty thin gruel, far short of a mutual defense pact.
There is some handwaving about regional cooperation, but the language is aspirational and the proof can only come with the pudding. Ditto the stuff on economic cooperation, including the fight against corruption, drugs, money laundering and organized crime.
The U.S. pledges to put 50% of its aid through the government and to align 80% with Afghan priorities. Those would have been decent goals years ago: a lot of our aid goes directly to U.S. contractors and grantees and never enters the government’s field of vision. Try running a country without knowing what your biggest donors are up to.
The agreement sets up a bilateral commission, which is standard operating procedure.
If this is all it takes to get us out of the longest war in our history, we’re lucky. It will likely be enough to get us through the NATO Summit in Chicago next month, which was one of the purposes of getting it signed now. Beyond that, there are a lot of uncertainties, but at least we’ve got some red lines drawn, on both sides.
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All deliberate speed
President Obama flew in secret today to Kabul, where he signed with President Karzai the strategic partnership agreement that will govern the bilateral relationship with the United States after security responsibility is turned over to the Afghans by the end of 2014. At best, this agreement marks the final, peacebuilding phase after the longest war in American history.
The President’s speech will be given at 4 am local time, which means it isn’t intended for Afghans. The target is the American electorate, tired of the war and focused on domestic problems. It will be hard to make Afghanistan resonate with his fellow countrymen, but he will try.
The agreement, I imagine he will say, is the responsible way to end a war that America undertook in self defense against Al Qaeda and the Taliban authorities who sheltered it. We have succeeded. But Afghanistan will need our help and support for long into the future: it is a poor country that has sacrificed a great deal and will need our continued help to keep extremists at bay even after its security forces take on the primary responsibility.
I am an Obamista, but even to me this is not the full story. The price tag for the help we provide Afghanistan will be billions per year for the foreseeable future. Leaving aside the questions of how many U.S. troops will stay and the capacity (or lack thereof) of the Afghan security forces, there are still has a lot of wrinkles that need ironing out: Pakistan’s refusal to deal Al Qaeda a death blow or to rein in the Taliban, the so far inconclusive negotiations with them, growing Taliban influence in some areas, the corruption that is rife in Karzai’s government, the failure to create anything like decent governance in most of Afghanistan, the shaky economic foundations on which the Afghan government sits, the role of Iran in Afghanistan, and whether some U.S. troops will stay longer than currently planned.
We are not so much getting out of Afghanistan victoriously as getting out before it all flies apart. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t want us to stay, and I’ve said it is time to go, without however destabilizing the situation. We cannot and should not stay to iron out all the wrinkles, but we should at least be aware that they are there and may cause difficulty in the future.
Mitt Romney, John McCain and others will complain that we are not doing enough–that we should stay in Afghanistan until we’ve ensured that things will not come apart, or the Taliban back to power. But if they think that is likely to be a view popular with the American electorate, they are fooling themselves. By a wide margin, Americans want out of Afghanistan to take care of priorities at home.
I’ll be happily surprised if ten years from now we’ll be proud of what Afghanistan has become. But move we must, with what the Supreme Court famously called “all deliberate speed.”
PS: I haven’t seen the agreement yet, but here is a White House fact sheet.
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