Month: December 2012
Referendum above all
Yesterday’s confusing moves by Egyptian President Morsi amount to this: he values the approval next Saturday of the illiberal draft constitution he ramrodded through the constituent assembly above all else. He was willing to surrender some of the powers he arrogated to himself last month, as they were no longer needed to protect the constituent assembly (which has completed its work) from a possible court decision on its validity. He is contemplating martial law to ensure the security of the referendum. He is claiming to be open to amendments to the constitution, by procedures that at this point are completely unclear.
What Morsi wants is the democratic validation of the constitution approval in the referendum can provide. This will ensure both an enhanced role for religion in the Egyptian state and preservation of military privileges. It will marginalize women and minorities, for whom the new constitution fails to guarantee equal rights. It will make secularist politics difficult. It will consolidate Morsi’s own hold on power and, he hopes, enable the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party to do well in parliamentary elections.
Morsi’s opposition is apoplectic. It is hoping that street demonstrations will cause him to postpone the referendum and reopen the constitutional draft to debate and reconsideration, not just amendment. Some even ask that Morsi resign, something he shows no sign of contemplating. We can expect the next week to be tumultuous, with Morsi and the military trying to keep the referendum on track and the opposition desperately trying to derail it.*
What happens if the referendum on the new constitution is defeated? This is the one real concession in Morsi’s decree yesterday:
If the people vote against the draft constitution in the referendum on Saturday, 15 December 2012, the president is to call for the direct election of a new Constituent Assembly of 100 members within three months.
This means Morsi, who now holds legislative power (and it was the parliament that chose the last constituent assembly), will not appoint a new constituent assembly if one is needed but instead allow it to be elected.
I am still betting Morsi comes out on top. There is precious little time to organize a “no” vote and no reason for him to give in to demands that the referendum be postponed, unless it proves logistically difficult to get it done by Saturday. Many Egyptians are fed up with the street demonstrations. International factors–in particular the United States–are not interested in prolonging the disorder. Egyptian arrest yesterday of an alleged leader of the Benghazi attack on the U.S. consulate will weigh heavily in Morsi’s favor in Washington.
Morsi wants his referendum and his new constitution. He is likely to get them, sooner rather than later.
*The boycott is on.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Illiberal Egypt
My Twitterfeed is full of people bemoaning Egyptian President Morsi’s crackdown on protests against his ramrodding of the new constitution first through the constituent assembly and now through the December 15 referendum. My sympathies are with them on process, which was rushed and excluded important parts of Egyptian society, and substance, because the constitution is both excessively Islamist and excessively protective of military prerogatives. While Morsi’s Justice Minister has indicated the President might delay the referendum if the opposition engages in a dialogue, he shows no signs of backing off either the draft constitution or the decree in which he gave himself dictatorial powers. There are also reports that Morsi is preparing a decree to impose martial law.
Morsi is a democratically elected president with strong and organized support from the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest political force in the country, and equivocal support from the more conservative Salafists, who did well in parliamentary elections. He is likely to prevail. My friends in the street protests, who have rejected the call for dialogue, are likely to lose, not because they are wrong but because they are poorly organized, undisciplined and unappealing to many Egyptians. My guess is that some of them will boycott the referendum, hoping that will invalidate it. Others will vote “no,” ensuring that turn-out is not so low as to cause reasonable people to question its validity.
The street protests themselves are a problem. Many Egyptians are tired of them. They want to get back to making a living. Cairo–and other Egyptian cities–are chaotic even without street demonstrations. With them, life quickly becomes a struggle.
The lack of nonviolent discipline is a big problem. Street demonstrators almost everywhere have to be extraordinarily disciplined to avoid being blamed for violence. Egyptian demonstrators throw rocks and bang with sticks on cars. These are minor malfeasances, but enough to give Morsi what he needs to accuse them of violence, which he naturally claims was unprovoked.
Don’t get me wrong here: I have no doubt which side is more likely to initiate violence and to use it with abandon. The police and their thuggish friends in the Muslim Brotherhood really don’t have any other method of dealing with crowds. The protesters need to make sure that responsibility lies clearly and unequivocally where it belongs. They have not done so.
We are headed for an illiberal Egypt, one that holds elections, convenes a parliament, passes laws and even tolerates a wide range of discussion. But it will also limit effective political opposition, disrupt it when it occurs, and use the police and courts as instruments of repression. Islam will play a much stronger political role than in the past, even if lots of Egyptians remain uncovered and unwilling to attend mosque regularly. Women and minorities will have to fight uphill for their rights, not that that is anything new. The military’s prerogatives will remain protected, at least until they become a serious constraint on the economy. Hamas and other Muslim Brotherhood organizations will find comfort, if not sustenance, in Cairo.
On foreign policy, I doubt Morsi’s Egypt will renounce the peace treaty with Israel, but it will be more exacting in its interpretation of it and expect continuation of the loosened restrictions on its army’s presence in the Sinai. Those who want Egypt to reemerge as a leader in the Arab world will likely have to wait a while. An occasional initiative from Cairo will not change the facts of life: Egypt is too weak economically and militarily to do much heavy lifting on, for example, the Syria civil war or the Iranian nuclear program. Morsi will cozy up to Washington when it suits him, rightly expecting (as Mubarak did) that the Americans will soften their criticism of his illiberalism in exchange for cooperation on terrorism and Israel.
Were I Egyptian, I would be disappointed in an illiberal outcome. Much better than that seemed possible when Mubarak fell almost two years ago. The important thing is to make it just the first stage in a longer-term transition towards a more worthy democratic outcome. Only more disciplined, united and organized liberal forces can make that happen.
PS: This is a good presentation of the anti-Morsi perspective.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
The proverbial hammer
Today greeted me with two contradictory headlines. Fareed Zakaria urged a beginning to the end of the war on terror. The Wall Street Journal reports an expansion of U.S. military authority to intervene in Mali and other parts of the Sahel against extremists, using drones and special ops teams, as we do in Yemen and Pakistan.
Fareed does not argue that the threat no longer exists, only that it can be dealt with in the normal legal framework rather than the extraordinary one put in place after 9/11. Nor, I imagine, will the Pentagon ignore completely the non-military aspects of the fight against al Qaeda linked groups in Mali. Our military officers are far too smart, and far too deeply committed to counter-insurgency, to ignore the social, economic and political matrix that is providing safe haven to extremists in northern Mali.
But the fact is that we are still over-emphasizing military responses to terrorism, rather than using preventive and civilian approaches before the emergence of a clear threat. Northern Mali, Tuareg grievances and various extremist groups existed well before this year. Why were we ignoring them when it might have been cheaper and easier to prevent them from emerging in the first place?
We are still playing global whack-a-mole with terrorists rather than developing a strategy that makes them unwelcome in the poverty-stricken, relatively weak and conflict-prone states in which they find safe haven. If we are successful in Mali, they will no doubt find have someplace else. Strengthening the indigenous capacity to resist and repress extremists is much more likely to produce results. It is also likely to be far cheaper. But it requires a more forward-looking, anticipatory and civilian-based strategy.
Instead, we are now deploying an additional Defense Intelligence agents abroad. They will number 1600 in five years time. This makes no sense, unless they will be doing intelligence collection that would be better done by civilians agencies.
If al Qaeda central still exists, someone there is surely calculating today where to move to when Mali gets too hot. Northern Nigeria? Niger? Back to Somalia? There are lots of options. What we need is a comprehensive strategy that enables a preventive approach to strengthening local governance. The military may recognize that as the requirement, but it is not their responsibility to meet it. Our civilians–State Department and USAID as well as Justice and Commerce departments–need the resources and capabilities to undertaken expeditionary activities that today are possible only for the Defense Department.
We are the proverbial hammer that views everything as a nail. Some jobs require a screwdriver.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Hanging tough
Egyptian President Morsi’s speech this afternoon was profoundly uncompromising. He denounced what he sees as opposition-inspired violence, suggested it was bought and paid for (possibly by foreign sources) and underlined the need for law and order, sine qua non.
This is an appeal a lot of Egyptians will like, even if it will infuriate the demonstrators at the presidential palace. His only concession was a call for a “national dialogue” meeting on Saturday. But he did not, as some hoped, postpone the constitutional referendum scheduled for December 15. Nor did he offer any changes to its profoundly ambiguous contents, which protect the military’s prerogatives better than the citizens’ rights.
His television address sounded to me more like Bashar al Assad than like Hosni Mubarak. Morsi claims he expresses the will of the Egyptian people, something Mubarak did not care much about. What’s more, Morsi may be right. There are lots of Egyptians fed up with disorder. His opposition will be hard put to mount a successful “no” vote at the polls.
But even if they do, Morsi made it clear he intends to proceed by appointing another constituent assembly. He is in no mood to compromise with those who want to limit his power or his stay in office. Those who thought he might be pushed aside or resign–or even allow reconsideration of the draft constitution–were badly mistaken. Morsi is holding on to power with both hands.
The secular opposition now has a difficult choice: go to the polls, despite the likelihood that the new constitution will be approved, or boycott, which will ensure that it is approved. My bet is some will do the former and others the latter, ensuring not only passage of the referendum but also a small measure of democratic legitimacy.
It is unlikely much will come of Saturday’s national dialogue meeting. It is too close to the date of the referendum to initiate any changes in the current draft. And the opposition is too fragmented to come into the meeting united behind a small but significant set of requested changes. Only if they do so will they have any significant impact.
Morsi is trying to impose his own order on what has been a chaotic revolution governed by Calvinball (a game never played with the same rules twice, as Marc Lynch has taught us). My guess is that he has the support of the “party of couch,” the Egyptians who want law and order and don’t want to join the demonstrations. He will likely also get the judiciary back on side, as he has promised that the extraordinary powers to block judicial decisions he arrogated to himself will expire once the referendum is held.
The net result is unlikely to look like a democracy two years from now, even if it allows more freedom of speech and association than Mubarak permitted. The opaque, forced-march process that Morsi imposed to get the new constitution completed is not the kind of transparent, participatory process that makes for stable democracy, even if it is approved in a referendum. The most important of the Arab uprisings looks as if it will end considerably short of the ideals that inspired it. Many revolutions do.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Consequences
The NBC report that Bashar al Asad is preparing chemical weapons for use has generated a contradictory response: President Obama, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and NATO Secretary General Rasmussen have all warned there will be consequences. My Twitterfeed concurs that use of chemical weapons would be “suicidal” for Bashar.
But there is little that can be done once these weapons are out of their storage sites and loaded on airplanes or missiles, as the report ambiguously suggests might be the case. The numbers of troops required to secure the Syrian chemical weapons stocks is on the order of 75,000. It is clear enough that U.S. troops have not yet been deployed in these numbers anywhere near Syria in preparation for their seizure.
That wouldn’t be a sufficient or appropriate response in any event. It would put a substantial number of American troops in harm’s way without any guarantee of success. So what might we be thinking of doing?
My guess–but it is only that–is regime decapitation. Any order to use chemical weapons will have to come from the top. If the Americans have done nothing else in the almost two years of killing, they should at least have discovered Bashar’s hiding places. Using cruise missiles, the U.S. can destroy dozens of sites with extraordinary precision. Whether or not Bashar himself is hit (remember how many times we missed Qaddafi?), his ability to continue in command is likely to be severely degraded, as they say.
Another thought is to pour arms into the revolutionary forces in the hope that they will be able to seize the remaining chemical weapons. But without specialized training and equipment, that really would be a suicidal course of action. It is far more likely that chemical weapons will scare a large part of the population out of Syria, creating enormous problems for its neighbors, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan.
The problem with either proposition is that we have no idea what would come next. Decapitation would precipitate a rush both within the regime and from the outside to try to seize control of the state apparatus. The most likely winners are guys with lots of guns. That includes the Syrian security forces as well as the more heavily armed and capable revolutionaries, who come from the Sunni Islamist end of the political spectrum. If neither wins a definitive victory, the civil war would intensify, with terrible consequences both inside Syria and in the region. There is a real risk that punishing Asad will generate an outcome even more inimical to U.S. interests.
There is still a real possibility that reports of imminent chemical weapons use are false or exaggerated. But if they are true, someone had better be thinking of a better idea than I’ve had about what “consequences” are appropriate, feasible and productive. Bashar al Asad and lots of other autocrats will notice if he uses chemical weapons and there is no reaction. That would further undermine U.S. and NATO credibility, which is already at a perigee.
There is a report today that the Russians and Americans are meeting hastily to discuss Syrian chemical weapons. If the possibility of their use pushes Washington and Moscow together to a political solution, that would be a really good outcome for all concerned, except Bashar al Asad and his regime.
PS: Ambassador Ford says it is above his paygrade to decide what is to be done in the event Syrian uses chemical weapons. Certainly the implication of American military action is strong.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
A new idea
I don’t often hear new ideas from the Balkans. Most of what passes for innovation there is rehashed from the detritus of failure and packaged in insincere compliments to the international community. So it was with real pleasure that I spent an hour Monday listening to Bosnian Federation President Živko Budimir, whom I knew in the aftermath of the Bosnian war as the deputy commander of the Federation armed forces.
The General had a commanding brief. He outlined the many weaknesses of the post-war transition in Bosnia, including:
- The structural asymmetry between the cantonalized Federation (the Croat and Muslim controlled 51% of the country) and Republika Srpska (the Serb controlled 49%).
- The ethnic homogenization down to the municipality level caused by the war and the failure to fulfill promises that displaced people and refugees could return to their homes (except for Serb returns along the Croatian border in Herzegovina).
- The continued strength of the entity (Federation and RS) level of governance, despite international efforts to beef up the “state” (i.e. central) government.
- Ethnic dominance of political parties, the civil service, interior ministries, police and the judiciary.
- Widespread corruption.
- The failure of economic recovery and consequent 40% unemployment.
- Determined and blatant RS efforts to precipitate the dissolution of the state.
This unflinching analysis already made the hour worthwhile. But Budimir offered solutions as well. Some of them were well known: protection of individual rights, redistribution of entity responsibilities to the central government and to the municipalities, tougher international attitudes, acceleration of the EU accession process.
But he surprised me with a new idea: he proposed that the relative success at Brčko, a northeastern Bosnian town where reintegration and economic revival worked well under American tutelage, be expanded by creating a “Posavina district” encompassing seven municipalities, including Brčko.
I don’t imagine this is going to happen tomorrow, but it is clever to build on the one place where reintegration has been successful. There can be no dissolution of Bosnia (or of the RS) so long as the Posavina corridor, which links the eastern wing of the RS with its more populous western wing, is under multi-ethnic control. This is why I have repeatedly suggested that the EUFOR troops in Bosnia be concentrated there. President Budimir’s idea is better: expand the area under multi-ethnic governance, keeping the populations of Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs more or less equal to ensure that no one group dominates the area.
How to get this done? Budimir insists on the international community playing a strong role, both with sticks (especially in opposing dissolution of the state) and carrots (in particular NATO and EU membership), in particular to block corruption and promote reconciliation. But he also proposes the founding of a new multiethnic political party in Bosnia to reinvent its politics. This would require a good deal of courage and commitment, of which the general showed ample supplies in bringing his idea to Washington. Now what he has to do is get them to fly at home.
PS: Here is Budimir’s text. Here is his powerpoint presentation.
RSS - Posts
