Day: January 12, 2020
US-Iran tensions in Iraq
The US assassination of Qasem Soleimani coupled with the Iranian missile retaliation against US bases in Iraq served as the underlying framework for the Atlantic Council’s event: US-Iran Tensions Rising with Iraq in the Middle: Analysis of Future Scenarios and Policy Implications. The event took place on Thursday January 9 and was divided into two segments: a panel discussion and two keynote speeches. The panel featured three regional experts: Atlantic Council Iraq Initiative Director Abbas Kadhim, Future of Iran Initiative Director Barbara Slavin, and Nonresident Senior Fellow Thomas S. Warrick. The panel was moderated by William F. Wechsler, the Director of Atlantic Council Middle East Programs.
Below are the highlights from the panel portion of the event:
Iraq: from bad to worse
While moderator Wechsler proclaimed that the US and Iran had walked back from the precipice of war, the panelists emphasized the precarious and dire situation the US, Iran, and Iraq are all currently in. Kadhim bluntly proclaimed that these attacks “could not have come at a worse time for Iraq.” Reports indicate that over 300 Iraqis have been killed and hundreds wounded from state violence responding to last fall’s protests. This caused disenchantment with the government, resulting in its resignation. Kadhim emphasized that this was the first time post-2003 that an Iraqi Prime Minister has resigned, plunging the nation into uncharted territory.
Kadhim provided two profound insights on the recent missile strike in Iraq and the Iraqi vote to expel US troops. To the first point he professed, “there is no such thing as US bases in Iraq — they are all Iraqi bases now,” underlining how detrimental the relationship between the US and Iran is for Iraq, particularly in terms of military development, economic rebuilding, and the creation of a new government. Secondly, Kadhim underlined Iraq’s energy dependence on Iran. He added that he believes the Iraqi government is reluctantly trying to get American troops out of Iraq because these troops are at risk. Kadhim emphasized many times that this is not in fact a hostile move on Iraq’s part, but more a security concern.
The panelists all noted that the attack occurred at a moment when Shia radicals can easily be mobilized, which could subsequently lead to the marginalization of Sunnis. This would provide ISIS with an ideal political climate to grow and multiply in.
Iran: hardliners strengthened
Wechler noted the incredibly quick ‘successes’ that Iran achieved in the region. Hours prior to the assassination of Soleimani, Iran was struggling to have a foothold in Iraq, even within Shia communities, but immediately after, Iran entirely reversed this situation. Iran has effectively accomplished its larger goal of expelling the US from Iraq while also uniting Iranians, with Soleimani revered as a martyr.
Slavin highlighted the nationalistic mourning process that is still continuing in Iran today, a week after Soleimani’s death. She cautioned that this sudden Iranian unification and the intense vilification of the US will carry a lot of weight in the upcoming February parliamentary elections. Iranian hardliners who oppose the US will be stronger candidates than ever. Warrick warned that Iran will ramp up covert intelligence within Iraq and will play a considerable role in intimidating and forcing the selection of new Iraqi leaders. There is little the United States can now do, but the possibility of a true Iraqi democracy is now in jeopardy.
Warrick succinctly presented the four possible attack vectors that Iran could utilize. The first vector is the symmetrical one. Iran is much more predictable than the media portrays it to be and theories of Iran performing recklessly are unfounded. Warrick noted that Iran has not chosen state-sponsored terrorism as a primary way to change US policy since 2011, when the IRGC initiated an attack in Saudi Arabia. The second vector is cyber threats. Iran has become versatile and quick in utilizing cyber warfare. Thirdly, Iran will mount disinformation operations . Lastly, Warrick fears Iran’s ability to influence operations, as referenced in this 2018 Wired Article. Slavin noted that regardless of which approach Iran takes, it should be assumed there will be continued Iranian covert actions in the region.
Geopolitics:
The tense US-Iran relationship has profound global implications. Slavin suggested that Turkey, Russia, and China will all gain more unrestricted power in the region. This will not only alter the landscape in Iraq but also in Syria and possibly the Gulf. Slavin noted the possibility of China sending its navy to patrol the Persian Gulf, challenging the role of the US in the region.
Slavin maintained that the US and Iran will have to engage in multilateral diplomacy, as she believes there is no chance of Iran sitting at a bilateral table with President Trump. Slavin also noted that there is no way for peace discussions to occur without sanctions relief, which are already being employed as a weapon of war. Kadhim strongly disagreed. Regardless of the terminology used to classify the relationship between the US and Iran, Slavin noted that last week changed the rules of engagement on Iraqi soil.
Following the panel discussion were two keynote speeches from Senator Murphy and Congressman Moulton. Read the Atlantic Council’s recap of their conversation here.
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Stevenson’s army, January 12
– NYT has a long tick-tock on the days before and after the Suleimani killing. Most interesting to me are how strongly CIA Director Haspel pushed for the attack and how many officials admitted the lack of imminence of Iranian attacks.
– WSJ says US has threatened Iraq with loss of access to NY Fed accounts to handle oil sales if Iraq forces US troops to leave.
– Reuters says there is still no final text for US-China trade deal, due to be signed Wednesday.
– WaPo has article on Bernie Sanders’ foreign policy views.
– I’ve just finished reading an unsettling book detailing the history of xenophobia in America. I learned, for example, that Ben Franklin used Trumpian language against German immigrants — and then lost an election to the Pennsylvania assembly, leading him to move to Britain for a decade. Time and again, already arrived Americans demonized the newly arriving — Irish and Catholics and Italians and Jews and Eastern Europeans and Mexicans and now Muslims.
And once here, a NYT story tells us, even school history textbooks reflect regional prejudices.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. If you want to get it directly, 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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Three days in Addis
You can’t learn much from three days in a country, but you can try to learn something. Here are my first impressions of Addis Ababa, based on walking 22 miles, talking to a few Ethiopians, and visiting both its Unity Park and its National Museum as well as its museum of the Red Terror.
First impressions count. Addis is a naturally beautiful city, built on hills at over 7500 feet. Wherever greenery has survived and the nearby mountains are visible, as from my hotel room, the city gives a warm and welcoming impression:
Walking in it is a different sensation. Vast areas are construction sites. Many of those are inactive, sometimes with 10 or 20 floors of reinforced concrete idle. I am told the uncertain political situation–Ethiopia is attempting a transition to multi-party democracy–has spooked some investors. Most of the active sites seem to be those with Chinese financing announced on placards reading “China Aid” or citing a Chinese bank or construction company.
The rest is mostly nondescript: small sidewalk shops (often without paved sidewalks) selling a bewildering variety of car parts, cosmetics, meat, clothes, and soft drinks, or larger shopping centers where the main tenant seems often to be a bank or finance company specializing in international cash transfers, in addition to shops selling cell phones, related paraphernalia, and other electronics.
Precious little of the city is more than a few decades old. The National Museum is showing its fifty or so years–frayed is not an exaggeration–but manages nevertheless to convey a narrative of pride in four directions:
- The Nobel Prize awarded last year to current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, whose medal graces the museum entrance hall;
- The Ethiopian empire, whose weapons, crowns, and thrones occupy the central position on the ground floor;
- The peasants and warriors credited with liberating Ethiopia from Italian and Communist oppression, who are featured in paintings and sculpture;
- The prehistoric origins in Africa of humans and non-humans, with due emphasis on the more than 3 million-year-old partial skeleton of “Lucy,” discovered in the Afar region of Ethiopia in 1974.
The labeling of the exhibits in the pre-historic basement is particularly well done and focused on gradual evolution.
A similar focus is apparent in the more politically focused and beautifully renovated imperial-era buildings of Unity Park. It is a sometimes kitsch oasis where the admission fee to the festival on the day I visited was enough to guarantee that only upper middle class Ethiopian families were tolerating the hour-long wait to get through security. Past the live lions, playground, and small pavilions focused on each of Ethiopia’s regions, I found at the summit the graceful palace of Emperor Menelik II, Emperor Haile Selassie’s throne room, and a gargantuan banqueting hall, all handsomely restored.
The restoration includes a narrative on the sides of the throne room strikingly similar in form to the prehistoric one in the National Museum: gradual and peaceful evolution. On one side, the focus is on Ethiopia’s main religious traditions: Judaism, Orthodox Christianity, Islam, and Protestantism, with connections among them underlined. This is also the emphasis in retelling the legend of the Queen of Sheba and her son (by Solomon) Menelik, who is said to have taken the Arch of the Covenant from Jerusalem, in a room behind the throne.
On the other side, the focus is explicitly on Ethiopia’s state-building process, with each of its rulers since the 19th century given credit, even the Provisional Military Administration Council (DERG)’s President Mengistu, who ruled as a Communist dictator from 1977 to 1991:
The DERG gets its full due however in the basement, which was used to detain and torture its opponents during the Red Terror of 1977/78, when 30-50,000 Ethiopians were killed for political reasons. There is a separate Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum in town where the gruesome period is more grimly documented. The genocide trials of 1994/2006 found 72 people guilty, but Mengistu escaped and lives still in Zimbabwe. The DERG also presided over the disastrous famine of 1985/85, which killed more than a million people.
Leaving middle class Ethiopia and the historical narratives behind, I walked the streets again, struck by the contrast between the all too apparent poverty of the beggars and the sense of relative security an obvious Westerner nevertheless feels, only occasionally interrupted by a half-hearted attempt to follow or pester.
Ethiopia is in fact one of the poorest countries on earth, even after a decade-long boom of almost 10% growth from 2007/08 to 2017/18. Poverty is far more prevalent in the countryside than in the cities. Here in Addis some tiny percentage of the population is enjoying lavish weddings (I am told it is “wedding season” right after Orthodox Christmas) at the Sheraton and Hilton hotels, complete with spectacular wedding dresses, half a dozen well-accoutered bridesmaids, and stretch limos.
I for one feel privileged to be here and hope you enjoy these superficial first impressions. I plan for better and more after the next two weeks, when our 16 SAIS masters students plus a colleague and I will be talking with lots of Ethiopians about their current situation and the transition everyone I’ve spoken with is anticipating, full of hope.
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