National aspirations v geopolitical reality
Some of us have worried about the Kirkuk “powder keg” for a long time. The fuse has now been lit. Preventing the larger explosion should now be top priority.
Kirkuk is a complicated place. Both Arabs and Kurds claim the city, not to mention the Turkomen and the much smaller number of Syriac Christians. It has rich, long-producing oil wells mainly north of the city. The Kurds took advantage of the Iraqi army’s collapse in 2014 to take the town, which had previously been more or less under Baghdad’s control. It’s governor since 2011 has been a PUK (i.e. Talabani-family aligned) Kurdish American, Najmaldin Karim. The Kurdish peshmerga have kept the Islamic State out under difficult circumstances.
Now Iraqi Security Forces and Baghdad-controlled Popular Mobilization Forces (or PMF, which are mainly Shia Arab) are trying to re-occupy key parts of Kirkuk: the airport, an army base, and oil infrastructure. Baghdad’s view is that there is no reason to doubt its legal authority to do so, as it has not accepted Kirkuk as a part of the Kurdistan Region. That region’s government (the KRG) sees things differently, as it claims Baghdad has refused to fulfill the constitutional requirement of a referendum in Kirkuk to determine whether it wants to join the autonomous region. Baghdad has in principle the stronger fighting forces, partly well-equipped by the Americans. But the peshmerga are experienced and capable, also having benefited from American support.
Baghdad is under enormous pressure to reassert its authority in Kirkuk because of last month’s KRG independence referendum, which passed overwhelmingly with many non-Kurds in the KRG not voting. Prime Minister al-Abadi, who in principle is more sympathetic with Kurdish aspirations than most Arabs, needs to prove that he is prepared to stand up for their interests. The PMF, which are at least partly controlled by his rival and predecessor Nouri al-Maliki, are spoiling for a fight with the peshmerga. The Iranians, who vehemently oppose independence for Iraqi Kurdistan, are no doubt backing an aggressive stance, though they have been visibly trying to mediate between Baghdad and Erbil.
KRG President Barzani insisted on the referendum, despite vigorous US, Iranian, and Turkish opposition. He claimed it was merely advisory and intended as an overture to two years of negotiations on the KRG’s borders and status with Baghdad. While he has talked of “confederation” with Arab Iraq, Kurds, especially the younger ones, expect better than that, despite the opposition of all their neighbors. Barzani comes from a family committed for generations to an independent Kurdistan.
The contest is between national aspirations and geopolitical reality. It will now be decided in part by force of arms. But violence begets other realities that neither the Erbil nor Baghdad can afford to risk. The time to stop the clashes between the Iraqi security forces and the peshmerga is now. Let’s hope the Americans can spare enough time from their own internecine squabbles over whether to allow football players to kneel during the national anthem to get two important allies to stop fighting.
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Peace picks October 16 – 20
- Iraq’s Political Compact and Its Regional Priorities | Tuesday, October 17 | 12:00 – 4:30 pm | Middle East Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (event held at SAIS) | Register Here | The Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Foreign Policy Institute and Conflict Management Program are pleased to present a two-panel symposium bringing together analysts, diplomats, and policymakers to discuss the domestic and regional challenges facing Iraq. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Joseph S. Pennington will provide keynote remarks. The first panel, titled “Status of and Challenges to Iraq’s Political Compact” will feature Rasha Al Aqeedi of Al Mesbar Studies, Abbas Kadhim of the Institute of Shia Studies, Bilal Wahab of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and moderator Randa Slim of the Middle East Institute. The second panel, “Iraq’s Regional Opportunities: Perspectives from Iraq’s neighbors,” will include Lisel Hintz of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Ambassador Feisal al-Istrabadi of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Indiana University, Seyed Hossein Mousavian of Princeton University, and the ambassador of Iraq to the United States Fareed Yasseen. The panel will be moderated by Daniel Serwer of the Middle East Institute.
- The KRG Independence Referendum and Regional Realities | Wednesday, October 18 | 3:00 – 5:00 pm | Turkish Heritage Organization (held at National Press Club) | Register Here | THO’s panel will bring together former ambassadors along with Turkmen member of Iraq’s parliament to discuss KRG’s controversial referendum and its regional outcomes. Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) controversial decision to go ahead with a referendum on independence from Iraq on September 25 created significant concerns not only for Iraq but also for the neighboring countries. Despite having close diplomatic and economic ties with KRG, Turkey made it very clear that the referendum would only fuel the existing instability and volatility in the region. Echoing these concerns, the U.S. also displayed strong opposition, particularly to the timing of the referendum, and worked its diplomatic channels to dissuade the KRG. The result of the referendum showed that the majority in the Kurdistan Region is in favor of independence. As the KRG leadership gets ready to negotiate an amicable split from Iraq, Turkey and Iran have already started taking various steps in cooperation with Iraq that are aimed at isolating the KRG. With parliamentary and presidential elections less than a month away, it is unclear whether the KRG will take these regional developments and realities into consideration. This event will feature Lukman Faily, Former Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, James Jefferey of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Arshad Al-Salihi, Iraqi Turkmen Front Leader and Member of Iraq Parliament.
- Achieving Growth in Contexts of Great Challenge: The Iraqi Private Banking Sector | Wednesday, October 18 | 10:00 – 11:30 am | Center for Strategic and International Studies | Register Here | A functioning formal private sector is critical for the reconstruction and renewal of post-conflict states. A formal banking sector is critical to a formal private sector and for achieving economic diversification. Banks are at the forefront of reconstruction initiatives in post-conflict Iraq—lending billions of dollars, making mortgages more accessible, and providing commercial credit. However, many challenges remain. Iraqi private banks are a case study in sustaining economic growth in a post-conflict context—one that can offer insights and lessons. Bank deposits and available capital from private banks in Iraq have more than doubled in the last five years. Even in a post-conflict environment, Iraqi banks must respond to “Basel III,” a set of global financial regulations that make lending more difficult. The banking system is also responding to global changes in technology and the management and utilization of new forms of data. Official donors such as the United States, as well as multilateral donors such as the World Bank, support the formal private banking sector in post-conflict settings. Panelists include Dennis Flannery of Citibank, John Sullivan of the Financial Integrity Network, Mazin Sabah of the Central Bank of Iraq, former U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Burundi Dawn Liberi, Denise Natali of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, and Abdulhameed Al Saeed of the Iraqi Private Banks League.
- Wartime Economies in the Middle East: A Look into Libya, Syria, and Iraq | Thursday, October 19 | 1:30 – 3:30 | Middle East Institute | Register Here | The Middle East Institute (MEI) is pleased to host Chatham House experts Tim Eaton, Lina Khatib, and Renad Mansour for a discussion on the collapse of central authority and its economic impacts across states in the Middle East and North Africa, moderated by MEI’s senior vice president for policy analysis, research, and programs, Paul Salem. In Syria, conflict has paved the way for illicit groups and new elites to control territory and generate revenue. In Libya, armed groups have captured state resources and infrastructure, developing lucrative funding streams. In Iraq, a well-established shadow economy continues to enable groups such as ISIS to safeguard their amassed resources. Such developments present significant challenges for the reassertion of state authority and are likely to have a lasting impact on the political economy of the states in question. This panel will explore the development of the war economies of Syria, Libya, and Iraq, examine the commonalities and differences in the three cases, and discuss the challenges of combating the economic power of armed insurgents.
- The North Korean Challenge and International Response | Thursday, October 19 | 3:00 – 4:00 pm | Heritage Foundation | Register Here | North Korea is an existential threat to South Korea and is developing a nuclear ICBM to threaten the American homeland. Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs are violations of UN resolutions and in defiance of the international community. The regime and its foreign facilitators continue to violate U.S. laws by misusing the U.S. financial system. The United States and South Korea are leading the international effort to curtail Kim Jong-un’s growing nuclear and missile threat through a combination of pressure, sanctions, attempts at engagement, and information operations. Washington and its allies must also ensure they have sufficient defenses against the spectrum of North Korean military threats. Join us for a discussion by U.S. and South Korean experts who will discuss the need for stronger bilateral relations in times of turmoil, the foreign policy of the South Korean Moon Jae-in Administration, and the policy options for sanctions and financial pressure. Panelists include Elizabeth Rosenberg of the Center for New American Security, Anthony Ruggiero of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Dr. Kim Young-Joon of the Institute for National Security Strategy, and Dr. Lee Hochul of Incheon National University.
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Beyond absurd
Others have already picked apart President Trump’s speech on Iran, showing it to be inaccurate, vacuous, mendacious, illogical and just plain dumb. Try Paul Pilar at Lobelog, for what will rank as one of the best critiques.
On the central issue–the Iran nuclear deal–Trump is illogical. The justification the President offered for “decertifying” the nuclear deal to Congress is the assertion that the benefits to the United States are not sufficient to justify the sanctions relief Iran obtained. That is ridiculous. Iran today would have a nuclear weapon (or two) without this deal. Blocking all routes to that end is precisely what Trump claims he wants and would be giving up if he decided to renounce it.
That he did not do. His bark is consistently worse than his bite, unless you are Puerto Rico, a minority, someone who needs health insurance, or otherwise disadvantaged. Instead, Trump threw the hot potato to Congress, without any clear direction on whether he wants it to impose new sanctions (hoping that will cause the deal to collapse) or just let things muddle through. Judging from his past performances (read TPP, DACA, Obamacare, and likely soon NAFTA), he’ll opt for trying to cause collapse.
For now, that is not the case. But this decertification ploy, empty as it is of any substantial diplomatic content, has serious long-term implications.
Trump has stabbed our European allies in the back. They regard the Iran nuclear deal as a big European achievement, for good reason. The EU3 (UK, France and Germany) played important roles in applying the sanctions that made it work, keeping the process moving, and getting it to a successful conclusion. They clearly intend to maintain the deal as long as Iran maintains its side of the bargain, which it is doing. Any move by the US to unilaterally impose new nuclear sanctions or otherwise renounce the deal will not make it collapse, but simply divide Washington further from Brussels and improve Tehran’s standing in Europe.
Trump’s failure to acknowledge the benefits of the nuclear deal undermines US credibility with both Iran and North Korea. In Iran, it hurts President Rouhani, who by all reports had a hard time selling the nuclear deal to the Supreme Leader. How would an Iranian who wanted a follow-on deal that maintained the restrictions on the nuclear program now sell that idea to the Supreme Leader (likely the next one, not this one)? The American President said this one wasn’t worth what he paid for it, so how could the follow-on be? Nor would any other country, let’s say North Korea, be prepared to strike a deal with the United States after it failed to maintain its part of the bargain, at least to the point of acknowledging well-documented compliance with a prior deal.
Trump is a bad negotiator who always considers his own alternative to a negotiated agreement and likes to bluster that he prefers that, hoping to get a better deal. But he never considers the adversary’s alternative, which in this case is to proceed to get nuclear weapons. Trump has already convinced Kim Jung-un that continuing in that direction is his best guarantee of regime security. I’d find it hard to argue otherwise. Yesterday he did a great deal to convince more people in Tehran, and maybe other capitals as well.
The global nonproliferation regime America helped to build has demonstrably slowed the spread of nuclear weapons for decades. If it survives the next three plus years, it will be in spite of the United States. That really is beyond absurd.
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What to do in Syria now
Ibrahim al Assil, a founder of the Syrian Nonviolence Movement, a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, and a nonresident fellow at the Orient Research Center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, wrote a notable op/ed for the Washington Post this week. Here is his email teaser, which he has kindly given me permission to publish:
Syria entered a new reality in the last few months. However, there are significant misconceptions that can alter the future of Syria if not taken into consideration. I’m writing to share my piece for the Washington Post today, titled Syria’s civil war is a long way from over — and here’s why that’s important. I discuss the ideas below:
– Assad has not yet won. What he has done is to prevent anyone else from winning.
– Syria can’t be stabilized under Assad’s leadership. The conflict will erupt again unless a political settlement is achieved.
– Aid to Syria should be sent directly to local communities and those who are in need. This will prevent Assad from weaponizing the aid, and it will ensure that the aid actually reaches the people who need it most.
– The military campaign is not enough to defeat ISIS. Without addressing the root causes that brought about the rise of the terrorist movement, any “defeat” is only short-term. The US should help stabilize those areas and support the civil society and local governance initiatives.
– The US and the EU should help Syrians start to rebuild their communities after ISIS while preventing Assad from cashing in on his Pyrrhic victory.
This to me makes a lot of good sense. It also runs contrary to US inclinations. President Trump has made it clear he wants to defeat ISIS militarily and get out, without taking any responsibility for the state-building required to prevent it from returning.
Self-defeating would be my term for that approach: it would allow Assad to attempt to retake, with help from his Russian and Iranian allies, those areas in the north, east, and south that are still out of his control, it would allow the Turks to attack the Kurds who have been vital to America’s success against ISIS, it would virtually ensure the reignition of a rebellion against Assad’s heavy-handedness.
Protecting the remaining opposition-controlled areas and enabling them to govern inclusively and effectively would, by contrast, illustrate to Syrians a realistic political alternative, counter the Iranian expansionism, and help to prevent a return of jihadi extremism. Too sensible by half for Trump, but a real option the US could be contemplating.
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It’s Friday the 13th
The week has already been tumultuous. President Trump has
- dissed Puerto Rico by suggesting it is not worthy of the Federal assistance Texas and Florida are still getting,
- thrown the talks about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement into chaos that threatens to cause their collapse,
- decided to withdraw the US from UNESCO because we owe the organization millions while demonstrating that he does not believe in the First Amendment commitment to press freedom that is a pillar of the organization,
- continued to threaten to decertify Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal while the rest of the world and his principal advisers have concluded that Tehran has met its obligations,
- issued an executive order designed to further undermine the affordability of health insurance for those Americans who need it the most,
- gotten into a spat with NATO ally Turkey that has eliminated visas for Turks to come to the US and Americans to go to Turkey, and
- prompted the Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to suggest, believably, that the White House is an adult day care center without proper supervision.
Even for Trump, this is an unusual amount of unmotivated and unjustified chaos. No American administration can manage this level of random acts of spite and provocation.
A few Democrats in the House have started to think about articles of impeachment, but that is the least of Trump’s worries right now. No Republicans have demonstrated any real interest in impeachment, or even in supporting a 25th Amendment challenge to Trump’s ability to perform the functions of his office. They are simply too frightened of sinking their own boats along with his.
The world is showing a good deal of maturity in dealing with the madness in Washington. Even Kim Jung-un for now appears ready to stop at childish name calling. The Iranians have indicated they will retaliate against the US if the President decertifies their compliance. But at the same time they appear ready to maintain the nuclear deal with the Europeans. That is smart: it will wean Europe from support for the US and weaken America in its efforts to stop North Korea’s nuclear program, making it harder once the Iran nuclear deal gets ready to expire to extend its terms.
I can’t really think of a lot more things Trump can do to weaken the US, but I’m sure he can. We are all waiting for his noon-time speech on Iran, which will enumerate a long list of its sins, but so far in the White House public affairs preparations there is no sign of anything more substantial. Trump is mostly bark and little bite. But a dog who barks enough will lose a lot of friends.
It’s Friday the 13th, but unlikely to be much worse than the days that immediately preceded it.
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Big nuclear danger ahead
Pantelis Ikonomou, a former IAEA safeguards inspector, writes:
The nuclear threat is at a historical high. The North Korean crisis and US President Trump’s intention to decertify the Iran Nuclear deal are the tip of the iceberg.
Neither the Treaty on Non Proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT), nor the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its safeguards inspectorate nor numerous United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions could stop the world’s nuclear race in recent decades. The number of countries possessing nuclear weapons (NW) increased from five, which are the recognized nuclear weapon states and permanent members of the UNSC, to allegedly nine.
While the rationale for developing and deploying of NW has always been national security through deterrence, hence war prevention, the prospects for maintaining global peace are thinner than ever before.
Just to mention some of the risk factors related to the major nuclear threat:
- There are currently about 15,000 nuclear warheads in the arsenals of 9 countries (about 14,000 of them possessed by Russia and the US), capable of devastating our globe many times. Additionally, the nuclear material stored under various security conditions in civil and military facilities around the world is estimated to be sufficient to produce 240,000 nuclear devices. As of end 2016, about 204,000 of these are under IAEA safeguards.
- The NPT is not applied universally. Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea are not parties to the treaty, thus not legally obliged to its restrictions.
- The majority of states in the international community are disappointed in NW states for not fulfilling their NPT commitments on nuclear disarmament (NPT Art. VI)
- The 2003 invasion of Iraq, the continuing North Korean crisis, and the up to 15 years limited Iran deal have revealed glaring non-proliferation shortcomings.
- The failure of the 2015 NPT Review Conference in New York indicated clearly the international community’s distrust in a fair (without double standards) enforcement of international nuclear law.
- In July 2017 the UN General Assembly adopted by a vast majority a NW Ban Treaty. It is a legally binding instrument towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons that will enter into force after 50 signatures and ratifications.
- The 2017 Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to ICAN, a worldwide coalition of NGOs campaigning against NW. Notably, the same award was given in 2005 to the IAEA’s staff and Director General, basically for the Agency’s unbiased and courageous statements failed to deter the invasion of Iraq.
In such an adverse nuclear climate there are two leaders with a finger on the button, Kim Yong-un and Donald Trump, who according to prevailing assessments have dubious nuclear decision capability. This is the fact that creates the highest current risk of major nuclear threat.
Regarding the tough responsibilities of a US president to decide on pushing the nuclear button in a matter of minutes, with no checks and balances by Congress or anyone else, Bob Woodward recalls (The Washington Post, 12 Nov 2016): «In 2008, after then-President-elect Obama was given one sensitive intelligence briefing at a secure facility in Chicago he joked, “It’s good that there are bars on the windows here because if there weren’t, I might be jumping out.”
A historic period not only for US contemporary politics but for the direction of global developments might prove to be the period 15 October to 15 December 2017. President Trump will apparently submit in the next few days to Congress for approval his decision to decertify Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal. Congress will either approve it or send it back with no action, for the president to implement, or not.
A unilateral decision to scrap the deal would mean that the US would not keep its commitments under an agreement reached not only with Iran but with China, Russia, UK, France and Germany and finally adopted by the EU and endorsed by the UNSC Resolution 2231 on 20 July 2015. Moreover, decertifying the Iran deal will mean that the US disrespects and disagrees with the assessments of the responsible UN organization, the IAEA, that Iran is in compliance with the agreement since implementation day 16 January 2016.
Such a decision will open Pandora’s box. Some negative consequences are obvious. It will cloud Iran’s nuclear and political future, worsen the North Korea crisis, degrade political and economic relations of the US with the other five agreement parties and the EU, and increase the international community’s distrust of the UN system, international law, and justice. It will also severely damage the authority of the world’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.
Mitigation and finally elimination of the highest risk factor related to the current major nuclear threat is the topmost task in any comprehensive nuclear security plan. It is therefore now a chief challenge to get the US to preserve global peace, in accordance with its leadership responsibilities.
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