Tag: Al Qaeda
That was a signal, not a Biden gaffe
If you’ve been wondering whether there are really secret talks going on with the Taliban, Vice President Biden’s “gaffe” yesterday is confirmation: “the Taliban, per se, is not the enemy,” he said.
This is not a change in policy, but it is certainly a shift in emphasis. When President Obama announced the surge of troops into Afghanistan two years ago, he made it clear we were targeting not only Al Qaeda but also the Taliban. We sought, he said, to reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government, on our way to disrupting, defeating and dismantling Al Qaeda. He added that “We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens.”
The lyrics have changed, if not the tune. Now we are talking with the Taliban, with help from the Germans, whether the Afghan government likes it or not. I am not hearing a lot of talk about respect for human rights or even the requirement to abandon violence. It would appear to be sufficient for the Taliban to foreswear support to Al Qaeda and give up on toppling the Karzai government. Here is the fuller context of what Biden said:
…we are in a position where if Afghanistan ceased and desisted from being a haven for people who do damage and have as a target the United States of America and their allies, that’s good enough. That’s good enough. We’re not there yet.
Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us. So there’s a dual track here:
One, continue to keep the pressure on al Qaeda and continue to diminish them. Two, put the government in a position where they can be strong enough that they can negotiate with and not be overthrown by the Taliban. And at the same time try to get the Taliban to move in the direction to see to it that they, through reconciliation, commit not to be engaged with al Qaeda or any other organization that they would harbor to do damage to us and our allies.
Note that the White House backed him up. This was a signal to the Taliban that there is a door to a deal with the Americans that did not previously exist. If, as is rumored, Afghan detainees at Guantanamo are transferred to Kabul’s control, that will be a clear indication that we think the Taliban ready to walk through. Confidence building measures of this sort are an important part of the diplomatic game. A prisoner transfer would help the Taliban to sell the idea of a deal to their cadres and supporters.
The road ahead is still not an easy one. The options for a real deal with the Taliban are not appetizing. And the reaction to Biden’s trial balloon suggest it will be hard to sell to many people in the U.S. What if those prisoners are transferred and then released, or they escape? That’s not something the Obama administration will want to see happen in the lead-up to a presidential election.
So there is still a lot of uncertainty and risk on the path to a negotiated exit from Afghanistan. But that was a signal, not a Biden gaffe.
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What threatens the United States?
The Council on Foreign Relations published its Preventive Priorities Survey for 2012 last week. What does it tell us about the threats the United States faces in this second decade of the 21st century?
Looking at the ten Tier 1 contingencies “that directly threaten the U.S. homeland, are likely to trigger U.S. military involvement because of treaty commitments, or threaten the supplies of critical U.S. strategic resources,” only three are defined as military threats:
- a major military incident with China involving U.S. or allied forces
- an Iranian nuclear crisis (e.g., surprise advances in nuclear weapons/delivery capability, Israeli response)
- a U.S.-Pakistan military confrontation, triggered by a terror attack or U.S. counterterror operations
Two others might also involve a military threat, though the first is more likely from a terrorist source:
- a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally
- a severe North Korean crisis (e.g., armed provocations, internal political instability, advances in nuclear weapons/ICBM capability)
The remaining five involve mainly non-military contingencies:
- a highly disruptive cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure (e.g., telecommunications, electrical power, gas and oil, water supply, banking and finance, transportation, and emergency services)
- a significant increase in drug trafficking violence in Mexico that spills over into the United States
- severe internal instability in Pakistan, triggered by a civil-military crisis or terror attacks
- political instability in Saudi Arabia that endangers global oil supplies
- intensification of the European sovereign debt crisis that leads to the collapse of the euro, triggering a double-dip U.S. recession and further limiting budgetary resources
Five of the Tier 2 contingencies “that affect countries of strategic importance to the United States but that do not involve a mutual-defense treaty commitment” are also at least partly military in character, though they don’t necessarily involve U.S. forces:
- a severe Indo-Pak crisis that carries risk of military escalation, triggered by major terror attack
- rising tension/naval incident in the eastern Mediterranean Sea between Turkey and Israel
- a major erosion of security and governance gains in Afghanistan with intensification of insurgency or terror attacks
- a South China Sea armed confrontation over competing territorial claims
- a mass casualty attack on Israel
But Tier 2 also involves predominantly non-military threats to U.S. interests, albeit with potential for military consequences:
- political instability in Egypt with wider regional implications
- an outbreak of widespread civil violence in Syria, with potential outside intervention
- an outbreak of widespread civil violence in Yemen
- rising sectarian tensions and renewed violence in Iraq
- growing instability in Bahrain that spurs further Saudi and/or Iranian military action
Likewise Tier 3 contingencies “that could have severe/widespread humanitarian consequences but in countries of limited strategic importance to the United States” include military threats to U.S. interests:
- military conflict between Sudan and South Sudan
- increased conflict in Somalia, with continued outside intervention
- renewed military conflict between Russia and Georgia
- an outbreak of military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, possibly over Nagorno Karabakh
And some non-military threats:
- heightened political instability and sectarian violence in Nigeria
- political instability in Venezuela surrounding the October 2012 elections or post-Chavez succession
- political instability in Kenya surrounding the August 2012 elections
- an intensification of political instability and violence in Libya
- violent election-related instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- political instability/resurgent ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan
I don’t mean to suggest in any way that the military is irrelevant to these “non-military” threats. But it is not the only tool needed to meet these contingencies, or even to meet the military ones. And if you begin thinking about preventive action, which is what the CFR unit that publishes this material does, there are clearly major non-military dimensions to what is needed to meet even the threats that take primarily military form.
And for those who read this blog because it publishes sometimes on the Balkans, please note: the region are nowhere to be seen on this list of 30 priorities for the United States.
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What is a normal relationship?
Here’s what the Administration would like you to know about Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki’s visit next week.
Maliki and President Obama will be marking the end of the more than eight-year American military presence in Iraq and the beginning of a new, more normal relationship between Iraq and the United States. That is how senior officials yesterday framed their version of the visit, which will include a Wednesday event at Fort Bragg to thank the military for its sacrifices. My suggestion that the President add a word of thanks to the civilians who have worked in Iraq was welcomed. The “end of mission” ceremony will take place on Thursday, with the drawdown of the last troops occurring sometime thereafter.
By the end of the year, U.S. troops will be out of Iraq, except for the “normal” but large defense cooperation office headquartered in the Embassy. A total uniformed contingent of 250-400 plus supporting contractors will be stationed at 10 Iraqi bases around the country. The continuing security relationship will include substantial sales of U.S. equipment, to the tune of $11 billion (including F16s). The Iraqis are fully capable of handling internal security. The U.S. focus will be on external security, as well as police “train the trainers.” The war is ending “responsibly.”
The normalization of relations with Iraq will be based on the Strategic Framework Agreement, signed during the the Bush Administration. The Iraqis are enthusiastic about implementing it and have repeatedly pressed the U.S. for a stronger effort. There are now eight bilateral committees at work. The Iraqis want U.S. help in improving governance and restoring their regional role. Iraqis want a strong state that transcends ethnic and sectarian divisions. Americans will continue to advise in their ministries.
Maliki is no Iranian stooge–he left Iran during his exile from Iraq because his Dawa party colleagues were being murdered. Even many of the Shia in the south are none too fond of the Iranians, whose influence is generally overstated. We can and will be helpful to the Iraqis in dealing with the Turks, Kuwait, Bahrain and the Arab League. We failed to line up the Iraqis on Syria in recent months. That mistake will be corrected. The U.S. will still have lots of leverage in Iraq: they need and want us for many reasons.
Iraq is a functioning multiethnic state (the echoes of the Bush Administration were noted with irony) that faces a lot of problems, including the territories disputed between Baghdad and Erbil and failure to implement the agreements on which the current coalition government was based. But the issues are being worked out through politics rather than violence. Maliki is frightened of Ba’athist resurgence and does not always behave like a democrat, but there are countervailing forces in the parliament and elsewhere that restrain his actions. He is no worse than Richard Nixon when it comes to rival political parties, or Franklin Delano Roosevelt when it comes to the constitutional court.
Iraq has tremendous economic potential, due largely to its oil and gas resources as well as its strategic geopolitical location. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is hosting the Prime Minister, and a good deal of emphasis will be put on commercial prospects (and also jobs, jobs, jobs, I imagine). The Iraqis will be vastly increasing their oil export capacity, not only through the strait of Hormuz but also to the north.
The State Department is ready to take over the mission in Iraq. It has developed its capacity for deploying expeditionary diplomats and other needed personnel quickly. The administrative and logistical challenge of supporting the big embassy and 13 other posts (10 defense cooperation and 3 consulates) has been significant, but the problems have been solved.
So what did I think of all this?
There is a good deal of wishful thinking involved, especially when it comes to the capacity of the Iraqis and the U.S. embassy to fill the vacuum the military withdrawal will leave behind. The State Department has repeatedly failed on police training; it would be refreshing if it succeeded this time around. It would also be surprising if there were not other hiccups, or worse. Both Maliki and Obama are running risks.
But I don’t think we are making a mistake to withdraw completely: it is what democratic politics and shifting priorities in both Washington and Baghdad demanded. Americans are having trouble with the idea of continuing the effort in Afghanistan. Iraq is long forgotten. I also think it is important to get U.S. troops out of harm’s way before we deal with Iran, a challenge that is now coming on fast. No military option with Iran has much credibility if American troops are vulnerable to Iranian proxies in Iraq. I trust the new configuration, which includes 14 sites at which Americans will be present in numbers, will be far more defensible than the hundreds (even thousands at one time) that used to exist.
I also worry about Iraqi democracy, such as it is (which is admittedly more than in much of the region). The counterweights to Maliki are still weak institutions. The courts and provincial governments are particularly feeble. His paranoia could well evolve in harmful directions. If it does, the Americans will need to be ready to coax him back to a less self-destructive path. Sunnis and Kurds should not be expected to accept a new autocracy.
The problem with the Iranians is not so much their clout in Baghdad. It is their more pervasive influence at the local level, especially in the south but also in Kurdistan. The GCC reluctance to engage seriously with post-war Iraq is allowing this pervasive influence to grow. Despite repeated Administration assertions that the Arabs are beginning to engage with Maliki, there is precious little sign of it. Getting Iraq on side about Syria is crucial, not only because it will discomfort Bashar al Assad but also because it will help heal Maliki’s relationship with Arab League states and put Tehran on its back foot.
Naturally nothing was said in this unclassified briefing about continuing intelligence and counter-terrorism cooperation. I assume there is a classified side to this “normal” relationship, one that will give the United States ample access to both information and opportunities, if they arise, to attack Al Qaeda and other terrorists. Normal means different things to different people, but to Maliki it would certainly include our providing information that would help him protect the Iraqi state and his providing opportunities for the United States to do in its enemies if the Iraqis don’t want to do it themselves.
PS: I should have included in this post a word about Arab/Kurdish tensions, which are not so much between Arabs and Kurds as between high officials in Baghdad and Erbil. The Kurdistan Region has good reason to be disappointed with the failure to implement many of the items it thought Maliki had accepted as conditions for forming his government. Baghdad has good reason to be upset that Kurdistan has signed an oil production-sharing agreement with Exxon, one that includes resources that appear to lie in disputed areas. But these very real sources of irritation are not manifesting themselves in military confrontation so far as I can tell. That is a really good thing. But can it last?
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Diplomacy imitates confused reality
Yesterday’s Bonn conference on Afghanistan reflected all too starkly the war. Lots of countries showed up, but Pakistan–certainly among the most important–did not. The Taliban weren’t there either. Iran was, but sounding out of tune with both the Americans and Afghans, who emphasized the need for continuing assistance and foreign military presence. Tehran blames the whole mess on foreign intervention. Afghanistan was looking for long-term commitment, not specific pledges. There was no progress on the country’s confusing current reality.
The best I can say for the event is that Hillary Clinton knows what is important: she emphasized rule of law, including the fight against corruption, and underlined the importance of being realistic about what can be achieved. Some might claim that these two points are mutually contradictory, but that’s the confusing reality.
I am surprised that the pressures for withdrawal from Afghanistan are not stronger than they are. I guess having an opposition devoted to “winning” gives a Democratic president a free hand to remain longer, if he wants to do so and can keep his own party in line. But it is hard to see how we’ll make it to 2014, when most of the U.S. troops are supposed to be on their way home, unless there is progress in negotiating with the Taliban.
No one seems to think that is happening, but I admit it would be hard to tell from outside. Negotiations of this sort go slowly and badly until suddenly they go well. It is worth trying, if only because success in is so important to rescuing the overall effort from failure.
Today’s sectarian attacks on Shia targets, which are unusual in Afghanistan, can be interpreted at least two ways: either there is a Taliban splinter group (or Al Qaeda) that is trying to wreck ongoing negotiations, or the Taliban have decided to widen their war in a sectarian direction, hoping to bring more chaos to Kabul and Afghanistan generally (one of the attacks took place in the usually quiet northern town Mazar-i-Sharif). More confused reality.
PS: The Taliban have joined in condemnation of the attacks. A Pakistani group with ties to al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami, has now claimed responsibility.
PPS: Those asking for the U.S. to complete the job in Afghanistan seem to me to be asking for more than we are likely to give.
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Next week’s “peace picks”
1. Looking to the Future of Pakistan
Event Information
When
Monday, December 05, 2011
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Where
Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map
Email: events@brookings.edu
Phone: 202.797.6105
RELATED CONTENT
Out of the Nuclear Loop
Stephen P. Cohen
The New York Times
February 16, 2004
Armageddon in Islamabad
Bruce Riedel
The National Interest
July/August 2009
The Pakistan Time Bomb
Stephen P. Cohen
The Washington Post
July 3, 2007
2:00 PM — Opening Remarks
Stephen P. Cohen
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, 21st Century Defense Initiative
2:10 PM — Panel 1 – Paradoxical Pakistan
Moderator: Teresita C. Schaffer
Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, 21st Century Defense Initiative
C. Christine Fair
Assistant Professor
Georgetown University
William Milam
Senior Scholar
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Shuja Nawaz
Director, South Asia Center
The Atlantic Council
Moeed Yusuf
South Asia Adviser
U.S. Institute of Peace
3:10 PM — Panel 2 – Pakistan: Where To?
Moderator: John R. Schmidt
Professorial Lecturer
The George Washington University
Pamela Constable
Staff Writer
The Washington Post
Bruce Riedel
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
Marvin Weinbaum
Scholar-in-Residence
Middle East Institute
Joshua T. White
Ph.D. Candidate
Johns Hopkins University, SAIS
2. Which Way Forward for Egypt?
New America Foundation
Washington, DC 20036
Egypt’s first parliamentary elections since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak began on November 28th. The vote for the People’s Assembly will stretch over six weeks into January 2012.
An outpouring of enthusiastic voters has for the moment raised a note of optimism in Egypt. Yet following days of mass protest over the military’s continued rule, state violence, and deepening political and social polarization, it appears that Egypt’s transition will be long and rocky.
Join us for a conversation co-hosted by the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association about the election’s impact, transitional prospects, and implications for the wider MENA region and U.S. foreign policy.
A light lunch will be served.
Participants
Featured Speakers
Randa Fahmy
Vice President, Egyptian American Rule of Law Association
Nathan Brown
Professor, Political Science & International Affairs, George Washington University
Nonresident Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Michael Wahid Hanna
Fellow, The Century Foundation (will have just returned from Egypt)
Moderator
Leila Hilal
Co-Director, Middle East Task Force
New America Foundation
3. Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East
A Book Launch for a USIP-funded study by Katerina Dalacoura
Wednesday, December 7 from 3:00-4:30
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Choate Room
1779 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest
Washington, DC 20036
The putative relationship between political repression and terrorism remains a matter of active debate in scholarly and policymaking circles. Based on investigations into individual Islamist movements and the political environments in which they operate, this study assesses whether the emergence of Islamist terrorism is linked to the absence of political participation and repression.
The U.S. Institute of Peace is pleased to sponsor an in-depth discussion with Dalacoura centered on her recently-published work.
Funded by a grant from USIP, the volume draws on a series of case studies that include al Qa’eda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Groupe Islamique Armé, Gamaa Islamiyya, the Jordanian and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhoods, the Tunisian Nahda Movement, the Turkish Justice and Development Party, and Iranian Islamist movements.
“Drawing on her deep knowledge of Middle East politics, Dalacoura powerfully challenges past assumptions about a simple link between democratic deficits and the spread of Islamist terrorism,” said Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Conceptually rigorous, empirically rich, incisive and searching, this is a major study.”
Speakers
- Daniel Brumberg, Chair
U.S. Institute of Peace - Katerina Dalacoura, Author
London School of Economics and Political Science - Dafna Rand
Department of State - Eric Goldstein
Human Rights Watch
4. The Arab Spring: Implications for US Policy and Interests
A publication launch and discussion featuring
Allen Keiswetter
Charles Dunne
Amb. Art Hughes
Thursday, December 8, 2011
12:00pm-1:30pm
SEIU Building, Room 2600
2nd Floor
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
*Please note that this event is not being held at MEI. An ID is required for entrance into the building.*
Thursday, December 8, 2011
9:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Grand Ballroom, 3rd Floor
Marvin Center, 800 21st Street, NW
To mark International Human Rights Day 2011, George Washington University, the UN Global Compact US Network, and the US Institute of Peace will host a one day conference on the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These principles, approved by the UN Human Rights Council in June, are designed to help business monitor its human rights impact. These guidelines clarified both the human rights responsibilities of states and firms and made them clear and actionable. Our speakers, representing business, civil society, the US Government, and academia, will focus on practical approaches to implementing the Guiding Principles (the GPs).
9:00-9:10 – Welcoming Remarks
Stephen C. Smith, Professor of Economics and International Affairs; Director, Institute for International Economic Policy, GW
Dave Berdish, Manager of Sustainable Business Development, Ford Motor Company
9:10-9:45 – “Why Firms Should Advance Human Rights: Manpower’s Approach”
David Arkless, President, Corporate and Government Affairs, ManpowerGroup
9:45-11:15 – Panel 1 – “Addressing the Problems of Slavery and Human Trafficking”
Brenda Schultz, Manager of Responsible Business, Carlson Hotels Worldwide Samir Goswami, Director of Corporate Responsibility, Rule of Law, Lexis Nexis
Jean Baderscheider, Vice President, Global Procurement, Exxon Mobil
Indika Samarawickreme, Executive Director, Free the Slaves
Moderator:
Pamela Passman, President and CEO, CREATe
11:15-11:30 – Coffee Break
11:30-1:00 – Panel 2 – “How Business Should Operate in Conflict Zones”
Bennett Freeman, Senior Vice President for Social research and Policy, Calvert Group
Charlotte Wolff, Corporate Responsibility Manager, Arcellor Mittal
Olav Ljosne, Regional Director of Communications, Africa, Shell Corporation
Moderator:
Raymond Gilpin, Director, Center for Sustainable Economies, U.S. Institute of Peace
1:00-2:15 – Luncheon Keynote
Ursula Wynhoven, General Counsel, UN Global Compact
Gerald Pachoud, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary General, UN and former Senior Advisor, Special Representative on Business and Human Rights
2:15-3:45 – Panel 3: General Implementation of the Guiding Principles Is it difficult to get buy in? Is it costly? What recommendations or roadblocks have you found?
Mark Nordstrom, Senior Labor & Employment Counsel, General Electric
Dave Berdish, Manager of Sustainable Business
Brenda Erskine, Director of Stakeholder and Community Relationships, Suncor
Meg Roggensack, Senior Advisor for Business and Human Rights, Human Rights First
Moderator:
Susan Aaronson, Associate Research Professor of International Affairs, GW
3:45-4:30 – General Discussion: What should policymakers do to encourage adoption of the GPs?
RSVP at: http://tiny.cc/guidingprinciples
Sponsored by Institute for International Economic Policy, U.S. Institute for Peace, U.N. Global Compact, and the U.S. Network
- Start: Friday, December 9, 2011 4:30 PM
End: Friday, December 9, 2011 6:00 - You are cordially invited to a book lecture with author Daniel R. Green for his new book
The Valley’s Edge: A Year with the Pashtuns in the Heartland of the Taliban Friday, December 9
4:30 PMThe Institute of World Politics
1521 16th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036 - Please RSVP to kbridges@iwp.edu.This event is sponsored by IWP’s Center for Culture and Security.
About the author
Daniel R. Green is a Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and is pursuing a PhD in political science at the George Washington University. For his work in Afghanistan in 2005-2006, he received the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award, the U.S. Army’s Superior Civilian Honor Award, and a personal letter of commendation from then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace. He has also received the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Exceptional Public Service Award and in 2007 served with the U.S. military in Fallujah, Iraq. He lives in Washington, D.C.
About the book
In this gripping, firsthand account, Daniel Green tells the story of U.S. efforts to oust the Taliban insurgency from the desolate southern Afghan province of Uruzgan. Nestled between the Hindu Kush mountains and the sprawling wasteland of the Margow and Khash Deserts, Uruzgan is a microcosm of U.S. efforts to prevent Afghanistan from falling to the Taliban insurgency and Islamic radicalism.
Green, who served in Uruzgan from 2005 to 2006 as a U.S. Department of State political adviser to a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), reveals how unrealistic expectations, a superficial understanding of the Afghans, and a lack of resources contributed to the Taliban’s resurgence in the area. He discusses the PRT’s good-governance efforts, its reconstruction and development projects, the violence of the insurgency, and the PRT’s attempts to manage its complex relationship with the local warlord cum governor of the province.
Upon returning to Afghanistan in 2009 with the U.S. military and while working at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul until 2010, Green discovered that although many improvements had been made since he had last served in the country, the problems he had experienced in Uruzgan continued despite the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration.
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Inching forward
President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen has finally signed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreement that provides him with immunity in exchange for turning his powers over to Vice President Hadi, who in turn is supposed to form a new government that includes the political opposition and hold new presidential elections within three months. This is good news, even if the protestors in Sanaa don’t like the immunity provision and are vowing that Saleh must be tried. Their unhappiness is understandable, but they are going to have to win some elections to get their way. I trust Saleh won’t hang around if they do. When the postponed parliamentary elections are to be held is not yet clear to me.
Yemen still has a long way to go. It faces continuing political protest, rebellions both in the north and in the south, an active Al Qaeda franchise, severe water shortages, declining oil revenue, endemic poverty and a significant portion of the population addicted to qat. But let us pause to thank Jamal Benomar, the UN envoy who helped negotiate the agreement and its signing, as well as the GCC for managing a difficult process and bringing it finally to fruition. Not to mention the Saudis, the Americans and whoever else deserves some of the credit.
Meanwhile Egypt is in big trouble. Its military government is clearly reaching the end of its useful life span as both Islamists and secularists have taken once again to the streets for the past week to protest its abuses and push for a quicker turnover of authority to civilians. The authorities (it sounds more like the Interior Ministry and not the Defense Ministry to me) responded with clearly excessive police and secret service violence. While some commentators have called as a result for postponement of the November 28 start to parliamentary elections, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is planning to go ahead and possibly to accelerate holding of presidential elections.
I won’t try to second-guess Egyptians on when they should go to the polls. I would only note that the important thing, as son Adam Serwer said to me this morning, is that these be only the first elections and that once the new constitution is in place new elections should be held in a timely way. Secularist Egyptians tremble at the prospect of an Islamist victory, but this is an illiberal sentiment, as Marina Ottaway has underlined. The focus needs to be on putting into place a democratic system, one that can survive any election outcome and offer a next opportunity for those who lose the first polls.
Meanwhile, publication of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (Bassiouni) report on the February/March violence in Bahrain is providing a boost to the protest movement there. King Hamad has acknowledged the excessive use of force and promised prosecutions and reforms. This could represent a major turn in the Sunni monarchy’s attitude, which for months has inclined toward the more repressive, anti-Shia end of the spectrum. In any event, the report finds no Iranian role in the initial protests and thereby removes the monarchy’s main excuse for its hard crackdown.
I don’t know whether to count as progress France’s apparent move towards consideration of military intervention in Syria. Humanitarian corridors and human rights monitors without Damascus’ agreement are nonsense. I am all for asking Bashar al Assad to cooperate in such efforts, knowing full well he is likely to refuse. But there is no way even to begin talking about a non-permissive intervention without triggering more violence. A false Western promise to help Syrians would be a cruel and destructive trick on people who are already suffering far too much. Instead we need to think about how to help them sustain a protest effort that is flagging due to regime repression. Syria still has a long, hard role ahead.
PS: For one version of the Tahrir protesters’ demands from yesterday, see here.
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