Tag: Arab League
Algeria: hoping for reform, not revolution
I missed parts of Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci’s presentation this morning at CSIS–urgent phone calls kept me out at the beginning and the end. But the overall tone was clear: Arab spring in Algeria will bring reform, not revolution.
The minister’s list of planned reforms included:
- the percentage of women in parliament will rise from the current 7% to 30%,
- judges (rather than the government) will run the spring elections,
- there are over 70 newspapers,
- radio and TV will be open to the private sector for investment in 2012,
- there will be increased transparency, economic and political freedom.
He was vague about reforms in the hydrocarbon sector and in the economy more generally. He also justified the rapid rise of imports as necessary to building infrastructure.
Asked about a possible Islamist victory in the elections, the minister said he was certain the military would respect the election results. He also noted that in accordance with the 2005 constitution, approved in a referendum, “those responsible Algeria’s tragedy” would not be allowed back into political life.
Big on non-intervention in internal affairs, the minister claimed Algeria is developing good relations with the new authorities in Libya and has improved relations with Morocco. On Syria, he noted that the Algerian who resigned as an Arab League human rights monitor came from civil society, not the government. Noting some cooperation from the Syrian government and some arming of the opposition, he thought the Arab League should continue its efforts with a view to a political resolution of the crisis.
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Bashar is right, there is a conspiracy
Bashar al Assad is right. There is an international conspiracy to bring him down. The United States, Turkey, much of the Arab League and many European countries want him out. They are providing aid and comfort to the protesters, though so far as I can tell no arms and little encouragement to violence.
The President’s response in his first public statement in more than six months is to double down, attributing the rebellion to the international conspiracy rather than to an international effort to force him out due to his method of dealing with what originated as a nonviolent rebellion. He is not being obtuse. He knows perfectly well what is going on in the streets. He is trying to survive by rallying nationalist Syrians, especially minorities that fear a Sunni Islamist takeover, against the internationals.
The big question is whether the protesters should remain nonviolent in the face of a brutal doubling down. My answer is unequivocal: yes. Self-defense would of course be more than justified at this point. But the use of arms by the protesters will enable the regime to convince its shaky security forces to use more violence, reducing the numbers of people in the street. This is precisely what Bashar al Assad is counting on.
Nonviolence, however, should not mean passive. The protesters need to increase their numbers. The Arab League human rights observers have played a useful role in reducing the potential for overt regime violence and thereby encouraging people to go to the streets. The protesters should be courting them and asking for more, not calling for their withdrawal. The protesters should also be courting the security forces, which can only be done if the protests remain nonviolent.
The Arab League on Sunday called for UN training for its observers but failed to call on the UN Security Council to denounce the violence and send UN observers. It is important that the January 19 Arab League meeting overcome the obstacles to calling for UNSC action. The Syrian National Council should focus on ensuring that it happens.
The continuing splits in the Syrian opposition are mainly these: secularist/Islamist, violence/nonviolence, international military intervention/no international military intervention. My own preferences are clear: I’d choose secularist, nonviolence, no international military intervention, the last because I just do not think it is going to happen. But in the end, what counts is not what I would choose. What counts is that the Syrians somehow transcend these differences. Benjamin Franklin’s advice is apropos:
We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately
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The limits of R2P
The Arab League, meeting today in Cairo, got it right: it is not their human rights monitors who have failed, it is the Syrian government that has failed to fully implement its commitments to withdraw from cities, stop the violence and release prisoners. More monitors are needed. Their withdrawal would allow the regime to intensify its crackdown.
Unfortunately the League failed to ask the UN Security Council to weigh in, a potentially important step towards a resolution condemning the regime’s repression of the demonstrations. It will be far more difficult for Russia to block such a resolution if the Arab League calls for it.
Is military intervention in the cards? I don’t think so, and I think it is a mistake for anyone to encourage the demonstrators to think so. One of their signs reportedly called for an alien invasion. Syrians are desperate and don’t understand why there is so much international hesitation.
This is why:
- Russian opposition to anything that might lead to a U.S. or NATO military strike against the Assad regime, which provides Moscow with an important naval base at Latakia.
- Chinese opposition, which likely has more to do with not wanting a precedent for a military strike on Iran, a major oil supplier.
- American interest in cutting back military commitments and nervousness about precipitating a civil war in Syria, where the opposition to the regime is still not strong and united.
- European concerns of the same varieties, especially at a moment of great concern about budget deficits and the stability of the euro.
- Anxiety in the region and elsewhere that military action could have unintended, negative consequences for Turkey, Israel, Iraq and Lebanon.
So, yes, of course we need a Security Council resolution that denounces the violence and calls on the regime to implement fully the Arab League agreement. It would be good if it also called for deployment of UN human rights monitors, either alongside or within the Arab League contingent. But it won’t be backed up with the threat of force.
Some will complain that responsibility to protect (R2P), the UN doctrine under which the NATO led the intervention in Libya, requires military action against the Assad regime. But responsibility to protect is a principle that applies in the first instance to the authorities of the state in which rights are being abused. How quickly, even whether, it leads to outside international intervention depends on the particular circumstances, which are not favorable in the Syrian case.
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Not time to withdraw the observers
The Guardian reports:
An Arab League advisory body has called for the immediate withdrawal of the organisation’s monitoring mission in Syria, saying it is allowing Damascus to cover up violence and abuses.
This is well meaning, but wrong. Here’s one reason why:
“I saw the snipers with my own eyes,” the Arab League observer says. Shocking, but not surprising. At least some the observers, rather than following the bad example of their Sudanese leader, are trying to restrain the authorities in Syria by saying plainly what they are seeing. Friday’s demonstrations, which the Western press thinks brought out as many as 500,000 people, were large and energetic precisely because the observers were present. Withdrawing them prematurely would be a serious error and give the regime another opportunity for a massive crackdown against reduced numbers of protesters.
No, the observers should stay, at least for now. They should be encouraged to go wherever the regime tries to prevent them from going and to document abuses, communicating as directly as possible with the world beyond Syria. So long as they function as the eyes and ears of the international community, their presence will encourage larger numbers of protesters and discourage (not end) the overt use of force against them.
The day may well come when the observers act more as a fig leaf for the regime than protection for protesters. But that day has not come yet. Withdrawing the observers now would encourage more violence–both by the regime and by those among the protesters who are inclined in that direction–and push Syria farther down the path towards civil war.
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The Arab League monitors improve the odds
Two things are clear about the impact of the Arab League human rights monitors in Syria: they have prompted the protesters to turn out in very large numbers, but they have not stopped the Assad regime from killing, which appears to be the only response the security forces can muster.
What we need now from the monitors is some serious reporting on what is going on. Initial indications are not good. Their Sudanese leader, Mustafa al Dabi, has already indicated he saw “nothing frightening” at Homs, where the security forces have been firing indiscriminately on peaceful protesters for months. Much as I share concerns about his background and qualifications, I still hope we will find a few of the monitors willing to communicate clearly and directly about regime abuses. It doesn’t have to be al Dabi.
At the same time, I am hoping we see a renewal of nonviolent discipline among the protesters. The Free Syrian Army’s feeble attempts to harass the security forces are provocative and counterproductive:
They will reduce the numbers of people in the street and allow the regime excuses for violence. I don’t like to see unprotected people who are standing up for their rights killed, but the toll will be far worse if Syria deteriorates to civil war.
On other fronts: the Russians are still stalling UN Security Council action and the Iranians are pumping resources in to help Bashar al Assad. There is little we can do to block the Iranian assistance, but we should take some satisfaction that they are being forced to spend precious coin at a time when their economy seems to be deteriorating rapidly. Their threats to the strait of Hormuz may even be an effort to lift oil revenue at a time of pressing need.
The Russians must be beginning to wonder whether their interests in maintaining their naval facilities in Syria are best served by supporting the regime. Contacts between Moscow and the Syrian National Council (SNC) last month were in principle a good sign. The SNC has to keep at it. It might also help if President Obama would tell Prime Minister Putin directly that Russia needs to get on the right side of history before it is too late.
Bashar al Assad is still trying to outlast the demonstrators. His odds of doing so have gone down with the arrival of the Arab League monitors, however serious their limitations. That is a good thing.
PS: This video purports to show observers running from gunfire, and the Syrian Free Army creating the excuse for the security forces to shoot.
PPS: And this one memorializes a brave soul:
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The strait of Hormuz: go around
Tehran has been threatening this week to close the strait of Hormuz if sanctions are levied against its central bank, preventing export of Iranian crude. I’m with Simon Henderson: the right response to Iran’s threats is rapid development of alternative routes. He long ago laid out the geography and suggested some options.
It is really rather extraordinary that nothing has been done about this in the several decades since the strait of Hormuz became a key choke point for world oil supplies and a major (and expensive) preoccupation of the U.S. Navy. America spends something like $100 billion per year on military capabilities to protect oil routes. Easily a quarter of that is attributable to the strait of Hormuz. A pipeline from the UAE through Oman that circumnavigates the strait, another through Iraq to Turkey and a couple to get Saudi oil out to the Red Sea are all that is needed to devalue Iran’s geographic trump card. Put one through Yemen and the transit fees will be enough to solve that country’s economic troubles for decades.
I find it puzzling that none of this ever gets done. I was in charge of our preparations for an oil supply disruption in the State Department in the mid 1980s. We spent a small fortune accumulating the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and considerable diplomatic coin getting a few allies to do likewise. We also got them to commit to coordinated, early drawdown, a policy that has been implemented several times successfully over the last couple of decades.
But somehow we have never managed to get oil suppliers to use some of their gigantic flow of cash to circumnavigate the strait of Hormuz. I have to wonder whether we’ve got a moral hazard here: we protect the sea lanes and guarantee that the strait remains open, so Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and others conclude there is no need to invest in the pipelines that would make the strait less critical. We are hard-strapped now and need to reduce many commitments. Some even propose that we withdraw entirely from the Gulf. That is a a flaky idea in my book, but it is perfectly reasonable to expect oil producers–and other consumers–to carry more of the burden of ensuring that Gulf oil continues to flow.
PS: Michael Rubin views the Iranian threat as a hollow because Tehran needs to import gasoline and American military superiority more than suffices to keep the strait open. But he neglects the economic damage that even ineffective military action in the strait (or anywhere in the Gulf) will cause worldwide. He also emphasizes Iraqi vulnerability, which would be significantly reduced if oil could be exported in larger volumes to Turkey.
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