Tag: Iran
Rumors of America’s demise are exaggerated
If you don’t want to be live-tweeted, don’t speak to a group in their 20s! My 5-7 minutes or so presentation at the G8 & G20 Youth Summits at George Washington University this morning generated close to two dozen tweets.
What I said, or should have said according to my notes, was pretty much this:
1. Contrary to what one often reads, my generation is not leaving the world worse off. It is leaving as a legacy a freer, wealthier and more peaceful world than the one it inherited.
2. But just because of that it is also a more uncertain world, where leadership is more difficult than when the United States and the Soviet Union faced off in nuclear confrontation. The demands made of leadership also shift in a more democratic and peaceful world, with greater emphasis on economic challenges and we hope less on security dilemmas.
3. Even if America’s relative weight in the world is declining by some measures, the much-rumored demise of America is greatly exaggerated.
4. The United States retains its inherent advantages: two large, protective oceans, two cooperative neighbors north and south, immense natural resource wealth, global military superiority, a dynamic economy and political system.
5. It also has other advantages that make it specifically well-adapted to the current world order: an ability to pivot (as it is currently trying to do, from the Atlantic to the Pacific) and a high degree of interconnectedness with the rest of the world. Anne-Marie Slaughter in particular has been vocal in point out how important interconnectedness can be.
6. Interconnectedness is an interesting source of power, because it works at both ends: I may be able to leverage my connection to you, but you may also be able to leverage your connection to me.
7. We need to learn to use this interconnectedness to strengthen each other, not to undermine each other, and to improve the world order.
In the Q and A, Barbara Slavin and I differed on Iran and Syria. I think President Obama is not taking military action on Syria because it would lose him Russian and Chinese participation in the P5+1 talks with Iran. Barbara thinks the U.S. is hesitating because of uncertainty about the consequences in a Syria with a divided opposition. We may also differ on Iran’s nuclear intentions, but writing about that I may get it wrong, so I’ll desist.
There were a lot of good questions, but the one that sticks in my mind is about how we will manage the rise of China. A great deal depends on which China rises. If it is an increasingly autocratic and militarized China, the task will be far more difficult. If, as suggested in recent remarks by Wen Jiabao (I was mistaken this morning when I cited Hu Jintao), China finds it needs democratic political reform to manage its own internal problems, things will be a lot easier.
Next generation: you were well-represented today!
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Is Iraq coming apart?
No, in a word. Not yet. While the press waxes alarmist, what is happening resembles nothing more than the usual government “crisis” in a parliamentary system: once the government loses its majority, it is supposed to fall. I’ve been through dozens of these in Italy. There is no reason to get too excited about it in a country that has a parliamentary tradition.
Of course Iraq is not such a country. This makes everyone–Iraqis and foreigners alike–a good deal more nervous about a government crisis than would be justified elsewhere. We all fear that in Iraq crisis will mean violence, which does not yet seem to have been triggered, and autocracy, which Maliki’s opponents were warning of even before the latest events.
What has certainly happened already is that Maliki has turned to Iran to help shore up his hold on power. This bodes ill, as it exacerbates sectarian tensions in Iraq by underlining Maliki’s Shia base and pitting it against Kurdish and Sunni forces. We can only guess what Maliki now owes Tehran for its timely effort to unite Shia political forces in his favor.
There is an additional problem in Iraq: constructing a new majority. Prime Minister Maliki has long governed with changing majorities, depending on the issue. This makes it very difficult for his opponents to construct a stable alternative. Maliki is not likely to want to leave office until they do so. In the event of a successful vote of no confidence, this could lead to lengthy caretaker status, with his opponents claiming of course that he is no better than a dictator who doesn’t leave office when he is supposed to.
Early elections are another possibility. Maliki’s opponents are not likely to want them. Maliki might do well–polls show him gaining approval everywhere but in Kurdistan. His opponents could end up losing cushy jobs and perqs. It may just be bravado, but Maliki is behaving with the confidence of a prime minister who doesn’t fear a new election.
Some Americans may claim that Maliki’s turn towards Iran would never have happened if Washington had only left troops in Iraq. The trouble with this idea is that Iraq’s democratically elected government did not want them. Insisting would have strengthened the Iranians and deprived the U.S. of its current stance, which is that of an interested but not involved outside power. That ultimately is a much better posture than the one the Iranians have got, which is deep involvement in Iraqi internal politics that is bound to cause resentment.
No, Iraq isn’t coming apart yet. But it could. We should be doing everything possible to prevent that outcome. Most important in my view over the long term is working with Baghdad to make sure that a substantial portion of its increased oil and gas production is exported to the north (to Turkey) and west (to Jordan and some day Syria) rather than through the Gulf and the strait of Hormuz. It was a mistake not to have made this happen during the eight years of American military presence in Iraq. But clever diplomats should be able to make it happen even now.
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Intervene now or later?
Joshua Landis, who knows the Syrian regime as well as any American, warns vigorously against military intervention: we’ve failed at nation-building elsewhere, the effort would be difficult and expensive, our military is overstretched, the Syrians are fractious. He argues further:
In all likelihood, the Syrian revolution will be less bloody if Syrians carry it out for themselves. A new generation of national leaders will emerge from the struggle. They will not emerge with any legitimacy if America hands them Syria as a gift. How will they claim that they won the struggle for dignity, freedom and democracy? America cannot give these things. Syrians must take them. America can play a role with aid, arms and intelligence, but it cannot and should not try to decide Syria’s future, determine winners, and take charge of Syria. If Syrians want to own Syria in the future, they must own the revolution and find their own way to winning it. It is better for Syria and it is better for America.
Convinced of the strategic significance of depriving Iran of its Syrian ally, Jamie Rubin takes the opposite view.
The rebellion in Syria has now lasted more than a year. The opposition is not going away, and it is abundantly clear that neither diplomatic pressure nor economic sanctions will force Assad to accept a negotiated solution to the crisis. With his life, his family, and his clan’s future at stake, only the threat or use of force will change the Syrian dictator’s stance. Absent foreign intervention, then, the civil war in Syria will only get worse as radicals rush in to exploit the chaos there and the spillover into Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey intensifies…
Arming the Syrian opposition and creating a coalition air force to support them is a low-cost, high-payoff approach. Whether an air operation should just create a no-fly zone that grounds the regimes’ aircraft and helicopters or actually conduct air to ground attacks on Syrian tanks and artillery should be the subject of immediate military planning. And as Barak, the Israeli defense minister, also noted, Syria’s air defenses may be better than Libya’s but they are no match for a modern air force.
The larger point is that as long as Washington stays firm that no U.S. ground troops will be deployed, à la Kosovo and Libya, the cost to the United States will be limited. Victory may not come quickly or easily, but it will come. And the payoff will be substantial. Iran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East. The resulting regime in Syria will likely regard the United States as more friend than enemy. Washington would gain substantial recognition as fighting for the people in the Arab world, not the corrupt regimes.
Both Landis and Rubin try to make the choice sound easy. It is not. What could go wrong with American intervention ? Remember Iraq and Afghanistan. What could go wrong if we don’t intervene, or if we delay? Remember Bosnia and Rwanda.
Rubin has conveniently forgotten that the Kosovo intervention that he cites as the right way to do things did eventually involve American boots on the ground. Units of the National Guard are still there 13 years later. But he is right that a successful intervention resulting in a pro-Western Syria would reduce Iran’s influence. If you don’t count firefights among militias at the international airport, you can count Libya as the kind of success Rubin would like in Syria.
The trouble is that an intervention without Russian concurrence, which as Rubin notes will not be forthcoming, would end the P5+1 talks with Iran and wreck any possibility of a united Security Council to deal with its nuclear program. If your primary strategic objective is not limiting Iran’s influence but rather preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons, preferably by diplomatic means, that would be a big loss. Intervention in Syria could even hasten Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capability.
Whatever the merits, I don’t think the intervention is going to happen any time soon. Neither does Bashar al Assad, whose speech to Syria’s puppet parliament yesterday gave no indication that he expects to face international intervention. He seems to have not even mentioned the Annan plan or the international observers (but I confess I am still trying to get hold of a full English translation). Bashar remains confident he can weather the storm.
I’m not certain he is wrong. Many people are saying that he will never be able to regain control of Syria because he is now illegitimate. But was he ever really legit? The difference is that the state he presided over, which once more or less functioned to preserve his hold on power, is now broken, perhaps even failed.
There is little chance that Syria after the civil war in which it is currently engaged will be able to pick itself up, dust off and proceed peacefully to democratic rule, or stable rule of any sort. Those who hope for a “managed transition” are likely to be disappointed. Even a coup will not be clean and easy. Bashar could even stay for years.
But the day is likely to come when the battered Syrian state fails utterly. The international community may then want to intervene to prevent the civil war and refugees from overflowing into Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq. It may also want to prevent the slaughter of the Alawite sect that provides the foundation of the Assad regime, along with Christians and others who have supported Bashar and his father. If so, it will require boots on the ground.
The question is whether to intervene now, or later.
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This week’s peace picks
A relatively slow week with most interesting things concentrated in the first couple of days:
1. Disentangling Smart Power: Interests, Tools, Strategies, SAIS, 9-5 June 4
Kenney Auditorium
1740 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington DC, 20036
9.00 AM – 5.00 PM
9:00 Registration
9.30 Welcome, Amb. András Simonyi, Managing Director CTR, Aude Jehan, French Embassy Fellow
9.40 Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century: New Approaches in a Changing World
A discussion with: Bruce Wharton, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Public Diplomacy, Bureau of African Affairs
Amb. Philip Reeker, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Spencer P. Boyer, Senior Fellow, Center for Transatlantic Relations (Moderator)
10.15 Setting the Stage: Battleships, Diplomats, and Rock & Roll
Amb. András Simonyi, Managing Director, Center for Transatlantic Relations
11.00 The New Face of Public Diplomacy
Walter Douglas, Senior Visiting Fellow, CSIS (Moderator)
Tom Wang, Executive Editor, Science and Diplomacy, Deputy Director, AAAS Center for Science Diplomacy
Emilienne Baneth-Nouailhetas, Attaché for University Cooperation, French Embassy in the United States
Sharon Memis, Director British Council USA
12.30 Lunch Break
13.15 Smart Power 2.0: Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA
14.15 Combining Hard and Soft Power: Dilemmas and Opportunities
Mark R. Jacobson, Senior Transatlantic Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States (Moderator)
The Hon. Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck, Member of European Parliament, Belgian Minister of State
Amb. Kurt Volker, Executive Director, McCain Institute for International Leadership
Stacia George, Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow
Douglas A. Ollivant, Senior National Security Fellow, New America Foundation
16.00 Smart Power in Action: A View from the Obama Administration, Assistant Secretary Esther Brimmer, Bureau of International Organization Affairs
16:45 Closing Remarks: Daniel Hamilton, Director, Center for Transatlantic Relations
17.00 Reception
2. Gains in Afghan Health: Too Good to Be True? Center for Global Development, 12-1:30 pm June 4
Brownbag Seminar
**Please bring your lunch–beverages provided**
Featuring
Kenneth Hill
Professor of Global Health and Population
Harvard School of Public Health
With discussants
Pav Govindasamy
Regional Coordinator for Anglophone Africa and Asia
ICF International
Mohammad Hafiz Rasooly
Technical Advisor, Afghan Public Health Institute
Ministry of Public Health Afghanistan
Hosted by
Victoria Fan
Research Fellow
Center for Global Development
The results of the 2010 Afghanistan Mortality Survey were hailed as showing dramatic declines in child and maternal mortality when they first became available last year. Afghan surveyors in all 34 provinces brought back data suggesting that life expectancy at birth is now 62 years. Child mortality under age 5 dropped to 10 percent. Of 100,000 live births, the maternal mortality number was down to 327. However, more detailed examination of the results has raised questions about their accuracy. In this presentation, Kenneth Hill examines data quality indicators and issues of plausibility to try to establish what can, and what can’t, be believed from the survey.
3. Inside the Iranian Nuclear Crisis, Carnegie Endowment, 9-10 am June 5
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, George Perkovich
Register to attend
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who served as Iran’s nuclear spokesman and a member of the Iranian nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to 2005, will discuss his new book providing an insider account of Tehran’s nuclear policy and negotiations with the international community. Mousavian will analyze the West’s current options for dealing with Iran as well as outline what a nuclear agreement needs to include for it to be acceptable to both the West and Tehran.
For over four years, Mousavian operated at the heart of Iran’s power structures before political tables turned and he was arrested and tried for espionage by the government of President Ahmadinejad. The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir is a first-of-its kind book that describes the history of the Iranian nuclear crisis and explains how to bring it to a peaceful resolution.
Copies of The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir will be available for purchase.
Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian is an associate research scholar at Princeton University. He previously served as the Iranian ambassador to Germany (1990–1997), the head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (1997–2005), the spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiation team (2003–2005), and foreign policy adviser to the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (2005–2007).
4. Sudan in Conflict, Carnegie Endowment, 12:15-1:45 pm June 5
Amb. Princeton Lyman, Amb. Alan Goulty, Marina Ottaway, Frederic Wehrey
Register to attend
Less than one year after the formal split between Sudan and South Sudan, the two countries are wrapped in conflict again over border demarcation, oil, and other issues. Both nations are also contending with serious internal turmoil in the form of tribal conflict, weak institutions, and mounting popular dissatisfaction.
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| June 6, 2012 | 6 – 8 pm | |||||
| Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Kenney Auditorium | |||||
| 1740 Massachusetts Ave. NW | |||||
 Can Sustained GDP Growth in Africa Lead to a New Future? The United Nations Association-National Capital Area Chapter (UNA-NCA) and the Africa Society invites you to a panel discussion on economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The World Bank recently reported that in eight of the last ten years Sub-Saharan growth has been faster than East Asia. With an average of 5% GDP growth, amid a global financial crisis, “Africa could be on the brink of an economic take-off, much like China was 30 years ago and India 20 years ago.” Can this record GDP growth provide substantial poverty reduction and positive change in the lives of everyday Africans? Anthony Carroll, Vice President, has 20 years of experience as a corporate lawyer and business advisor in the areas of international trade and investment, with a particular focus on the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. He possesses an extensive background in intellectual property law, first as an in-house lawyer with a venture capital firm specializing in high tech investment, and more recently as an adviser to the international pharmaceutical industry and sovereign and regional governments on TRIPs and WTO accession. Panelists: Volker Treichel has been a Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank since December 2010. From 2007, he was the Lead Economist for Nigeria. He also led the first subnational Development Policy Operation in sub-Saharan Africa in Lagos State as well as the initial engagement with the Niger Delta. Prior to 2007, Volker was at the IMF, including as mission chief for Togo and resident representative in Albania. Dr. Susan Lund is the director of research and a Washington, D.C. partner at the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), McKinsey’s business and economics research arm. Her research focuses on global financial markets, labor markets, and on economic growth. Recent reports have looked at shifting pools of global wealth and the rise of emerging market investors, prospects for US job creation and the future of work, and the long-term growth prospects for African economies. Dr. Ezra Suruma is a Senior Adviser to the President of Uganda on Finance and Economic Planning. Dr. Suruma is a former visiting fellow with the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution. While at Brookings, his work focused on governmental and financial institutions and its impact on stability and economic growth. |
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| Add Event To My Calendar | |||||
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The Syrian people still hold the key to Syria
Randa Slim writes:
During the recent discussions in Baghdad between the global powers and Iran, the United States rejected an Iranian proposal to add Syria and Bahrain to the discussion agenda. It might be worth pursuing this proposal at the next round of talks in Moscow. Time and again, Iranian senior officials have stressed the need for a political resolution to the Syrian crisis. They have been reaching out to different groups in the Syrian opposition. As the Western community keeps searching for a political solution in Syria, Iran might have some ideas about how to bring it about.
Iran will no doubt have ideas about Syria, but they won’t be ideas that Bashar al Assad’s opposition (or I) will like. The Iranians will want to get in Syria compensation for whatever they give the P5+1 (that’s the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany) on nuclear issues.
Bahrain is a red herring. The Iranians don’t really expect the Americans to yield anything there, because it hosts the American Fifth Fleet. But the refusal of the Americans to yield to the Shia majority in Bahrain is a good analogy from Iran’s perspective to Tehran’s refusal to yield to the Sunni majority in Syria. Tehran will want to know: if majority rule is good for Syria, why isn’t it good for Bahrain?
From the perspective of Americans sympathetic with the rebellion, it would be best to keep the Syria issue separate.
If the impending American election is what restrains President Obama from taking action more vigorous action on Syria, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney loosened the constraint a bit last weekend by criticizing the President for not doing enough and calling for arming the opposition. The trouble with that proposition is that it is already happening and won’t likely alter the balance much. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing arms to what the Americans think are reliable recipients. It is unrealistic to expect that the violent side of the Syrian uprising will win the day, but it can likely sustain an insurgency indefinitely.
The more important constraint on President Obama is the need to keep the Russians on board for the p5+1 nuclear talks with Iran. Any overt American military move would likely cause Moscow to scuttle those talks and leave the Americans with the unhappy choice of military action or nothing in dealing with the Iranian nuclear program. Stopping Iran short of a nuclear weapon is one of America’s top foreign policy and national security priorities. It is unrealistic to expect the president to put it at risk with a military strike on Syria.
The fact is that no one has come up with anything demonstrably better than pursuing the Annan plan for Syria, though Andrew Tabler’s suggestion of an arms quarantine against the regime certainly merits consideration as a supplement. The key to making the Annan plan work is moving Bashar al Assad out of power so that work can begin on a political process. The Iranians and Russians will do this once they see him teetering on the brink. He is not far from that point. I still think the best way to put him there is through nonviolent means, like the general strikes that have recently plagued Damascus and other cities. It is very hard to crack down on large numbers of merchants for not opening their shops in the souk.
The Syrian people still hold the key to Syria.
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Annan needs to keep at it
With the toll from Friday’s attack on the Syrian village of Houla mounting well over 100 (including dozens of children), it is tempting to denounce the UN’s Annan peace plan as a dead letter. The European edition of the Wall Street Journal this morning headlines, “Syria Massacre Upends Fragile Hopes for Peace.” Others are even more explicit that Annan has failed, and have been saying so for months.
That is a mistake. The UN observers Annan directs did their job at Houla, verifying the incident and assigning blame to the regime. That is precisely what they are there to do. Unarmed, they have no capacity to intervene with force. The Security Council yesterday issued a statement, approved by Russia and China, condemning the Syrian government for the massacre. Minimal as it is, that counts as progress on the diplomatic front. Weaning the Russians from their client, Syrian President Bashar al Assad, is an important diplomatic objective.
The clarity of the UN observers may push the diplomacy further in the right direction. Moscow and Washington are apparently discussing a plan similar to the Yemen transition process, which involved a resignation of the president and a transition guided by the vice president. I have my doubts this particular scheme is viable in Syria, but there may be variants worth discussing that would provide reassurance to the Alawites while initiating a political process that will move the country definitively past the Assad regime.
That is the essential point. It is hard to picture the violence ending and politics beginning without dealing somehow with Alawite fears that they will end up massacred if Bashar al Assad leaves power. That would be a tragedy not only for the Alawites but for the Middle East in general. Let there be no doubt: past experience suggests that those who indulge in abusive violence often become the victims of it when their antagonists get up off the ropes and gain the upper hand.
It would be far better for most Alawites, the relatively small religious sect whose adherents are mainstays of the Assad regime, if a peaceful bridge can be built to post-Assad Syria. They will not of course trust those who have been mistreated not to mistreat them in turn. This is where the diplomats earn their stripes: coming up with a scheme that protects Alawites as a group from instant retaliation while preserving the option of eventually holding individuals judicially accountable for the Assad regime abuses. It is hard to picture a case more difficult than Syria, where the regime has managed to keep most Alawites loyal and used some of them as paramilitary murderers.
There really is no Plan B. The Americans cannot act unilaterally on Syria without losing Russian support in dealing with Iran on its nuclear program. President Obama’s top priority is stopping that program from advancing further toward nuclear weapons. While some think the American elections are a factor restraining the president on Syria, I don’t think he is likely to change his mind even if he wins. Only if he decides that the effort to stop a nuclear Iran has failed will he be tempted to cut the chord with the Russians and lead a military response to Bashar al Assad’s homicidal behavior, thus ending Syria’s alignment with a potentially nuclear Iran and shoring up the Sunni Arab counterweight. But he would only do that in the narrow window before Tehran acquires nuclear weapons, not afterwards.
The observers are supposed to be laying the groundwork for a political solution. Their mandate expires in July. That is the next big decision point. Annan needs to keep at it for now, hoping that the Russians and Americans come to terms and open a window for a political solution that ends the Assad regime.
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