Tag: Iraq
Peace picks, November 18-22
DC’s top events of the week:
1. Oil Security and the US Military Commitment to the Persian Gulf
Monday, November 18 | 9:00am – 2:30pm
George Washington University Elliott School, 1957 E Street NW, Lindner Family Commons Room 602
9:00-9:20: Introduction
Charles Glaser, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
9:30-11:00: Threats to U.S. Oil Security in the Gulf: Past, Present and Future
Salim Yaqub, University of California-Santa Barbara
Thomas Lippman, Middle East Institute
Joshua Rovner, Southern Methodist University
Chair: Rosemary Kelanic, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
11:15-12:15: The Economic Stakes: Oil Shocks and Military Costs
Eugene Gholz, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas-Austin
Kenneth Vincent, George Washington University
Chair: Charles Glaser, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
12:45-2:15: Possibilities for U.S. Grand Strategy in the Persian Gulf
Daniel Byman, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Caitlin Talmadge, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
Rosemary Kelanic, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
Chair: Charles Glaser, Elliott School of International Affairs, GWU
The U.S. strategic objective of protecting Persian Gulf oil has generated little controversy since the Gulf became a focus of U.S. military deployments over three decades ago. This may seem unsurprising given the widely-appreciated importance of oil to the global economy. Nevertheless, quite dramatic changes have occurred in the regional balance of power, the nature of security threats, and the global oil market since the U.S. made its commitment-raising the possibility that the U.S. role should be revisited. This conference examines two critical questions for U.S. grand strategy in the Gulf. First, should the United States continue to rely on military capabilities to preserve the flow of Persian Gulf oil? Second, if the U.S. security commitment remains strategically sound, what military posture should U.S. forces adopt? The conference panels examine the key rationales driving current U.S. policies, the costs and benefits of alternative approaches, and options for revising the U.S. military stance in the region.
Lunch will be served.
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Human ingenuity rises to the challenge
David Dunford and Ghassan Muhsin’s Talking to Strangers: The Struggle to Rebuild Iraq’s Foreign Ministry tells an important tale: how people from different cultures and life experiences can come together to reconstruct a state collapsed by autocracy and war. It isn’t easy. The first several chapters are devoted to David’s tussles with American bureaucracy and bad manners as well as Ghassan’s with Saddam Hussein’s bureaucracy and thuggish habits. It is notable, a perhaps unintended irony of their title, that the two often had an easier time talking to each other than to their own compatriots.
The two former foreign service officers, one American and the other Iraqi, got together in Baghad in the spring of 2003 to rebuild Iraq’s foreign ministry. It is then that the ill-fated retired general Jay Garner, head of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), realized that the most important part of his mission, civil administration, was left out of the office’s name. Dunford, who worked for Garner, and Ghassan nonetheless got busy, with a minimum of guidance and resources. Even a place to sit and internet connections were problematic. Communications difficulties plagued their courageous efforts. Read more
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Peace picks, November 11-15
The Federal government is closed Monday for Veterans Day but the rest of the week has lots of peace and war events. The Middle East Institute Conference (last item) is not to be missed:
1. How to Turn Russia Against Assad
Tuesday, November 12th, 2013
6:00pm
Rome Building, Room 806
1619 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20037
Samuel Charap
Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia, IISS
Jeremy Shapiro
Visiting Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program, Brookings Institution
Chair: Dana Allin
Editor of Survival and Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Affairs, IISS
A light reception will follow
No RSVP Required
For More Information, Contact SAISEES@jhu.edu or events-washington@iiss.org
Samuel Charap is the Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in the IISS–US in Washington, DC. Prior to joining the Institute, Samuel was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow at the US Department of State, serving as Senior Advisor to the Acting Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security and on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff.
Jeremy Shapiro is a visiting fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. Prior to re-joining Brookings, he was a member of the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff, where he advised the secretary of state on U.S. policy in North Africa and the Levant. He was also the senior advisor to Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon, providing strategic guidance on a wide variety of U.S.-European foreign policy issues. Read more
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More Righting the Balance
Sarah Saleeb’s writeup of the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute Righting the Balance event Thursday evening makes me acutely aware that I did not do a good enough job distinguishing between the State Department and AID as institutions and the people who staff them. My thought experiment concerns the institutions, not the people. I never intended to suggest we throw all of those babies out with the bath water. –DPS
Carla Freeman opened the discussion calling this a “timely and provocative book”.
Daniel Serwer, author of Righting the Balance: How You Can Help Protect America, opened his comments by expressing his respect for the work that the State Department does, particularly the Foreign Service officers who carry out that work. However, he sees two imbalance in the way the US carries out its foreign relations. The civilians do not have sufficient support. So the military has been making up for civilian deficiencies. In Iraq and Afghanistan there were many examples of the military stepping in for civilians. Unless the US is willing to fight endless wars, it needs civilians who can help prevent the collapse of states and promote reforms before the need for military intervention. This is something that the US failed to do in the Arab world.
Serwer outlined five major things that the State Department and USAID are lacking: Read more
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Peace picks, November 4-8
Apologies for the late posting (DPS):
The upcoming week’s top events:
1. Responding to the Rebalance: ASEAN between China and the US
Monday, November 4 | 12:00pm – 1:30pm
East-West Center, Sixth Floor Conference Room, 1819 L Street NW
An Asia-Pacific Security Seminar featuring:
Mr. Julio Amador III
2013 Asia Studies Visiting Fellow, East-West Center in Washington
Foreign Affairs Research Specialist, Philippines’ Foreign Service Institute
Dr. Charmaine Misalucha (Discussant)
Assistant Professor, De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines
The rebalancing of the United States to Asia in an effort to stem China’s surge in regional leadership has placed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in a difficult position. While ASEAN recognizes China as one of its most important Dialogue Partners, the regional association’s members have always recognized that the US plays a special role in the Asia Pacific as the guarantor of security. Meanwhile, China and the US are set on a rivalry that, while not officially acknowledged, is apparent to observers in Southeast Asia. Within this context, how is ASEAN as a regional organization dealing with Chinese-American rivalry?
Mr. Julio Amador III will describe regional perspectives about the direction of ASEAN in the context of the US Rebalance. He will discuss the tensions in the South China Sea as the backdrop for the rivalry between China and the US, and ASEAN’s subsequent attempts at autonomy in settling the issue. He will also assess ASEAN’s internal dynamics and describe how member-states attempt to form a regional consensus while maintaining their national strategic interests. While China and the US contend for primacy in the region, ASEAN still has a role to play, but only if it is willing to move beyond the narrow strategic limits set by its member states.
This program will be off-the-record; thank you for your cooperation.
A light luncheon will be served.
Julio Amador III is an Asia Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington and a Fulbright Scholar at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He is on leave as a Foreign Affairs Research Specialist at the Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies (CIRSS) of the Philippines’ Foreign Service Institute. He provides policy analysis and strategic advice on ASEAN issues, Southeast Asia security and international relations, and foreign policy to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Amador has held numerous fellowships in the United States, Europe, and Australia.
Dr. Charmaine Misalucha is currently a US-ASEAN Fulbright Fellow in the School of International Service of American University. She is also an Assistant Professor at De La Salle University in Manila, Philippines, specializing international relations, security studies, and the arms trade. She received her PhD in International Relations from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
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Maliki isn’t likely to take much advice
Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki completed his visit to Washington yesterday. He got a lot of free advice. He should govern more inclusively, he should be less sectarian, he should at last reach agreement on an oil revenue law, he should not use the election law to exclude electoral competition, he should address Sunni protest demands…. There was rare unanimity in Washington on what President Obama should say. I agree with a lot of these suggestions.
But I don’t really think Maliki will take much of the advice. After his last visit to Washington in 2011, he brought murder charges against (Sunni) Vice President Hashemi and chased him from the country. His visit before that sealed the deal for American withdrawal. And the one before that he signed on to the American military surge against Sunni insurgents.
Maliki is not about governing. He is about power. That means he worries about three things: garnering votes, political maneuvering and security. His now more than seven years as prime minister have seen a major increase in oil production and revenue, which are essential to everything else in Iraq. The government makes more than $100 billion in oil revenue per year. But other than that, there has been little progress on Iraq’s many social and economic challenges: education, healthcare, transportation, social welfare. Much increased electricity production still doesn’t keep up with subsidized demand. Read more
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