Tag: Iraq
It’s not only Libya
A lot of people seem to be surprised that Libyans have taken up the cudgels against the Benghazi militias thought to have attacked the U.S. consulate there, killing the American ambassador and three of his colleagues. Readers of peacefare.net will not be so surprised, as I’ve repeatedly described the situation there as evolving in a positive direction, with a lot of appreciation for what the United States and NATO did to defeat Muammar Qaddafi. I wrote to friends Thursday just before the news of the uprising against the militias broke:
I’ve been there (in both Benghazi and Tripoli) twice in the last year. I certainly have never had a warmer reception as an American in an Arab country. Most Libyans, especially Benghazis, understand perfectly well that the U.S. and NATO saved them from Qaddafi. And they appreciate it. I drove repeatedly through demonstrations in Benghazi during the election period–there was zero hostility to Westerners. Ditto at the polling places. And ditto last September right after Qaddafi fled Tripoli, when I enjoyed a great Friday evening celebration in Martyr’s (Green) Square.
The Libyan transition has been going reasonably well, on a time schedule they themselves have set, with resources that are overwhelmingly their own. Yes, the militias are a problem, but they are also part of a temporary solution. There would be no order in Libya today without them. They guarded all the polling stations during the elections and eventually reestablished control over the consulate compound after the attack.
We’ll have to wait for the incident report to know, but I would bet on the attack having been a planned one (contra Susan Rice) by armed extremists associated with opposition to the elections and possibly with secession of Barqa (Cyrenaica)….The Libyan [political science professor] Chris Stevens met with the morning he was killed gave me an account of these small extremist groups, mainly headquartered in Derna, the evening after the elections [in July 7]. The state has, however, lacked the organization and force necessary to mop them up, which might in fact be a difficult operation. They are wise not to try until they know they can succeed.
They will now have to do it. We should be helping them where they need help.
It would be a mistake to take the uprising against the extremist militias as the final word. There is likely to be retaliation. What has happened so far is not law and order. It is more lynch mob, though no one seems to have been killed. We should not take much satisfaction from retribution. What is needed is justice, which requires a serious investigation, a fair trial and an appropriate punishment.
Also needed are reliable, unified and disciplined security forces: police, army, intelligence services. This is one of the most difficult tasks in any post-war, post-dictatorship society. Demobilization of the militias really is not possible until the new security institutions are able to start absorbing at least some of their cadres. Reform of security services and reintegration of former fighters are two sides of the same coin: establishing the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
It is astounding that the United States, after 20 years of demand from weak and failing states in the Balkans, Middle East and South Asia, still lacks adequate institutional means to assist in establishing foreign security forces that behave properly towards their citizens. We are especially weak on police, whose training and equipping is largely contracted to private companies that hire individuals who have never previously worked together and may have dramatically different ideas about what a proper police force does. The Americans are also weak in assisting interior ministries, since we don’t use them ourselves. I have little idea what we do assisting foreign intelligence services, since the effort is classified and has attracted little journalistic or academic attention. We have some significant experience and capacity to help with military services and defense ministries, but we could use a good deal more.
Police of course are not much use unless you’ve got courts and prisons to process the accused, along with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and prison guards. Not to mention laws, implementing regulations, legal education, bar associations and the ineffable but important “culture of law.” Installing a modern system for rule of law is a 10 or 20 year project.
The Libyans are facing a challenge similar to what we have seen in Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Haiti, South Sudan and likely several more places I’ve omitted. There are pressing rule of law challenges in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen as well as obvious needs in Bahrain, Algeria, Jordan, Pakistan, Nepal, and Burma (Myanmar). When will we recognize that we need a permanent capacity to respond comprehensively and appropriately?
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שנה טובה! لله أكبر
It is Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the seventh month, when Jews celebrate the new year and creation of the world. Don’t ask me how or why the world was created in the seventh month. I have no idea.
I’d like to wish a happy new year (שנה טובה, shana tova) to all my readers: it was a beautiful fall morning in Washington, one that belies the horrors of the repression in Syria, the murderous attack in Benghazi, the violence against American embassies, consulates and bases in Tunis, Cairo, Khartoum and elsewhere. We are fortunate indeed to enjoy a peaceful capital, one that approaches the November election with some anxiety but no real fear. I can write what I like, say what I like, publish what I like, worrying only about who might sue me rather than who might kill or arrest me. This is not my privilege, but my right.
I talked yesterday with a Venezuelan who left her country because of a well-founded fear of persecution and found asylum in the United States. She anticipates Chavez will win again in her country’s elections next month. I’ve seen her look of pain and longing for home in the eyes of Bosnians, Kosovars, Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians and I don’t know how many other nationalities. My immigrant grandparents never had it though: they were glad to leave places that are now in eastern Poland and Belarus for a better life, as they had previously left Russia, and likely Spain before that. My grandmother refused to tell me where she was born. When I came back and asked what her native language was, she told me (in heavily accented New Yorkese), “Don’t be smart. I told you I did not want to talk about that!”
I feel reasonably safe in predicting that the year ahead will see many more people displaced and unable to return home. Some will be fortunate enough to find asylum in the U.S. or some other decent place. Some may even adopt my grandmother’s attitude: I’m better off now, why should I look back? But all too many will not. They will suffer violence, brutality, poverty, hunger, thirst, dislocation, discrimination, abuse. They will fight for their rights, rebel against oppression, flee for their lives. If you believe the statistics, the world is a good deal more peaceful and a good deal more democratic than it was in the last century. But there are a lot more people and a lot of bad things are still happening to a substantial percentage of them.
Jews devote most of the new year to worship of the deity. The basic message is the same as the Muslim one:
الله أكبر
Allahu akhbar. God is great.
But it is not a god who creates the problems that lead to mistreatment of people, or a god who will solve them. Sometimes nature contributes with a drought, a storm, an earthquake or something of that sort. But most of the problems that still plague large parts of the world are man-made. Even worse, they are often made with good intentions. All the people I know who have committed war crimes can give you decent rational explanations of why the did what they did: to protect their own people, to prevent massacres in the future, to respond to provocations. Their reasoning often hides greed for money or power. It almost always requires that they not be judged by the standards they use to judge others.
So the part of this morning’s synagogue service I liked the best was not the praise of our common, much-praised deity, but this part:
When will redemption come?
When we master the violence that fills our world.
When we look upon others as we would have them look upon us.
When we grant to every person the rights we claim for ourselves.
שנה טובה الله أكبر
Happy new year. God is great.
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GOP critique: trade and Iraq
This is the sixth installment in a series responding to the Romney campaign’s list of ten failures in Obama’s foreign and national security policies. Here is a list of the previous posts:
1. Taking the Romney critique seriously
2. GOP critique: Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan
3. GOP critique: leaks and cuts
4. GOP critique: Israel and Syria
5. GOP critique: Russia and Latin America
I’ll likely do one more to wrap up.
Failure #9: Getting Beaten Badly By Competitors On Trade
Beating up President Obama about trade is difficult. It requires that you ignore a sharp increase in U.S. exports:
Exports of goods and services over the last twelve months totaled $2.171 trillion, which is 37.5 percent above the level of exports in 2009.
U.S. exports have increased for 10 consecutive quarters to a record high. This is one of the truly bright spots in the economic recovery.
Instead, you focus on the lack of new trade agreements and the hyperactivity of our competitors: 46 between the EU and China, nine signed by the European Union and 18 others in negotiation, 4 signed by China and 15 others under negotiation. You worry about the United States not being included in a non-existent Asian economic bloc, even though the United States is not in Asia. And you don’t give any credit for the three trade agreements the Obama administration successfully got ratified in Congress, after renegotiating them to get better deals for U.S. industry.
I don’t get it: how do signed trade agreements get valued more than actual goods and services exported? If it were the other way around, with a dozen trade agreements signed but exports constant or declining, would the GOP be happily praising Obama?
Failure #10: Putting Our Interests At Risk By Mismanaging The Transition In Iraq
Last but not least: Iraq.
The Romney campaign would have it that the Obama administration failed to negotiate an agreement that would have permitted U.S. forces to stay in Iraq after the end of 2011 to solidify progress. That much is true. The question is whether things would have been better with 10,000 or 20,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq. The U.S. military and the Iraqi military thought so. But popular and elite opinion in both countries was against it. No one but the Kurds spoke up in favor in Iraq. There was ambivalence in both political parties in the U.S. as well. The Iraqi government wasn’t willing to provide the U.S. soldiers with immunity from prosecution, and the U.S. government wasn’t willing to keep them there without it.
The withdrawal of the U.S. troops was not abrupt, as the Republicans claim. It was gradual and proceeded according to elaborate planning, meeting a deadline set by the Bush administration. It is true that “the day after the…withdrawal of U.S. troops, Iraq’s Prime Minister took worrying actions to consolidate power. He leveled terrorism charges against the Sunni Vice President, causing the Vice President to flee the capital and sparking a political crisis that continues to this day. Iraq still faces worrying insurgent attacks. And the encroachment of Iranian influence in Iraq is a threat to our interests in the region.”
It is not clear however that keeping the U.S. troops in Iraq would have prevented any of this. The growth in Iranian influence in Iraq dates from shortly after the U.S. invasion. George W. Bush, the never-mentioned president, deserves most of the credit for that. We had more than 100,000 troops in Iraq for a long time. Did that do much to stop Iranian influence? Iraq does still face worrying insurgent attacks. Would the United States have been better off with tens of thousands of its soldiers still at risk? What would they have done about the judicial charges against the Sunni vice president? I’ve been warned by people in the know not to assume that he is innocent, though I’m personally still inclined towards that presumption, until his appeal is decided. But how and why would U.S. troops have intervened against an indictment by an Iraqi court?
The Republicans think a military training presence and a new U.S. ambassador in Baghdad would fix all of this. There is no U.S. ambassador partly because they did not like the one the President named. Presidents don’t normally “install” ambassadors. They nominate them and get the advice and consent of the Senate before they are sent to post. Until that happens, there is a Charge’ d’affaires–a deputy ambassador–who tends to our interests. There is a substantial military training presence in Iraq still, though I confess I’ve found numbers hard to come by. I’ll bet on its amounting to a few thousand, with contractor support.
I agree that “Iraq is a nation in the heart of a strategically vital region where we spent much precious blood and treasure to protect our security and ensure liberty.” But it was high time that the Iraqis govern and defend themselves.
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No better way
Here is the dilemma: either the man I enjoyed talking with when he sat in Baghdad as vice president of Iraq is a murderer, or nine Iraqi judges have reached an unjust conclusion under political pressure. And condemned him to death.
Tariq al Hashemi is a good political conversationalist. A single open-ended question like “how are things going in Iraqi politics?” would open a floodgate of interesting information on who was doing what to whom, who was up and who was down, his party priorities and his view of other party priorities.
After 45 minutes or so of this one day I noted he had not mentioned the hydrocarbons law, which everyone in Washington thought was uppermost on his mind because he would want to ensure the Sunnis their fair share of oil revenue. No, he responded, that is an American priority. The oil revenue was in fact being shared according to population. His priority was to ensure the bulk of it went to the central government in Baghdad. He feared passing the law too soon (we were talking I think in 2007 or 2008) would put the bulk of the revenue in regional and provincial pockets. He was anxious to avoid a premature hydrocarbons law that would weaken the national government.
This was all very reasonable and logical, stated with occasional laughter and constant good humor. His staff had called an hour before the meeting asking that we arrive early. That is an unusual request–vice presidents are late a good deal more often then early–so I asked his assistant why. He replied that the vice president wanted to get rid of the prior guest. “Who was that?” I asked. The American ambassador as it turned out.
Of course the issues at stake are bigger than personalities and diplomatic chit-chat. The question is whether we have left in Iraq a system that can evolve in a democratic direction, protected by the rule of law. Or, have we left an increasingly autocratic system now capable of condemning an innocent man to death for political reasons? Friends in government tell me I shouldn’t assume the charges against Tariq al Hashemi are false. I once went to the wrong building to meet him and found myself among his drivers and body guards, who did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. They are the alleged physical perpetrators of the crimes he is accused of, or so I understand from the press reporting.
I’ve met a number of people later convicted–in courts more reliably fair than an Iraqi one–of war crimes and crimes against humanity. I know that you really can’t tell who is capable of such crimes. Some war criminals wear the ugliness of their crimes on their faces, but many do not. Almost all of them think their crimes are necessary ways of protecting themselves, their friends and their sectarian or ethnic group. Few people really embody evil. Almost everyone thinks such crimes are committed for good purposes.
I don’t want to choose yet what I think of Tariq al Hashemi, who has denied the accusations. There are allegations that witnesses against him were tortured. It seems to me he still deserves the benefit of doubt. There will be an appeal. If the verdict was unjust, there is no real reason to expect the appeal to be any better. But there is no better way to decide these things.
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Eid mubarak!
Today and tomorrow mark the end of the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during the day. Tonight and tomorrow night they feast.
It has been a truly terrible Ramadan in Syria, where Kofi Annan’s peace plan has died (along with thousands of additional Syrians) and the Asad regime has intensified military action, especially in Aleppo. Prospects are not good: Asad refuses to step aside and the opposition refuses to negotiate with him. We are not yet at Bill Zartman’s “mutually hurting stalemate,” when both sides see no gain in continuing to fight and decide instead to talk.
Egypt has taken another unexpected turn, with elected President Morsy taking over by decree the executive and legislative powers that the military had previously reserved for itself. He did it with savoir faire: previous military leaders were retired with medals and new ones chosen from just below them. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsy hails, and the military have reached a mutual accommodation, leaving Egypt’s secular revolutionaries out in the cold, which isn’t very refreshing in Egypt at this time of year.
In Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, the revolutions are looking a lot better. Libya‘s General National Congress, elected July 7, convened on schedule and chose as President Magarief, who promises to be a unifying figure. Tunisia is struggling to produce a constitution, with final approval delayed at least to April 2013 rather than October 2012. Yemen has made a start with military reform and is now embarking on preparations for its national dialogue, to be held in November and followed by constitution-writing.
Elsewhere counter-revolution is winning. Bahrain has sentenced human rights activist Nabeel Rajab to three years in prison. I wonder if he would have attracted more attention if his name were Pussy Riot. Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia have stifled any serious reform moves. In Iraq, Prime Minister Maliki has weathered political challenges and continues to accumulate power even as frictions between Baghdad and Kurdistan grow.
It looks as if the Arab awakening will continue mainly in North Africa, where it began in early 2011. While Libya has ample oil and gas resources, none of the other countries in which revolutions have come to fruition does. Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen all have serious economic challenges ahead. Syria will be an economic basket case the day after Asad is gone. If we want anything like democracy to prevail in these places, there is going to be a substantial bill to pay.
Marc Lynch has called this a cruel summer. It has certainly been that and worse in Syria. But those of us who have experience with transitions, especially in post-conflict environments, set the bar low. There has been progress elsewhere, even if halting and slower than hoped.
The big open questions are these: is Egypt getting back on track, or are we seeing a new, Islamist autocracy in the making? Can Saudi Arabia manage the succession to next-generation leadership without upheaval? Can the regional war that has begun in Syria be ended before it engulfs several other countries? Can Iran‘s nuclear ambitions be ended at the negotiating table, or will Israel or the United States attack?
No answers are needed today. It suffices to salute those who observe Ramadan with “Eid mubarak!”
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There is good news and bad news
The good news is that Iraq has lots of oil. The bad news is that Iraq has lots of oil. That was the main message out of today’s Middle East Institute discussion of “Iraq and the Politics of Oil,” moderated by Allen Keiswetter (who amiably noted that he served in the U.S. Interest Section in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein was the vice chairman of the Ba’ath party).
Iraqi embassy commercial counselor Naufel al-Hassan opened emphasizing the positive: the main focus of American interest in Iraq is no longer military but economic. Oil production, which supplies 95% of the government’s revenue and employs 100,000 Iraqis, is up to 2.7 million barrels per day. Reserves are the third largest in the world, production costs are very low, Iraqi refining capacity is increasing (from 340 million barrels per day to 567 now) and there is lots of natural gas that is not yet exploited. Iraq needs and wants increased international company investment and technology, which will require a hydrocarbon law that is already eight years in the making.
PFC Energy’s Raad al-Kadiri took a less optimistic view. Oil is, as a Venezuelan oil minister once put it, “the devil’s excrement.” One can even hypothesize that whenever Iraqi oil production hits 3 million barrels per day it means war, previously with neighbors but now perhaps internally. Iraq is politically more polarized now than at any time since 2003. The state is fragile.
This is raising difficult questions about federalism, with the Kurds wanting a confederal arrangement with Baghdad and the Sunnis now opting for regionalism out of frustration. National reconciliation has not been achieved. The government is dysfunctional, undermining investor confidence. Chaos in Syria also makes international investors nervous. Iraq has the potential to produce 3-6 million barrels per day within a few years, but doing so seems more likely to exacerbate political tensions than resolve them.
Denise Natali, the Minerva Chair at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies focused on Baghdad/Erbil relations, which have deteriorated even as Kurdistan Region Government (KRG) relations with Turkey have improved. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and KRG President Barzani differ on Syria. Iraqi Arab nationalism and resentment of the Kurds is on the increase as Maliki seeks a rapprochement with his Sunni Arab opponents. Nevertheless, no sustained armed conflict within Iraq is likely. Baghdad and Erbil are likely to muddle through with temporary fixes and without passing an oil law.
The State Department’s senior advisor on Iraq Brett McGurk emphasized lessons learned from his experience in Iraq, especially on oil:
- There is no substitute for sustained engagement.
- We have to have relationships with all the stakeholders.
- There is a real need for “prenegotiation,” that is informal negotiation before formal talks.
- Patience is vital.
U.S. troop withdrawal (first from cities, then two years later from all of Iraq) made it easier to settle oil issues, not harder, because it removed an irritant that aroused Iraqi suspicions. The failure of the 2009 bid round set the stage for a much more positive Iraqi popular and government attitude toward the international oil companies, which needed greater incentives to come into Iraq. U.S. priorities now include helping to mend Baghdad/Erbil relations, helping with energy production and export, facilitating regional reconciliation (especially between Baghdad and Ankara) and promoting transparency and accountability in the oil sector and government operations.
Asking the first question, I got on my hobby horse and wondered whether we would do well to focus on the direction in which oil is exported if we are concerned about Iraq’s political orientation. Most of its oil is currently exported through the Gulf and Hormuz. It would be far better to tie Iraq more closely to the West by exports to the north and west.
This elicited, to my surprise, unanimous sounds of agreement from the panel. I had thought they might tell me this was a pipe dream, given the parlous relations between Erbil and Baghdad. Instead they agreed this was a key issue. Even using existing pipelines, some of which need refurbishment, Iraq could export more than 600,000 barrels per day without going through the Gulf. There are real possibilities for increasing this amount markedly, but the Iraqis are hesitating.
The other big issue in the Q and A was Kurdistan independence. The panel differed, with Raad al-Kadiri indicating that he thinks the Kurds want it (though they have so far been willing to accept a confederal relationship with a weak government in Baghdad) and might do it if they could export their own oil without Baghdad approval. But a lot still depends on Ankara’s attitude, which is vigorously opposed, as a Turkish embassy representative made clear. But the regional trend, especially considering what is going on in Syria, is downward, and the whole Middle East framework may be coming apart. Acquiescence by Iraqis to the current political arrangements should not be mistaken for (permanent) acceptance.
Denise Natali thought independence was simply not in the cards and that the status quo won’t change much for the foreseeable future. Naufel Al-Hassan hoped that the oil issues, and consequently tensions between Baghdad and Erbil, would be resolved soon. Brett McGurk was not making any predictions.
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