Tag: Syria
Fin de regime
My guess is that we are finally in the waning days of the Asad regime in Syria. UN envoy Brahimi was in Damascus yesterday and will talk with the Russians this weekend. His is sounding like a last ditch effort. Moscow has made it clear that it will no longer prop up Asad. Now they have to be convinced to give him a shove in the right direction. It shouldn’t be all that hard. Bashar’s military police chief has famously absconded, joining his foreign ministry spokesperson. The regime is cracking, though not yet crumbling.
This is a delicate moment in which a great deal is at stake. The devil is in the details. Brahimi is still pressing for a solution that jibes with last June’s Geneva agreement, which Moscow and Washington both endorsed, on formation of a fully empowered government with Bashar still in place. I doubt the revolutionaries will accept it. They want him out before agreeing to a ceasefire. Provided that condition is met, a negotiated transition of power to some sort of “unity” government (which means it would include a “remnant” of the Asad regime) with a guarantee of a future transition could be a good thing, provided it genuinely puts Syria on a democratic path and extracts it from the violence now on going. But it could also sell the Syrian revolution short by putting a new autocrat in place and creating conditions for renewed violence.
There will be precious little real international support for a true transition to democracy. The Saudis and Qataris, who have provided the bulk of the arms and money to the revolutionaries, are not much interested in anything beyond getting Asad out and installing a Sunni (preferably Islamist) regime, democratic or not. The Russians, Iranians and Iraqis will fear that outcome and want to preserve a secular regime, whether democratic or not. The Americans and Turks will want a secular democracy, but they are not in a position to insist on it. The Americans have been reluctant to get too involved. Only if Turkey decides to put its boots on the ground inside Syria will it have the kind of clout required. Even then, it may fail to get what it wants.
The Syrians hold the key to the outcome. But of course they point in many different directions. There are lots of Syrians who would prefer a secular democracy, but they are stronger among the nonviolent protesters than among the revolutionary military forces deciding the outcome. The Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, now recognized internationally as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, is trying to project a unified and moderate image. But the results so far are rudimentary: a few press statements, not always on the most pressing issues. There is still no transition government.
Jabhat al Nusra, a leading Islamist group among the fighters, is producing more substantial results. Rejecting the Coalition, it is anti-Western, Islamist, socially conservative and hard-fighting. The United States has designated it a foreign terrorist organization. Washington’s primary concern is its links to al Qaeda in Iraq, which Jabhat al Nusra denies. But I’ve also heard that the designation was done in part to please the Russians, who are genuinely (and justifiably) concerned with Syria becoming a source of Islamist extremism that could infect parts of Russia. Baghdad is also worried about a Sunni extremist regime in Syria that would try to counter Prime Minister Maliki’s increasingly Shia (and autocratic) drift in Iraq.
Few in Syria want the state to collapse or divide territorially. The revolution has not been fought on ethnic or sectarian grounds, even if it has exposed ethnic and sectarian divisions. Only Syria’s Kurds lean in the direction of federalism, inspired and supported by their confrères in Iraq. But I see no real plan on the horizon to prevent revenge killing, despite the very real likelihood it will happen. If there is extreme violence against the Alawites or other minorities thought to have supported the regime, collapse and division become more likely.
All decisions that depend on the will of a single individual, as Bashar’s to step aside does, are inherently unpredictable. There is of course the possibility he will refuse and hang on for a while, even defying the Russians to do so. A Google search for “fin de regime” turns up a lot of hits concerning Syria, in 2011. The longer this goes on, the worse it will be in the end.
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Prevent what?
Most of us who work on international affairs think it would be much better to use diplomacy to prevent bad things from happening rather than waiting until the aftermath and then cleaning up after the elephants, which all too often involves expensive military action. But what precisely would that mean? What do we need to prevent?
The Council on Foreign Relations survey of prevention priorities for 2013 was published last week, just in time to be forgotten in the Christmas rush and New Year’s lull. It deserves notice, as it is one of the few nonpartisan attempts to define American national security priorities. This year’s edition was in part crowd-sourced and categorizes contingencies on two dimensions: impact on U.S. interests (high, medium, low) and likelihood (likely, plausible, unlikely).
Syria comes out on top in both dimensions. That’s a no-brainer for likelihood, as the civil war has already reached catastrophic dimensions and is affecting the broader region. Judging from Paul Stares’ video introduction to the survey, U.S. interests are ranked high in part because of the risk of use or loss of chemical weapons stocks. I’d have ranked them high because of the importance of depriving Iran of its one truly reliable ally and bridge to Hizbollah, but that’s a quibble.
CFR ranks another six contingencies as high impact on U.S. interests and only plausible rather than likely. This isn’t so useful, but Paul’s video comes to the rescue: an Israeli military strike on Iran that would “embroil” the U.S. and conflict with China in the East or South China seas are his picks to talk about. I find it peculiar that CFR does not treat what I would regard as certainly a plausible if not a likely contingency: a U.S. attack on Iran. There are few more important decisions President Obama will need to make than whether to use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Certainly it is a far more challenging decision than whether to go to war against China in the territorial disputes it is generating with U.S. allies in Pacific. I don’t know any foreign policy experts who would advise him to go in that direction.
It is striking that few of the other “plausible” and high-impact contingencies are amenable to purely military responses:
- a highly disruptive cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure
- a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally
- severe internal instability in Pakistan, triggered by a civil-military crisis or terror attack
It is not easy to determine the origin of cyberattacks, and not clear that a military response would be appropriate or effective. The same is also sometimes true of mass casualty attacks; our military response to 9/11 in Afghanistan has enmired the United States in its longest war to date, one where force is proving inadequate as a solution. It is hard to imagine any military response to internal instability in Pakistan, though CFR offers as an additional low probability contingency a possible U.S. military confrontation with Islamabad “triggered by a terror attack or U.S. counterterror operations.”
In the “moderate” impact on U.S. interests, CFR ranks as highly likely “a major erosion of security in Afghanistan resulting from coalition drawdown.” I’d certainly have put that in high impact category, as we’ve still got 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and a significant portion of them will still be there at the end of 2013. In the “moderate” impact but merely plausible category CFR ranks:
- a severe Indo-Pakistan crisis that carries risk of military escalation, triggered by a major terror attack
- a severe North Korean crisis caused by another military provocation, internal political instability, or threatening nuclear weapons/ICBM-related activities
- a significant increase in drug trafficking violence in Mexico that spills over into the United States
- continuing political instability and emergence of a terrorist safe haven in Libya
Again there are limits to what we can do about most of these contingencies by conventional military means. Only a North Korea crisis caused by military provocation or threats would rank be susceptible to a primarily military response. The others call for diplomatic and civilian responses in at least a measure equal to the possible military ones.
CFR lets two “moderate” impact contingencies languish in the low probability category that I don’t think belong there:
- political instability in Saudi Arabia that endangers global oil supplies
- renewed unrest in the Kurdish dominated regions of Turkey and the Middle East
There is a very real possibility in Riyadh of a succession crisis, as the monarchy on the death of the king will likely move to a next generation of contenders. Kurdish irredentist aspirations are already a big issue in Iraq and Syria. It is hard to imagine this will not affect Iran and Turkey before the year is out. Neither is amenable to a purely military response.
Most of the contingencies with “low” impact on U.S. interests are in Africa:
- a deepening of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo that involves military intervention from its neighbors
- growing popular unrest and political instability in Sudan
- military conflict between Sudan and South Sudan
- renewed ethnic violence in Kenya surrounding March 2013 presidential election
- widespread unrest in Zimbabwe surrounding the electoral process and/or the death of Robert Mugabe
- failure of a multilateral intervention to push out Islamist groups from Mali’s north
This may tell us more about CFR and the United States than about the world. Africa has little purchase on American sentiments, despite our half-Kenyan president. All of these contingencies merit diplomatic attention, but none is likely to excite U.S. military responses of more than a purely emergency character, except for Mali. If you’ve got a few Islamist terrorists, you can get some attention even if you are in Africa.
What’s missing from this list? CFR mentions
…a third Palestinian intifada, a widespread popular unrest in China, escalation of a U.S.-Iran naval clash in the Persian Gulf, a Sino-Indian border crisis, onset of elections-related instability and violence in Ethiopia, unrest in Cuba following the death of Fidel Castro and/or incapacitation of Raul Castro, and widespread political unrest in Venezuela triggered by the death or incapacitation of Hugo Chavez.
I’d add intensification of the global economic slowdown (high probability, high impact), failure to do more about global warming (also high probability, delayed impact), demographic or financial implosion in Europe or Japan (and possibly even the U.S.), Russian crackdown on dissent, and resurgent Islamist extremism in Somalia. But the first three of these are not one-year “contingencies,” which shows one limit of the CFR exercise.
I would also note that the world is arguably in better shape at the end of 2012 than ever before in history. As The Spectator puts it:
Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.
May it last.
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Bashar al Asad’s apocalypse
I published a daring series of predictions at the end of last year. Very few were correct. The only two that came close were these:
Balkans: Serbia gets candidacy status for the EU but that fails to save President Tadic’s Democratic Party from a parliamentary election defeat. Kosovo meets all the requirements but continues to be denied the European Union visa waiver. Bosnia gets a new government but no constitutional reform.
United States: Republicans nominate Mitt Romney. Economy continues slow recovery. Barack Obama is reelected, by a smaller margin than in 2008. Al Qaeda succeeds post-election in mounting a non-devastating suicide bombing.
Even then, you’ll need to ignore the part about Kosovo meeting all the requirements (it hasn’t yet) and that last part about a successful Al Qaeda bombing in the U.S. (that hasn’t happened yet either). Is it an accident that the two places I know best were also the subject of my most accurate predictions?
I’ll rely on other people for my next big prediction: Andrew Tabler and Jeff White, who know Syria much better than I do, were at the Washington Institute yesterday predicting the end of the Asad regime within weeks, at most a few months. Even if the Mayan apocalypse hasn’t happened, Bashar al Asad’s will.
According to Jeff, the regime’s military capacity to defend itself is way down. Its air power, artillery and Scuds are little avail. Its large-scale maneuver capacity is declining, as are its numbers. There is fighting in 12 of 14 provinces. Regime armor and mechanized infantry can no longer move freely. The only potential major game changers out there are Hizbollah, Iran and chemical weapons. Iran and Hizbollah are not likely to risk more than they already have.
Rebel offensive performance is improving. They are taking objectives and interrupting lines of communication. They appear to be self-sustaining now in arms, their numbers are still growing, and they are capable of more sustained and coordinated action. The Islamists are playing an increasing role. Rebel losses are up, especially among commanders, but their recruitment stream is still strong.
Jeff suggest five possible endgames:
1. Province by province dismantlement of the regime, which has already begun.
2. Chaotic collapse of the regime.
3. Controlled regime contraction to Damascus or the coast.
4. A headlong rush to the coast.
5. Regime recovery, which looks unlikely.
Possible indicators the end is near: there may be desperate pleas for a ceasefire, evacuation of Russian nationals, senior defections or flight, military units abandoning the regime, a coup attempt and last (but not entirely in jest) burning papers at the Iranian Embassy.*
Andrew agreed. There is a marked deterioration in the humanitarian situation, with food in short supply, refugee and displaced people camps overcrowded and ill-equipped. The revolution is turning in an Islamist direction, in part because of U.S. unresponsiveness to its needs. Anti-Western sentiment is strong. It was a mistake to designate Jabhat al Nusra as a terrorist organization before recognizing the Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
The Coalition remains badly divided by sect, class, rural/urban and by personality. While the military and civilian leaderships have met and issued a joint statement, how the two insurgent efforts will be combined at various levels is not at all clear. The armed rebellion, with which the U.S. is not well-connected, is likely to be in the lead once Bashar falls. The U.S. should be sending arms, more to gain influence than anything else, as they are no longer needed as much as once they were for military purposes. We need to be ready also with civilian assistance, which has been too slow. The aid should be overt and direct, not covert and indirect, if we want to gain influence over the outcome. Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia may well move faster than we do, as they have with arms, with consequences for our interests.
It is clear Syria will need a lot of help once this is over. Post-war reconstruction has stumped the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it has boots on the ground, which isn’t going to happen in Syria. Working through and with the Coalition, which we’ve now recognized as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, to produce a decent outcome is going to be an an enormous challenge. Failure could ignite a broader conflict in Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Success would damage Hizbollah and Iran. This one is worth a candle.
*This morning I would add use of cluster bombs.
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This week’s peace picks
Slowing for the holidays, but still some interesting events.
1. The World in 2013 – Admiral Mike Mullen and Jessica Matthews, Monday December 17, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM, U.S. Carnegie Endowment
Venue: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036
Speakers: Mike Mullen and Jessica Matthews
How will President Obama use American power in 2013? Will the United States ever restore its fiscal health? And how can Obama ensure the U.S. rebalance toward Asia succeeds? Join us for an in-depth conversation between Admiral Mike Mullen and Carnegie’s Jessica T. Mathews as they discuss the foreign policy landscape confronting the president in 2013.
Register for this event here.
2. Book Event: U.S.-China Relations After the Two Leadership Transitions: Change or Continuity?, Monday December 17, 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM, CSIS
Venue: CSIS, 1800 K Street NW, Washington DC, 20006, B1 Conference Room
Speakers: Andrew J. Nathan, Andrew Scobell, David M. Lampton, Randy G. Schriver, Bonnie S. Glaser
Leadership transitions have brought new leaders to office in China while confirming President Obama in a second term: do these events portend change or continuity in U.S.-China relations? In their new book, China’s Search for Security, Andrew J. Nathan and Andrew Scobell argue that the key to understanding China’s foreign policy is to grasp its geostrategic challenges: despite its impressive size and population, economic vitality, and drive to upgrade its military capabilities, China remains a vulnerable nation surrounded by powerful rivals and potential foes. Even as the country grows and comes to dominate its neighbors, challenges remain, foremost among them, in the eyes of China’s leaders, the United States. The Obama administration, for its part, looks set to continue its policy pivot to Asia. The authors will discuss their book, analyzing China’s security concerns and how the U.S. can protect its interests in Asia without triggering a confrontation with China.
Register for this event here.
3. What is in Store for a Post-Asad Syria?, Tuesday December 18, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, Center for National Policy
Venue: Center for National Policy, One Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001, Suite 333
Speakers: Gregory Aftandilian, Mona Yacoubian, Joseph Holliday
With the end finally nearing for the Assad regime, the question of what type of government will emerge in Syria looms over the horizon. Will it be inclusive and tolerant of minority groups? Will it prevent retribution killings of Alawites? Will the Syrian state remain whole or will some minority groups like the Kurds and the Alawites try to carve out separate statelets? Join CNP’s Senior Fellow for the Middle East, Gregory Aftandilian, and a panel of experts to discuss these timely issues.
Register for this event here.
4. Is Peace Possible?, Wednesday December 19, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, New America Foundation
Venue: New America Foundation, 1899 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20036, Suite 400
Speakers: James Zogby, Lara Friedman, Yousef Munayyer, Peter Beinart
The Arab American Institute and the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force invite you to the launch of a critical public opinion survey on what Palestinians and Israelis want in a peace deal and their thoughts about the prospects for achieving it.
During the month of September, 2012, Zogby Research Services conducted a comprehensive, unprecedented survey of Israeli Jews and Arabs; Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem; Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan; and the American Jewish community. The poll was conducted for the Sir Bani Yas Forum in the UAE. Join us for the survey’s public release and a discussion of what Palestinians and Israelis really think about peace.
Register for this event here.
5. Strengthening the Global Partnership Against the Spread of WMD, Thursday December 20, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM, Hudson Institute
Venue: Hudson Institute, 1015 15th Street NW, Washington, DC 20005, 6th Floor
Speakers: Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, Andrew Semmel, Richard Weitz
Recent years have seen several nuclear smuggling incidents and revelations regarding the extensive scope of past illicit WMD proliferation activities. An effective international nuclear security strategy requires a broad network of stakeholders to gather knowledge and secure nuclear weapons-related materials and technologies; prevent their misuse; and reduce the risks caused by their availability.
What steps can the United States and other countries take to strengthen nuclear material security in coming years? Please join us to discuss the lessons learned, critical challenges, and the path forward for the G8 Global Partnership in the 21st century.
Register for this event here.
6. The Future of U.S.-Taiwan Relations: Impressions from CNP’s 2012 Scholars Delegation, Thursday December 20, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM, Center for National Policy
Venue: Center for National Policy, One Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001, Suite 333
Speakers: Malou Innocent, Jacqueline N. Deal, Michael Breen, Scott Bates, Anthony Woods, John Garafano, Michael Auslin, Andrew Lavigne
Less than a month after the November reelection of President Obama, CNP sent a U.S. Scholars Delegation comprised of current and next generation policy experts and decision makers to meet with Taiwanese officials, trade experts and academics, to examine the future of U.S.-Taiwan relations. Join CNP President Scott Bates and members of the delegation as they offer views on their recent visit to Taipei.
Register for this event here.
7. Benghazi Attack, Part II: The Report of the Accountability Review Board, Thursday December 20, 1:00 PM, House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Venue: House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 2170 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515
Speaker: Hillary Rodham Clinton
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The EU kicks the can
Carl Bildt, Sweden’s long-time and much-followed Foreign Minister, tweeted earlier this week from the General Affairs Council of the European Union:
Finally everything done. Cyprus presidency, Stefan Füle and Cathy Ashton moved all EU enlargement issues successfully forward. Off we go.
I wondered at the time what this meant. Now I know.
It meant nothing: no date for Serbia or Macedonia to begin accession talks, no date for Kosovo to negotiate a Stabilization and Association Agreement. Croatia’s membership next year is expected to proceed on autopilot (with some corrections in Zagreb’s course requested) and Montenegro will continue accession talks. Albania still awaits for a date to start accession negotiations.
Admittedly it is difficult to get too excited about anything in the Western Balkans these days. Syria is imploding. Egypt is turning its judicial system over to religious supervision. Iran is making progress towards nuclear weapons. North Korea is successfully launching a longer-range ballistic missile, disguised as a space-launch vehicle. Afghanistan and Iraq are teetering. Al Qaeda is setting up shop in Mali. The euro is going down the tubes. Who cares what the Greeks want to call Macedonia or whether the former belligerents who run Serbia and Kosovo get dates to begin negotiations (Belgrade for accession, Pristina for a Stabilization and Association Agreement) with Brussels?
The people who live in those places do, that’s who. However insignificant the Balkans look these days from Washington, which is busy with its own domestic quarrels above all else, the region is important to those who inhabit it and has the potential to make life difficult for the rest of us, as it has proven repeatedly over the past 100 years.
A closer reading suggests that things might unfreeze in Brussels in the spring. Macedonia at least can expect a framework for negotiations then, provided it delivers on reforms in the meanwhile. Likewise Serbia, which is asked specifically for
…irreversible progress towards delivering structures in northern Kosovo which meet the security and justice needs of the local population in a transparent and cooperative manner, and in a way that ensures the functionality of a single institutional and administrative set up within Kosovo.
Also important is
…the agreement of the two Prime Ministers to work together in order to ensure a transparent flow of money in support of the Kosovo Serb community…
While couched in the EU’s usual obscurantist language, we see emerging here a detailed understanding of the real challenges that have so far blocked reintegration of the north with the rest of Kosovo. Bravo to the EU for acknowledging them!
Some of the same perspicacity is evident in the discussion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the EU finds the need to reiterate
…its unequivocal support for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU perspective as a sovereign and united country enjoying full territorial integrity.
It’s not good news when Brussels kicks off this way, though I’d be the first to admit that its subsequent suggestions of what needs to be done to fix the problem are thoroughly inadequate.
Pristina gets a pat on the back for its engagement in the talks and language identical to that addressed to Belgrade on northern Kosovo, plus a recommendation to develop an outreach plan.
Don’t get me wrong: it is correct for the EU to insist on specific reforms and benchmarks in dealing with the Western Balkans. Unfortunately, it is still true that conditionality is what moves things forward in many of these countries. In most of them, I expect the EU carrot will bring real changes, albeit in fits and starts. The most concerning is Bosnia, where the EU acknowledges the challenges to sovereignty that Milorad Dodik and Republika Srpska pose but fails to offer adequate responses and continues to quarrel with Washington over whether the High Representative should stay or go.
The EU has kicked the can down the road. The best we can hope for is a spring thaw.
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What can go wrong?
I am a great fan of Fred Hof’s Seven Key Points on Syria elaborated yesterday at the Atlantic Council. While I might quarrel on particular points, he lays out clearly what he thinks has to be done to make Syria come out reasonably well from the American perspective. What he recommends would also be good for the vast majority of Syrians.
But of course that means he also implies the inverse, all the things that can go wrong. They are at least as many as his seven points:
- The end of the Asad regime could still take a long time. This would mean not only more death and destruction, but also more polarization and radicalization. The Syrian state might well fail if this goes on for weeks, never mind months, more.
- Since there is no silver bullet, we are going to have to do a lot of things at the same time to hasten the regime’s end. Sanctions tend to erode with time. Even if they are maintained, the regime will learn how to evade and exploit them. Washington has to try to get the Russians on board, even as we work with Friends of Syria to do things that will offend Moscow. The Americans also have to manage Iran–stopping its nuclear program is arguably more important to Washington than winning the day in Syria.
- The new Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces will need to get an alternative government up and running quickly. It is hard to picture much more difficult conditions in which to do this. The opposition is still politically fractious, large parts of it are lacking in funds, communications are difficult and it will need to incorporate many new faces as the regime starts to crumble.
- If guns decide the outcome, extremists are likely to come out on top. They will not only have earned in combat the admiration of parts of the population. They will also be in a position to distribute resources and intimidate opposition.
- The Americans are late supplying arms. Even if they move expeditiously now, they are behind the curve. And Washington will want to provide arms only to those who offer guarantees in return that they will not be used against the civilian population or transferred to extremists. Conditions, however justified, will slow the process and make it far less efficient than Saudi and Qatari distribution of hard cash.
- The messiness of the post-Asad period will make it hard to understand what is going on and also hard to mobilize resources. Parts of the state–the secret services in particular–are likely to collapse, sectarian sentiment will run high, revenge killings will happen, the international community will be slow out of the gate and the political horizon will be cloudy. It is difficult to picture where the troops for an international stabilization force would come from. Hof’s suggestion that Turkish forces protect the Alawites may be unwelcome both in Istanbul and Latakia.
- Resources are not likely to arrive quickly. They rarely do, and Syria is a poor country (more like Egypt than like Libya in terms of natural resources). The standards for accountability and transparency that the international community levies will not be easy to meet.
This is not a pretty picture. A collapsed state with extremists on top, sectarian warfare in many places and inadquate resources from the international community could make Syria look something like Iraq in 2006.
I am an enthusiast for the Syrian opposition, which has been through difficult trials and always bounces back fighting. They are going to succeed in toppling Bashar al Asad. But success in bringing down Asad quickly and the subsequent transition will require a much more concerted effort than we have seen thus far by the Syrians, and by the international community.
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