Tag: Syria
Disintegration is hard to stop
Susan Yackee at Voice of America asked a few questions today about Syria. Here are my replies, which VoA published under the headline “The Syrian Regime Is Coming Apart.” That’s not quite what I said, but judge for yourself. Here is the interview in its entirety (I’ve made a few [corrections] in the transcript):
‘Losing your prime minister says something about your regime’
“The prime minister is not very important within the power structure in Syria, but when you’re losing your prime minister, it says something about your regime. What it says in this case, I’m afraid, is that the Sunni part of the regime is peeling off. Hijab is a Sunni, and the regime is dominated by Alawites. This is one more indication that sectarian conflict is coming to dominate the situation in Syria.”
‘The regime is coming apart’
“A defection of this sort encourages other defections among his friends and family. I certainly think [it] gives the impression, both inside Syria and outside, that the regime is coming apart.”
Sectarian conflict is ‘difficult to stop’
“The history of these things is that once sectarian conflict starts, it’s extremely difficult to stop. I know that many Syrians associated with the revolution don’t regard this as a sectarian conflict, and wouldn’t be happy with a sectarian conflict. But the fact is that people, when there’s violence, retreat into sectarian [and] ethnic protection, and I anticipate that will happen in Syria as it has happened in many other places.”
It’s ‘hard to picture stability returning quickly’
“The most important thing at this point is to reach out as best the revolution can to Alawites, Christians and [Druze] who are still loyal to the Assad regime because they’re frightened of what will happen to them after the fact. I think the revolution has to reach out to them and try to bring them over. At the same time, I think the international community needs to be thinking very hard about what kind of effort to stabilize Syria will be required in the future. It’s very hard for me to picture stability returning quickly to Syria unless there’s external force applied.”
Read more at Middle East Voices.
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The worst of all possible worlds
It is getting hard to keep score, though this graphic from Al Jazeera English may help. Today’s big news is the defection of Syria’s prime minister, who didn’t like Bashar al Asad’s “war crimes and genocide.” About time he noticed. There are reports also of more military defections, even as the battle for Aleppo continues.
Does any of this matter? Or does Bashar get to hold on to his shrinking turf despite going into hiding and losing the support of regime stalwarts?
Michael Hanna offers an important part of the answer in a Tweet this morning:
Syrian defections follow strictly sectarian pattern, likely hardening core support. 1st big Alawi defection, if it comes,will be devastating
The Asad regime is increasingly relying on a narrow base of Alawite/Shia (about 12-13% of the population) support, as Sunnis (like the prime minister) peel away and denounce Bashar’s violence against the civilian population, which is majority Sunni. Christians and Druze have also been distancing themselves, and Kurds have taken up arms against the regime (without however aligning themselves with the opposition). The opposition draws its strength from the majority population and is supported by Sunni powers like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. What we are witnessing is a regional sectarian war in the making, one that could last a long time and involve ever-widening circles in the Levant.
The Alawites fight tenaciously because they think they know what is coming. This is an “existential” war for them: if the lose, they believe they will be wiped out.
That, along with Russian and Iranian support, could make this go on for a long time. If it does, the consequences for Syria and the region will be devastating. Damascus has already unleashed extremist Syrian Kurds to attack inside Turkey. Jordan is absorbing more than 100,000 Syrian refugees. Iraq’s efforts to guard its border with Syria have led to a confrontation with its own Kurdish peshmerga. Fighting between Sunnis and Alawites has spread to Lebanon, which is also absorbing large numbers of Syrian refugees. The Syrian opposition claims to have captured 48 Iranians in Damascus, sent there to help the regime (Tehran unabashedly claims they were religious pilgrims).
Breaking this self-reinforcing cycle of sectarian polarization is an interest broadly shared in the international community. As The Economist pointed out last week, Russian interests won’t be served if Syria descends into total chaos. Some would like to suggest that territorial separation is a solution. This is nonsense: no one will agree on the lines to be drawn, which will be decided by force of arms directed against the civilian population. That is the truth of what happened in Bosnia, however much the myth-makers delude themselves.
There are several ways the violence might end:
- a definitive victory by the opposition (it is hard now to picture a definitive victory by the regime).
- an international intervention to separate the warring forces and impose what the U.S. military likes to call a “safe and secure environment.”
- a coup from within the regime, followed by a “pacted” (negotiated) transition.
Any of these would be better than continuation of the current chaos, which is the worst of all possible worlds. But I’m afraid that is the mostly likely course of events until Moscow and Washington get together and decide to collaborate in ending the bloodshed.
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Circling the square
Joyce Karam of Al Hayat yesterday asked me some interesting questions about Iraq, Iran, Syria and the United States. Here are her questions and my answers:
Q. Where does the US relation with Nouri Maliki stand today? Is he a valuable
ally or more of a necessary one?
A. Maliki is both a valuable and a necessary partner (rather than ally). Necessary because he holds power in Iraq, which is a key country in the Middle East, one that is increasing its oil exports rapidly. That is something the Obama administration greatly appreciates. Valuable because the Americans view him as at least partly cooperative on Syria and Iran, as well as on oil production.
Q. Where does Maliki himself stand inside Iraq? How much has the Barzani-Sadr-Allawi alliance damaged him?
A. I don’t think they’ve done him much real damage. He has outmaneuvered his
political opponents, who seem unable to win a confidence vote in parliament
and more unable to construct an alternative majority.
Q. How do you read Ankara’s rapprochement with Barzani? Should it make Baghdad nervous?
A. Ankara’s rapprochement with the Iraqi Kurds is in my view the natural course of things. So long as Kurdistan is willing to cooperate with Turkey against the PKK, there is no reason for Turkey not to enjoy a good relationship with relatively secular (but still Muslim) Kurdistan. There is a lot of money to be made from investment opportunities in Kurdistan, and from trade across the border, including in oil. Baghdad has a choice: it can resist the development of close Turkey/Kurdistan relations, or it can jump on that
bandwagon and enhance its own relations with Ankara. I wish they would do the latter.
Q. Has Turkey miscalculated given the increasing armed Kurdish activity on
Syrian border?
A. I don’t think so. Turkey has known that opposition to the Asad regime would bring retaliation from Damascus in the form of encouragement to extremist Kurds to attack inside Turkey. That is one of the risks Turkey decided to run when it supported the Syrian opposition. Turkey will eventually want the Syrian Kurds to do what the Iraqi Kurds have done: help restrain the more radical Kurds and open up to Turkish trade and investment. There is no reason that can’t happen in a post-Asad Syria.
Q. The US wants the Arab states to engage Maliki, would that help in making him less dependent on Iran?
A. Of course the Sunni Arab states should engage Maliki, but I don’t think they are ever going to be completely comfortable with Maliki, whom they don’t trust. The most important factor in Iraq’s international alignment is the route by which its oil is exported. If it continues to be exported through the Gulf within range of Iranian guns, Tehran will have enormous influence in Iraq. If the Iraqis wisely begin to diversify and export more oil to the north and west, via pipelines that will have to be built in the future, then
Iraq will be tied more tightly to the West.
Q. If the Syrian regime falls, how do you see that impacting politics inside Iraq?
Any new regime in Syria will be less aligned with Iran and more aligned with the Sunni Arab states. That will create initially some strains with Maliki, but there will still be a lot of common interests, including I hope the prospect of exports of oil from Iraq through Syria to the Mediterranean.
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Quicker is better, but use the delay well
“Impractical, unenforceable and unwise” are the labels I gave yesterday to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s proposal for highly conditional military aid to the Syrian revolutionaries aimed at creating safe areas.
Today, Kofi Annan resigned as the UN/Arab League negotiator, having failed to make progress on the peace plan that bears his name. This likely dooms the UN observer mission, which has been useful in providing the international community with some objective data on what is going on and in assigning responsibility. It could prove helpful in the future in identifying who is emerging within the on-the-ground leadership. We’ll miss them when they are gone.
So what do I think should be done now?
There are two criteria I would ideally like to meet:
- Get it over quickly
- Empower people who will take post-Asad Syria in a democratic direction
The first is important because the Syrian war is starting to overflow the country’s borders to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey. This could precipitate a nightmare scenario of widespread sectarian war that will open opportunities for extremists (including from Al Qaeda) and reshape the Levant in ways that are likely to be inimical to U.S. interests.
The second is important because only an inclusive democratic regime in Syria will be able to re-establish stability and reduce risks to the region. The last thing we need in Syria is what its history suggests is most likely: a series of coups and narrowly based, unstable governments that mistreat Syria’s minorities, destabilizing the region and prolonging the agony.
Or worse: a break-up of the country along ethnic and sectarian lines, with Alawites establishing a homeland along the Mediterranean coast and Kurds trying to carve out something like Iraqi Kurdistan (even though the Kurdish population is not nearly as concentrated as in Iraq).
The big question on Washington’s mind yesterday was whether military action, either direct or through proxies, would speed the denouement. Andrew Tabler testified at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
Washington should lead its allies in the “Core Group” of the Friends of the Syrian People gathering—Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—in issuing a stark warning to Assad that mass atrocities in Syria will be met with an immediate military response.
Jim Dobbins was more circumspect:
I do not believe the United States should become the standard bearer for such an intervention. I do believe, however, that the United States should up its assistance to the rebels; quietly let those on the front lines, particularly Turkey and Saudi Arabia, know that it will back initiatives they may wish to take toward more direct military engagement; and provided the earlier mentioned conditions can be met, America should provide those military assets needed for success that only the United States possesses in adequate number.
Martin Indyk, more concerned with speed, nevertheless focused on political and diplomatic measures and recommended no military action. Less concerned about how long it takes for Bashar to fall, Aaron David Miller, writing on foreignpolicy.com, was unequivocally against direct intervention:
The time for guilting the United States into expensive and ill-thought-out military interventions has passed. Indeed, the reasons to intervene in Syria — the hope of defusing a bloody religious and political conflict and dealing the Iranian mullahs a mortal blow — are just not compelling enough to offset the risks and the unknowns.
My own view is that U.S. (aerial) military intervention might accelerate the fall of Bashar, but only if it is direct and massive. If the Arab League and the Syrian opposition request it, the United States and whatever allies are willing to join could take direct action against Syria’s command, control and communications, aiming not to create safe areas but rather to decapitate the regime and render the Syrian army harmless. This would not necessarily work right away, but it has a far better chance of working quickly than a messy operation devoted to creating euphemistic safe areas. First step: move a carrier battle group to the Eastern Med visibly and ostentatiously.
If Washington doesn’t want to take decisive military action, and my reading is that it does not, it is better to follow Miller’s advice: let the natural course of events develop, with proxies arming and training the Syrians, as Dobbins also suggests. This isn’t likely to fulfill my first hope–to get it over quickly–but it is better than the fractious opposition trying to control territory rather than fighting the regime.
Empowering people who will take Syria in a democratic direction is a much more difficult trick. This is where Jim Dobbins put his emphasis. Our best bet is to try to identify people who are emerging as leaders inside Syria, many of them at the local level. Without an embassy in Damascus, we are flying blind.
Ironically, the people who can help us best are the much-maligned UN monitors, who have been engaging at the local level with leaders of the opposition for months now and should have an idea of who is emerging town by town and what their political views are. They will also know everyone in the regime who might be helpful to a transition.
So where I come down is this: short of taking decisive military action from the air targeting the regime’s command, control and communications, we are going to have to live with a painful and unpredictable process of regime collapse. We should use the time to develop a much better understanding of who is who on the ground inside Syria and how things can be nudged in a democratic direction.
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Impractical, unenforceable and unwise
A Free Syrian Army (FSA) leader (the Guardian says he is Mustafa al-Sheikh, identified as head of the FSA supreme military council) says:
The fighting is like hit and run, we are not aiming to get control of any city in Syria, but we want to exhaust the regime and speed up its collapse.
This is the most sensible thing I’ve heard out of the FSA, which is still vastly outgunned and outmanned by the Syrian Army. Unfortunately, English-language press coverage seems to focus almost exclusively on the question of territorial control, which not only changes rapidly but is also irrelevant to the outcome of the civil war.
The ebb and flow of control over territory creates enormous risks for civilians who can’t escape to other areas. Collaboration–even if forced or unavoidable–with one side brings retaliation by the other, even as civilians find themselves unable to obtain adequate food and water, not to mention electricity, cooking fuel and health services. We are in the midst of a major humanitarian disaster in Aleppo and other population centers in Syria.
The international response is thoroughly insufficient. Anne-Marie Slaughter proposes a major escalation:
It is time for bold action, of the kind Mr Obama took in deciding to go after Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad and to intervene in Libya. In Syria this would mean putting together a coalition of countries that would commit to providing heavy weapons (and possibly air cover) to all commanders on the ground who sign the “Declaration of Values” supporting a democratic and pluralist Syria put forward by the nine commanding generals of the military council of the FSA. To receive weapons, these commanders must show they control safe zones and admit foreign journalists, civil society activists and the UN to monitor the implementing of the declaration’s principles. They must also allow citizen journalists to upload photographs of what they witness to an official website maintained by the coalition.
The problem is this: the escalation Slaughter proposes could well make things worse rather than better.
Heavy weapons are not going to reduce the intensity or likely even the duration of an increasingly sectarian war. Nor will a “declaration of values” from revolutionaries who are already carrying out summary battlefield executions. The Asad regime will treat the “safe zones” she insists upon as target-rich environments and subject them to intense shelling. The logistics of food and other supplies in these zones will burden the rebellion with responsibilities it will find hard to discharge.
What about our relationship with Qatar and Saudi Arabia suggests that we could constrain their arms supplies in the way Slaughter suggests? They are far more likely to impose their own conditions: arms only to Sunnis, preferably religious ones.
The escalation Slaughter proposes will likely also make Russia abandon the P5+1 talks with Iran. Moscow could also make life more difficult for the U.S. by squeezing the northern distribution network for supplies into Afghanistan, though that option would be far less effective now that Pakistan has reopened its roads and border crossing points.
Some stable liberated areas may well emerge–a number of Kurdish towns along Syria’s border with Turkey seem already to fall in that category. But requiring that the rebellion give up its “hit and run” tactics is not wise. As Bashar al Asad seems to have declared in his latest statement from unknown whereabouts, Syria’s fate will be determined on the battlefield. I would have wished it otherwise, not least because the military forces are likely to dominate Syria’s post-Asad transition.
But best now to leave the military tactics to military people to decide. The highly conditioned transfer of weapons Slaughter proposes is impractical, unenforceable and unwise.
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This week’s peace picks
Summer doldrums, but some interesting events nevertheless:
1. An Assessment of the Obama Administration’s Africa Strategy, Heritage Foundation, 10-11:30 am July 31
Venue: Lehrman Auditorium
When President Obama entered the White House in 2009, many in the U.S. and in sub-Saharan Africa believed his arrival heralded a major departure in U.S. policy toward the region. Expectations for America’s first African American president ran high. When President Obama visited Ghana, he delivered a message of faith and confidence in the African people. He also, delivered a message of tough love, encouraging Africans to take responsibility for the successes and failures of the continent.
Despite the anticipation for new a US-Africa strategy, the Administration required more than three years to deliver its U.S. Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa (June 2012). Customary policies – supporting trade and development, rendering security and humanitarian assistance, and combating poverty and HIV/AIDS – all mainstays of previous Administrations predominated, rendering an appearance of continuity rather than change in U.S. policy. To assess factors of continuity, change and shifting priorities towards an emerging Africa, please join The Heritage Foundation and its distinguished panel of experts for a lively presentation and discussion.
More About the Speakers
Ambassador Tibor Nagy
Vice Provost for International Affairs, Texas Tech University
Ambassador Mark Bellamy
Director, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University
Ambassador Richard Roth
Senior Advisor for the Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Hosted By
2. The Obama Administration’s Economic Strategy for Africa, Center for Global Development, 11 am-12 pm July 31
Featuring
Michael Froman
Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs
Hosted by
Nancy Birdsall
President, Center for Global Development
The Center for Global Development is pleased to host Michael Froman, President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor and Assistant for International Economics, for a discussion of the Obama Administration’s strategy to achieve poverty alleviation and sustained economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Froman recently led an interagency delegation to Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria to meet with a cross section of government officials, private sector leaders and young entrepreneurs on a range of issues and initiatives including the East African Community trade and investment partnership, the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition; energy; and infrastructure.
Location: Center for Global Development, First Floor Conference Center, 1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
3. Syria in Crisis: Refugees and the Challenges of the Humanitarian Response, Islamic Relief USA, 12-1 pm July 31
Address
B-354 Rayburn House Office Building, U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Speakers
Abed Ayoub, Islamic Relief USA CEO | Michael Kocher, International Rescue Committee Vice President | Michael Gabaudan, Refugees International President | Dr. Zaher Sahloul, Syrian American Medical Society President
Fees
FREE
Contact
Join Islamic Relief USA, the International Rescue Committee, Refugees International and the Syrian American Medical Society for a luncheon panel discussion about the on-going humanitarian crisis facing Syrian refugees.
More information about the situation for Syrian refugees
The crisis in Syria has escalated dramatically since it began sixteen months ago and has resulted in the displacement of an estimated one million Syrians. While the majority of Syrians are internally displaced within Syria, more than 114,000 have registered as refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq. Many are fearful of formally registering as refugees, meaning the actual number of refugees may be significantly higher than reported. As the violence and death toll continue to rise in Syria, the Syrian people remain displaced and unable to return to their homes. Essential aid and services are needed for both internally displaced Syrians and Syrian refugees in neighboring countries. Learn more about how Islamic Relief USA by visiting IRUSA.org.
Syrian refugees arrive to neighboring countries suffering emotional and physical trauma with little savings and often nothing more than the clothes on their backs. While host countries have been generous and welcoming to the refugees, their resources are becoming increasingly stretched. They need increased international assistance in order to most effectively respond to the influx of refugees.
Syrian refugees are in urgent need of increased access to shelter, water and food, livelihood opportunities, and medical services. While a number of Syrian refugees are living with host families, these families’ resources are being drained. For others, high rent prices mean they have to share accommodation leading to cramped, overcrowded conditions. Syrian refugee women and girls have identified gender-based violence as one of the primary reasons they had to flee. Ensuring that proper psychosocial and other health services reach victims of gender-based violence is a vital need.
4. The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran, Washington Institute, 12:30-2 pm July 31
Beneath the thirty-year war of words between Iran and the United States have been parallel campaigns of espionage, covert action, and military activities that have rarely come into public view. In his latest book, Dr. David Crist details the dramatic secret history of this undeclared conflict, from the weeks immediately following Iran’s 1979 revolution through today’s tensions. A Marine reservist and senior historian with the U.S. government, Crist had unprecedented access to senior officials and key documents. The product of ten years of research, Twilight War reveals the undercover activities and policy debates that have roiled U.S.-Iranian relations.
To discuss the book’s findings, The Washington Institute cordially invited Dr. Crist to address a Policy Forum luncheon on July 31, 2012, from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. Ambassador James Jeffrey, who retired from the Foreign Service in June, will add personal observations from three decades in the State Department, most recently as ambassador to Iraq and Turkey.
David Crist is a senior historian for the U.S. government and a special advisor to the head of U.S. Central Command. As an officer in the Marine Corps Reserve, he served two tours with Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Author of the 2009 Washington Institute report Gulf of Conflict: A History of U.S.-Iranian Confrontation at Sea, he holds a doctorate in Middle Eastern history from Florida State University.
James Jeffrey recently retired from the Foreign Service after a thirty-three-year career in which he attained the highest rank of career ambassador. His assignments included deputy national security advisor in the White House, three years in Iraq as ambassador and deputy chief of mission, and ambassador to Turkey and Albania. From 1969 to 1976, he served as a U.S. army officer in Germany and Vietnam.
5. Next Steps on Syria, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 10 am August 1
Presiding:
Senator Kerry
Location:
Senate Dirksen 419
Witnesses:
Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy
Brookings Institution
Washington, DC
Director, International Security and Defense Policy Center
RAND Corporation
Washington, DC
Senior Fellow, Program on Arab Politics
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Washington, DC
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