Tag: United States
Recalibration
The Administration is finally having another look at its Syria strategy. A reexamination is overdue. While coalition forces have been attacking the Islamic State (ISIS), the Syrian regime has focused its remaining firepower against relatively moderate forces, especially in Aleppo and surrounding areas. The net result is not good: Kurdish forces that in the past have supported the Assad regime have gained ground in the Kobane, on the Turkish border, while the relative moderates have been losing ground farther west. Now UN envoy Stefano De Mistura is proposing a ceasefire in Aleppo, hoping to prevent catastrophe there.
It has become all too apparent that
- The moderate forces need more help if they are going to be able to hold on to significant territory in Syria;
- Assad benefits from the current coalition attacks on IS since they weaken his strongest opponent, allow him to concentrate against moderate forces, and strengthen Kurds who have been unwilling to attack the regime.
President Obama has offered to cooperate with Iran in Syria against ISIS once a nuclear deal is done, but there is no sign Iran is prepared to abandon Assad. Such cooperation would offend the majority Sunni population in Syria and guarantee more recruits for ISIS.
Bottom line: we are getting nowhere fast in Syria.
Things aren’t much better in Iraq, where ISIS is consolidating control over territory. Prime Minister Haider al Abadi has been busy firing military commanders and installing new ones, but it is far from clear whether his choices will be any more effective on the battlefield than former Prime Minister Maliki’s were. Abadi has managed to appoint Defense and Interior ministers, but creation of the provincially-based National Guard is still stalled in parliament. Next spring is the current best hope for an Iraqi offensive against ISIS.
The Americans need to find a better approach. Refocusing coalition attacks at least in part on the Assad regime is one possibility, but there are limits. Doing too much in that direction risks collapsing the Syrian state and opening the way for an IS takeover, even in Damascus. That is something we should want to prevent, not cause.
Another possibility would be taking the Turks up on their favorite proposition: creation of one or more liberated areas inside Syria, protected from air and artillery attacks as best can be done by coalition aircraft. The Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) and its Interim Government (SIG) could then move into those areas and begin governing, creating an alternative to fleeing the country for thousands of desperate Syrians. Prime candidates for liberated areas would be in the north, along the Turkish border, and in the south, along the ceasefire line with Israel and the border with Jordan. These areas would then constitute buffer zones protecting key coalition partners from ISIS incursions.
This is essentially what the US did for the Kurds in northern Iraq under Saddam Hussein. That experiment was eventually successful in creating an area of relative stability and half-decent governance. It also of course created the pre-conditions for what may eventually be secession of Iraqi Kurdistan from Iraq. That would also be a risk of creating a liberated area in Syria. It would therefore best be done with boundaries not determined by ethnic or sectarian lines, which is easy enough in Syria because the population in most areas is even today quite mixed, at least at the provincial level. Maintaining a diverse Syrian polity is vital to ensuring that the country remains whole.
Some will ask why we should worry about partition. The short answer is this: even Syrians who might want to separate won’t agree with their adversaries on the lines along which separation should occur. There has been much blather about a possible Alawite state in western Syria, along the Mediterranean coast. But much of the population that lives there is Sunni, and there is a large population of Alawites in Damascus. Those who advocate partition are advocating massive population movements that could only be accomplished by violent means.
There are no good options in Syria, but recalibration to undermine the Assad regime and provide stronger support to the moderate opposition, including in moving it into Syria, would be better than what we are doing now.
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Aye, there’s the rub
A nuclear deal with Iran is looking more likely than ever before. The P5+1 or EU3+3 (either way it is the US, Russia, UK, France, China and Germany) are making progress on issues related to enrichment and plutonium production and reprocessing. Verifying that fissile material, which can be used in an atomic bomb, is not diverted from those processes is a routine responsibility of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). If Iran will agree to limits on the number of its centrifuges, the degree of enrichment and the quantity of plutonium produced as well as fulfill its Safeguards commitments, the IAEA can verify that the limits are not exceeded and material is not diverted to a weapons program. If Iran were nevertheless to decide to “break out,” it would require six months to a year for it to do so, leaving time for both diplomatic and military efforts to prevent it from doing so.
The crunch issues lie in a different direction: undeclared nuclear material and the related question of possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s past nuclear activities. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been making little progress getting from Tehran clarification of past activities that appear to have aimed at design of high explosives and other research on initiation of a nuclear explosion. Nor has it been able to ascertain that there are no nuclear materials lying outside its purview. The IAEA concluded in September (and repeated Friday, despite recent meetings at which PMDs were discussed):
the Agency is not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.
In other words, a nuclear deal–even one with tight constraints on known facilities–could leave material and activities unaccounted for that are directed specifically at building a nuclear weapon in secret. Construction activity at a suspected site of clandestine nuclear activities (Parchin) has raised suspicions that Tehran is covering up past nuclear weapons research.
Some would like to forget about Iran’s past misbehavior, which reportedly stopped in 2003 in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq (when at least some in Tehran thought the Americans might come their way next). Ignoring past behavior and the possible existence of undeclared nuclear material would be unwise. Judging from past performance in other countries, development of nuclear weapons is far more likely to take place in parallel, secret efforts than in nuclear plants and activities under IAEA surveillance. If Iran wants the rest of the world to believe that it has seriously and permanently foresworn nuclear weapons, it needs to convince everyone that it either never did have a clandestine program or had one and gave it up.
This is difficult for Iran because of its government structure. President Rouhani is responsible for the nuclear negotiations. But the most likely sponsor of a clandestine nuclear program (past, present or future) is Supreme Leader Khamenei, who controls ample resources for such a purpose, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). That’s why President Obama writes Khamenei secret letters. The Supreme Leader has reportedly forsworn nuclear weapons in a fatwa:
the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons.
The trouble is Islamic jurisprudence allows a fatwa, which generally has no official written form, to be changed or reinterpreted. This one was published in an official government press release in 2005 that has evaporated from the worldwide web. That does not inspire confidence. So one well-connected Iranian commentator living in the US suggests it be “secularized” as a criminal statute. Of course that could be changed as well, but the notion of getting Iran to pledge formally that it will not seek nuclear weapons could certainly be part of a nuclear deal.
It would not substitute for what some might regard as impossible: proving the negative proposition that Iran does not have clandestine nuclear materials or a clandestine nuclear research program. “Coming clean” about past nuclear activities would certainly help. Continuing to stiff the IAEA on PMDs and the construction (now stopped) at Parchin does not. President Obama is presumably ready to justify to Congress and the American people a nuclear deal with Iran that allows it to continue peaceful activities (including enrichment) under tight IAEA surveillance, but he won’t get far unless he can also persuade them that there are no clandestine nuclear activities in progress. That’s what will give him pause.
PS: Tony Cordesman discusses in detail the difficult issues associated with clandestine research and development for nuclear weapons here.
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Peace Picks November 3-7
- Kurdistan: From Pawn to Player | Monday, November 3rd | 10:00 – 11:00 | Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies | REGISTER TO ATTEND | Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the Department of Foreign Relations for the Kurdistan Regional Government, will discuss this topic. Note: The question and answer portion of this event will be off the record.
- From Hizbullah to the Islamic State | Monday, November 3rd | 3:00 – 4:30 | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace | REGISTER TO ATTEND | From humble beginnings in the 1980s, Hizbullah’s political clout and public perception have trended upward, thanks to a communications strategy that has adapted to changes in the local and regional environment. There will be a discussion of the recently released book, The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication by Lina Khatib, Dina Matar, and Atef Alshaer. Carnegie Middle East Center Director Khatib will join Carnegie’s Joseph Bahout to discuss how Hizbullah’s strategic communication has influenced other Islamist movements in the region, including the Islamic State. The speakers are Lina Khatib, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Moderating is Frederic Wehrey, senior associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
- The Challenges of Chemical Weapons Proliferation and Use | Tuesday, November 4th | 12:30 – 2:00 | Stimson Center| REGISTER TO ATTEND | The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is now 17 years old and the recipient of the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize “for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons”. The OPCW, the United States and other member states explored new territory with the Syrian demilitarization effort, and are still digesting lessons learned. The Syrian government continues to use chemical weapons, and there are other outliers from the CWC and its obligations. Even so, the CWC has helped to strengthen norms against the use of chemical weapons. The panel will discuss chemical weapons proliferation, norm-building, and the challenges ahead. The speakers are Ambassador Robert Mikulak, Andrew Weber, John Parachini, Amy Smithson and Michael Krepon.
- A Time To Act: Combating Sexual Violence in Syria and Iraq | Tuesday, November 4th | 10:00 – 1:00 | Elliott School of International Affairs | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The purpose of this event is to shed light on pressing issues regarding International Humanitarian Law, complex emergencies, and sexual violence, with a particular focus on the atrocities committed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Our goal is not only to bring these issues to the forefront of the public debate but also discuss potential solutions to address them. The speakers are Aisling Swaine, associate professor of practice of international affairs at George Washington, Sucharita S.K. Varanasi with Physicians for Human Rights, Stephen J. Rapp, Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues and Sunjeev Bery, advocacy director for Middle East and North Africa issues, Amnesty International USA
- The Islamic State and Beyond: US Military Strategy in the Middle East | Thursday, November 6th | 11:00 | Atlantic Council | REGISTER TO ATTEND | A conversation with General Lloyd J. Austin III who assumed his duties as commander of US Central Command on March 22, 2013. Prior to that, he served as the thirty-third vice chief of staff of the Army from January 2012 to March 2013. He also commanded US Forces – Iraq from September 2010 through the completion of Operation New Dawn in December 2011. Finally, from August 2009 to August 2010, he was assigned to the Pentagon as the director of the Joint Staff.
- Searching for Solutions to the Ebola Epidemic | Thursday, November 6th | 4:30 – 6:00 | REGISTER TO ATTNED | Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies| Pia Wanek, director of humanitarian assistance at Global Communities, and Dougbeh Chris Nyan, director of the secretariat for the Diaspora Liberian Emergency Response Task Force, will discuss the international response to the Ebola epidemic, health system capacity, and the broader implications on food security, economic development, and stability in the region.
- Turkey’s Syria Predicament: Finding a Way Forward | Thursday, November 6th | 5:40 – 7:00 | Turkish Policy Center | REGISTER TO ATTEND | The ongoing civil war in Syria is having a significant impact on its neighbor Turkey: the UN estimates that over 1.6 million Syrian refugees have escaped to Turkey, a tragedy which has resulted in massive social and economic ramifications. Additionally, Turkey’s actions (or lack thereof) vis-à-vis fighters and weapons allegedly crossing its borders have come under scrutiny. Most recently, the developments in Kobane have resulted in Ankara drawing criticism from the international community, and an explosion of violence on Turkish streets, threatening the government’s peace process with its Kurdish population. How will these developments affect Turkey’s relations with the United States? Will there be a Turkish military incursion into Syria? How will Turkey’s standing in the region be affected? What is Turkey’s economic status quo, and how is it being impacted by the Syria crisis? What implications are there for next year’s elections? What is the fate of the Syrian refugees? Is the Kurdish-Turkish peace process stalled, and if so what is the way out? How can Turkey find a way forward with Kurds in neighboring Syria and Iraq? The panel discussion at the Goethe-Institut Washington will focus on developments pertaining to Turkey’s predicament regarding Syria. They will assess economic, political, and foreign policy developments in this context, with a prognosis of things to come.The speakers are Ambassador Robert Pearson, Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Dr. Soner Cagaptay, from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Dr. Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan from the IMF and University of Maryland, Dr. Denise Natali from the National Defense University and Cenk Sidar from Sidar Global Advisors.
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No pain, no gain
With less than a month to go before the deadline for completing nuclear talks with Iran, what does it look like? Touchdown, punt or overtime?
From the US perspective, the time is ripe to bring this negotiation to a successful conclusion:
- Further delay risks encouraging opponents, especially in Congress. Once the 2016 presidential campaign gets started in earnest (no later than spring 2015 I’m afraid), the odds of concluding the negotiation successfully go way down.
- Failure to reach an agreement would either open the door to an unrestrained Iranian push for nuclear weapons or, in case the current temporary Plan of Action is extended, risk deterioration of the sanctions that have been so effective in bringing Iran to the table.
- The need to respond ever more forcefully to the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria makes it imperative to get other issues off the priority table as quickly as possible.
What is a “successful conclusion”? To make a long story short, it is one that verifiably blocks any Iranian route to building a nuclear weapon, including enrichment and reprocessing conducted either covertly or overtly. Ideally it would provide at least a year’s warning before any “break out” could occur.
This may be a goal the Iranians share. They claim to have forsworn nuclear weapons and have good reason to do so. Were Iran thought to have them, Israel would be prepared to attack on warning (not on launch, but before that). A conventional attack might be deemed inadequate to the case. The Americans might then step in to do the job. When President Rouhani says Iran would be less secure with nuclear weapons than without them, he is not exaggerating. It’s true.
The moment is ripe also for the Iranians:
- Further delay would risk encouraging President Rouhani’s opponents in the majlis and in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Iranians know the American political timetable, and their own also argues for no long delay. Rouhani’s term ends in 2017. Sanctions relief won’t produce real results in less than 6-12 months.
- Failure to reach agreement could cause the US Congress to ratchet up sanctions, which combined with lower oil prices would deal another severe blow to the Iranian economy, which Rouhani promised to repair.
- It doesn’t make sense for Iran to be wrestling with the Americans, who also oppose the Islamic State, on nuclear issues. Better to clear the decks and get as much cooperation as Washington will permit. Tehran will also hope to earn enough credit with the Americans to continue to protect Bashar al Assad from direct attack.
None of this means the negotiations will in fact conclude successfully, or precisely on time. It will not be easy for Iran to swallow the necessary limits on its nuclear program. Nor will it be easy for the Obama administration to sell an agreement that allows Iran to continue enriching uranium, even if there is tight verification that it is not being used for weapons purposes.
But no one said this would be easy. The standard rule of exercise applies to international negotiations: no pain, no gain.
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Ebola in perspective
On Monday, the Heritage foundation hosted for a discussion of Ebola policy options, domestic and international, Robert Kodiac, the Managing Director of RPK Consulting, Charlotte Florence, a Research Associate for Economic Freedom in Africa and the Middle East at the Heritage Foundation, Tevi Troy, President of the American Health Policy Institute and Tara O’Toole, former Under Secretary of the Science and and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security. The event was moderated by Steven Bucci, Director of the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy. The video of the event is at the end of this post. Or you can watch Jon Stewart’s short version, which covers some of the same points:
Epidemics have had less prevalence in the last century in part due to the advancement of medical science, sanitary practices, and antibiotics. However, the West African nations of Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia have seen upwards of 4,900 deaths from Ebola, spreading in what Florence believes to be a “perfect storm.” While very few cases have struck the United States, the Ebola scare has swept through the country. The hysteria has reached the far corners of the country, fueled by incessant media coverage of the virus. In Maine, an elementary school teacher was put on paid leave for up to 21 days after parents expressed concern over a recent trip she took to Dallas, where the first case of Ebola was diagnosed and subsequently two nurses were infected.
Kodiac notes this visceral reaction to Ebola but believes more important is domestic preparedness. The 2.8 trillion dollar health care industry only spends 1% or so on domestic health care preparedness. This is a minimal amount for medical responses to potential pandemics. While Kodiac believes that Ebola can be managed due to the relatively confined areas of exposure, there must be a bigger push to limit the spread of disease not only in the United States but globally. Combating the disease in the three most affected Western African states will prove challenging. Florence cites behavior and cultural practices that have spread of Ebola, especially procedures surrounding the disposal of the deceased.
She also notes that allocation of resources to combat Ebola has caused loss of focus on malaria, tuberculosis and other critical issues in Africa. In addition, farmers are not producing at the rates they previously were, markets are closed and as a result there is a fear of food shortages. While Sierre Leone has historically been one of the fastest growing economies in Africa, it is projected the country will experience no growth in the upcoming year.
Troy looked at four areas that need to be addressed: detection, development, deployment and directives. The United States and the rest of the world were slow to react to Ebola. Countermeasures such as vaccines have not become commercially available. We should have questions about deployment of the US military and the rules of engagement. The “woefully ignorant” perspective of the Department of Homeland Security has hindered progress.
O’Toole notes that all epidemics start slowly and are not explosions. The situation will get worse before it gets better due to the failure of preparedness and lack of rapid diagnostic methods. Epidemics always “engender fear,” because people have a “hard time understanding the unpredictability of disease.” Ebola will not disappear within the upcoming months or in the next year.
The numerous calls for a ban on travel to those who have visited high-risk Ebola countries are misguided, the panelists thought. The advantages do not outweigh the costs. Implementation of a travel ban would not only discourage travel for health care workers but potentially damage relationships with restricted countries. All panelist agreed the US needs improved capabilities and cooperation with the global community.
Here is the video of the event:
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What they don’t say matters
I am reminded this fine DC morning that what politicians and officials don’t say in politics and diplomacy matters. Russian President Putin let loose yesterday a tirade against the US, but
when one British newspaper reporter asked him specifically about the repeated reports of Russian army troops operating in east Ukraine, Putin chose to ignore the question completely.
He has to. Despite his high standing in opinion polls, Russians overwhelmingly oppose direct military involvement in Ukraine. While his tirade will get lots of ink (and electrons) in the Western media, it may betray Putin’s weakness more than his strength. He would like to do more in Ukraine than the current surreptitious presence of a limited number of Russian army troops, which Russians refuse to acknowledge even if the documentation in the West is ample. He would have liked, among other things, to halt the Ukrainian parliamentary elections that will take place tomorrow. They will likely reduce pro-Russian representation in the Rada, if only because voting won’t be possible in separatist-controlled territory (or Crimea, which Moscow has annexed). Putin’s silence on Russian army troops in Ukraine betrays political weakness, not strength.
Wendy Sherman last week gave a talk on the P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran. While eminently clear on the US objective of preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, she ignored what has become a serious problem plaguing the negotiations: the possible military dimensions (PMDs they are called in the business) of past Iranian nuclear activities. To make a long story short, there is ample evidence that Iran in the past (prior to 2003) did conduct research connected exclusively to nuclear weapons. Tehran has not yet satisfied the International Atomic Energy Agency on this point. Tough-minded Americans want Iran to “come clean,” by giving a full explanation of these activities and providing ample assurances that they will not be renewed, including tight verification. This is difficult for the Iranians, not only because of the loss of face but likely also because these activities were conducted in secret by people and institutions not fully under the control of President Rouhani, who is leading the nuclear negotiations for Iran. This is not the first time Wendy has skimmed over the PMD issue. If an agreement is reached by the November 24 deadline, she’ll need to address it far more directly.
There are many other examples of how silence speaks louder than words in the diplomatic and political worlds. Think President Obama’s silence on how Syria is to be governed if the coalition war against the Islamic State is successful. Think Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi’s silence lately on concrete steps to form the provincially-based National Guard or prospects for resolving financial and other issues with the Kurdistan Regional Government. Politicians and diplomats will often say nothing on key issues because they have nothing to say that is acceptable, either to themselves or to their antagonists.
Those silences matter. We should listen to them attentively.
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