Tag: United States
Peace Picks September 29-October 3
A busy Monday and Tuesday over at USIP, as Washington focuses on extremism and what to do about it:
- MENA Region in Crisis: Islam, Democracy and Extremism Monday, September 29 | 10:00 am – 11:30 am US Institute of Peace; 2301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Rached Ghannouchi, President of the Ennahdha Party of Tunisia, will discuss the current political and security crisis in the region, including how Tunisia’s democratic transition and experience can be drawn upon when seeking solutions to the protracted crises ongoing in the Middle East and North Africa. He will also consider how dialogue and compromise can pave the way for national unity and reconciliation. Ghannouchi will be joined by Robin Wright, journalist, and fellow at USIP.
- Security and Justice in Post-Revolution Libya: Dignity, Dawn, and Deadlock Tuesday, September 30 | 10:00 am – 12:00 pm US Institute of Peace; 2301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND With Libya’s state security and justice institutions now largely nonfunctioning, some communities have turned to vigilante justice, tribal leaders and elders, or resorted to self-help when faced with conflicts and disputes. USIP will host a discussion to address how this situation arose, and what can be done to change it. Naji Abou-Khalil, Project Manager at Altai Consulting, along with Senior Program Officers at USIP Fiona Mangan and Christina Murtaugh, will form the panel.
- Meet Syria’s Rescue Workers: Saving Lives, Building Peace Tuesday, September 30 | 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm US Institute of Peace; 2301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Some 600 Syrians known as “White Helmets” or Syrian Civil Defense units, are organized volunteers who act as rescue workers in areas like Aleppo and Idlib provinces in the country’s northwest. They are unarmed and impartial, and operate on principles of solidarity, humanity and impartiality. In the last six months, they have recorded more than 2,500 lives saved. The United States Institute of Peace, The Syria Campaign and the Syrian American Medical Society bring together two such rescuers, Raed Salah and Khaled Harah, to discuss the future of peacebuilding in Syria. They will be joined by Samer Attar, member of the Syrian American Medical Society. The panel will be moderated by Hind Kabawat, Senior Program officer, USIP.
- Exploring ISIL: Context and Repercussions Tuesday, September 30 | 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm World Affairs Council; University of California Washington Center, 1608 Rhode Island Ave NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND World Affairs Council will hold a discussion about ISIL, one of the most momentous and imposing insurgent groups in the world today. The panel will discuss the group’s background, the US response to it, and how both will impact the security of the region. Speakers include Shadi Hamid, fellow at the Brookings Institute, Thomas Sanderson, co-director and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic International Studies Transnational Threats Project, and moderator Kate Brannen, senior reporter at Foreign Policy.
- Countering ISIS: An Evening with Ambassador Jeffrey, Former US Ambassador to Iraq Thursday, Oct 2 | 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm Elliott School of International Affairs; 1957 E Street NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Ambassador James F. Jeffrey will discuss ISIS as an organization, the international community’s current plan to counter ISIS, and offer his own opinions and critiques on these plans, in an open discussion with all those in attendance.
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Peace picks, September 23-26
- Religious Peacebuilding: The Approach of the U.S. Institute of Peace Tuesday, September 23 | 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Rumi Forum; 750 First Street NE, Suite 1120, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND The Religion and Peacebuilding Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace was launched in July 2000 to analyze religious dynamics in conflict and to advance the peace-building roles of religious actors and organizations in conflict zones. For the past 14 years, the U.S. Institute of Peace has been organizing programs to address zones of conflict from a religious perspective. This presentation will present some of the lessons learned from this effort. Speakers include David Smock, director of the Religion and Peacebuilding Center and vice-president, Governance, Law & Society; Palwasha Kakar, Senior Program Officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace; and Susan Hayward, Senior Program Officer focussing on conflict prevention, resolution, and reconciliation.
- Libya’s Civil War Wednesday, September 24 | 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Frederic Wehrey will present the findings of a new paper on the institutional roots of Libya’s violence and present options for how the United States and the international community can assist. Wolfram Lacher, associate in the Middle East and Africa research division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Faraj Najem, director of Salam Centre for African Research in Tripoli, Libya, and a professor of public administration at Benghazi University, and Dirk Vandewalle professor of Government at Dartmouth College and the Carter Center’s field office director in Libya, will act as discussants and share their own insights. Michele Dunne, senior associate in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, will moderate.
- Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance Wednesday, September 24 | 12:15 pm – 1:45 pm New America Foundation; 1899 L St., NW, Suite 400, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND US Army Col. Joel Rayburn will discuss his book, Iraq After America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance. In it, he notes that the authoritarianism, sectarianism, and Islamist resistance that dominate Iraq’s post-U.S. political order have created a toxic political and social brew, preventing Iraq’s political elite from resolving the fundamental roots of conflict that have wracked the country before and since 2003. Rayburn will examine key aspects of the US legacy in Iraq, analyzing what it means for the United States and others that, after more than a decade of conflict, Iraq’s communities have not yet found a way to live together in peace.
- The Legal Basis for Military Action against ISIS Thursday, September 25 | 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium; 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND Charles Stimson, Manager of the National Security Law Program will host a conversation concerning the legality of the Obama Administration’s strategic plan to degrade and destroy the Islamic State. Key to the discussion will be whether the President should request a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) specific to ISIS, or whether the administration can rely either on AUMFs issued previously in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, or on the President’s Article II powers alone. Joining the discussion will be Steven Bradbury, Partner at Dechert LLP, Robert Chesney, Charles I. Francis Professor of Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law, and Steven Vladeck, Professor of Law at The Washington College of Law, American University.
- Is There a Role for Religious Actors in Countering Radicalization and Violent Extremism? Friday, September 26 | 10:30 am – 12:00 pm US Institute of Peace; 2301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington DC REGISTER TO ATTEND USIP will host an event featuring three panelists from its recent Symposium, who will present insights drawn from the workshop and their own experiences of combatting extremism. Violent extremism is a pressing issue today, affecting many regions and the wider global community, and efforts to counter such extremism require strategic and sensitive approaches. While civil society has an important role to play in countering extremism, religious actors are well positioned to address some of its root causes, particularly in areas in which extremism is couched in religious terms. Moderating the discussion is Georgia Holmer, Deputer Director, Rule of Law Center. She will be joined by H. E. Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, President of Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, Pastor Esther Ibanga, President, Women Without Walls Initiative, and Vinya Ariyaratne, the General Secretary at Sarvodaya.
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Demonization obscures a good argument
Eric Edelman, Dennis Ross and Ray Takeyh write in the Washington Post:
The Islamic Republic is not a normal nation-state seeking to realize its legitimate interests but an ideological entity mired in manufactured conspiracies. A persistent theme of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speeches is that the United States is a declining power whose domestic sources of strength are fast eroding. In today’s disorderly region, Iran sees a unique opportunity to project its influence and undermine the United States and its system of alliances.
This is nonsense. Ideology and conspiracy theories hardly distinguish Iran from other nation states, including many that are friendly to the US. Nor do speeches by a leader claiming the United States is a declining power whose domestic sources of strength are fast eroding. That is a view many of our friends as well as our enemies hold. Iran’s effort to project its influence and undermine the United States and its system of alliances is the very definition of a state pursuing what it believes are its legitimate interests. Iran may be an an enemy, but it is still a normal nation-state.
This demonization of Iran and its anti-US policies is combined with much more powerful and important arguments against cooperating with the Islamic Republic: its goals are inconsistent with US goals, and such cooperation would reduce the likelihood of gaining the Sunni Arab cooperation necessary to defeat the Islamic State (IS).
The inconsistency of ultimate goals might be overcome. After all, the US cooperates with many countries whose ultimate goals it does not share, provided their cooperation brings net benefits. This is true not only for unavoidable powers like China and Russia, but also for friendly but problematic countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Right now every IS fighter Iran’s proxies in Hizbollah do away with is one less for American allies in Iraq and Syria to deal with. If Hizbollah is going to weaken the IS and do away with a few of its own fighters in the process, realists in Washington should count the result as positive.
Cooperation with Iran could however have a negative impact on the Sunni communities in Iraq and Syria as well as the Sunni participants in the international coalition against IS. That is a strong argument against aligning openly with Iran, even if IS is also their enemy. We would not want a victory for Bashar al Asad in Syria or for Shia militias in Iraq. If Sunnis mistakenly came to believe that we do, they would be far less inclined to fight IS or to support the coalition the US is trying to cobble together.
Secretary Kerry Friday left the door open to contributions from Iran. That would better be done in private than in public, but it is unavoidable. Tehran has compelling interests in helping its friends in Baghdad and Damascus to fight the IS. Washington can’t stop it any better now than it could when it occupied Iraq. But the Americans would be wise to ensure that Syrians and Iraqis of all sorts view the US as helpful, not only in the effort to defeat the IS but also in efforts to rebuild legitimate and friendly democratic regimes in both places. That is where American interests diverge from Iran’s.
Iran has tried for decades to portray the United States as the Great Satan. We are not, and neither are they.
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Wrong lessons learned
ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. It has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.
Thus President Obama misdiagnosed the problem in last night’s rallying cry for a military effort to degrade and destroy the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
ISIL is certainly an organization that uses terrorist means, but it is also more than that. It now controls and even governs a swath of territory in eastern Syria and western Iraq populated by millions of people. While it slaughters its enemies with ferocity, it is wrong to say it has no other vision. Its vision is the destruction of the states of the Iraqi and Levantine states (at the least Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as Israel and Palestine), as well as the recreation of a caliphate governed under its peculiarly harsh notion of sharia.
This misdiagnosis is leading President Obama to repeat the mistakes of his predecessor, George W. Bush, in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to avoid them. The United States won the wars in it fought in those two countries in 2002 and 2003 respectively. What it lost was the post-war transitions, for which it did little to prepare.
In Afghanistan, the intention was to “kill Al Qaeda and get out,” as Republican advisor Phil Merrill told me at the time. He found ludicrous the notion that we would worry about how justice is administered after we had succeeded. Twelve years later, it is clear that the Taliban took advantage of this failure to re-establish itself, especially in the eastern and southern provinces, while Al Qaeda took refuge in Pakistan.
In Iraq, General Tommy Franks, the American military commander of the invasion, refused to plan for “rear area security,” which is the military euphemism for law and order in the areas liberated from the enemy. The planning for civilian administration, one of three pillars of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), was weak to non-existent. ORHA floundered, then got displaced by Gerry Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority, which managed to create the conditions for the Sunni insurgency by disbanding the Iraqi army and barring many Ba’athists from senior positions.
ISIL is a direct descendant of that insurgency. It began its notorious existence as Al Qaeda in Iraq and played a major role in the Iraq civil war of 2006/7. The American counter-insurgency campaign against it was at least partially successful with the support of Sunni tribesmen, but ISIL rose from the ashes in the last few years partly due to the war in Syria and partly due to Nouri al Maliki’s exclusion of Sunnis from real power (not from positions–there were as many Sunnis or more in his governments than in the current one Secretary Kerry has labeled “inclusive”). There is no reason to believe ISIL won’t revive again, unless there are states in Syria and Iraq that have legitimacy with their Sunni populations.
The failure of the President to take into account the requirements and costs of post-war transition once ISIL is defeated in Iraq and Syria means that he is underestimating the risks of his decision to go to war. The costs need not all be American, and they don’t necessarily require American troops. But there has to be a plan for the UN, Arab League, EU and others to support state-building once the anti-ISIL war is won.
The notion that we can kill ISIL and get out, without any attention to what follows, is the same mistake George H.W. Bush made in Somalia (with the result that we are still fighting there more than 25 years later), Bill Clinton would have liked to make in Bosnia (but fortunately was convinced that he could not withdraw US troops within a year), and George W. Bush made in Afghanistan and Iraq. It won’t happen. We’ll get stuck with bills and tasks that we might have preferred to avoid, and for which we fail to prepare.
PS: I discussed some of these issues on WSJ Live this morning:
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How to degrade and destroy
President Obama has now clarified his goal in the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL): it is to degrade and destroy. His model is what was accomplished against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That should be little comfort to those who live in areas where ISIL operates. A dozen years of war have rendered parts of the border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan even more lawless and ungovernable than it was before the US intervened there starting in 2001. But it is fair enough to say that the remnants of Al Qaeda that remain there are little threat to the United States.
What will it take to defeat ISIL?
The military campaign will require a 360 degree effort against ISIL. This means an international coalition that includes not only those NATO members willing to engage but also the security forces of Iraq and Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan as well as Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), all of which are seriously threatened if ISIL is able to consolidate its position inside Iraq and Syria. The precise division of labor will have to be negotiated, but the United States should expect that its bombing of ISIL in both Syria and Iraq is only the tip of the spear. Iraq and the Syrian rebels will need to provide the biggest share of the ground forces. The others should be prepared to attack from the air or provide funding, advice and equipment.
The military campaign against ISIL will go much faster and much better if the mainly Sunni populations in the areas it controls rise against it. This is what enabled the American “surge” in 2006 and 2007 to succeed against Al Qaeda in Iraq. Then it was the Sunni tribes that rebelled and helped the Americans to destroy Al Qaeda. Any serious effort to destroy ISIL will need to make something similar happen now. But it won’t be easy: without boots on the ground, the Americans will be unable to organize or pay for a Sunni “awakening.” The Saudis and UAE have shown little aptitude in this direction, but it is high time they learned how to get what they pay for.
While confronting ISIL militarily, the coalition acting against it will need to weaken its sources of financing and recruitment. This is shadowy work that requires the best efforts of many intelligence agencies working together. The focus on foreign fighters coming from the US and Western Europe may be necessary to prevent their flow back to those places. But most of them appear to be coming from other places and need to be slowed or stopped, whatever their origins. This is an area where the Russians can contribute: Chechnyans play a significant role, as do others from the Caucusus. Rumors of Qatari financing have been rife. It is time to stop any supposedly private contributions going from Doha to ISIL or its supporters.
The toughest issue in dealing with ISIL will be preventing its return to the places where it is militarily defeated. President Obama may think leaving the border area of Pakistan and Afghanistan devoid of effective governance is all right, because eventually Kabul and Islamabad will fill in. But it is going to be a long time before Damascus or Baghdad can govern effectively in the eastern provinces of Syria or the western provinces of Iraq, respectively. If you want to degrade and destroy ISIL there you are going to have to make some provision for governance, justice and public services.
This cannot be done by remote control. Someone is going to need to establish a presence in the areas ISIS currently controls, unless we want to see it go the way of Libya, whose various militias are tearing the country to shreds. In Syria, it might be the moderate revolutionaries, but then they will need protection from Bashar al Asad so long as he rules Damascus. In Iraq, it will likely need to be Sunni Iraqis who take control and govern–initially at least–without much reference to Baghdad. International humanitarian and other assistance in both countries will be vital, unless we want to see them go the way of Libya, where militias are now battling each other for control of the state. The UN or maybe the Arab League had better get ready for big challenges.
Presidents have to deal with the world they are dealt, not the one they prefer. “Degrade and destroy” will take years, not months. Obama would prefer to do retrenchment. Maybe his successor will get the opportunity.
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Balkans regional cooperation
I moderated a panel of Balkans luminaries this week at the Bled Security Forum, an annual Slovenia-hosted gathering that this year devoted itself to the theme of “trust” (and distrust). For my panel of present and aspiring foreign ministers, the organizers posed the question of why regional cooperation in the Western Balkans (that means the six republics of what was once Yugoslavia, plus Kosovo and Albania) has generated such meager results. As Hoyt Yee, the lone American on the panel, noted, there is no lack of regional initiatives–one of his interns found upwards of 60 just searching online with Google.
Serbian deputy prime minister and foreign minister Ivica Dacic was first out of the gates with one answer that held up well during the rest of the 90-minute session, even if his Yugo-nostalgia for Tito missed the mark with the other participants. What is needed, he said, is political will and courage. Only those who have got it will be prepared to accept compromise, which involves getting half of what you don’t want along with half of what you do want. The Belgrade/Pristina dialogue, he suggested, achieved little until it was raised from the technical to the political level (which meant to him, as he was at the time prime minister). The European Union magnet is important: the EU is more popular in the Balkans aspirants than it is in the member states.
Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic suggested a different answer. Trust is not really the issue, and political will isn’t necessarily lacking. But leaders in the Balkans are still working out what their national interests really are. Only once they they get a good fix on what will serve their countries well will they be able to negotiate effectively and work with their neighbors cooperatively, which is vital for all. She underlined that she had advocated regional cooperation before it was popular to do so. But capacity to understand and enunciate priorities is still lacking.
This is particularly difficult in a country like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ana Trisic-Babic said, because of its internal divisions. Bosnia needs new political leadership and a new social contract. Reform is vital to grow the economy and raise GDP. How long will people continue to put it off? There was more trust before the Dayton agreement than right now. Bosnia needs EU candidate status, sooner rather than later.
Senator Benedetto della Vedova assured all concerned that the Italian EU presidency will try to accelerate EU membership for all Balkans countries. It was a mistake for the EU not to have integrated Yugoslavia in the 1980s. But now integration of the Western Balkans with the EU is clearly having a big, positive impact, for example on Serbia as well as Montenegro. It should be no more than 10 years before all the Balkans countries become members.
Marko Makovec*, foreign policy adviser to the Slovenian President, noted that at one time some in Slovenia wanted to leave the Balkans behind. That is no longer the case. Now the question is what Slovenia, which has been an EU member for 10 years, can do to help its southern neighbors. The Balkans are going to need more tools than the normal accession process offers. Montenegro’s EU accession negotiator Aleksandar Andrija Pejovic confirmed that he gets a lot of help from the neighbors, who compare notes often on the EU accession process.
Macedonian Foreign Minister Poposki noted that Skopje continues to prepare for EU accession, and to behave as if it is a NATO member, but is stalled in the formal processes of accession to both organizations because of the “name” issue. There is no lack of communication on the issues, especially with Germany and Greece. But so far there has been a failure to implement shared democratic principles in resolving the name issue.
Regional Cooperation Council Secretary General Goran Svilanovic, fresh from a Berlin meeting that underlined the importance of regional infrastructure projects, noted that the Balkans states are already heavily indebted. They need highways and railroads that interconnect them more tightly, but they will not be able to borrow to fund these projects. Working together, they will need to prioritize and seek EU funding.
Yee wrapped up with a further plea for prioritization. The United States is still engaged in the Balkans and wants Bosnia’s internal difficulties and the Macedonia name issue to be resolved with a sense of urgency. Balkans citizens going to fight in the Middle East are a new and important issue. So too is energy security. It is important that solutions be based on common principles and values. We have seen how important these are in the crisis in Ukraine, where the principle of territorial integrity has been violated. Where we can get common ownership of clear principles and values, that is where we can expect success.
*PS: This did not do justice to Marko Makovec presentation, the written version of which he has kindly provided. It is attached here.
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