Tag: United States
I spent yesterday listening to well-informed people talk (Las Vegas rules) about prospects for the January 22/23 Montreux/Geneva 2 peace talks. The UN faxed invitations Monday. The Syrian government has already named its delegation. The Russians are in. Iran is not invited to the multilateral opening day in Montreux, but John Kerry says it can hang around with everyone else while UN envoy Brahimi meets with the Syrian parties on the second day in Geneva. Faute de mieux, the Americans are committed to Geneva 2 and anxious that it begin a peace process, even if there is no hope it will conclude one. “What else can we do?” they ask plaintively.
The Syrian opposition doesn’t know if it is coming or going. Some portion of Etilaf, the Syrian Opposition Coalition that Washington and other capitals have accepted as the political representative of the Syrian people, is bound to give in to US pressure to attend, but no formal decision has been taken yet. The Syrian National Council component of Etilaf is against attending. So of course are the more extreme Islamists armed groups. Most moderate Islamist armed groups, organized now as the Islamic Front, are also opposed. The Free Syrian Army’s Supreme Military Council will have to go, since it gets a lot of assistance from the US.
Why would the opposition not want to attend? Let me count the reasons:
- There is no serious possibility of Geneva 2 implementing the Geneva 1 goal of a “transitional governing body with full executive authority,” since Bashar al Asad is clearly not prepared to step aside, down or up.
- Anyone from the opposition who attends will be regarded as a traitor by those who don’t, including armed groups with the capacity to do real harm.
- Even if the risks are not mortal, the political risk is significant.
- Attending will fragment the opposition even more and weaken it.
- The opposition does not trust the Americans and loathes the Russians.
- Whatever statement comes out of Geneva 2, it will have to be balanced between the Americans and Russians, which means it could imply support for the scheduled May elections, focus on fighting terrorism rather than ending Asad’s brutality towards the Syrian people and imply an obligation of those attending to cut off supplies of arms (thus obligating Saudi Arabia and Qatar but not Iran).
A ceasefire agreed at Geneva will be meaningless, as the extremist militias not present will violate it right away, with the regime responding in kind (if not pre-empting). The only real upside for the opposition at Geneva would be agreement on humanitarian access. But the opposition believes that could be agreed without negotiation between the warring parties, as it is a clear legal obligation for the government to allow relief to the civilian population.
One-third of Etilaf is already said to have resigned to protest against going to Geneva 2, which even the many fighters who want a political solution regard as an a snare and a delusion. Without changing the military balance on the ground, and without strong American backing, Geneva 2 will cause more fragmentation in the opposition. It will also weaken relative moderates within the opposition and strengthen extremists. The West is setting up the opposition for failure.
What will it do for the the regime, the Russians and the Iranians?
The regime looks to an international meeting like Geneva 2 for legitimacy, which it has never sought from the Syrian people. It will claim to have offered reforms and even amnesty, portray itself as a bulwark against extremism, denounce the international conspiracy against Asad and claim that what it has done on chemical weapons demonstrates its reliability. Disciplined and organized, it will present a clean face to the world in Montreux, even if barrel bombs are still falling on the civilian population of Aleppo.
Moscow’s main objective is to prevent chaos and the flow of extremists from Syria (where 5-600 Russian citizens are fighting against the regime), as well as to protect specific interests like port access and protection of orthodox Christians. It is difficult for Moscow to see how chaos can be avoided if the regime is removed. Russia doesn’t want to see Libyan-style chaos in Syria. In Moscow’s view, a majority of Syrians still supports Asad, who may well run for re-election in May. He is not creating the extremists, who would exist even if there were no war in Syria. The Sunni/Shia divide is exaggerated. It is strife within the Sunni community that is really important. Transitional justice in Moscow’s estimation should be postponed, as it has been in Cambodia. It claims to be ready for a peaceful transition to democracy, but there is no sign it is ready to cut off the weapons flow to the regime.
Nor is there sign Iran is ready to abandon Asad. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in particular the Quds Force, controls Iran’s policy on Syria, not President Rouhani. There is no open dissent from the official narrative: Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia are trying to remove Asad, so the “resistance front” (Hizbollah and the IRGC) needs to respond. They cannot be restrained without stopping the flow of extremists and Gulf financing to the opposition forces. Iran would like an invitation to Montreux, but not with conditions. It will not accept the Geneva 1 goal.
Tomorrow: I’ll attempt to answer that plaintive question: “what else can we do?”
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Former Ambassador to Iraq Jim Jeffrey argues in this morning’s Washington Post for more wholehearted support to Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and other allies willing to fight Al Qaeda:
…as also often happens in this region, the administration is sounding an uncertain tone, seemingly signaling to everyone that its top priority is to not get the United States into any sort of military engagement…
Let’s leave aside whether the tone is really all that uncertain and whether President Obama has accurately read the sentiment of the American people. They certainly don’t want American troops going back to Iraq, and there is no clear sign that Maliki wants them either.
There is another problem with Jim’s argument. Maliki has contributed to the problem in Iraq, by alienating the Sunni population.
Jim acknowledges this in passing, but fails to recognize that a
I agree with Jim that Iraq is important, both because it is a central player in the Arab and Kurdish worlds and because its oil production helps now and can help in the future to stabilize the world oil market. But the problem with American policy is not insufficient support to Maliki. It is insufficient frankness with him about what we expect of our friends and allies.
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Yesterday’s New York Times suggests “Power Vacuum in Middle East Lifts Militants.” US withdrawal is of course the cause of the power vacuum. For years however we’ve been hearing that US presence in the Middle East is what generates militant reactions. American bases in Saudi Arabia and the American occupation of Iraq are often cited as prime movers of Islamic militancy.
Similar contradictory statements appear often about Bashar al Asad. The Western press is now full of claims that getting rid of him will leave Syria open to the possibility of a Sunni extremist takeover. But his continued hold on power all too obviously also encourages radicalization of the opposition to his rule.
The simple fact is that we don’t know much about what feeds violent militancy. While William Pape and James Feldman claim that suicide terrorism–certainly a salient characteristic of some contemporary Islamic extremists–is rooted in foreign occupation, there are ample reasons to believe that it doesn’t stop with American withdrawal. It certainly did not in Iraq and likely won’t in Afghanistan either.
With respect to Asad’s impact on militancy, we know even less. He has benefitted from, and even encouraged, violent resistance to his regime, which empowers him to respond violently. But would violent resistance end if Bashar stepped aside in favor of a transitional government with full executive powers (as foreseen in the June 2012 UN communique)? I doubt it.
The world does not run backwards. Removing a cause, post facto, does not get you back to where you started. Washington pulled the rug out from under Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 and helped to force his resignation, but that did not reverse the effect in Egyptian minds of decades of US support for military rule in Egypt. An Israel/Palestine agreement now may be highly desirable, but it is unlikely to have the same impact it might have had in the 1990s. There is just too much that has happened since and won’t be forgotten, on both sides.
Violence is particularly important in preventing history from running in reverse. People won’t forget Bashar’s use of mass violence to compensate for his lack of legitimacy, protect Alawites and bolster territorial control. Syria when I studied Arabic there in 2008 was peaceful and tolerant, even though repressed and authoritarian. Ending Bashar’s rule will not take us back there. Any future dictatorship in Syria will have to be much more brutal than Bashar’s was. Any future democracy will face problems that a democracy emerging from a less violent transition would not have to face.
Where does this leave us with respect to US behavior? We are clearly going to need to find indirect and less expensive ways to influence world events than the military interventions we used so boldly from 1995 to 2003. Bosnia and Kosovo were relatively cheap and killed no Americans. The legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan is a gigantic tab–on the order of $6 trillion I read somewhere this morning–plus thousands of dead, military and civilian. I don’t agree with Mearsheimer’s notion that America is unhinged (and responsible for militancy in Syria) but clearly we are not going back to large-scale military interventions, even if economic and financial conditions improve.
What we need is to be much more proactive, preventing unhappy events before they happen. We clearly failed at that in the Arab world, where we were caught unawares despite a large and well-established diplomatic presence. But American diplomacy has a pretty good record in recent decades of nurturing, or at least permitting, nonviolent change in Latin America and Asia. Let’s remember how to do it, because history is irreversible.
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Washington is still trying to warm up from the holidays and the chill:
1. US National Security Strategy
Tuesday, January 7, 2014 – 12:00pm – 1:30pm
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On January 7, Thomas E. Donilon, distinguished fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, and former national security adviser to President Barack Obama, will be in conversation with Walter Isaacson, president and CEO of The Aspen Institute. This event is presented in partnership with the Aspen Institute Middle East Programs.
The Washington Ideas Roundtable Series is made possible with the generous support of Michelle Smith and the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation.
2. Mona Yacoubian & Ambassador Frederic C. Hof
As part of the Global Leaders conversation series, Ambassador Frederic C. Hof, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and Mona Yacoubian of the Stimson Center, will participate in a conversation at NYU Washington, DC on January 8, 2014. The series features Alon Ben-Meir, professor of international relations, journalist, and author, who hosts leaders from around the world in conversations that probe critical global issues and explore the policies designed to address them. The Global Leaders series is coordinated by NYU-SCPS Center for Global Affairs.
While at NYU Washington, DC, Ambassador Hof and Ms. Yacoubian will participate in a discussion with Professor Ben-Meir and take audience questions.
January 8, 2014
Program begins at 6:30PM
Reception to Follow
NYU Washington, DC
Abramson Family Auditorium
1307 L Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
3. Securing peace, promoting prosperity: The US, Japan, and India
Thursday, January 09, 2014 | 9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
AEI, Twelfth Floor, Main
1150 Seventeenth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s more forward-leaning foreign and national security policies have led to renewed interest in the potential for a US-India-Japan trilateral relationship. At this public event, experts will explore the rationales behind and roadblocks to greater cooperation.Are there opportunities for enhanced trade and investment relationships? Will shared security concerns lead to greater defense collaboration? And how will stronger US-India-Japan ties influence China’s posture in the region?If you are unable to attend, we welcome you to watch the event live. Full video will be posted within 24 hours.
Agenda
8:45 AM
Registration and Breakfast
9:00 AM
Opening Remarks
Dan Blumenthal, AEI
9:15 AM
Panel I: Economics
Panelists:
Anil K. Gupta, Robert H. Smith School of Business
Richard Katz, The Oriental Economist
Derek Scissors, AEI
Ron Somers, US-India Business Council
Moderator:
Sadanand Dhume, AEI
10:45 AM
Panel II: Security
Panelists:
Patrick Cronin, Center for New American Security
Paul Giarra, Global Strategies & Transformation
Dhruva Jaishankar, German Marshall Fund of the United States
Moderator:
Michael Auslin, AEI
12:30 PM
Adjournment
Event Contact Information
For more information, please contact Shannon Mann at shannon.mann@aei.org, 202.862.5911.
Media Contact Information
For media inquiries, please contact MediaServices@aei.org, 202.862.5829.
4. Inside Iran, US Institute of Peace, 9:30-11 am January 9
With Robin Wright and David Ignatius
Two long-time Middle East experts have recently returned from Iran. Their discussions with cabinet members, ayatollahs, hardliners, Members of Parliament, economists, opposition figures and ordinary Iranians offer rare insights into Iran’s increasingly vibrant political scene since President Rouhani took office and the implications of the new nuclear agreement. Robin Wright and David Ignatius offer fresh perspectives on what’s next.
Please join us for a moderated discussion on these and other issues important to Iran, its internal politics, and its relations with the world.
This event will feature the following speakers:
- Robin Wright
Journalist and Author, U.S. Institute of Peace and Woodrow Wilson International Center
- David Ignatius
Columnist and Author, The Washington Post
- Ambassador William Taylor, Moderator
Vice President, Center for Middle East & Africa, U.S. Institute of Peace
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As Liz Sly highlights in this morning’s Washington Post, the Al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has managed to ignite war in both countries. But for the moment the war is not the one Al Qaeda would like to be fighting against the Alawite dictatorship in Syria and the Shiite-dominated proto-democracy in Iraq. Instead it is a war between Sunni militants who want to re-establish the caliphate and nationalists–some Islamist, some secularist–who aim to change the governments but preserve the state structure in the region.
The United States has a dog in this fight. It cannot afford to see Al Qaeda gain a base of operations in eastern Syria or western Iraq. Washington will therefore back the revolt of the anti-Al Qaeda forces in Syria as well as the Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq, which is getting at least some help from the Sunni tribesmen who were vital to the American victory over Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2006/7. Ryan Crocker and Bing West were on PBS Newshour Friday saying that Al Qaeda has overreached and will no doubt be defeated in the Iraq front of this Sunni civil war. They may well be right ultimately, but on Saturday Al Qaeda seems to have consolidated control over Fallujah, while losing control of Ramadi, the Anbar provincial capital. It will be a while before we know the outcome of this latest iteration of Sunni on Sunni fighting.
Do the Sunni civil wars threaten state structures in the Levant? Reidar Visser, who knows as much about this part of the world as any Westerner I know, writes:
Today, there is once more a thug [sic] of war between pan-Islamism and Iraqi nationalism, but by no means has the local population universally sided with the Islamist rebels. Despite continuing squabbles among Iraqi leaders, a considerable segment of local Anbar politicians have rushed to support the Iraqi army in its efforts against pan-Islamist elements, showing that the people of western Iraq are once more sceptical about getting too intimately connected with political movements aiming at union with Syria.
His bottom line: “Dammit, It Is NOT Unravelling: An Historian’s Rebuke to Misrepresentations of Sykes-Picot.”
I’m not so sure. As Reidar himself points out, Sykes-Picot was mainly concerned with control over coastal areas. The barren interiors of Anbar and the Syrian provinces of Homs and Deir al Azour were not really an issue a century ago. The Sykes-Picot borders had little impact there.
More importantly: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Lebanon is the weakest link. It is increasingly suffering tit-for-tat attacks that its parlous internal security apparatus cannot respond to effectively. The second weakest link is the separation between Kurds in Syria and in Iraq. While Syria’s Kurds are nowhere near as concentrated as Iraq’s were, most want at least a federal unit like the Iraqi one. But if the Syrian state collapses, the Kurds will be free to pursue union with their Iraqi brethren, who might themselves be liberated if Iraq continues to descend into chaos.
There is no real possibility of an orderly redrawing of borders in the Levant. If it happens, it will be violent, messy, and even chaotic. Good guys are not likely to come out on top. Like it or not, the Americans and their Gulf friends need to do what is necessary to make sure that Al Qaeda loses the Sunni civil wars in Iraq and Syria.
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Hadi Bahra, of the Syrian Coalition political office, is anxious to call attention to UN Security Council resolution 2118, which not only provided for removal and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons capability, but also endorsed
…fully the Geneva Communiqué of 30 June 2012 (Annex II), which sets out a number of key steps beginning with the establishment of a transitional governing body exercising full executive powers, which could include members of the present Government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent.
The problem is that the Russians are far from agreeing that this should be the over-riding purpose of a “Geneva 2” conference. Nor is Bashar al Asad preparing to send a delegation to the January 23/24 Montreux/Geneva conference empowered to hand over all executive authority.
The Syrian Coalition is right to insist, but the question is what it should do if it doesn’t get its way, as it won’t. Does it still go to Montreux/Geneva, or does it refuse?
Refusing would mean stiffing John Kerry, endangering American and other Western support and handing a propaganda victory to Bashar al Asad. That’s not a good outcome.
Attending means daring the Syrian regime to show up, gaining a bully pulpit for the opposition’s own interpretation of UNSC resolution 2118, and giving the Americans some satisfaction. Many in the opposition hope the regime will not take the dare and embarrass itself by not showing up. That would be a satisfying outcome, but just for that reason unlikely. The Russians will deliver the Syrians, just as the Americans will deliver the opposition.
What will happen at Montreux/Geneva, assuming both sides do turn up? The Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG) recently ran a simulation intended to find out. The simulation focused on establishing a ceasefire, forming a transitional government and accountability for wartime abuses. To make a long story short, the Syrian opposition was fragmented going in and the pressure of negotiation made things worse. A unified Syrian government delegation with strong Russian support had a field day reinforcing the notion that President Asad is indispensable. The Americans and Russians conspired to keep Asad symbolically in place while a technocratic government took over. Only a walkout–not something that will gain any points with the international community–saved the opposition from getting its clock cleaned.
Simulations are just that. They are not reality. PILPG spins the outcome in positive directions: the opposition needs to come to Geneva 2 unified around its own plans for security, transitional governance and accountability.
That does not appear likely. Pressed hard on the battlefield, the opposition continues to shatter. While the Syrian National Coalition is reported to be meeting Monday in Turkey to elect its president (or re-elect the current one), other groups are meeting in Spain. The Islamic Front fighters have not supported either group as yet, and it is unclear whether they will turn up in any form Montreux/Geneva. The extremists associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Jabhat al Nusra are uninterested in the talks. Syrian Kurdish attitudes are divided.
There is a lot of preparatory work still to be done. Hang together, or hang separately.
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