Egypt’s Messy Politics Get Worse

Two years ago Tunisia, Egypt and Libya led the way for the so called “Arab Spring” by successfully ousting long entrenched authoritarian regimes. Tunisia accomplished this with a relatively peaceful series of demonstrations that forced President Ali to leave. Egypt’s overthrow of President Mubarak was more violent, but still relatively peaceful. Libya on the other hand endured months of civil war in order to force Muammar Gaddafi from power. I thought at the time that Libya would have the most difficult time in transitioning to a democratic system. Gaddafi had destroyed all of Libya’s civil society institutions and the country had a history of, sometimes violent, tribal rivalries. Despite these problems, Libya has managed a relatively successful transition and the IMF predicts that the economy will grow at a rate of 116% in 2012.

On the other hand, Egypt, the so called “leader of the Arab world”, has allowed its political issues to deteriorate into one big street brawl with opposing political groups shooting at each other. In order to understand how we got into this state of affairs, it is useful to examine the history of the Egyptian electoral process and how the results were read differently by the various parties.

The process began when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed power following Mubarak’s ouster. SCAF decided to hold elections before drafting a new constitution. The rapid timetable for Parliamentary elections favored the more organized Islamist parties. Following a convoluted series of elections and an even more obscure system of allocating seats, the Islamist parties emerged with 65% of the votes and 70% of the seats. Unsurprisingly, the Constituent Assembly, tasked by Parliament with writing the Constitution, was dominated by Islamists.

The Presidential elections were held in two stages. In the first stage, which determined who would move to the second round, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) candidate Mohammed Morsi (25%) edged out Ahmed Shafiq, a remnant (falool) of the Mubarak regime (23%). The remaining moderate and secular parties could not agree on a common candidate and split the vote resulting in Morsi and Shafiq facing off in the second round. In this round Morsi won a narrow victory (52% to 48%) with many voters voting against the MB rather than for Shafiq. All this said, however, it should be pointed out that, however convoluted the process, Mohammed Morsi is the most democratically elected president in Egypt’s history.

The MB looked at the parliamentary results and concluded that they had an overwhelming mandate to govern. This conclusion has led to governing overreach. The opposition looked at the presidential results and concluded that a majority of Egyptians oppose the MB. The secularist and falool parties, who couldn’t agree on anything during the elections, have formed an odd coalition, The National Salvation Front (NSF). They have called the “regime” illegitimate, called for its overthrow and vowed that they “will not allow the constitutional referendum to go forward”. The tanks are back in the streets again. As Jason Brownlee points out in a recent article, by banking on military intervention and “courting a coup against Morsi or prolonging Egypt’s transition (the NSF) risks erasing the great strides made toward popular sovereignty and civilian control over the state.” Reza Aslan’s pithy Tweet sums it up, “For God's sake Egypt. The world is watching. Throwing rocks at each other is not politics. Get your shit together!”

Technorati Tags: Egypt Election,Egypt Unrest

Crisis in Egypt?

Shortly after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi succeeded in mediating a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, for which he received international acclaim, Morsi stunned both Egyptians and Western leaders by declaring that, until the new Egyptian constitution was ratified, his decisions were not reviewable by the Judicial courts. The U.S. State Dept. issued a statement saying, “The decisions and declarations announced on Nov 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community.” Opposition figures in Egypt decried the decree as a blatant power grab. Western media breathlessly reported on street demonstrations in Egypt by comparing them with the million person demonstrations that led to the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. (See here) I think that the reality is much more nuanced.

We should remember that Morsi has previously used this tactic. Shortly after his election, there was much concern that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) would refuse to relinquish power. Morsi aggressively stripped SCAF of political power and eliminated its influence over the constitutional assembly. In the end he compromised and allowed the military leaders to gracefully retire.

In the case of the judiciary, Morsi was faced with much the same problem. The judiciary is largely made up of holdovers from the Mubarak regime. Some are well respected legal figures, but many are Mubarak era political hacks who would like nothing better than return to the “good old days”. The have previously disbanded the elected Parliament and the Constituent Assembly tasked with writing a new Constitution. Morsi seems determined to get a Constitution ratified, to get Parliament elected and to move on. He has compromised with the judiciary while at the same time moving aggressively to bring the new Constitution to a vote. While not everyone likes the result of constitutional process, the people will get a chance to speak.

An examination of the street demonstrations shows that they are nothing like the 2011 demonstrations which represented all segments of society. The current demonstrators are protesting Morsi’s power grab and the Islamist tone of the Constitution. Peter Hessler, the New Yorker Cairo correspondent who interviewed many demonstrators, describes them as including “a large number of affluent and educated people; it was common to see women whose heads were not covered.” Many “were as practiced as an army—a group of kids whose education has been shaped largely by the violence around Tahrir.”

In the Parliamentary elections, the Islamist parties received 75% of the vote and the secular liberals less than 10%. It seems to me that the secular liberals are trying to win in the streets what they couldn’t win at the ballot box. I expect that the Constitution will be quickly ratified and a new Parliament elected so that Egypt can move forward in addressing its problems. If not, there will be a real crisis.

Technorati Tags: Egypt,Mohammed Morsi

Gaza: Winners and Losers

As of today the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, negotiated by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, appears to be holding. (The only violation has been the killing of a Gazan farmer by an Israeli soldier. Hamas reaction was relatively muted. They seem to want to give peace a chance.) As in any armed conflict, it is difficult to say that anybody won when almost 200 people were killed on both sides. That said, it is possible to point out some winners and losers.
Winners:
Hamas: In any conflict such as this in which the power equation is so unbalanced, the weaker side wins by not losing and the stronger side loses by not winning. Hamas in Gaza was able to absorb over 1500 airstrikes and live to fight another day. Hamas’ popularity, both in Gaza and the West Bank has soared. Their strategic objectives of stopping the bombing raids, stopping the targeted killings and easing the blockade of Gaza have been agreed to in the cease fire agreement. It remains to be seen whether or not Israel will implement the agreement. If not, we may be back in the same mess a few weeks from now. Hamas’ political capital in the region has also been enhanced by statements of support and by numerous visits by ranking Arab officials.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi: Morsi’s key role in brokering the ceasefire agreement has raised his personal status and as well as that of Egypt.
Iran: Iran’s game changing supply of longer range weapons and missile technology to Hamas has helped to cement this relationship. In addition, Iran had a chance to watch the much vaunted Israeli “Iron Dome” missile defense system in action and to better assess its strengths and weaknesses. In the event of an Iran-Israel conflict, this information will certainly be helpful to the Iranian military.
Losers:
Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu: The last thing that Netanyahu needed two months before an election was to have his arm twisted into agreeing to a ceasefire agreement that is enormously unpopular with the Israeli population. A snap poll conducted shortly after the cease fire was announced showed that 70% of the respondents disagreed with the decision to sign the cease fire agreement and supported a ground war in Gaza.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: The U.S. supported Abbas was completely sidelined during whole process. His standing among Palestinians, already low has plummeted.
To be determined:
President Obama and Hilary Clinton: While this is based on speculation on my part, it is hard for me to imagine that Netanyahu would have agreed to this ceasefire without some serious pressure from the U.S. Obama’s adroit handling of the relationship with Morsi and Clinton’s persuasion of Netanyahu (I would love to know what she said.) may bode well for U.S. relationships in the Middle East. Time will tell.

Technorati Tags: Gaza Conflict,Middle East

After the Election:What Now?

After months of campaign wrangling, the presidential election is now behind us and we are left with the question: What will US Middle East policy look like going forward? Since the election campaign was largely devoid of any discussion or debate on policy options, pundits are left to speculate based on a combination of hope, realities and educated guesses. Some things are clear. The major winner from the election outcome was Nate Silver, the NY Times statistics blogger, (See here) who got the results exactly right. (Close, but never in doubt.) The major loser was Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who bet big time on the wrong horse. On everything else we can only speculate and wait and see what will happen. In general, not much is likely to change.

The Syrian civil war drags on with the death toll on all sides rising with each passing day. Obama has little choice but to support the rebels rhetorically and with some modest aid, while relying on the wealthy Gulf States to do the heavy lifting of arming the rebels. There is no mood in the US to get entangled in another Middle East ground conflict. Iran and its allies will continue to support the Assad regime. Any negotiated settlement would require engagement with Iran. This would acknowledge Iran’s role as a regional player and is an anathema to Washington’s foreign policy wizards. The biggest losers will be the Syrian people.

The so called “Arab Awakening” will likely continue on its own path with the US having little influence on the outcomes. The road to functioning democracies in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya will be bumpy with an ending that is not likely to be friendly to US ambitions for regional control. There is not much that the US can do to influence the ending except to continue to support them and hope for the best. Hopefully, Congress will not mess it up.

As the “Arab Awakening” spreads to authoritarian US allies in the Gulf region and Jordan, the US will face some uncomfortable choices. With US bases in place and the US requiring Arab support for its anti-Iran policies, the policy has been to offer soft encouragement for reform, but no direct regime criticism. As the regimes crack down more aggressively on dissidents, (See here and here) this policy may become more untenable. Again, I expect that the US will continue current policies and hope for the best.

In Israel/Palestine, Prime Minister Netanyahu has lost all credibility with the Obama administration. His antics have left him on the outside looking in. However, I believe that Obama has realized that a “two state solution” is no longer possible. Given Israeli intransigence and control of Congress, and Palestinian divisions, there is not much that he can do to change the situation. Again, he will continue to be disengaged and hope for the best.

Iran probably offers the best opportunity for improvement. The Iranians have signaled their willingness to compromise by softening their rhetoric, transferring some of their 20% enriched uranium to civilian uses and offering to suspend enrichment to higher levels. (See here) If the US responds in-kind, the upcoming talks may bear some fruit. The Iranians, however, will not move without some reduction in sanctions. Given that Congress controls the sanctions regime, Obama will have little ability to negotiate in good faith on sanctions. Promising to consider reducing sanctions at some time in the future will not cut it.

All of this ignoring the problems and hoping for the best, reminds me of the Bill Clinton administration when President Clinton told a State Department official that he was not particularly interested in foreign policy issues because none of his voters were interested. The response was “Sometimes, Mr. President, foreign policy issues find you.” Usually at the most inopportune time.

 

Technorati Tags: Middle East,Election,Obama

Iran Policy: Morally and Effectively Bankrupt

During the campaign debates between the major party presidential candidates, the two candidates essentially agreed on almost every subject. Romney claimed that Obama’s policies had failed and then announced that he would follow the same failed policies. On Iran the only disagreement was who would be the tougher president. Under Obama, the U.S. has engaged in economic warfare by imposing a unilateral sanctions regime and has strong armed other countries into abiding by the sanctions. The resulting economic dislocation, aggravated by mismanagement by the Iranian government, has had a significant impact on the economy. Oil exports have plummeted, contributing to a precipitous decline in the value of the rial. This decline, along with financial restrictions on marine insurance and funds transfer , have contributed to rising inflation and have made it difficult to import even essential goods such as medical equipment and drugs.

Despite all of the political noise, there has been almost no discussion about whether or not the sanctions policy is being effective in achieving its objectives and no discussion about the morality of economic warfare on the Iranian people.

Following the First Gulf War, the U.S. and its allies imposed draconian sanctions on Iraq designed to “punish the Iraqi people”. These sanctions destroyed the Iraqi healthcare and educational systems and resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary Iraqi deaths. (See here) Madeleine Albright (then US UN ambassador) declared on 60 Minutes that “the price is worth it”. In 1998 Denis Halliday, the UN administrator of the oil-for-food program, resigned to protest the sanctions saying, “We are in the process of destroying an entire country” and calling them “nothing less than genocide’. His replacement, Hans von Sponeck, resigned in 2000 denouncing the sanctions as “criminal policy”. (See here) As we head down the same path in Iran, the same descriptions apply.

The stated objectives behind the sanctions on Iran have been variously stated to be: to force Iran to abandon or change its nuclear program or to provoke civil unrest resulting in the overthrow of the Iranian government. The decade long enhanced sanctions regime has accomplished neither of these objectives. In the past decade, Iran has gone from a small number of centrifuges creating a small amount of low enriched uranium to thousands of centrifuges creating a large amount of 20% enriched uranium. The regime has withstood the large demonstrations surrounding the 2009 elections.

While accurate polling in Iran by western pollsters is difficult, it is not impossible. Recent polls show that there is little appetite for regime change. 85% of Iranians say it is important for Iran to have a civilian nuclear program. 65% blamed the worsening economy on western sanctions and only 11% on government mismanagement. 76% have an unfavorable view of the US. These and other results (See here) show that the theory that, if pressured enough, Iranians will rise against their government is wrong. Secondly, the more Iranians suffer, the more they blame those imposing the sanctions and not their own government.

It is time for our political leaders, whoever they may be, to rethink the Iran policy on which they so much agree.

Technorati Tags: Iran,Iran Sanctions

Peace Not Apartheid

In 2006 Former President Jimmy Carter published a book on the situation in Israel/Palestine entitled “Peace Not Apartheid”. In the book Carter argued that all parties to the situation in Israel/Palestine must take immediate steps to implement the Oslo Process designed to create two states living alongside each other in peace. Failing this, he argued, the result would be a land completely controlled by Israel with limited or no rights for its Palestinian residents. Carter’s use of the dreaded “A” word in the title caused considerable controversy at the time. As time has passed, with no progress towards a viable “two state solution”, Carter is beginning to look prescient.

Many observers, this one included, for a number of years have said that the day of the “two state solution” had come and gone. (See here) With over 500,000 Jews living on the Palestinian side of the green line and 1.5 mm Palestinians living on the Israeli side of the green line, it is impossible to unscramble the egg. The location of settlements and Jewish only roads on the West Bank make a viable Palestinian state impossible. As the situation has worsened over the years, the concept of a single state is becoming a more mainstream position. Veteran Israeli journalist Nahum Barnea recently wrote, “Everybody knows how this will end. There will be a bi-national [state]”. The only remaining question is, what kind of a state it will be. Will it be a bi-national state with equal rights for all of its citizens? Will it be a state ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian citizens? Or will it be an apartheid state where only Jewish citizens have complete rights of citizenship?

Some on the far right fringe in Israel advocate for an ethnically cleansed state. They say “Jordan is the Palestinian state”. It is unlikely that even Israel’s most ardent backers in the U.S. could support this outcome.

What appears to be more acceptable, at least in Israel, is an apartheid state. A recent poll commissioned by the Israeli paper Haaretz (See here) reported that 58% of Israeli Jews believe that Israel already practices apartheid against Palestinians. Two thirds believe that the 2.5 mm Palestinians living on the West Bank should be denied the right to vote. 33% say Palestinians living within Israel proper should be denied the right to vote. 75% are in favor of segregated roads. 60% say Jews should be given preference in government jobs and 50% say Jewish citizens should be treated better than Arabs.

Since Israel is a democracy, the views of its citizens are generally translated into government policies. It is likely that, in next year’s elections, the current right wing government will be even more solidified and Israel will move even further on the path to a bi-national apartheid state. The question for the Americans will be can they sustain their unbending support for Israeli policies in the face of this outcome.

Technorati Tags: Israel,Palestine,Apartheid

Afghanistan after America

With all the loud and largely fact free debate that is going on during the current presidential campaign, very little has been said about America’s longest war in Afghanistan. Neither candidate wants to talk about it since a reluctant Obama was never really sold on the surge strategy and any position taken by Romney would tie his hands should he be elected. However, whoever wins the election will quickly be faced with some very difficult decisions. With the 2014 deadline for withdrawal of American combat forces and a massive logistical task required to implement an orderly withdrawal, decisions will need to be made quickly. Since the press is preoccupied with campaign non-events, it might be useful to look at where we are and what the future might bring.

At a recent conference on the subject which I attended, Ryan Crocker, recently retired ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and four other Middle East countries, expressed his view that the surge had been relatively successful. Since Ambassador Crocker is no Pollyanna, (He was sarcastically dubbed “sunshine” by President Bush for ongoing pessimistic reports on the on the situation in Iraq) his assessment should be taken seriously.

While poorly conceived, planned and implemented the surge has accomplished some of its objectives. The surge forces have gained control of major population centers and the roads connecting them. While it might been more useful to train fewer forces better, 350,000 Afghan security forces have been partially trained and they may be capable of sustaining some control of the population centers once U.S. forces have departed. Some economic development projects have been completed. However, the vast majority of Afghan GDP is still directly tied to western aid and the presence of thousands of foreign troops and civilian workers. All this has been achieved in the face of rampant corruption, incompetence and bureaucratic infighting between the Dept. of State and the Pentagon, within the armed services and between allies. No small accomplishment. It is possible that we might just muddle through.

Nonetheless, everything must go right over the next few years for this to work out OK and not be a complete disaster. Some of the factors we have some control over and some we do not. It should be noted that Murphy probably developed his law after observing Afghanistan. Some of the factors to watch for are:

• · Are the Afghan security forces as good as Crocker thinks they are?
• · The Afghan political situation is fragile. Will Hamid Karzai step down at the end of his term? Who will succeed him?
• · What will Iran do? In the current circumstance, Iran is incentivized to maintain managed chaos.
• · What will Pakistan do? Pakistan will not allow an Indian client state on its western border. The good news on this front is that the Pakistani public no longer sees India as the major threat. America has assumed this position.
• · Will economically stressed western countries be able to deliver on their promised aid?
• · Will al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban be able to reconstitute themselves and regain their position as a global threat?

Ambassador Crocker articulated his primary rules for international relations. “Be very concerned about the unintended consequences of any decision that you make. Be very careful before you get in. Be very careful how you get out.”

So far we have violated the first two in Afghanistan. I hope that we don’t go 3 for 3. The last time we were involved in Afghanistan, we declared victory and walked away. We ended up with al Qaeda.

The Birth Pangs of a New Middle East

In the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon, during which Israeli aerial attacks claimed more than 1000 lives (mostly civilians) in Lebanon, Secretary of State Condi Rice, in declining to push for a cease fire, famously described the carnage as the “birth pangs of a new Middle East”. The Bush administration’s “new Middle East”, which was western initiated democracies who would be friendly to U.S./Israeli hegemony, was stillborn. In 2012 we are seeing in Egypt a newborn fledgling democracy that, in all its messiness, is being born of Middle Eastern lineage and parentage.

In this week’s initial presidential election voting 13 candidates competed fiercely for the support of Egyptian voters. Egyptians that I heard from described their feelings about participating in their first election in which the winner was not predetermined and in which their vote actually meant something as a mixture of excitement and fear of the unknown. Many did not make up their minds until they were standing in line at the polls. Although the official count will not be known until next week, it appears Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate and Ahmed Shafiq, a former Prime Minister in the Mubarak regime, will face off in the run-off election on June 16 and 17.

Many commentators and analysts expressed surprise at the strong showing by Shafiq who has been described by opponents as a “remnant” of the old regime. However, in my discussions with Egyptians during my trip to Egypt last month, it seemed to me that there was room for support for a “law and order’ candidate. In discussing the rising chaos and lawlessness, one Egyptian said to me “We overthrew Mubarak for this?” The lawlessness has varied from nuisance, such as an occupy movement in Tahrir Square and driving the wrong way around the Tahrir Square roundabout to the more serious burglaries and assaults. Fearing criticism of their tactics, the police have largely stood on the sidelines. The people working in the tourist industry, the largest industry in Egypt, have been devastated by the unrest which led to the collapse of tourism. They are fed up with the insecurity and just want an opportunity to work and to earn a living.

As we approach the run-off election, it must be remembered that Shafiq and Morsi received only 50% of the vote. The 50% that supported other candidates will have to decide if they want to give the Muslim Brotherhood complete control of the government or if they want to bring back part of the old regime in the name of stability. Western commentators have been apoplectic about the outcome, describing it as a “nightmare scenario”. (See here.) In democratic elections, sometimes the candidate you don’t like wins. Get over it. Whatever the result, it will have a “Made in Egypt” label.

Technorati Tags: Egypt Election,Ahmed Shafiq,Mohammed Morsi

Success and the Iran Nuclear File

 

With the convening today of the second meeting of the current round of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 (or the E3+3, depending on whether you are talking to Americans or Europeans) over Iran’s nuclear program, there has been much discussion about whether or not these talks will be a “success”. In order get any kind of answer to this question, we need to define what “success” means and I think that it means something different to all of the parties.

For the Iranians, the primary objective is to normalize relations with the West and to have the U.S. recognize Iran’s legitimate role in Middle East regional politics. Everything that Iran has tried to accomplish over the past decade has been designed to achieve sufficient negotiating leverage to obtain significant concessions from the P5+1 and to create a stockpile of enriched uranium that can be used as a bargaining chip in any negotiations.

Defining “success” for the P5+1 or E3+3 is a more complicated endeavor since there is little agreement among the parties on what success looks like. For the European countries (Britain, France and Germany) “success” is obtaining an agreement with Iran that ensures that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons and that modifies any sanctions so that Europe is assured of a continued flow of oil to the weak European economies. Russia and China share the goal of no nuclear weapons in Iran, but differ in their approach. Russia, as an oil exporter, is comfortable with the ongoing confrontation as it drives up the global price of oil. China on the other hand is an oil importer and desires a return to normal commercial ties with Iran.

The U.S. is an even more complicated situation as there are numerous powerful forces influencing policy decisions and thus preventing a united position. The Obama administration would like to “kick the can” past the elections and, in the interim, lower the tensions in order reduce the price of gasoline. To this end the U.S. has quietly signaled to the Iranians that it would accept low level uranium enrichment. Also, according to an Iranian political analyst close to the government, the U.S. recognizes that the Iranians consider the threat of military attack as a “bad joke”, and has signaled that the military option is no longer on the table. (See here)

The Israel Lobby and its allies in Congress, on the other hand, see “success” as regime change in the Islamic Republic and are taking steps to blow up any negotiations, and maybe the region as well. By large majorities, both Houses of Congress have rushed through legislation that will tie the Obama administration’s hands in the give and take of negotiations and are also taking steps to remove the Iranian terrorist group MEK/MKO from the U.S. terrorist list, a move that will enrage all Iranians.

My definition of “success” is much more modest. I would be pleased if we just managed to schedule another meeting.

(Photo by FARS News Agency)

Technorati Tags: Iran Nuclear Program,Nuclear Negotiations

King Abdullah’s Dilemma

With the recent resignation of Prime Minister Awn Shawkat al-Khasawneh after only six months in office, the Jordanian political
merry-go-round continued to spin. Ever since the Arab Awakening arrived in Amman last year, King Abdullah has enhanced his strategy of avoiding political reforms by expressing support for reform, appointing study committees, ignoring their recommendations, blaming the failure on the Prime Minister and then firing the Prime Minister. The exiting PM then fades gracefully into the background until called upon again in some future political round. As the International Crisis Group recently reported, “The king has shuffled cabinets and then shuffled them again, using prime ministers as buffers to absorb popular discontent. He has charged committees to explore possible reforms, but these remain largely unimplemented."

Al-Khasawneh violated all the political rules by resigning in a curtly worded letter submitted while he was traveling in Turkey. Al-Khasawneh was generally seen as a reformist, liberal politician determined to root out corruption and reign in the intelligence service. He opened dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Islamic Action Front and other opposition groups. His failure to deliver on his promises and his introduction of a new election law designed to further marginalize the opposition by banning religious parties and limiting the number of opposition seats in Parliament cost him what support he had among opposition MP’s.

The Jordanian political landscape is characterized by sharp divisions between “East Bankers” and “West Bankers”. The “East Bankers” are largely Bedouins who tend to vote along tribal lines and generally support the monarch. The “West Bankers” are largely urban Palestinians who migrated to today’s Jordan when the West Bank was part of Transjordan or are refugees from the wars of 1948 and 1967. Making up half of Jordan’s population, “West Bankers” tend to be more Islamic in their politics and advocate for a more powerful and representative Parliament. They have been marginalized politically by election laws that weight the tribal vote much heavier than the urban vote.

Low level unrest demanding real reform and deteriorating economic conditions continue to plague the ruling political class. The new Prime Minister, Fayez Tarawneh, is seen as a conservative who is unlikely to bring about significant change.

When I was in Jordan last month, I asked a number of Jordanians about their views on the current political situation. Most that I spoke with expressed support for King Abdullah and his fashionable wife Rania. I tend to agree with Middle East analyst Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute Doha Center who commented on Twitter, “Jordan will seem 'stable', until it's not. And then it will be too late”.

(Picture by ForeignPolicy.com)

Technorati Tags: Jordan,Arab Spring

Syria’s Budding Civil War

In the middle of the last decade, during the dark days of internecine violence in Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion, there was a vociferous political argument as to whether or not there was civil war in Iraq. As with most political debates in the U.S. the discussion was generally devoid of facts and intellectual rigor. No one bothered to define exactly what constitutes a civil war. Scholars generally describe a civil war as a violent conflict within the recognized borders of a state whose participants are geographically contiguous and concerned with having to live with one another after the conflict. Both sides must have formally organized armed forces and must control some amount of territory. The purpose of this definition is to differentiate civil war from other domestic violence such as riots and guerilla insurgencies.

By this definition the yearlong Syrian uprising seems to be morphing into a civil war. The members of the so called “Friends of Syria” (FOS) group led by the U.S. and its allies has recognized the Syrian National Council (SNC) as the legitimate representative of the Syrian opposition and promised to provide support to the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The conservative Sunni Gulf State monarchies, led by Qatar, have gone further by declaring their intent to support the Syrian opposition against the Shia Assad regime “by all means”, including supplying weapons and paying the FSA. Ironically, this has put the FOS on the same side as al Qaeda who has declared its support for the Syrian uprising. (See here) The al Qaeda support has resulted in an increase in the flow if experienced jihadist fighters from Lebanon, Iraq and Libya into the FSA.

One characteristic of civil wars is, once they begin, they are notoriously difficult to end. Ending an interstate war is hard enough, but in that case, one side will eventually return to its own territory and the war will end. In civil wars, where partition is not possible (as in the case of Syria), the two sides who have been killing each other must either live side by side and work together peacefully in a common government or one side must be victorious and get all. In order for the war to end both sides must be simultaneously pessimistic about the possibility of improving their situation by continuing fighting. The prospect of outside intervention only increases the likelihood the one side or the other will conclude that if it only fights on a little longer, its position will improve. In an internal conflict, stalemate is an acceptable alternative to losing.

As the outside forces, FOS on one side and Russia, China and Iran on the other, escalate their support for their preferred party, the prospect for Syria is years of violence, bloodshed and instability. The duration of post WW II civil wars is usually measured in decades and the wars usually do not end, but merely become frozen conflicts or guerilla insurgencies.

Technorati Tags: Syria,Civil War,Middle East,Friends of Syria,Syrian National Council,Free Syrian Army

A Dangerous Game in Iran

Next week Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu will visit Washington to rally his supporters at AIPAC and in Congress. He will also visit with President Obama to demand that the U.S. commit to a military strike on Iran. (See here and here.) Faced with this mounting political pressure in an election year, Obama has already become more forceful in his commitment to military action. In an interview with Jeffery Goldberg of The Atlantic, Obama said, “I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff.” (The whole story is here.) As the clamor for war increases the nature of the game between U.S./Israel and Iran is changing.

Over the decades of conflict and confrontation the two adversaries have been playing a game described by game theorists as “Prisoner’s Dilemma”. In this scenario, the two players are prisoners trying to decide if they should confess or remain silent. They are unable to talk to each other. The game matrix looks like this:

	Prisoner B stays silent (cooperates)	Prisoner B confesses (defects)
Prisoner A stays silent (cooperates)	Each serves 1 month	Prisoner A: 1 year Prisoner B: goes free
Prisoner A confesses (defects)	Prisoner A: goes free Prisoner B: 1 year	Each serves 3 months

In the optimum solution each player stays silent and serves one month. This solution requires communication and trust between the players. The equilibrium solution is that each player serves three months, being punished more than they would have been if there were communication and trust. This outcome is particularly likely if there are multiple iterations and one player has lied to the other. For three decades the U.S. and Iran have played this game multiple times with the same sub-optimal outcome.

Unfortunately, we seem to be changing to the “Chicken Game”. British philosopher Bertrand Russell described this game, as it played out between the West and the Soviet Union during the Cold War (particularly during the Cuban Missile Crisis) like this, “Since the nuclear stalemate became apparent, the Governments of East and West have adopted the policy which Mr. Dulles calls 'brinkmanship'. This is a policy adapted from a sport which, I am told, is practiced by some youthful degenerates. This sport is called 'Chicken!'. It is played by choosing a long straight road with a white line down the middle and starting two very fast cars towards each other from opposite ends. Each car is expected to keep the wheels of one side on the white line. As they approach each other, mutual destruction becomes more and more imminent. If one of them swerves from the white line before the other, the other, as he passes, shouts 'Chicken!', and the one who has swerved becomes an object of contempt. As played by irresponsible boys, this game is considered decadent and immoral, though only the lives of the players are risked. But when the game is played by eminent statesmen, who risk not only their own lives but those of many hundreds of millions of human beings, it is thought on both sides that the statesmen on one side are displaying a high degree of wisdom and courage, and only the statesmen on the other side are reprehensible. This, of course, is absurd. Both are to blame for playing such an incredibly dangerous game.”

The matrix looks like this:

	Swerve	Straight
Swerve	Tie, Tie	Lose, Win
Straight	Win, Lose	Crash, Crash

One strategy in this game is to tell your opponent that you have tied your steering wheel and thus cannot swerve. Obama appears to be trying this strategy. The problem arises if your opponent does not believe you and you end up in the lower right hand corner.

Bertrand Russell concludes like this, “The moment will come when neither side can face the derisive cry of 'Chicken!' from the other side. When that moment is come, the statesmen of both sides will plunge the world into destruction.” The stakes may not be as high now, but they are still pretty high.

Technorati Tags: Iran,Israel

Obama’s Self Inflicted Pain

When candidate Barack Obama was running for president against Hilary Clinton and John McCain, he made a strong case for engagement and dialogue with Iran. However, once he was elected he quickly reverted to the Bush administration policy of confrontation and conflict. He never made an effective public case for engagement; never used the bully pulpit to advocate for a grand bargain with the Islamic Republic. This stance has left him in a deep policy and political hole.

This week a delegation of IAEA officials met with Iranian officials in Tehran in order to discuss renewed negotiations concerning Iran’s nuclear program. During the discussion, the IAEA officials requested a visit to the Parchin military base. The Iranians refused to allow the requested visit. The reaction of U.S. and western media and governments to this refusal can be summed up by the statement by White House spokesperson Jay Carney in which he said, "This particular action by Iran suggest that they have not changed their behavior when it comes to abiding by their international obligations.” He expressed regret that the IAEA mission had ended in failure.

Carney neglected to acknowledge that, under its 1974 Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, Iran is under no obligation to allow inspections of non-nuclear sites such as Parchin. Iran believes that the IAEA has shared confidential information from inspections with the U.S. and Israel and that this information has led to attacks on facilities and assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. It is not surprising, therefore, that Iran would be very careful about unnecessary sharing of information with the IAEA. The U.S. portrayal of a perfectly rational Iranian position as a “failure to abide by its international obligations” only fans the flames of war, already burning brightly.

It is this kind of fact free reporting and posturing that leads to polling results which show that 60% of Americans favor U.S. military action to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons program and only 5% would oppose an Israeli attack which would assuredly draw the U.S. into war with Iran. (The complete poll results are here.) I will admit that it is relatively easy to get Americans to support a war, since recent history has shown that they neither have to participate in nor pay for military adventures.

The risk of war in the Persian Gulf has driven oil prices well north of $100 a barrel and gas prices are headed above $4 per gallon. The resulting drag on the still fragile U.S. and global economies will not help Obama’s reelection bid. If Obama wants to get himself out of this policy and political hole, the first step would be to stop digging.

Technorati Tags: Iran,Barack Obama

War Hysteria over Iran

Over the past month hysteria over a possible war with Iran has reached a new crescendo. Pundits, government officials and presidential candidates have been debating ad nauseam about issues such as whether Iran is an existential threat to Israel, whether deterrence will work, whether air strikes would be effective, whether Iran is entering a “zone of immunity”, the effect of Iranian nuclear weapons on the Middle East balance of power, the nature of an Iranian response, etc. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius ignited a fire storm when he said that Defense Secretary Panetta “ believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June — before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb.” (See here)

The Obama administration has weighed into the fray with a series of statements which have sent mixed signals about U.S. policy and only served to increase the rhetoric. In a series of speeches and interviews Secretary Panetta stressed his belief that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that a military strike would at best delay any future production of a nuclear weapon. Secretary of State Clinton on the other hand took a more hawkish tone saying in discussing Iran’s expansion of its enrichment site near Qom, "The circumstances surrounding this latest action are especially troubling. There is no plausible justification for this production. Such enrichment brings Iran a significant step closer to having the capability to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium." (See here) James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence raised the stakes by claiming, during Congressional testimony. that Iran is now more willing to carry out attacks inside the U.S. and that intelligence agencies were worried about attacks on U.S. interests around the world. President Obama, on the other hand, said that he did not believe that Iran had the “intentions or capabilities” to attack inside the United States.

I am persuaded that the Obama administration has decided that it does not want war with Iran. If it wanted war, it could have attacked any time in the past three years, rather than waiting until just before the elections. Ignatius reports that Israel believes that it would be a short war. “‘You stay to the side, and let us do it,’ one Israeli official is said to have advised the United States. A short-war scenario assumes five days or so of limited Israeli strikes, followed by a U.N.-brokered cease-fire.” Make no mistake; a military strike is an act of war. As the U.S. found to its pain in Iraq and Afghanistan, the enemy has a say in how long the war lasts.

If Obama doesn’t want another major Middle East war right before the elections, he had better say to Israel, not only no, but hell no! To do this he will need to make the case for diplomacy and defy the Israel Lobby. Is this likely in an election year? Probably not.

Technorati Tags: Iran,Barack Obama

The Syrian Dilemma Part 2

After months of opposition demonstrations, counter demonstrations by regime supporters, attacks on opposition demonstrators by government forces, terrorist bombings of government facilities, various efforts at international intervention, charges and counter charges, the situation in Syria is in word a “mess”. Currently we have three wars going on in this strategically located, but fragile state. There is a low grade civil war between government and opposition forces. Overlaying this war is a proxy war between the US and its Gulf State and European allies and Iran and its allies. A third war has now emerged, a war of perceptions. As in many such wars, the facts are usually the first casualty.

The U.S. and its supporters in the conservative Sunni Gulf States, particularly Qatar and the UAE would like to see regime change in Syria and Iran and a weakening of the Shia resistance group Hezbollah. Under Secretary of State for the Near East Jeffery Feltman in describing US regime change policy in Syria said that the U.S. would “relentlessly pursue our two-track strategy of supporting the opposition and diplomatically and financially strangling the regime until that outcome is achieved”. (See here)

The Arab League has dispatched a monitoring team to Syria in order to attempt to reach a mediated solution. Qatar and the Istanbul based opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), on the other hand have criticized the Arab League mission and have pushed for western military intervention rather than a mediated solution that would reform the regime, but leave Assad in power.

The western media have portrayed the Syrian situation as one in which a peaceful opposition, representing the overwhelming majority of Syrians is faced off against a brutal, intransigent regime. However, a recent poll conducted by the Qatar based Doha Debates points out that while 81% of Arabs want President Assad to step down, 55% of Syrians are supportive of Assad and do not want Assad to resign. (See here) The respondents said that without Assad, they feared for the future of their country.

The appalling statistics of massacres, rapes of Sunni women and girls and torture by regime supporters that have been reported by the western media with the disclaimer “we were unable to confirm the accuracy of these figures” have been largely provided by the British based Syrian National Observatory. (SNO) The SNO is an arm of the SNC and is funded by a Dubai based pooled fund of western and Gulf money and thus the accuracy of these figures is suspect. Somehow the media has not managed to receive reports of casualties among regime supporters and military forces.

The U.S. based private intelligence group Stratfor has advised caution on the accuracy of the mainstream narrative on Syria saying “with two sides to every war … the war of perceptions in Syria is no exception”.

Technorati Tags: Syria,Arab League,Middle East

A New Threat to the Israeli Occupation

Three years ago in Damascus, when I met with Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas’ political wing, he acknowledged that Hamas was committed to violent resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. While emphasizing that if Israel withdrew to the 1967 borders the resistance would end, he said that violent resistance was the only effective means of ending Israeli occupation. He used examples of Hezbollah ending the Israeli occupation in Lebanon, of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and of the Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai.
Many observers of the situation in Israel/Palestine (this one included) have felt that, given the overwhelming power of the Israeli occupation force, the biggest threat to the occupation would be mass non-violent protests by the Palestinians on both sides of the green line separating Israel from the West Bank. The effectiveness of Dr. Martin Luther King’s demonstrations for African American civil rights and the Arab Awakening uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia demonstrate this. While there have been demonstrations against the Separation Barrier in the West Bank towns of Biliin, Ni’lin and Qalqilya, they have never been large enough to attract much international media attention despite the violent response by the Israeli Army (IDF).
Waging a mass non-violent campaign requires a lot of education and organization. The Fatah led PLO has never had the organizational ability to achieve an effective campaign of mass non-violent resistance. Hamas, on the other hand, through its extensive network in the mosques, has had the ability, but not the will.
The winds of change, however, may be blowing. In the past month, Hamas and Fatah have agreed to move forward with a unity government and to move toward a posture of mass non-violent resistance. (This story is here, here and here.) If this transition comes about it will pose a significant threat to Israel’s ongoing occupation and settlement building. Images of Israeli forces and settlers attacking unarmed demonstrators marching on Jewish only roads on the West Bank and chanting silmiya, silmiya (peaceful, peaceful) will not play well in the international media.
Only time will tell if the Palestinian leadership can pull off this change in tactics. There will certainly be resistance from those groups committed to violence. However, if mass non-violent protests can be effectively implemented, they have the potential to be a game changer.
A regional war with Iran would also be a game changer, but that is another story.
(Photo from Hamas Press Office)

Technorati Tags: Israel,Palestine,Hamas