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As Narendra Modi welcomes ASEAN leaders, can he balance non-interventionism with his desire for Indian strategic partnerships with ASEAN? India can still present itself as a credible counterweight to China, but not without embracing international norms of accountability.

Looking east

The 26 January marked India’s 69th Republic Day. New Delhi welcomed all ten heads of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to participate. Indian premier Narendra Modi portrayed it as a coup for his country’s diplomacy, with Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong, Malaysia’s Mohammad Najib Razak, Indonesia’s Joko Widodo and even Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi in attendance as Modi’s guests.

This banner moment is the fruit of India’s “Look East” policy, launched in the early 1990s after decades of non-alignment. Look East marked a significant change in India’s attitude towards Southeast Asia. It has also proven remarkably durable through successive changes of government, perhaps because both sides see the other as an important partner in containing China.

In 2014, Modi took the policy a step further by directing Indian envoys to “Act East”. This means focusing not just on improved economic relations but also on a wider spectrum of co-operation. Act East has seen Modi visit nine of ten ASEAN member states, presaging a proactive strategic role within the region just as Donald Trump abandons the Obama-era “Pivot to Asia”.

In this vacuum, India is not the only regional power picking up the slack. China hassuccessfully stifled progress in the South China Sea thanks to its outsized economic influence over ASEAN. President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has all but abandonedFilipino claims in the area in exchange for Chinese economic support. India, by contrast, offered a clear and forthright statement that seemingly reinforced its commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Law Of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the institutions of international law more broadly.

But it will take more than isolated cases or a large Republic Day coterie to prove India is ready for a proactive global role. Modi’s track record in two other crises highlight an enduring reticence to speak out against problematic partners, whether in India’s own neighbourhood or further afield.

Rejecting the Rohingya

While Aung San Suu Kyi visits New Delhi as an honoured guest, many of her countrymen receive a harsher reception. A growing number of Rohingya refugees have fled to India since Myanmar opted for ethnic cleansing in October 2016; India’s response has been todeport those within its borders and ban the rest from entering. Indian border forces have been ordered to use “rude and crude” methods to keep refugees from crossing. The country also refused to endorse a declaration at last year’s World Parliamentary Forum on Sustainable Development because it included an “inappropriate” reference to the Rohingya.

Explanations for this uncharacteristic hostility vary. India has close ties to Myanmar’s government. It is especially dependent on Myanmar for help against secessionist rebels who strike at India from secluded bases in mountainous northern Myanmar. India had nonetheless been a forthright critic of the former junta’s abuses. In a remarkable volte-face, Modi has opted instead for condemning Rohingya “terrorism”.

Domestic politics may also play a role. Modi is a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has a track record of ignoring mob violence against India’s Muslim communities. Opposition parliamentarian Shashi Tharoor has drawn a direct link between Modi’s political stripes and the deportations, saying it “appears to be prompted by the fact that they are primarily Muslims.”

What about the DRC?

Neither regional priorities nor domestic politics explain Modi’s non-response to the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Despite the distance, India contributes the largest contingent of peacekeepers to the UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). At least 17 Indian peacekeepers have died there.

The Congolese government is currently undoing the stability Indian soldiers have fought and died for. President Joseph Kabila’s tenure constitutionally ended in 2016, but elections have been put off and Kabila remains in power. He has engineered a lethal crackdown on the pro-democracy movement demanding his ouster: six people were killed and hundreds detained during protests organised by the Catholic Church on 21 January.

Kabila has also kept the opposition candidate best positioned to replace him, former regional governor Moïse Katumbi, out of the DRC by pressuring the judiciary to convict him on spurious charges. That has not stopped Katumbi from heightening international pressure on Kabila, but it has stopped him from returning home.

India has had little to say about Kabila’s actions. Instead, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj stressed in November that the Modi government enjoys “close and friendly relations” with the DRC. She also discussed lines of credit to the Congolese government, even as other foreign investors are dissuaded by the Kabila government’s rampant corruption and its business partners come under American sanctions.\

Tight grip on a hands-off approach

Though India has a long tradition of humanitarianism, cold geopolitics have apparently trumped idealism. In doing so, is Narendra Modi abandoning one of democratic India’s key advantages over authoritarian China in the struggle over Asia’s balance of power?

If so, there is still time to change course. India’s new “Act East” outlook could well fill the normative vacuum left by the Trump administration as well as the strategic one. India is one of the few regional powers with the economic, military and moral clout to counterbalance Chinese dominance of ASEAN, a challenge that has acquired a renewedsense of urgency with China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative. Modi may be ready to indulge in power politics, but neither hard power nor an expanded Republic Day guest list will be enough to keep ASEAN from slowly being drawn into the Chinese orbit.

 

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This article first appeared on Global Risk Insights, and was written by Nicholas Leong.

The post India looks east, but is it ready to act? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Volcanic schism dominates the landscape in the Islamic world. Sectarian civil wars rage in Syria, Iraq, and Libya. Yemen is the worst humanitarian disaster in the world as a result of a ruthless war campaign spearheaded by Saudi Arabia—a nation that, ironically, carries the Islamic declaration of faith on its flag and is the site of two holiest mosques. There are fanatical insurgencies in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Mali and Somalia.

The latter still remains the embodiment of self-destruction and institutional corruption. It is a ‘geographical expression’ that lacks vision, sovereign authority, and sense of nationhood. It is a resource-rich nation that accepted being the poster-child of perpetual misery. It is a psychologically subjugated and spiritually dysfunctional nation that constantly digs itself into a new geopolitical quicksand.

Somalia is the microcosm of the Muslim ummah or the Islamic nation.

Fifty seven nation states that are members of OIC are reduced to being spectators or at best agonizing over the ethnic-cleansing of the Rohingya people, systematic genocide of the Palestinian people and annexation of holy sites.

For centuries Muslims have been trailing in thought-production, technology, political stability, good governance, and human rights. To emerge out this disgraceful and seemingly hopeless condition requires a mega mirror to reveal the ugly state of our affairs and a thorough introspective process. Granted there are foreign factors and sinister elements that contributed to this ugly state of affairs. But bear in mind only after the internal causes are corrected could the external ones be corrected.

The Raging-foam Syndrome

It is hard for Muslims to ignore the daunting resemblance of current times to that which Prophet Muhammad has prophesized; a time in which nations will summon each other to encircle Muslims and feast upon them. When asked if it was due to smallness of the Muslim population, the Prophet answered: ‘No; you will be numerous.’ Then he added the quality of your moral character would be like scum or foam. You will be afflicted with “al-wahn” or obsession with privileges and luxuries, and extreme fear of anything that could end it.

Today, Dubai—the glittering façade of a degenerate city of lust, greed, and gluttony sustained by foreign military mercenaries—became the success model or the highest aspiration of many Muslim nations. The alternative model still remains brute power to ensure the privilege of the few at the expense of the deprived masses.

In recent decades, the Islamic world has produced some of the most vicious and most corrupt tyrants who would destroy their own countries for their personal power and privilege till they force a tipping of public wrath. Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh was the latest to be flushed down in the sewage system of history.

Suppressing Scholars and Intellectuals 

Only a few decades after the death of Prophet Muhammad, a chain of Muslim rulers who lacked legitimacy started to recruit or promote their own pseudo scholars or clerics who looked the part but whose primary role was to provide fatwas or moral covers to the political shenanigans of their patron rulers or tyrants. So, sectarian zeal and jingoistic loyalty became the litmus test and the process through which the ummah still manipulated and exploited.

Today, the overwhelming majority of the Muslim scholars and intellectuals are empty-talkers, propagandists or flamethrowers of al-assabiyyah which describes a condition of extreme emotional attachment to one’s religious sect (Sunni, Shi’, Suffi, etc.), school of thought (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’, Hanbeli, Ja’fari, etc.), or religio-political identity (Salafi, Ikhwani, Huthi, Islahi, etc.).

Against that backdrop, two essential elements that propelled the Islamic civilization of yesteryear have corroded: genuine pursuit of truth and Ijtihad.

Ijtihad is a thought-processing mechanism to extract meanings or provide new interpretations to existing ones within the moral boundaries of faith. A century ago, Allama Muhammed Iqbal has warned the colonized minds of heedless ummah about the prevalence of suppression of intellectual and spiritual inquiry in the Islamic world. “The door of interpretation (ijtihad) cannot be closed. Because a door that has been kept open by the Qur’an and Sunnah (Prophetic teachings), can be shut by them alone and no one else,” he wrote. Iqbal reasserted what Muslims have long forgotten: spiritual inquiry and rational quest for meaning is a God-ordained process to acquire and produce knowledge.

Genuine Muslim scholars and intellectuals are those who are motivated by pursuit of truth and advancement of the common good. They are not enticed by power, privilege or wealth. Their main role is to enlighten the masses and keep power in check while preventing senseless rock bottom rebellion and anarchy.

Tyranny of ‘Reform’

Though the Islamic world, more specifically the Middle East, is the center of gravity of international politics and competition for strategic or energy resources, by the large, Muslim rulers in those countries have very little or no political clout to advance their respective national interests let alone make a world impact. Most are charlatans whose foreign policies are handicapped by inferiority complex and their domestic policies are emboldened by their tyrannical impulses. They readily put their nations’ interests last so long as their positions of authority are secured, their privileges are sustained, and their images are polished with superficial grace.

If the Arab Spring was the people’s raw expression against abuse of political power, against economic disenfranchisement and corruption, these destructive ills are still present in many Arab and Islamic countries and in some cases even more pronounced. The Muhammad Bin Salman phenomenon in Saudi Arabia is an example.

As a de facto King, he has been asserting unchecked authority that is making his country at-risk for political implosion. He spearheaded the catastrophic war in Yemen, weapons-purchase frenzy that is draining the Saudi economy, and the Qatar blockade. He imprisoned a large number of religious scholars, princes, media moguls and professionals who could have challenged his legitimacy and appetite for power-grab. They are all declared guilty of corruption without any judicial process.

So, the de facto King declared anti-corruption campaign and imposed austerity measures while maintaining his exclusive right for exuberant extravagance- a luxury chateau in France for over $300 million $500 million yacht and a $450 million painting.

Then you have the Egyptian and the Turkish opposition-purge or collective punishment models. None of these models are morally justified in Islam.

The Prophetic Model

Rhetoric aside, Muslims have drifted away from the moral principles that led Prophet Muhammad and his companions change the world and establish a global civilization.

First: unwavering sense of justice and fairness. While most may proclaim it, man cannot truly uphold justice and fairness without acknowledging the delusion of self-sufficiency and without declaring the Divine supremacy over him. The one who acknowledges and upholds God’s rights upon him is likely to uphold the rights of other human-beings.

Second: aspiring for excellence in all matters, and dealing with other human-beings in the best manner possible. With such approach coexistence with others who maybe different or espouse different beliefs becomes much easier.

Third: taking responsibility very seriously and being compassionate and beneficial to all people. And because families constitute the early stages of community formation, those who fulfill their familial responsibilities are likely to benefit the society at large.

Fourth: refraining from and preventing all aspects of corruption- moral, financial, political, social decadence and sins that harm self and others.

Fifth: refraining from and preventing heedlessness, overt or shameless behaviors that destroy all ethical boundaries and promote moral anarchy.

Sixth: refraining from and preventing against all form of transgression whether against the Will of God or against other human-beings.

These core principles encapsulated in a verse in the Qur’an were operationalized through a system of governance that promoted and protected these objectives: Sanctity of life, faith, property, family and intellect.

Prophet Muhammad was conscious of the fact that no relationship can be built on a zero-sum foundation. Sustainable relationships—domestically and internationally—are built upon trust, ethical conduct and certain level of sacrifices.

Getting Back On Track

The human-being is divinely hardwired to search for meaning in life. So as a rational being, inquiries and discoveries in the moral and material realms of life lend the person reason to exist. They are the wheels that propel the process to reimagine and reinterpret. Any society that fails to reassess its social, political, economic, and spiritual vison to match the ever-evolving generational aspirations and challenges would have to face immanent decay.

Islam is a universal faith. As such, interaction and collaboration with the rest of humanity is a divine obligation. And that can only materialize after we change our individual and collective mindset.  Numerous verses in the Qur’an underscore the importance of using the mind and intellect and warn against sectarian groupthink and blind loyalty.

It is time for Muslims to reclaim the Islam of inclusivity that transformed broken persons, tribes, and nations. It is time to reinvigorate the Islamic values of thinking before acting; connecting to the hearts before the minds, and purifying the intention before trying to reform. Ponder, plan or simply perish.

** Article was first published by The Muslim Vibe

The post The Ailing Muslim Conscience: It’s time to reclaim the Islam of inclusivity appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Trump’s State of the Union. Turkey intensifies operations in Syria. Merkel mends her coalition. All this in The Week Ahead.

UNITED STATES: Trump’s State of the Union:

• President Trump will present his State of the Union Address to Congress this Tuesday, following a rough week that included a government shutdown, controversy in Davos, and revelations that he tried to fire special counsel Robert Muller. Given the numerous issues facing Congress right now, it is unlikely that Trump’s speech will bring forth any new legislative priorities, though it may prove a useful distraction for the press and Republican leadership.
• Should the President lay out an immigration platform agreeable to Congressional Democrats, this could become an important speech for both resolving the fate of 700,000 Dreamers in the United States as well as initiating a more stable budget vote. Additionally, should the president mention infrastructure and discuss it beyond broad platitudes, he may be able to jump start negotiations on a major infrastructure bill ahead of midterm elections this November.

GRI Take: Don’t expect any radical new policies from Trump’s State of the Union Speech as the current budget crisis occupies most of his attention. However, if Trump announces reforms for DACA recipients, he has the potential to bolster his own popularity and hasten the end of the Congressional budget showdown.

TURKEY: Turkey’s Operation ‘Olive Branch’ escalates as hundreds return injured:

• This week, the Turkish military’s Operation Olive Branch is likely to escalate as Turkey seeks to eradicate Syrian Kurdish forces from the area of Afrin. U.S. support for the Syrian Kurds has long angered Turkey, as Turkey views the Syrian Kurds as an extension of the U.S. designated terror group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and a threat to its internal safety. Efforts to deescalate fell flat, as both Trump and Erdogan came away from last week’s phone call with a radically different understanding of the situation.
• The escalation also follows reports that as many as 130 members of Turkey’s armed forces returned injured from Olive Branch. If Turkey had thought this to be an easy fight, it is in for a surprise. It will be difficult for Turkey to quickly eradicate the YPG, given their fighting experience, well-trained and equipped forces, and U.S. support. Adding further complications to this matter, the Syrian government has threatened to shoot down any Turkish plane it finds in its territory. This could limit the Turkish military’s ability to provide air cover or engage in less casualty-heavy military tactics in its fight to eliminate the YPG (People’s Protection Units).

GRI Take: Turkey will escalate operation ‘Olive Branch’ in the coming week, promising more schisms with its international allies. Its NATO allies, especially the U.S., oppose the operation, further alienating Turkey from the organization and its regional priorities.

GERMANY: Merkel looks to wrap up coalition talks this weekend, following tense negotiations between SPD and CDU/CSU:

• This Sunday, representatives from Angela Merkel’s CDU are expected to finalize an agreement to continue the grand coalition between her party and the Social Democrats (SPD), following intense opposition from several quarters of the SPD. There remain several major sticking points, particularly on immigration, that the two parties need to first hammer out. However, both have reached the conclusion that continuing to draw out talks will only further damage German public perception of both parties.
• Both the SPD and CDU have major motivations for holding a harder line in negotiations that will make any governing arrangement difficult. For the SPD, there is a consensus that the party’s close link to Angela Merkel’s previous government has negatively impacted their popularity across Germany. The party thus faces pressure to exert major concessions from the CDU. On the CDU side, any concession to the social democratic wing of the German spectrum could be viewed as an opportunity for the far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) to gain voters from the center-right.
• The shape of the final coalition largely hinges on the actions of the AfD. As the 3rd largest political party in the Bundestag and largest outside government, the far right AfD will act as the largest voice of opposition to the CDU/SPD coalition. This could create strain for the coalition partners even after they enter into government as the rightward leaning CDU and left-leaning SPD attempt to reconcile their priorities while protecting their base from being poached by the AfD.

GRI Take: Merkel will get her coalition; however, in order to be effective over the long term, one of the two ruling parties will have to soften their stance on their platform policies.

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This article was originally published on Global Risk Insights.

The post The Week Ahead: 28 January-3 February 2018 appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Venezuela is closer than ever to a full-blown humanitarian crisis, with its population being unable to satisfy dietary requirements amidst a climate of hyperinflation and collapse of national productivity. The government, instead of formulating a clear exit strategy, is forcing supermarkets and consumer goods manufacturers to cut prices at severe losses, in a move that is sure to worsen the situation. GRI’s Juan Daniel Goncalves provides an insider’s view.

Venezuela boasts the highest cumulative inflation rate of the last decade, as well as increasingly unavailable and/or prohibitively expensive food and medicine. These problems have become so systemic that anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 million people have left the country, and in 2016-2017 almost a third of Venezuelans reported a desire to emigrate.

Officially, the Venezuelan government wants to convince whoever bothers to listen that this in fact is not their fault, instead blaming US-orchestrated sabotage campaigns, and on the “economic war” – an alleged coordinated attack by the private sector against everyday Venezuelans. For those who have not yet raised an eyebrow, the government’s long practice of denying responsibility is easily debunkable with one telling statistic: ever since 2005, after the ruling PSUV (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) managed to reorganize public institutions under their full control by appointing party hardliners as leading bureaucrats, there has reportedly never been a Supreme Court ruling against the government in over 45,000 decisions.

The impact of hyperinflation

In any case, the most troublesome reality the PSUV does not want to recognize is that Venezuelans are starving, to the point were desperate lootings are now commonplaceacross the country.

A 2016 report by Venezuelan universities and NGOs revealed that approximately 74.3% of Venezuelans confessed to unplanned weight loss due to financial constraints. Since then, it is safe to assume that in a country plagued with a 2017 cumulative hyperinflation of above 2000% – citizens’ purchasing power have continued to worsen, and with it, their quality of life.

To further illustrate the ramifications of hyperinflation’s effect on Venezuelans’ pockets, Harvard professor Ricardo Haussmann published a statistic where he shows that in order to be able to afford the country’s cheapest calorie – yucca – at around 30 BsF, for a daily intake of 2000 kcal (what is recommended for an average adult female) throughout a span of a month, a person must earn at least 1,800,000 BsF. This feat is quite impossible as the current minimum monthly salary together with food stamps as of 18 January 2018 amounts to 800,000 BsF (it is worth noting that there would be no leftover money for utilities, transportation, entertainment, education, etc).

Price manipulation

In light of the looming humanitarian crisis, and reminiscent of similar disastrous policiesimplemented in Zimbabwe merely a decade ago, on 5 January Nicolas Maduro called for major supermarkets as well as smaller, independent outlets to sell their products at “fair” prices, strong-arming businesses via the SUNDDE (National Superintendency of the Defense of Socioeconomic Rights) to sell at 15 December 2017 prices with the threat to “shut down” or “expropriate” non-compliants.

Retailers were essentially forced to sell much of their stock at an approximate 50% discount overnight due to inflation, in what business executives protested as something that left them “unaware if they were bankrupt or not”.

In an interesting twist, since most major supermarket chains in Venezuela are owned by the Portuguese immigrant community that came to Venezuela predominantly in the 1950’s and 1960’s, Luso-Venezuelan descendants were forced to call on Lisbon to intercede on their behalf. Senior level Portuguese officials – including Portugal’s minister of Foreign Affairs Augusto Campos Silva – flew into Venezuela to meet with the Portuguese community and affected business owners and hear their pleas, before a scheduled official sit-down with his Venezuelan counterpart Jorge Arreaza.

Most likely as a result of these meetings, it seems now that the SUNDDE and ANSA (National Association of Supermarkets) have reached an agreement in which “the Executive made a commitment to guarantee that supermarkets would be able to repose their stock and there would not be any new measures that would imply products to be sold in accordance with the December cost structure”. It can also be interpreted that Venezuela did not want to risk to losing a lukewarm friend in Europe, especially as Arreaza “stressed that there is a very close relationship with Portugal that they will maintain and reinforce”, according to state media. This is also in light of the PSUV becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage after the loss of major allies in the Ecuadorian, Argentine, and Brazilian governments, to name a few.

Venezuelan government in a bind

Having encountered a snag in their supermarket witch-hunt, the SUNDDE decided instead to go after major consumer goods manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble, Nestlé, and Bimbo in an effort to cut prices somewhere along the supply chain and give desperate Venezuelans access to what can be interpreted as a “food-for-today-none-for-tomorrow”.

However, there doesn’t seem to be a resolution in sight, as the Caracas Chamber of Commerce has strongly rejected what they call “arbitrary rejections of price fixing via authoritarian practices that do not resolve the crisis, but rather deepen it and cause anxiety amidst the population that fears that inventory will disappear, mainly food and medicines, (in a climate where) there is an absolute absence of reasons to keep producing”.

Perhaps what the SUNDDE will find in face-to-face meetings with manufacturers will be nothing short of a game of chicken, with manufacturers finding no alternative but to shut down completely in light of the regulator’s constant threats of further controls or expropriation.

In other words, the traditionally populist government of Venezuela is in a bind.

From a risk point of view, Venezuela seems to be heading inevitably down a road in which the government fails to address the productivity and monetary policy problems that are causing the endemic situation – Venezuela’s GDP in 2018 is estimated to contract by 11.9%. Most likely only a major change in the composition of the government would bring about the sensible policy required to rein in the spiral of chaos.

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This piece was origionally written for Global Risk Insights by Juan Daniel Goncalves.

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Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani

The Kurdistan Regional Government is presently calling upon the international community including the United States, the EU and the UN to intervene in order to bring the Central Government in Baghdad to the negotiating table: “The restrictive policies adopted by Baghdad against Erbil are in violation of Iraq’s obligations and responsibilities under international and humanitarian law, and its duty as a state to respect and protect its citizens, including those displaced, and to promote and protect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals and groups.”

According to the Kurdistan Regional Government, reducing the Kurdistan Region’s budget in the 2018 Draft Budget Bill without involving the Kurdistan Regional Government, closing off the Kurdistan Region’s airspace, and travel restrictions are among measures of collective punishment being implemented by the Central Government in Baghdad against the Kurdistan Region. In fact, Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nichervan Barzani stressed that the Iraqi Central Government has even stopped sending medical supplies to the Kurdistan region, even though the area recently suffered a horrendous 7.3 magnitude earthquake. The KRG stressed that these measures adversely affect 1.5 million displaced persons who have taken refuge in the Kurdistan region.

“With winter fast approaching, many displaced persons, including Yezidis, Christians, and recently displaced people from Kirkuk, Tuz Khourmatu and other areas, will be without critical supplies, specialized assistance, and care provided by UN agencies, NGOs, and other international organizations,” the KRG statement read. “Erbil and Suleimaniya airports are vital to meet the humanitarian needs of displaced people and the basic needs of our general population, including emergency medical evacuation of civilians as well as victims and military personnel wounded in the fight against ISIS. Moreover, restriction of movement is detrimental to peace, stability and progress in a globalized world.”

As we speak, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi refuses to engage in dialogue with the Kurdistan Regional Government. Furthermore, he wants the Peshmerga to become part of the “Iraqi government security forces or a small local force.” He added: “All border crossings in and out of Iraq must be under the exclusive control of the federal state.” This would include the Kurdish oil pipeline to Turkey, which is a major source of income for the Kurdistan Regional Government.

As Abadi seeks additional punitive measures against the Kurdistan Regional Government, Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nichervan Barzani calls for dialogue: “The Kurdish government and political parties are ready to fully engage in negotiations with Baghdad in order to resolve all disputes through understanding and based on the constitution. The KRG is ready for talks that would achieve the best interests of Iraq and the Kurdistan region. We don’t think that these issues can be solved militarily. They need serious political talk.”

“The UN, EU, ICRC, the US and NGOs, and other members of the international community are essential to serve the humanitarian needs of displaced people hosted by the Kurdistan Regional Government,” the Kurdistan Regional Government stressed. The Kurdistan Regional Government seeks American and international assistance in bringing Iraq to the negotiating table. All of the parties should help Barzani to overcome this crisis. He needs the international community to force Iraq to overcome this crisis for without their assistance, the situation for one of America’s strongest allies in the region is seriously deteriorating.

“We call on the international community to intercede in urging Baghdad authorities to lift the embargo, without condition, on international flights,” the Kurdistan Regional Government emphasized. “The international community’s attention and action would be deeply appreciated in mediating and lifting air embargos and other collective restrictions in order to minimize and avoid adverse effects on vital humanitarian services, health and education services, food security, security against terrorism, jobs and income security in the Kurdistan Region.”

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Nearly eclipsing the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Euromaidan protests last Tuesday was the latest in the ongoing scandal surrounding former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

According to newly released records, the beleaguered political consultant traveled to Moscow at least 18 times during his nearly decade’s worth of work for the pro-Russian politician Viktor Yanukovych, who was elected as president in 2010 and ousted in 2014. The revelations suggest his consulting and business activities were far more closely linked with Russia than he initially revealed.

Manafort has been the subject of intense scrutiny over his work for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, which culminated last month when a grand jury indicted him and his former colleague Rick Gates on a range of charges as part of FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. The political consultant has claimed that his work was intended to boost Ukraine’s integration with Europe, but the flight records put the lie to a tale that was already hanging from a thread.

Meanwhile, as Washington focuses on Manafort’s alleged ties with the Kremlin and Mueller’s wider Russia investigation, Ukrainians are wondering what the Manafort affair means for the prospect of eventually rooting out political corruption in their own country. And even if the writing’s on the wall, Kiev doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.

Revelations of Manafort’s skullduggery – not least the estimated $17 million he and his associates were paid by the Party of Regions – hits close to home for citizens in a country where the 50 richest own over 45% of GDP and that ranked 131st out of 176 countries in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index. Even more frustrating for ordinary Ukrainians, despite promises by President Petro Poroshenko to root out corruption, he has, if anything, only helped cronyism become more entrenched.

Most recently, in response to the Manafort investigation, while government officials have said they are willing to assist US authorities, observers shouldn’t hold their breaths. After all, even though the alleged wrongdoing occurred under the previous administration’s watch, Poroshenko’s government has a number of reasons to drag its feet. First, they are loath to derail relations with the White House by further delving into what is now a distinctly sore subject. But most importantly, Poroshenko and his allies worry that if the government opened up its own probe, this would have major consequences for Manafort’s wider network of contacts, not least the oligarchs and crooked officials who still make up a broad swath of the current political elite.

As a result, the country’s most powerful oligarchs are eager for the Manafort affair to blow over as soon as possible. These include men like the businessman Dmytro Firtash and the coal and metals tycoon Rinat Akhmetov, who rank among the wealthiest in the country and have a finger in nearly every pie – from the seats of parliament to the presidential palace to the country’s biggest conglomerates. It was they who helped Yanukovych hire Manafort to begin with and drove his efforts to boost his reputation in the West. But embarrassingly for the current government, they still pull a considerable amount of political clout.

For instance, Firtash – the billionaire oligarch and Party of Regions funder – has close ties with Manafort, having worked with him in a failed effort to buy the Drake Hotel in New York for $850 million in 2008. He has also been accused of essentially overseeing the process by which Poroshenko became president, having helped to organize a summit between former boxer Vitali Klitschko and Poroshenko in 2014. According to allegations, Firtash helped convince Klitschko to run for mayor of Kiev instead of the presidency, in a deal that fueled fury in a country tired of major political decisions being turned into gentlemen’s agreements.

Another oligarch who stands to suffer from a more in-depth investigation of Manafort’s sordid past is Rinat Akhmetov, the man responsible for bringing the political consultant to Ukraine in the first place. Ukraine’s wealthiest man, he is reported to have come out on top following a power struggle among organized crime groups in the 1990s over control for coal and metals assets in the former Soviet Union – assets that he has now organized under his holding company, System Capital Management (SCM).

While Akhmetov claims that he made his fortune thanks to wit and luck, the evidence suggests otherwise. Some claim that Akhmetov’s first stroke of good fortune came in 1995, when his mentor, Akhat Bragin, was killed along with his bodyguards in a bombing. Later, during the Yanukovych era, Akhmetov exerted considerable power as a key Party of Regions funder. Not surprisingly, during those same years, his businesses boomed, adding an estimated $3 billion to his bank accounts in a matter of months. Of course, like many of his fellow oligarchs, Akhmetov recognizes the importance of staying on the good side of the government: after he realized where the winds were blowing in 2013, he, Firtash, and other oligarchs switched teams, beginning to openly support the Euromaidan.

The result is that Poroshenko’s initial promises to enact a policy of “de-oligarchization” has ended in a coalition between the president and Akhmetov, the main heir of Ukraine’s entrenched system in crony capitalism. Parts of the latter’s hold over Ukraine’s economy have started to crack, especially after a London court ordered Akhmetov to pay almost $800 million and settle the debts accrued after the purchase of the state telecom company Ukrtelecom in 2013.

Poroshenko – a political turncoat and tycoon in his own right – thus represents only the latest iteration of oligarchical government in a country that remains, as ever, firmly under the thumb of corrupt interests. Given the tycoons’ enduring power and the government’s slow-moving efforts to tackle corruption, then, we shouldn’t be surprised if Kiev fails to use the Manafort affair as a catalyst for reforms. Yet the government’s likely reluctance to further investigate Manafort’s past – and his network of contacts with Ukraine’s deep state – represents a huge loss for a country that only four years ago had such high hopes for a new chapter in the country’s history.

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Although unhelpful, Trump’s tweets are not the essence of the issue.

President Donald J. Trump’s tweets are striking and unhelpful, but they do not explain the essence of the current strategic situation surrounding North Korea. The underlying dynamics are more deeply rooted than any one day’s headline, even if the current U.S. president has done more than his share to exacerbate the situation.

In terms of U.S. security issues in East Asia, there is a near-term threat concerning North Korea and a longer-term threat concerning China as a rising great power. A main goal in the near term has been to bolster cooperation among the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China in order to impose restraint on North Korea. In doing so, the U.S. administration would probably prefer stronger cooperation among itself, Japan, and South Korea inasmuch as China is itself viewed as potential threat. The widespread belief that only China has influence in Pyongyang, however, assures it a role in U.S. plans, perhaps a greater role than China prefers or is capable of.

The goal of maintaining this coalition through to a successful conclusion confronts both facilitating and hindering conditions. The main facilitating condition has been the behavior of North Korea, itself, which has gone a long way toward forcing the other countries together regardless of what the U.S. president does. Among hindering conditions are: a new, liberal South Korean administration that came into office with the express hope of improving relations with North Korea and China; a China and a South Korea that prefer diplomacy whereas the current U.S. administration prefers economic pressure and random, sometimes contradictory threats; a South Korean electorate that views Japan with extreme suspicion and contempt; countries other than China that have little leverage over North Korea; a China that views extreme pressure on a fragile North Korean economy as a possible prelude to the collapse of the North Korean regime (a traditional ally of China) and, subsequently, massive refugee flows and possibly war on the Korean Peninsula as South Korea, the United States, and China race to secure the North Korean territory first; and a North Korea that at this point has little incentive to make concessions.

While the main relationships have been sorting themselves out, side disputes among the partners add to the fissiparous pressures in the coalition. China and Japan, for instance, are engaged in a dispute over the ownership of islets (Diaoyu/Senkaku) in the East China Sea and over China’s declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone in that area. South Korea and Japan have their own island dispute (Dokdo/Takeshima) in the Sea of Japan (or the East Sea, as the Koreans insist on calling it). Also, the previous South Korean administration agreed to the deployment of a U.S. THAAD missile-defense system on its territory to guard against possible North Korean missile strikes. China objected to the THAAD deployment, claiming that the system, and especially the associated radars, constituted the basis for a larger, regional system to be directed against China in the future. The new South Korean administration objected as well, but then agreed to complete the deployment owing to North Korea’s behavior. The THAAD dispute between China and South Korea appears to have been resolved in recent weeks—once China’s 19th Party Congress was safely out of the way and the deployment had been completed anyway—but the resolution included statements by South Korea that it will host no further missile-defense systems and that the current U.S.-Korean-Japanese collaboration will not grow into a permanent trilateral alliance. These are assurances that the U.S. administration would prefer that Seoul had not made.

One big, unanswered question is North Korea’s motivation for seeking nuclear weapons or, conversely, for agreeing to a mutually acceptable outcome, regardless of whether the other countries succeed in maintaining a united front. Pyongyang may have multiple goals for seeking nuclear weapons. As some commentators have suggested, it may hope to profit from selling weapons to other rogue countries. (North Korea does not have a great variety of attractive export items to offer.) It may hope to intimidate other countries. It may intend to deter U.S. intervention while forcefully reuniting the Korean Peninsula. These are all fine reasons for not wanting North Korea to get nukes. The fundamental underlying interest, however, is regime survival, especially when its main traditional ally appears to be colluding with the other side. Only with nuclear weapons can North Korea hope to defend itself against far larger adversaries.* Compared with the other possible motivations, this one is inherently difficult to negotiate away. Doing so would require an extreme degree of reassurance.

What end goal is the United States seeking through this collaboration? The stated objective (when the president is not alluding to destroying North Korea outright) is a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. From North Korea’s perspective, however, this goal faces two obstacles that Americans, who do not tend to look at things from North Korea’s perspective, do not see. It is—again, from North Korea’s perspective—inherently unequal, and the United States cannot be trusted.

First, what does it mean to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula? As viewed from Washington, North Korea would be expected to eliminate its entire nuclear arsenal and eliminate the means for producing more. South Korea, for its part, has no nuclear weapons. What would the United States do? Withdraw its nuclear arsenal from South Korea to Guam or the U.S. mainland. In fact, the United States has already done this and has little further to offer in that regard. Once North Korea had destroyed its arsenal and production facilities, however, the United States could return its arsenal to South Korea overnight, or it could target North Korea from submarines or from bases in the United States without having to touch South Korean soil. For North Korea to accept this deal would require a high degree of confidence in the United States’ willingness to abide by the agreement.

What degree of confidence does Pyongyang have in the United States? Let’s view the history, from North Korea’s perspective. Saddam Hussein eliminated his nuclear program. (Sure, the Americans claim they didn’t believe it, but the North Koreans don’t trust Americans.) Then the United States attacked Iraq, and now Saddam Hussein is dead. Mu’ammar Qadhafi negotiated an explicit deal with the United States to give up his nuclear program in return for improved relations. Then the United States attacked Libya, and now Mu’ammar Qadhafi is dead. And frankly, the United States would be unlikely to simply stand by if the North Korean regime were to collapse. Beyond that, while many Americans will point out North Korea’s violation of the 1994 “Agreed Framework” in the early 2000s, the North Koreans will argue that the United States had never fulfilled its obligations under the agreement. (The United States was to establish diplomatic relations with North Korea and, together with South Korea and Japan, provide for the construction of two light-water reactors, which would have produced electricity for North Korea with a reduced danger of proliferation; none of this had occurred when, in 2002, the United States accused North Korea of cheating and canceled the accord.) Finally—and this is probably Trump’s greatest personal contribution to the matter—Trump has been actively denouncing his country’s nuclear agreement with Iran and has refused to certify Iran’s continued compliance with that agreement despite findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. experts that Iran is in fact in compliance. This is unlikely to persuade North Korea, or other countries for that matter, of the administration’s seriousness about negotiating similar agreements.

Thus, the outlook is not a pleasant one. Having gotten this far despite threats and sanctions, North Korea is unlikely to give up its quest for a nuclear arsenal now. Yet the secretary of defense, the national security adviser, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Trump himself have at various times suggested that the United States will not permit North Korea to acquire a usable nuclear arsenal. Indeed, this is the first U.S. administration to have actually threatened a preemptive strike against North Korea, which if anything is an incentive for the North Koreans to preempt inasmuch as they could not assume that their deterrent force would survive a U.S. first strike. If the administration continues with that line of thinking, then war is likely. On the other hand, reversing course is not alien to the Trump administration. The alternative would be deterrence as well as the simultaneous reassurance of allies South Korea and Japan, countries that will be more exposed to North Korean weaponry than we. Since this may require communicating a clear message as to exactly what North Korean behavior is to be deterred and what the allies will have to be promised, the Trump administration will have to decide what that is. That, in turn, may require more consistency than the administration has shown so far.

*North Koreans were not the only ones to draw such conclusions. In 1991 an Indian general remarked that the lesson of the Persian Gulf War was: never fight the US without nuclear weapons.

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A man paints over the logo of the Cambodia National Rescue Party at its headquarters in Phnom Penh. Photo: Getty Images.

In the days following the dissolution of the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), I headed to Phnom Penh to witness the changes on the ground since my last visit over two years ago.  On November 16, Cambodia’s Supreme Court ruled to dissolve the CNRP, and ban 118 of its senior officials from any political activity in the Kingdom for five years, effectively removing the sole threat to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s continuation of his 32-year rule.

The court’s case was predicated on an accusation the CNRP was attempting to overthrow the government through a “color revolution” aided by the United States.  Evidence presented in court consisted of two videos taken in 2013 allegedly of party leader Kem Sokha admitting to receiving U.S. training, and of former CNRP leader Sam Rainsy calling on the armed forces to turn their guns on the government.  Rainsy remains in exile since fleeing to France in 2013, while Sokha was arrested on September 3 on charges of “treason” and imprisoned.

The dissolution of the main opposition party has led to an international outcry, with Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch calling the ruling the “death of democracy” and “a political killing of the Paris Peace Accords”, while the International Commission of Jurists pointed to a “human rights and rule of law crisis” in Cambodia.  The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, also weighed in, arguing Cambodia was now ushering in a “new era of de facto one-party rule”.

Walking the streets of Phnom Penh, I sensed a profound resignation among the city’s residents and many of the tourists seemed unaware of the changes taking place.  A security guard interviewed by the Phnom Penh Post expressed the people’s frustration, saying “The people dare not to express their opinion or change, because if one stands up, that one will be jailed. If two stand up, two will be jailed,” while also predicting people would be similarly happy to see Hun Sen removed from power.

The Phnom Penh Post also spoke with 21-year-old Sok Sophorn, who argued, “For the upcoming election, I think it is meaningless because there is only one side, therefore who can [people] vote for?”  “Our country, law and power is in his [Hun Sen’s] hands. Everything belongs to him and if he orders them to go left, they go left and when he orders them right, they go right.”  

The changes to democracy in Cambodia will likely be a topic of discussion on December 7, when the Foreign Policy Association welcomes Dr. Dambisa Moyo, economist and author, to address the topic Is Democracy Dying? at the Harvard Club in New York.  A related concern, however, is how democracy is dying, and whether Chinese money and investment (flowing into Cambodia and other countries), will convince the people to trade their voice for economic benefit.  

The post Is Democracy Dying? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

 

This week, Tehran announced it would continue a missile development program that defense analysts say could allow Iran to launch nuclear weapons. It was a public threat that has understandably stirred strong response from the US and the west: the risk of nuclear proliferation by a fanatical regime is indeed a threat to millions across the region. But there is another, potentially greater threat from within Iran, one made more insidious by the fact that no one outside of Iran seems to care but which nonetheless imperils the values and moral conscience of the civilized world. I am speaking of the massacre of some 30,000 Iranians—including my uncle— at the hands of the state in 1988. And the arbitrary killings and executions continue.

 

In 1981, during the early years of Iran’s so-called “Islamic Revolution” my uncle Mahmood ‘Masoud’ Hassani was 21 years old and in his second year studying Economics at Tehran University. On June 30, my uncle never returned home from school.

 

Nearly two traumatic months passed before Masoud called my family to say he had been in jail since his disappearance and had been sentenced to serve ten years in the notorious Evin Prison. Even in absence of any evidence, he was convicted of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘spreading corruption on Earth’ all because he had distributed pro-democratic pamphlets near his campus.

  

When my uncle was in the seventh year of his sentence, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a notorious fatwa, calling for the immediate execution of Iran’s political prisoners. Death panels were commissioned to demand that blindfolded prisoners repent for their actions and those of their cellmates. Those who complied were granted amnesty. Those, like my uncle, who offered no such apology, were taken through a set of doors from which they would never return.

 

Without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom or being allowed to contact his loved ones, my uncle was hanged at the age of 27 sometime between July 28th and August 1st 1988. 

 

Unfortunately, his story is not unique. In less than five months, 30,000 of Iran’s brightest students, professors and devoted activists–many of them members of the pro-democratic PMOI-MEK–suffered the same fate. Expectant mothers and children as young as 13 were among the victims of these systematic killings, which effectively decimated an entire generation of Iranians who had devoted themselves to the struggle for democracy.

 

But 29 years later, the mullahs’ regime has still not succeeded in silencing the people’s calls for freedom and justice. Last year, the son of Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, the intended successor to Supreme Leader Khomeini, released an audio recording that detailed the grave extent of the purges. In it, Iranian jurists themselves described an obvious crime against humanity. For leaking this tape, Ahmad Montazeri was swiftly arrested, but not before unprecedented public discussion began of the 1988 massacres.

 

Thus, 60 million Iranians who were born after the revolution came to confront an issue that had been long swept under the rug, both by Iranian authorities who fear a public uprising and by thousands upon thousands of victims’ families who, with the most noble of intentions, have silently endured their grief and sadness, for fear of reliving the horrors they know this government to be capable of. Their fears are well-founded: many members of the judiciary who oversaw the execution of Khomeini’s fatwa in 1988 occupy the same posts today.

 

Despite the ongoing threats of violence, torture and execution, brave Iranian youth have recently risen up to put this issue at center stage, as when presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi was overwhelmingly rejected at the polls, in large part, due to his role in the 1988 massacre.

 

The newfound scrutiny has forced a number of Iran’s high-ranking governmental officials to speak to the issue head-on and acknowledge the historical record. But they have not done so with contrition. On August 28th 2016, the Iranian prosecutor and politician Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said of the mass executions, “We are proud to have carried out God’s commandment and to have stood with strength and fought against the enemies of God and the people.”

 

As dissatisfaction, disillusionment and dissent continue to grow among Iran’s young and vibrant population, authorities have begun to feel the pressure and initiate new plans to conceal their history. There are plans to build commercial centers over the unmarked mass burial sites often frequented by families of the fallen.  Doing so would destroy crucial forensic evidence that would allow for perpetrators of the 1988 massacre to be brought to justice.

 

Civil society organizations continue to receive unsettling news about persecution and arrests of surviving family members who have sought information about the location of their loved ones’ remains. Maryam Akbari Monfared, for instance, is currently serving a 15-year sentence at Evin Prison, without family visits or medical care. Three of Mayram’s brothers and her sister were executed in the course of the purges, and her own ‘crime’ consists of having published a letter asking for an explanation of these executions and the subsequent secret burials.  

 

As grassroots efforts surrounding this issue gain momentum, two things should give global audiences pause. First is the ongoing impunity of the Iranian judicial system, with at least 3,100 executions being carried out since Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013. The second is the silence of international governmental bodies tasked with documenting these very sorts of human rights abuses.

 

For families of victims, like my own, it has become painfully clear that the maintenance of economic ties with an oil-rich country has repeatedly trumped earnest efforts to speak out on Iran’s human rights record. With an abundance of contemporary and archival evidence supplied to the appropriate intergovernmental agencies, how else might we explain their silence if not as an instance of quid pro quo? Judging from the lack of outrage or historical record in the west, do atrocities that do not directly affect others simply not happen? Are these truths inconvenient?

 

 

Sara Hassani is a PhD. Student and Fellow in Politics at the New School for Social Research and works as an Adjunct Lecturer in Political Science at Brooklyn College – CUNY. 

The post Time for Reckoning a Long Hidden Massacre appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

French soldiers on patrol in Paris during Euro 2016 tournament

Since 2006 and peaking after 2008, several employee suicides took place after the privatization of France Telecom. Now part of international telecommunications giant Orange, sixty France Telecom employees committed suicide over a three year period as cut backs destabilized that company and developed into what could be described as a toxic work environment. In 2016 the incidences at France Telecom, now Orange, lead prosecutors to attempt to put the onus on management as it was claimed that cuts were tied in with attempts to purposely create a work environment that would negatively encourage employees to leave for their jobs.

Creating a difficult work environment married with drastic cutbacks might have violated a French law that establishes that anyone who harasses another with repeated actions with the aim or the effect of degrading working conditions is liable to a year in jail and a fine of €15,000. Directors of France Telecom at the time may eventually end up being fined or spending time in prison, but it is unlikely a violation of labour law would result in a severe punishment, and proof in a criminal law context may be too difficult to establish in the case of France Telecom. A national discussion, tribunal or even a trial may help French society understand why so many employees took their own life while working at France Telecom. While France still tries to deal with the tragedy, 2017 brought more mass employee suicides, this time within France’s police services.

Securing France after several attacks on French civilians have placed the burden of protecting the public on France’s police officers and Gendarmerie Nationale. With a drastic change in the security environment in France over the last few years, France’s protectors have been stretched to their limits trying to prevent attacks on innocent civilians and directly on themselves. Despite new policy approaches in 2015 to help prevent further suicides, eight officers took their own lives in a one week period alone. The numbers are truly shocking year after year as 45 French police officers and 16 members of the Gendarmerie have committed suicide this year alone. In 2015, the new policy came about after 55 police officers and 30 gendarmes took their lives. Unfortunately the added stress combined with already poor working conditions and a general negative sentiment towards officers has produced a difficult and dangerous situation for many officers according to France’s police union Alliance.

Like France Telecom, many employees and officers seem to feel trapped in impossible situations from their employer or in their role in society. Employment in France and Spain for younger employees is hard to come by with unemployment in some European countries for adults under 35 reaching as high as 25%. Simply switching jobs may feel like losing a career and a life spent establishing stability and the ability to provide for one’s self and their family. While there are many factors that can be difficult to understand for those not working in those environments, the fact that French employees commit suicide in certain organisations at such a high rate over a few short years is clearly a national crisis. These issues are not limited to France, as incidences at Foxconn and other international companies demonstrate that toxic work environments and tactics to constructively dismiss employees can lead to abusive practices on individuals and groups of employees. Solutions need to be developed starting with understanding the problem, requiring perhaps documented, recorded and directly experienced officials in work environments where it is difficult to have a voice, and to have independent reviews not linked to already established power structures in their organisation. Most importantly, solutions and legal actions need to have teeth so that policy solutions are not solely produced and documents without an effective change in policy. These solutions need to be applied evenly and fairly on large companies as they are on smaller ones. Threats that fall into the realm of criminal law should be treated as criminal as well as labour law violations. A national emergency that leads to terror incidences may require a more specialized and coordinated approach as well that gives assistance, training and more officers for support. Those solutions are only the first steps in addressing these types of issues in the workplace.

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Given that the last strongholds for ISIS (known as Daesh in the region) in Raqaa, Syria and Mosul, Iraq have fallen, it is likely the group in its current territory-based form will gone by the end of 2017.  Only weeks ago, Daesh was allowed to leave central Syria before the Syrian Army closed the 5-kilometer gap between Al-Raqqa and Homs. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Syrian government forces, supported by the Russian Air Force, had liberated over 90 percent of the country’s territory.

Fortunately, there has been a plan for this moment.  The Americans and the Russians—the main power brokers in the conflict– have been in direct talks regarding the future of Syria since 2015; indeed, everything is on the table regarding a transitional phase, the presidency, and even the future governing body. According to leaks and news reports, the two sides have agreed on that the president and transitional governing body shall exercise executive authority on behalf of the people but in line with a constitutional declaration. As for the president, he or she may have one or more vice presidents and delegate some authorities to them. This draft will be proposed during the Geneva Conference at the end of November.

As for the transitional governing body, it reportedly will serve as the supreme authority in the country during the transitional phase. According to drafts we have seen, it is proposed to have 30 members: 10 appointed by the current government, 10 from independent individuals named by the UN Secretary General and 10 by the opposition. The chairman will be elected from among the independent members by simple majority. This representative structure—which includes representatives from Assad’s government—stems from the recent visits to Damascus by officials from the European Union, Russia and the United States.

According to American sources, an important provision of the new constitution would be Presidential term limits. The proposed article states that “The President of the Syrian Republic shall be elected for seven calendar years by Syrian citizens in general after free and integral elections. The president might be re-elected only for one other term.”

The involvement of the Assad government in these deliberations should surprise no one. Former American ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford stressed in a recent article published in Foreign Affairs that “The Syrian civil war has entered a new phase. President Bashar al-Assad’s government has consolidated its grip on the western half of the country, and in the east. By now, hopes of getting rid of Assad or securing a reformed government are far-fetched fantasies, and so support for anti-government factions should be off the table. The Syrian government is determined to take back the entire country and will probably succeed in doing so.”

 

After Daesh, Syria still matters, and not only because of the scale of the humanitarian crisis there. Major political trends in the Middle East tend to happen because big countries want spheres of influence in geostrategic locations.  Russia has an interest in Syria, for example, as a Middle Eastern forward operating base, for access to warm water ports, and more generally, to check U.S. influence. The U.S. (and its allies) see in Syria a country cleared of Daseh that must now be “held” to prevent the regrowth of the terrorist caliphate, as a bulwark to protect neighboring Israel, and to maintain the free flow of oil.

In other words, the big countries that represent such geostrategic players such as Syria aspire to influence and change the geopolitical situation within her borders to improve their own strategic position and enable them to gain cards in the Middle East region.

But Syria is not merely a proxy battlefield for the big powers. With the end of Daesh in sight, Syria has a chance to reclaim her sacred sovereignty, which as the basis of the international order gives it the ability to control what happens inside its own borders. The upcoming constitutional process is an opportunity to restart and reconnect the Syrian people to its institutions, which should in turn serve them and only them. It should not be lost.

 

Shehab al-Makahleh is an author and analyst of terrorism, military, and security affairs in the Middle East and co-founder of Geostrategic Media and is based in the UAE and Jordan.

 

Maria al-Makahleh is a political commentator, researcher, and expert on Middle Eastern affairs based in Russia, and serves as President of the International Middle Eastern Studies Club (IMESClub) in Moscow.

The post The End of ISIS is in Sight. What is Next? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

From Syria to Iraq, Trump’s Middle East policy enables Iran to spread its tentacles across the region.

During the elections, Donald Trump was highly critical of former US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy to the Middle East. From Obama refusing to follow his own red line policy on Syria to the Iranian nuclear deal, Trump proclaimed that “Obama is a disaster on foreign policy” who treated enemies with “tender love and care” while picking fights “with our older friends.” However, since he became US President, Donald Trump has demonstrated not only that he is no better than Obama on foreign policy but some analysts claim that on Middle Eastern affairs, he is actually worse than him to the point that certain circles in Washington, DC who could not stand Obama are actually beginning to miss him.

Let us begin with Syria. While ISIS is essentially dead in the country, Trump has enabled both Russia and Iran to fill the void. He has backed away from seeking regime change. While the US did assist the Syrian Democratic Forces in their struggle against ISIS, Trump has left Russia and Iran in charge of securing security arrangements, creating safe zones, and above all, leading the diplomatic process that will determine the future of the country. While Trump has not abandoned the Syrian Kurds yet for he is still supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces against ISIS, he did leave that option on the table in order to prompt Turkey to abandon the Iranian axis and to reach a greater understanding on Syria with Russia.

Many Syrian Kurds feel that this is a great betrayal after they worked so hard in order to help the US rid the country from ISIS. Furthermore, had Trump supported breaking up Syria into separate states that better reflect the ethnic reality in the country, only part of the country rather than the entire area will fall to Tehran! The US should have engaged with the Kurds, the Druze and Sunni Arabs in order to make sure as many areas as possible did not fall to the Iranian axis. While Obama abandoning his red lines enabled the radical Islamists to overtake what was a peaceful revolution, Trump’s Syria policy has empowered the Iranian regime in Syria to the detriment of America’s natural allies.

Not only Syrian Kurds feel betrayed by Trump. The State of Israel is greatly disturbed that US President Trump has allowed Iranian-backed militias to be within 3 miles of the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. This is a horrendous reality that even Obama did not impose on the State of Israel. Now, Iran is building a permanent base some 50 kilometers from the Israeli Golan Heights and making moves in order to secure its land route from Iraq to Syria to the Israeli border. This will give Iran a strategic advantage in harming the State of Israel. And this decision was made by a US President who claims there is “no one more pro-Israel than I am.”

In addition, the situation in Iraq has greatly deteriorated largely because Trump has decided to side with Abadi over the Iraqi Kurds. The US knowingly allowed the transfer of US weapons and technology to the Iranian backed militias in order to attack the Kurds while making assurances that the movements of these militias were only to be used against ISIS. If Trump had supported Kurdistan’s Independence Referendum and given the Kurds the very same arms that the US gave on a silver platter to Iraq, then Iran would not be making massive gains in Iraq.

It is critical to note that Abadi is just as bad for the US as Maliki is and to oppose our natural allies the Kurds merely to empower Abadi is a strategic mistake. Like Maliki, Abadi is also an Iranian proxy. Both Iraq and Syria are failed states that Iran seeks to preserve so that they can benefit from the resources, oil, water, etc. and to use as a launching pad against Israel and the GCC. In order to obtain its goals, the Iranian-controlled Iraqi government started the process of purging any reference to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, ethnically cleansing the Kurdish areas and is now holding them hostage for food, fuel, humanitarian supplies, etc. The Iraqi Supreme Court also is seeking to erase any Kurdish gains or rights. Is this the kind of government the US should support?

Nevertheless, Trump has chosen to take hostile positions towards the Kurds that even Obama would never take. While Obama also did not get that a united Iraq is a failed policy for the country was artificially created by colonial powers and Iraq would be more stable if it was broken up into three countries, at the very least, he would not tolerate American weapons being used to attack the Kurds in Kirkuk and other areas. Under his watch, the Kurds enjoyed autonomy and de facto independence. Now, even that is being robbed from them as Trump stands by and does nothing. Given this, Trump is not the Mr. Tough on Iran that he claims to be. To the contrary, he is enabling Iranian aggression across the Middle East.

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When Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt instituted a blockade against Qatar this summer, many in Qatar and the broader international community feared it would greatly disrupt Qatari society by breaking supply chains, limiting access to food and other resources, and preventing free travel across the region. However, Qatar has defied the odds, thanks in large part to a unique spirit of ingenuity driven by its long-standing commitment to research & development. Indeed, greater innovation is the key to ensuring not just a stable future for Qatar, but for the entire region.

While the regional blockade has hindered overall growth in the Gulf region in the short term, in Qatar, our ongoing stability and development rests with our institutions that refuse to stop innovating in core sectors such as education, energy, science and research, and community development. Qatar has been able to conduct business as usual in these areas, including following through with the Qatar National Research Strategy.

Qatar Foundation (QF), a private, non-profit organization founded more than 20 years ago by Qatar’s leadership, is one such institution that has embraced this call to action, relentlessly addressing the nation’s and region’s grand challenges in food, water, cyber, health, and energy-security through domestic research and development. The tangible results of this commitment are bearing fruit today in the midst of the ongoing crisis, as QF has been sponsoring researchers from Qatar, the greater GCC region, and across the globe to tackle these serious challenges and create new real-world solutions. This investment in Qatar’s research and development capacity and the human capital it has built inside Qatar, as well as attracted from abroad, are some of the reasons why Qatar has proven so resilient in the current situation.

With regards to food security, QF R&D has supported an initiative called SAFE-Q, which has been investigating how to safeguard food and the environment in Qatar. Ongoing research has demonstrated unique ways to secure Qatar’s food supply chains and encourage sustainable local food production for the country—a critical issue for nearly all countries in our region.

In the energy space, QF researchers are examining new possibilities to reduce Qatar’s reliance on oil-powered desalination plants to secure our water supply, including developing new solar energy technology aimed at vastly improving the resilience and performance of solar panels in the desert.

In climate, QF research is identifying innovative uses of recycled and aggregate material, providing an economically viable and environmentally sustainable way to make Qatar less dependent on imports of aggregate materials used in infrastructure projects. Researchers have shown how to significantly increase the use of recycled materials in construction, and have collaborated with the Ministry of Municipality and Environment to successfully use recycled aggregate in high-value construction projects in Qatar.

In terms of resource security, QF R&D is also supporting extensive research into the genomes of one of Qatar’s most abundant natural resources: date palm trees. A breakthrough project in this field makes it possible to determine the economic viability of a tree at the seed stage, rather than having to wait until the tree is five years old. This could soon open up a whole new stream of research into the feasibility of utilizing date palm tree products in other industries, including construction or furniture.

And regarding healthcare, QF’s Qatar Genome Programme is a one-of-a-kind national initiative to map the genome of Qatar’s population, an effort which can produce critical insights to move Qatar closer to achieving its aim of developing personalized healthcare tailored to an individual’s needs and unique characteristics.

Ultimately, this ongoing commitment to research is critical not just to ensuring the future peace and prosperity of Qatar, but of the entire Middle East and beyond. Innovation is highly beneficial for local economies, boosting inbound investment, economic activity, job creation, and technology transfer. As Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has said, “We, in Qatar, have never been confined by our local geography. Rather, we have continuously placed our attention on the development needs of the Arab nations, as we set strategies and plans for scientific research.”

Research is a key component for the advancement of any country; it is vital to the creation of a competitive and diversified economy. Indeed, research has a unique ability to foster the development of human capital and support the growth of homegrown institutions across the region, helping provide security that can mitigate regional conflict and tumult.

QF shows it is possible to bring experts together from across the globe to harness their knowledge and expertise to create positive change and discovery in the Middle East. The region should look to continue to foster ways to promote such efforts, as the we are set to face increasing challenges due to economic and technological transformation, coupled with the effects of climate change. The same agility that has allowed Qatar to weather current difficulties is going to be needed in the future by all. Qatar’s research and development community is playing its part to find solutions, and is set to continue doing so in the future.

Dr. Hamad Al-Ibrahim is Executive Vice President of Qatar Foundation Research and Development

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According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 2,200 migrants died while trying to cross the Mediterranean during the first seven months of 2017. In the United States, more people are dying while trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, even though fewer people are making the attempt. According to the IOM, the reported number of fatalities are probably underestimated because most deaths occur while people are crossing a vast, remote desert or a large, swift body of water.

In response to the continuing crisis facing potential migrants fleeing war or poverty, Secretary General António Guterres called on member states who gathered in New York for the General Assembly last month to find “a humane, compassionate, people-centered approach [to migration] that recognizes every individual’s right to safety, protection and opportunity.” Guterres spoke to a General Assembly that consisted of many new leaders, some of whom had run on anti-immigrant platforms to get elected.

But in the same building just one year earlier, these same member states unanimously adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, an international statement which outlined a path toward two global compacts scheduled to be adopted in 2018.

The first, the Global Compact on Refugees, aims to help the international community to find more equitable ways to share the responsibility for refugees.

The second, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration, aims to enhance international cooperation in governing migration, protect migrants from smugglers and other criminal networks, and address the causes of irregular migration.

According to the Secretary General, the members of the UN are at the halfway point towards agreeing on these compacts. Over the next year, Guterres believes that UN members need to re-establish the integrity of the refuge protection regime, develop national and international mechanisms that take human mobility into account, hold human traffickers and smugglers accountable, create more opportunities for legal migration, and incorporate the advances in artificial intelligence and the skill shortages associated with this technology into international cooperation mechanisms.

But it won’t be easy. Media reports have suggested that a global backlash against international migration is making it harder for national governments to adequately address this issue. Although the clear majority of the 244 million international migrants travel legally, the consequences of irregular or unauthorized migration have captured headlines all over the world. In 2014, journalists from the Guardian, Le Monde, El País, Süddeutsche Zeitung and La Stampa debunked common myths about migration, but these myths continue to influence migration policy well into 2017.

 

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Communicating with friends and colleagues in Harare, I am hearing the following (all quotations are direct from people I have communicated with, but I hope you’ll forgive my granting of anonymity in light of the circumstances):

• Get out of your minds your 1970s African coup cliches.
• Most of the streets in suburban Harare (and Harare is an enormously suburban urban area — so also dump your western conception of suburbs) are perfectly easy to navigate. There is no excess of police, the military is not rolling tanks down the streets.
• There is a sense of unease. For example, the University of Zimbabwe remains open, but end-of-year exams have been postponed.
• There is a sense of “relative calm,” but also a sense of fear.
• Honestly, no one knows what is happening politically.

People are scared and uncertain, but the fact is that there has been a constant sense of fear and uncertainty in Zimbabwe for more than a decade.

 

The post On the Ground (Indirectly) in Harare appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The sudden resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad al-Hariri on October 4, 2017 from Riyadh appears to have taken by surprise just about everyone in the Middle East.  The significance of Hariri’s announcement taking place not in his own capital but rather in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was lost on virtually no one. As speculation that Hariri was either forced into resigning and/or is currently being held against his will has mounted, savvy observers have concluded that the decision reflects the Saudi will as much as it reflects Hariri’s own thinking.

But as is usual in the Middle East, other regional developments factor heavily into the actions that produce headlines.  With Raqqa no longer in the hands of the Islamic State and the city of Deir Elzour having fallen to the Syrian army, Saudi Arabia may have finally conceded that the Syrian conflict is a lost cause and is instead looking for other battlegrounds on which it can confront Iran, its bitter rival for regional hegemony.

Thus, a second theory that has circulated and swirled like a hurricane in the days that followed Hariri’s resignation is that the move portends a new conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.  With the region a perpetual tinderbox and both Israeli government officials and Hezbollah leaders long musing publicly about what their next battle would look like, Hariri’s surprise move could be the casus belli, or at least an opening salvo, that leads the region into its next confrontation.

For years now, Saudi Arabia and its allies have long warned of Iran’s aims of forming a Shiite Crescent that stretches from Tehran to Beirut, passing through Baghdad and Damascus en route.  But while Saudi calls received little purchase just a few years ago, today’s Middle East may produce a different and much more dangerous outcome.

For starters, while the Obama administration was notoriously cool toward Saudi Arabia and hesitant to get involved in another conflict, the current Administration has engaged in far more bellicose rhetoric and signalled that it is firmly in the Saudi corner.  Russia, once an afterthought in the region, has in the intervening years become a dominant player, not only in Syria but via political and commercial overtures elsewhere in the region including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and even the UAE.  Turkey, once a reliable NATO ally, now may be closer in its thinking to the Russian bloc than to its erstwhile friends in America.  The Iraqi army has seemingly foiled Kurdish plans for independence and the Islamic State appears to be in its waning days in both Iraq and Syria.  Perhaps most importantly, Saudi policy is now in the hands of the young Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has demonstrated his willingness to take on enemies at home and abroad with fervor.

In the recent past, Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in two wars, both in 2000 and 2006, with sparks in both instances provided by Hezbollah’s overreach at times when Israel would have been content to delay confrontation.

While the United States has typically sought to balance its close relationship with Israel with a desire to avoid getting embroiled in such conflicts, the next confrontation may be different.  This past October 23 marked the 34th anniversary of bombing the US Marine Base in Beirut in 1983, an attack—blamed by the US government on Hezbollah, although never claimed by the group– that led to the death of 241 American and 58 French soldiers.  US Vice President Mike Pence issued fresh warnings to Iran and Hezbollah the same day, saying: “Thirty-four years ago today, America was thrust into war with an enemy unlike any we had ever faced. The Beirut barracks bombing was the opening salvo in a war that we have waged ever since — the global war on terror.”

Pence said that the American administration has redoubled its commitment to “cripple Hezbollah’s terrorist network and bring its leaders to justice.” This bellicose rhetoric, in which Pence said that the US will be “fighting terrorists on American terms and terrorists soil” was taken by many in the region as yet another signal that war is shimmering on the horizon. Pence added that Islamic terrorism “is a hydra with many heads, striking London, Paris, Barcelona. No matter what name they choose to go by or where they try to hide, this President and our armed forces are committed, as the President said in his own words, to destroy terrorist organizations and the radical ideology that drives them — and so we will”.

Such a war would present a perilous series of pitfalls for all involved.  The Hezbollah of today is not the same group it was in 2006, let alone in 2000.  With the group’s fighters having gained battlefield experience over several years of fighting in Syria, along with expectations that it has received far more advanced weaponry from Iran, any conflict would almost certainly prove far more deadly than previous encounters.

Last September, Israel carried out its largest military drills in 20 years along its northern border, which lasted for ten days and simulated an attack against Hezbollah inside Lebanon. The drill was then described as a response to a “significant threat to Israel and especially the home front”.

Israel would likely seek to deploy its ground forces reach the Litani River in southern Lebanon, the zone it occupied from 1982 to 2000 that represents Hezbollah’s heartland.  Israeli air strikes would aim to prevent Iranian and Hezbollah production of precise surface-to-surface missiles that can travel long distances, reaching its most dense population centers in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  As in previous wars, Israeli strategy would seek to minimize any damage that would be inflicted upon its forces and civilians in northern Israel.

The question is whether such a conflict will occur due to an unexpected spark arising from miscalculation, or whether Israel—emboldened by its newfound, if unacknowledged, alliance with Saudi Arabia and tacit backing from the United States–will act deliberately, this year or next, to pre-empt Hezbollah’s ability to further develop weapons that threaten the Jewish State.  Though Israel has previously sent messages to Hezbollah in the form of airstrikes on its weapons convoys in Syria, this time it may opt “to launch a pre-emptive strike on the production facilities in Lebanon”.

The confluence of these changes in the region and the aggressive rhetoric of all parties form a maelstrom that, sadly, looks to be propelling the Middle East toward yet another war.  Any conflict between Hezbollah and Israel would not be contained, but rather would affect surrounding countries including Syria, Jordan, and the two countries using the Israeli-Lebanon arena as a proxy battlefield, Iran and Saudi Arabia as well.  This next war, whose drums are now beating steadily, will be more destructive than its predecessors and will once again re-draw the ever-shifting map of alliances and rivalries in the region.

Shehab al-Makahleh is an author and analyst of terrorism, military, and security affairs in the Middle East and co-founder of Geostrategic Media and is based in the UAE and Jordan.

 

Maria al-Makahleh is a political commentator, researcher, and expert on Middle Eastern affairs based in Russia, and serves as President of the International Middle Eastern Studies Club (IMESClub) in Moscow.

The post Another War in the Middle East? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

A military tank with armed soldiers on the road leading to President Robert Mugabe’s office in Harare. [AP Photo: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi]

What is happening in Zimbabwe?

It appears that 93-year old “President for Life” Robert Mugabe might finally be out of power. The military has refused to acknowledge a “coup,” but when the military leadership provide the spokesmen for the government, when generals are asserting who will and will not be acceptable as potential heads of state and government, and when people are being encouraged to remain inside, it seems pretty clear that change is afoot and that we are talking about a change fomented at least in part by the military. That may not be an according-to-Hoyle coup, but one would probably be at a loss to come up with a better term.

Last week Mugabe sacked Emmerson Mnangagwa, his second-in-command. Mugabe (or people acting on his behalf) had accused Mnangagwa of working with the military to foment a coup of his own. Now reports indicate that Mnangagwa has returned from a brief exile to take over the government.

If this is the case, it is perhaps not ideal (coups or their equivalent rarely are) but it would serve to mitigate my chief concern: That while most observers of the region have long wanted Mugabe to exit the scene, recognizing the deleterious effect he has had on his country for too much of the three-plus decades he has been in control, a power vacuum might still have been worse than anyone expected. After all without a clear plan for succession, and in lieu of Mugabe losing an election (and having Mugabe accept the results), the struggle for power in Harare might have gotten ugly. Mnangagwa is no saint, and we have no idea whether and when he might be in a position to call for elections, but if he has the support of the military and if he can lay out a clear plan moving forward perhaps Zimbabwe can avoid a bloodbath.

Perhaps.

As of now, it seems that Mnangagwa has emerged as the winner of a power struggle between his supporters (in the military and beyond) and First Lady Grace Mugabe, who has been vying to succeed her husband and has shown some of his megalomaniacal tendencies. But there is still a long way to go and much to find out before anyone should be celebrating.

The post Crisis in Zimbabwe: Is Mugabe Finally Out? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

A refugee woman from the minority Yazidi sect, who fled the violence in the Iraqi town of Sinjar, sits with a child inside a tent at Nowruz refugee camp in Qamishli, northeastern Syria August 17, 2014. Photo Credit: Rodi Said / Reuters

In the last week there have been mass graves discovered in Iraq. There is little detail on who the 400 people found buried are, why they were executed or what group they belonged to, but just that they were victims of ISIS and their location. This story and many linked to the atrocities in Iraq and Syria did not receive as much coverage as they should have considering how similar events in history have scarred the psyche of all democratic nations. The civilian targets of ISIS have often been minority groups in the region that were seen as less than human in ISIS philosophy and that did not have a strong militia protecting their communities. If you were born into such a group by no choice of your own, the worst punishments were applied to you and your family. Memories of those victims of religious fervor that suffered in the Spanish Inquisition have shaped human rights norms and codes along with other historic events in Western history. In these recent cases that can be argued as some of the worst treatment girls and women have faced in human history, there has been a passive approach to protecting their lives.

No one should be burned alive because they would not convert to a religion, but it occurred frequently under ISIS and little was said in Western media in most cases. Sexual assaults against minors daily and the execution of relatives in front of them was standard practice, occurring on a massive scale, in many cases resulting in those girls being burned alive themselves. Every violation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights was committed using the most extreme methods, and in most cases these atrocities were given a page twelve storyline, if published at all. Their protection was treated as a page twelve storyline as well, with the protectors of many of those minorities, the Peshmerga, now being attacked from all of its neighbours as a reward for attempting to be the only militia that tried to protect minorities from human rights abuses.

Rwanda was a tipping point in how we handle genocide in modern times. Rwanda was almost completely ignored, but awareness of the atrocities was well known as UN representatives were on the ground during the genocide and were communicating with their respective governments, and nothing was done to stop it. Many of these same leaders that ignored the genocide in Rwanda are active in governments around the world today, or advise modern governments on policy and are key contributors in developing legislation and UN actions. These same leaders also impressed their shame on their lack of actions in stopping the Rwandan Genocide, but also have done little to help Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq and Syria. They are well aware of what is going on as video and photos of atrocities are broadcast on social media frequently. Their passive attention post-Rwanda to genocide is passively permitting another Inquisition. The policy approach to do nothing about returning citizens who committed these acts against minorities in the Middle East has also fallen on deaf ears. Allowing those who have orchestrated the worst human rights abuses in human history to pass between borders without trial and with complete freedom is an insult to every victim of genocide since the Spanish Inquisition as well.

One of the shameful events that shaped human rights globally, the Inquisition, was occurring yet again, but we are blinded to it in modern society. Perhaps future generations will learn from our mistakes, but there is no doubt that modern society have failed the minorities in Iraq and Syria as regret replaces action, and shame is assured on us by future generations.

The post We Should Have Never Permitted Another Inquisition appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Saudi Iranian Flags BIN

On Saturday afternoon November 4th from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, now former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri declared he resigned due to threat of assassination, saying, “I have sensed what is being plotted covertly to target my life.” The BBC reported that Hariri made multiple trips to Saudi Arabia (KSA) over the couple of days prior to his announcement, and Hariri attacked Iran and the Shia movement Hezbollah in the Riyadh broadcast. The location of the surprising revelation and Hariri’s depiction of Iran as determined to “destroy the Arab world” hints that the Saudi-Iranian proxy war may have returned to Beirut.

Lebanon’s elections were scheduled for May 2018, but last weekend’s developments call that into question and may have destroyed any semblance of détente that existed in Lebanese politics between the regional heavyweights. Lebanon’s delicate political arrangement assembled Sunni, Shia, and Christian representatives after two years without a complete government. Yet, the role of Hezbollah (due to its designation as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Arab Gulf States) constituted a legitimate excuse for outside intervention. So far, Lebanon’s government has not collapsed, many suspect Hariri is just a mouth for Riyadh, and Hezbollah may be the hero if they can maintain stability in Lebanon.

On October 10, the U.S. offered two multi-million dollar rewards for Hezbollah leaders which may correlate with Saudi State Minister for Arab Gulf Affairs Thamer Sabhan’s tweet two days prior that an international coalition to confront Hezbollah is needed. Following the KSA’s interception of a missile fired from Yemen, Mr. Sabhan described Hezbollah’s role in assembling the missile and stated, “We will treat the government of Lebanon as a government declaring a war because of Hezbollah militias.” This came as Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, labeled the same missile attack an “act of war” by Iran. Iran has supplied Hezbollah with as much as $200 million each year, so Hezbollah may find themselves at the center of a power struggle with few options to extract themselves.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro immediately assessed that an Israeli-Hezbollah conflict was inevitable, arguing Israel has been prepping since 2006. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman contributed to this prospect on Saturday saying, “In Practice Lebanon has been occupied by Hezbollah and the Iranians,” and “This axis is operating inside Lebanon, inside Syria and is extending its patronage into the Gaza Strip.” The U.S. and KSA have lead the fight to coordinate international opinion against Hezbollah and have operated in cohesion with their terrorist designations. Congress even introduced a bill to encourage Europe to see Hezbollah as one movement and not to differentiate between the political and military wings of Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s political future and security may unfortunately be dictated by the interests and strategic moves of foreign powers. The U.S. and Russia have coordinated with Hezbollah at different times to combat Daesh in Syria, and Iran has backed them nearly since their 1979 revolution. Russian and Iranian security interests aligned in Syria and have blossomed into a much deeper relationship, whereas President Trump most recently proved his support for the Saudi Crown Prince’s consolidation of power, tweeting, “I have great confidence in King Salman and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing… Some of those they are harshly treating have been “milking” their country for years!”

In an effort to alienate the militaristic efforts of Hezbollah and Hamas from the greater Arab community and contain Iranian influence, the KSA is moving quickly to build alliances and present a new image as moderate or progressive (like granting women the freedom to drive). The detention of the Saudi “untouchable” Princes may assist in legitimizing the Monarchy’s governing mandate, but the timing of these moves encourages speculation of a Saudi-U.S. plot for the region. Riyadh, by some accounts, is committing war crimes in Yemen, and has not effectively shown off its military competency. What was supposed to be a quick victory is now a disaster with a record-breaking cholera epidemic, the worst famine in decades, and no clear path out.

During the Israeli-Hezbollah war of 2006, many Arab Gulf States were rattled by public support for Hezbollah which, by default, shed warmer light on Iran. In March 2016, all six GCC States designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization, but their unanimity is still a hard sell to their citizens.

Sectarian identity fluctuates with time and by situation, which makes for insecure politics. Sectarian identity is not only driven through polemics, but institutionalized via access to public sector jobs, opportunity in the armed forces, and cemented by wealth distribution. Generalizing Arab Gulf state economies may, by nature, predispose some flavor of Orientalism, but the rentier economic model has granted the government the necessary incentives to impose sectarian identity on its people by correlating profits and stability with the Monarchy.

However, questions of legitimacy arise quickly when funds run dry and as Saudi economic woes become more urgent, social unrest could threaten the Monarchy. Much has been written on the Saudi-Iranian struggle for regional supremacy and their shadow looms heavily over Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, Qatar, and now Lebanon. The dense collection of alliances and informal dealings with States and non-state actors encourages rumors and conspiracy theories to bounce around the Arab Streets, and the presence of foreign powers (like the U.S. and Russia) inspires speculation about their end game and further obscures the truth.

If we accept that a new Middle Eastern Cold War has settled in, as argued by F. Gregory Gauss III of Brookings, between the KSA & Iran, then have the rapprochement efforts by the KSA with former foes inspired any allegiance following last week’s barrage of developments?

Rapprochement Coverage & A New Order

Since November 2013, reports have surfaced over Saudi-Israeli rapprochement and speculation has accelerated since the summer of 2016 due to fears of the U.S. abandoning the MENA region. Saudi officials went so far as to state, “Israel is not an enemy” that summer to a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; a drastic divergence from the 2007 condemnation of Israeli excavations near al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem as “a provocation to Muslims around the world.”

Private rapprochement efforts along military and business interests are widely documented, but public statements frequently contradict such evidence. On October 21, the Forward reported in an interview with Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former ambassador to Washington and onetime head of the KSA’s intelligence agency, that such rapprochement with Israel was an illusion of Prime Minister Netanyahu; yet, “two hours after the interview,” Prince Turki, the former Head of Mossad, and a Pentagon official sat on the same stage for a security seminar. Due to the political consequences, official confirmation of such rapprochement is highly unlikely for now.

A leaked cable by Israel’s Channel 10 on November 6, shows that the Israeli MFA ordered its embassies to support the Saudi & Hariri line about the destabilizing effect Hezbollah has had on the Lebanese government. Publicly, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has tweeted, “The resignation of Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hariri and his remarks are a wake-up call to the international community to take action against the Iranian aggression, which is turning Syria into a second Lebanon.”

This leak will likely play as a smoking gun, implicating Israel and the KSA in an effort to upend the regional structure and severely damage Riyadh’s legitimacy amongst Arabs skeptical of Israel. This revelation may make Riyadh’s relationship with Cairo that much more significant because the KSA is in desperate need to save face in the Arab Streets. Riyadh invested heavily in Egypt following the removal of the Egyptian Brotherhood in 2013 with not only economic funds, but political capital; Riyadh’s relationship with Cairo is complicated but as Egypt makes up a quarter of all Arabs, they remain a key source of legitimacy.

The Saudi-Iraqi rapprochement effort has made great strides over the past month including: the first flights between Riyadh and Baghdad in 27 years, a newly appointed Saudi Ambassador to Iraq, and the establishment of a Coordination Council in the presence of U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson. Riyadh’s diplomatic blitz also comes as Russia is championed the de facto winner in Syria, and classic U.S. allies are seeking assurances that their Iranian-foe will not topple the regional status quo.

Iraq has not shown any public allegiance to Riyadh since last week’s developments and has avoided comment on the subject. This is fairly easy to do because their security situation can still consume local headlines and Baghdad has been clear about balancing its relationship with the U.S., Russia, the KSA, and Iran. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi just two weeks ago returned from a trip to Riyadh, Cairo, Amman, Ankara, and Tehran without declaring any allegiance to one over the other. This flood of developments comes amidst the steady drip of information hinting at possible negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, facilitated by Cairo whose most ardent backer is Riyadh.

Cairo’s Role in Riyadh’s Scheme

Cairo’s relationship with Riyadh is complicated as Sisi seeks to reform his relationship with the Palestinians, by pushing Qatar out of Gaza, but does not view Hezbollah as a serious threat. The summer of 2017 was characterized by the cutting of diplomatic relations and a financial boycott of Qatar by the KSA, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt that has upset GCC coherence. A unique condition that was not explicitly stated in the 13 demands circulated by the Saudi-led bloc was for Qatar to quit funding Hamas.

Qatar hosts the previous leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, who has ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood; the current Egyptian government rose following a coup perpetrated by the military against the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani of Qatar was the first world leader to visit Gaza under Hamas control in 2012 (bringing $400 million in aid) and Qatar is the only Gulf state to maintain close ties with Hamas. For its part, Hamas has felt that many Middle Eastern governments have used the Palestinian cause for their own ends, which makes their relationship with Qatar that much more significant.

In early October, representatives of Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation agreement which would grant the Palestinian Authority (PA) greater control over Hamas controlled territories in the Gaza Strip (like the Rafah border crossing with Egypt). Two weeks prior, Hamas called for the PA to replace it as the governing body in Gaza, which would in effect remove restrictions on Gazans access to electricity. While Israeli analysts caution against the longevity of this agreement, the PA assumed control over the Rafah border crossing on November 1.

On October 29, Al-Monitor quoted an Egyptian diplomat on the contents of a Cairo initiative for multilateral negotiations towards an Arab-Israeli peace accord. The main tenants of this initiative include:

1. The Arab League will recertify its adherence and support for a two-state solution based on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative; launched by then Crown Prince Abdullah of KSA and representing a collective Arab interest in recognizing Israel.
2. The U.S. will initiate a conference seeking to determine a path-way to a two-state solution and establishing mechanisms to combat terrorism; Washington and Tel Aviv maintain Hamas must disarm as a precondition to negotiations.
3. The PLO will represent Palestinian interests and Cairo will host the initiative.

Netanyahu stated he was willing to discuss the Arab Peace initiative in May 2016, but even the alignment of all Arab States does not preclude sabotage from non-state actors. Acts of terrorism by individuals or movements force comment from Arab leaders, and their allegiance to their ethnicity can be called into question (often a great source of their legitimacy and power).

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has urged caution and for the de-escalation of tensions between Riyadh and Tehran, while also affirming his support for Riyadh stating, “We support our (Saudi) brothers.” Riyadh’s backing of Cairo presents an opportunity to elevate Cairo’s status as a leader of Arabs, and as the lead negotiator of peace and stability for the region. Yet, Sisi’s caution is warranted because Egypt has struggled to control the Sinai Peninsula with terrorist attacks occurring frequently, and they do not need to incur the wrath of Tehran. Cairo is avoiding greater sanctions on Hezbollah, amidst Saudi urging, which reduces the odds they would take part in any sort of military confrontation.

Riyadh Might Fight Iran Without the Arabs

The most dependable alliance the Saudi’s have cultivated is with Israel and the drastic developments of the past week should be considered an experiment, testing the regional structure and allegiances. Baghdad seeks stability and wants nothing to do with any future conflict. Cairo see’s room for growth with Saudi backing but is not ready to sign up for armed conflict because Iran is not an immediate threat. Israel see’s Iran and Hezbollah as an immediate threat and is ready to adjust the regional structure before stability settles in.

This is the state of affairs, and Riyadh must decide if they are willing to go forward with Tel Aviv as their staunchest ally in the region. Such a move would likely all but eliminate Riyadh’s hopes of becoming the leader of the Arabs, but might ensure the survival of the Monarchy with allies like the U.S. and Israel.

The post The Middle East’s Cold War Is Not Going Well for the Saudi’s appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

There is a broad-based consensus that security in Somalia has been deteriorating at an alarming rate. In the past few weeks, hundreds of people have been killed by truck bombs at two prominent locations in Mogadishu. The lethal potency of the explosives and the scale of death and devastation resulting from the Oct 14th one was far beyond what Mogadishu has witnessed in over quarter of a century of violence.

These successive deadly terrorist operations combined with allegations that attackers have used intelligence services ID cards have turned the spotlight on Somalia’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA). Serious questions regarding the agency’s leadership, competence and the scope of its authority are being raised.

But how does one reveal unpleasant realities and tell a traumatized nation what appeared like a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ was in fact a runaway train coming at them? How does one do that without shoving them into state of self-defeating despair? These indeed are the dicey challenges, but truth must be told.

Somalia is in an existential race against time. Much like all other critical issues facing the nation, the Somali government does not control its intelligence or security. Worse, the government does not have the political will to address the real causes and effects.

The Ownership Dilemma

Somalia is the center of gravity of international predatory capitalism. Not only because of its untapped natural resources since many countries would qualify, but because Somalia is the gold standard of these three systematically destructive elements: corruption, ineptitude and disloyalty to the nation. How many nations do you know that host dozens of security and intelligence forces with various (domestic and foreign) commands and control? Here are some examples:

There is the revolving door syndrome of failed security leadership that recycles the same has-beens. Every year or so when a new commander is appointed and another is sacked. The former brings in his own clan comrades and cronies and the latter takes with him the manpower that he brought in.

There are former al-Shabab leaders with long ugly record who, despite never seeking the forgiveness of their victims, been co-opted by the government, and, yes, been giving highly sensitive positions at NISA and other branches of government.

There is the cottage industry of intelligence serves ID cards. These IDs are readily available for anyone willing to pay the going rate. Apparently it is the agency’s failure when individuals in charge of issuing these IDs make little over $200 for monthly salary and the going price for a false ID is twice their monthly salary. While civilians try to possess these IDs for various reasons, the most common is the need to get through roadblocks and checkpoints since there is no logging system to verify authenticity of employment.

There are multiple security and intelligence agencies that emerged within the five clan-based federal states that may share a name with NISA but functionally have nothing to do with that ‘national agency.’ Most of them take their substantive orders from one neighboring state or another.

There are the corrupt leaders in the political upper echelon that readily put Somalia’s national interest behind anyone with a bag full of cash or has the capacity to aid them in attaining or keeping a position.

There are many in the circles of influence, including ministers and parliament members, who own their own private security companies and directly benefit from increased insecurity.

There is the underground business cartel that considers the status quo a heavenly blessing.

There is the Blackwater project to advance what might be called ‘world peace according to Erik Prince’ while UAE and DPW provide the diplomatic and commercial façades.

There is UK –guised as UNSOM—to guard the Soma Oil and Gas interest by any means necessary. It is mandated face that governs the Halane compound where a mishmash of the good, bad and ugly and their mercenaries are hosted. In their possession is the carrot and stick that boost or undermine security, at will.

There is the US. In addition to AFRICOM drone operations, the US runs routine covert operations in cooperation with a Somali counter-terrorism unit that is trained, paid, and commanded by the US. Though this was a thinly veiled secret, it entered into the public discourse on US’ controversial activities in Somalia since the recent killing of a Green Beret, and its role in Africa when four other Green Berets were killed in Niger a few months later.

This needless to say raised both media and congressional interests in the US clandestine operations in Africa. For years, AFRICOM has been effectively managing perception by offering ocean-cruise version of embedded journalism.

Against that backdrop it is extremely difficult to pinpoint who, or which combination, has triggered the latest wave of terroristic atrocities.

Knee-jerking Into the Oblivion

As usual, the government immediately reiterated its counter-terrorism motto: al-Shabab and ISIS have committed this atrocity. They are out to eradicate the Somali people, therefore, we should all join hands to fight them in their bloody swamps. We should wage an all-out war in many fronts and many regions and “I will be the first in the line”, said President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (Farmajo).

Never mind the fact that the terrorists—be they al-Shabab or one of the other clandestine candidates—are executing their deadly operations behind the roadblocks and barricades across Mogadishu. And never mind that the mightiest nation on the face of the earth could not defeat terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan in a conventional warfare involving hundreds of thousands of its best soldiers. President Farmajo declared a war and went off to solicit more military support from Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Djibouti to ‘defeat al-Shabab, once and for all.’

So How Does One Get Out Of This Mess?

In order to stabilize Somalia all pieces of the insecurity puzzle must be accounted for. In addition to al-Shabab’s suicidal vision, the ever-worsening security condition is driven by the interplay of the aforementioned domestic and foreign elements.

Somalia continues being a lucrative project of international appeal, a regional cash cow, and geopolitical pretext for exploitation and military expansion. Except the government which, in theory, is the guardian of the Somali national interest, all others are entrenched in advancing their zero-sum strategies and interests. Out of that condition emerged a deadly system of ‘a favor for a favor’ that keeps insecurity ever-present, but manageable.

The Somali people need and deserve more than a cosmetic accountability fix that is intended to cover the wrinkles of incompetence and corruption.

Somalia needs competent leadership that puts its national interest in its appropriate place; leadership that is mindful of the fact that security does not exist in vacuum; leadership with strategic vision who are mindful that genuine national reconciliation is essential to harmonizing hearts and minds; leadership with the political will to demand immediate overhaul of the current dysfunctional security system; leadership willing to demand streamlining the command & control of the intelligence sector; leadership that demands a front-door entry into Somalia and thoroughly vets to select the right strategic partnerships.

Unless and until these fundamental issues are addressed, neither Somalia nor its (official and unofficial) guests could be safe. Security would be nothing more than an extended respite between one terrorist attack and another.

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