reflectivepundit

Take a Deep Breath and Think Before Making Missteps in the Ukrainian Crisis

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry told  Bob Schieffer of CBS News that Russia’s move into Crimea is “an incredible act of aggression. It is really a stunning, willful choice by President Putin to invade another country.” According to Kerry, Russia has violated Ukraine's sovereignty and several of its obligations under international agreements. "You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext," he said.

I wondered: Did Kerry indeed say that in the 21^st century you are not invading another country on completely trumped up pretext? Yes, he did. Obviously Washington’s diplomat-in-chief chose not to remember the invasion of Iraq some 11 years ago that fell squarely into the 21^st century and was trumped up with bogus justifications.

I certainly do not applaud or justify Russia’s military move into the Crimean peninsula. But one cannot ignore that the European Union and NATO contributed a great deal to Vladimir Putin’s reaction, overreaction, to the violence accompanying the political crisis in the Ukraine.

By relentlessly pursuing their goal to bring the former Soviet republics into the fold of the European Union and NATO, the leading European players and Washington expanded their western alliance ever closer to the Russian Federation’s borders with the Ukraine as the latest domino at the verge of falling from the Russian-dominated to the western sphere.

Long part of Russia, in 1954 Moscow transferred Crimea to the Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. That symbolic administrative change came to haunt Russia after the crumbling of the Soviet Union and the subsequent independence of former Soviet Republics. Russia has multiple interests in the Ukraine, most of all in transporting natural gas through Ukrainian pipelines, and in the Crimean peninsula, most of all as access to the Black Sea and site of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.

When the clashes in Kiev and elsewhere unfolded, the U.S. and European governments were eagerly supporting the pro-EU side. I was stunned when a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State visited and encouraged pro-western protesters in Kiev and provided them with cookies. Just imagine the reaction here, if a Russian assistant foreign minister whipped up anti-war protesters before the Iraq invasion before TV cameras and microphones. 

Iraq War Hawks Have No Right to Criticize Obama’s Libya Decision: Now France and/or Other Europeans Must Take the Lead

By Brigitte L. Nacos

It is astounding that many of the very Washington politicians that supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq are now criticizing Barack Obama for his decision to involve the U.S. military in the implementation of the UN sanctioned no-fly zone in Libya’s airspace and prevent the massacre of civilians by Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists. After all, the involvement in the Libyan case is negligible compared to the long and costly and unjust Iraq War.

It is even stranger that one of the architects of the Iraq adventure, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, attacks President Obama for not determining the Libya mission before using military forces and risking peoples’ lives. This is the same man who knew full well that the justifications for the Iraq War were carefully manufactured lies and who rejected as unnecessary plans for the post-invasion phase in Iraq and thereby jeopardized the lives of many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Contrary to Iraq, the Libyan involvement is a humanitarian one. As Nicholas Kristof notes in today’s New York Times, “If not for this intervention, Libyan civilians would be dying on a huge scale.”

While few people inside and outside of Libya would shed tears if Gaddafi and his regime were to fall, nobody can be sure about the opposition and what would await Libyans if the rebels would prevail.

Nor is it certain that the no-fly zone alone will protect civilians in areas now under the control of Gaddafi’s opposition.

Whatever the case, it is now up to France and other Europeans as well as Arabs to take over the lead in the Libyan intervention.

The President has assured from the outset that America’s leading role in establishing the no-fly zone would be short term and that thereafter Europeans and Arabs would patrol the skies over Libya. He must stick to this position. The U.S. cannot afford to be involved for long in yet another military conflict beyond a minor supporting role.

If there is no agreement within NATO to take the lead, the French seem ready to step to the plate. President Nicolas Sarkozy was instrumental in pushing the UN to decide in favor of a no-fly zone. French planes were the first to bombard loyalist tanks moving towards cities held by the opposition and full of civilians.

Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Upheaval in the Arab World

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Because the popular uprisings in several Arab autocracies and the fall of the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia occurred without any part by Al Qaeda or like-minded Jihadis, some experts on the Middle East and terrorism have suggested that the recent developments cast Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, and whatever else is left of Al Qaeda Central in the roles of irrelevant bystanders.

To be sure, Al Qaeda’s hallmark—a lethal mix of religious fanaticism and indiscriminate violence—was and is not the driving force in the protest movements sweeping the Arab world.Indeed, the contrast between non-violent protesters and violent government reactions was instrumental in the demise of the regimes and Egypt and Tunisia.  

But it is far too early to presume that Al Qaeda and its unholy mission are obsolete in the region and beyond.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood may well emerge as the most influential group in the government of the future and shed the mantle of non-violence that it adopted in response to brutal oppression.

In Yemen, with President Ali Abdullah Saleh trying to hold on to power, the influential cleric Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zindani called for the establishment of an Islamic state. It is noteworthy that Al-Zindani was once bin Laden’s mentor and that Yemen today is home to the most activist Al Qaeda branch. Were his former mentor to succeed, this would certainly bolster bin Laden’s objectives in the Arabian Peninsula--although enemy number one remains the house of Saud in neighboring Saudi Arabia.

To free this particular region from its governments and their American and Western allies—the “occupiers” and “Crusaders”--was from the outset Osama bin Laden’s primary objective as well documented in his 1996 fatwa.

For Al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was tortured in Egyptian prisons for his oppositional activities years ago, the fall of Hosni Mubarak is not enough. Nor is the demise of the Tunisian regime of Ben Ali. 

Words from the Outside World Will Not Stop Gaddafi’s Reign of Terror

By Brigitte L. Nacos

“Once again, an Arab dictator is employing criminal violence in a desperate effort to remain in power - and once again, the Obama administration has been slow to find its voice,” the Washington Post editorialized yesterday and concluded with the punch line, “Shouldn't the president of the United States be first to oppose the depravities of a tyrant such as Mr. Gaddafi? Apparently this one doesn't think so.”

Today, an editorial in the New York Times criticizes that “It took President Obama four days to condemn the violence. Even then, he spoke only vaguely about holding Libyan officials accountable for their crimes. Colonel Qaddafi was never mentioned by name.”

The truth is that Gaddafi doesn’t give a damn about what Obama or any other leader in the West or elsewhere says or fails to say as long as condemnations are not accompanied by deeds that assure his quick fall.

Repeating President Obama’s remark that ‘the entire world is watching’ the horror in Libya,” Eugene Robinson argues in his column today that “watching isn't nearly enough. There is much more that world leaders - beginning with Obama - urgently must say and do.”

When everything is said in these and similar opinion pieces, there are no suggestions for measures that would actually stop Gaddafi’s reign of terror in the only venue that counts at this point: on the ground in Libya and most of all in the dictator’s stronghold Tripoli.

Actions by international and multinational organizations and by individual countries, whether the freezing of assets abroad, stopping arms shipments, and the like, are fine. But such measures will not strengthen the opposition nor weaken the Gaddafi regime in what may well be the decisive showdown today, tomorrow, or the day thereafter. Nor will threats that Gaddafi and his crew will be brought to justice--eventually.

The establishment of a no-fly zone in Libyan air space would prevent Gaddafi’s remaining forces from attacking the opposition from the air via fighter planes and helicopters; but considering the long decision-making process within international organizations, this in unlikely to happen in time to influence the outcome. And if it would happen, it would not be enough either.

“After Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda, the United States and its allies vowed that they would work harder to stop mass atrocities,” the Times editorial reminds Western governments without spelling out what working harder would mean.

Nothing short of putting boots on the ground in support of the opposition--now--will stop further and perhaps more catastrophic bloodshed if Gaddafi gets a chance to stage an endgame.

Given that Arabs and Muslims in the region do not trust the U.S. and the West, it is time for Arab governments in the region to step to the plate.

Winding Down the Afghanistan War: President Obama Must Stick to His July 2011 Deadline

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In the 2011 fiscal year, the war in Afghanistan will cost American taxpayers $119 billion—and then some that is not readily found in a multitude of budget areas. As the bi-partisan Afghanistan Study Group noted in its recent report, “$100 billion per year is more than the entire annual cost of the Obama administration’s new health care plan and is money that could be used to better counter global terrorist threats, reduce the $1.4 trillion annual deficit, repair and modernize a large portion of U.S. infrastructure, radically enhance American educational investment, launch a massive Manhattan Project-like effort on energy alternatives research, or be used for other critical purposes.”

Most importantly, spending huge sums of money and increasing the troop strength significantly has not resulted in improving the situation on the ground in significant ways. General Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy that worked in the Iraqi setting has not succeeded in the completely different Afghan civil war with its multiple factions.

After nearly 10 years of this war the time has come to wind down the U.S. military commitment –as ever more NATO allies wind down their own involvement.

It is time to remember and concentrate on the reasons for going to war in the first place:  

One, destroy the original Al Qaeda organization (Al Qaeda Central) and its capacity to carry out terrorist attacks, and

Two, prevent the Taliban from offering remnants of Al Qaeda and like-minded terrorists safe havens inside Afghanistan.

As for Al Qaeda Central, its leaders are believed to hide out in the mountains of Pakistan as do Afghan Taliban leaders that once welcomed bin Laden to establish Al Qaeda’s headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan.  Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and their clique are no longer a major factor. One cannot help but wonder about the reasons for Al Qaeda leaders’ silence during the current Egyptian uprising. After all, al-Zawahiri, who was tortured in Egyptian prisons, must itch to share his sentiments. Did he and his comrades lose the ability to communicate whenever they decide to?

Today, there are very few Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan (Yemen and Somalia are among the countries with far more Jihadis poised to launch terrorist attacks against Americans and American interests).

To be sure, those terrorists on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border should not be ignored. But to hunt and fight them does not require 100,000 U.S. troops and an equal or larger number of contractors.

The Al Qaeda types as well as Afghan leaders and groups that provide safe havens for Al Qaeda or like-minded individuals and groups can be fought most effectively by teams of Special Forces that should remain in the country and region.

Ultimately, military force and nation building efforts that depend on outsiders will not end the civil war in Afghanistan.

What to Make of Hero's Welcome for Pan Am Flight 103 Terrorist?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
In my mind, the intentional detonation of a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988 and the killing of 270 persons aboard and on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland, marked the beginning of the age of catastrophic terrorism. 

Now, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahithe only person convicted for mass murder was released by Scottish authorities on "compassionate" grounds so that he can die at home in Libya surrounded by his family.
No wonder, that the families of the victims are outraged. They did not even have a chance to say good-bye to their loved ones beforeFlight 103 was blown out of the sky and disintegrated into billions of pieces. 

Terrorists are not in the business of compassion. They hate and kill indiscriminately.  

But even more troubling than the decision to free al-Megrahithe's release are the incredible images of the hero's welcome that was staged in Tripoli for the Lockerbie terrorist. There is no doubt that Gadhafi arranged for his son Saif al-Islam el-Qaddafi to bring the former agent home aboard a government plane and orchestrated the glorious homecoming.

If Gadhafi intends to tell the world that the festive reception was for a man wrongly blamed for the downing of Flight 103, he will not convince those governments and peoples that matter. The released Libyan was not used as a scapegoat by the United States and other western countries to highlight Libya's state sponsorship of terrorism, but was actually a victim of Gadhafi without whom no Libyan agent would have plotted the horrific terrorist strike. 

The fact that Gadhafi staged the homecoming celebration for al-Megrahithe in defiance of contrary advice by Scottish and other Western authorities raises new doubts about his sincerety, when it comes to his swearing off support for terrorism and the abondonment of WMD-programs. 

Signaling different behavior in the post-9/11 years, Gadhafi was rewarded in that Libya returned into the family of nations and was taken off the U.S. State Department's lists of state sponsors of terrorism that results in a host of sanctions.

Now, Gadhafi, acted once again like the leader of a rogue state.  

Bill Clinton and the Freed Hostages: A Win-Win for the U.S. and North Korea?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Who wouldn’t be touched by the images of joyful and relieved former hostages Euna Lee and Laura Ling, their families, friends, and colleagues? As far as the hostages and their loved ones were concerned, Bill Clinton’s humanitarian mission to North Korea was the right and only thing to do. After all, the imprisoned American reporters had conveyed in their phone calls home that the ransom demand by North Korean officials was the request that former president Bill Clinton were to visit Pyongyang. Thus, the deal was struck before Clinton touched down on North Korean soil: A special pardon by Dear Leader Kim Jong Il would free the two American reporters and allow Clinton to bring them back to America.

So, why isn’t there universal praise for Clinton’s successful trip that the White House characterized as a purely private initiative? Well, as one would expect the former U.S. president’s visit to the most isolated and oppressive country on earth was used as propaganda fodder by North Korea’s dictatorial leadership that promptly received the visitor as if he was still in office, when he touched down in Pyongyang. The images of Clinton's reception and those showing Kim Yong and Clinton side-by-side were publicized all over the world. In that, the North Korean leaders got precisely what they and the rulers of other rogue states are after: attention by big names and players on the world stage and the quasi-legitimacy that comes along with sitting at the same table as legitimate political actors. 

John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is very critical of Clinton’s trip and mission. He told Agence France Press, "I think this is a very bad signal because it does exactly what we always try and avoid doing with terrorists, or with rogue states in general, and that's encouraging their bad behavior.”

If Bill Clinton’s marching order from the White House was to solely focus on the release of the two reporters, few observers believe that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and capabilities were not discussed during the meetings. After all, among the top level officials that greeted Clinton at the airport was North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan. At issue is whether to criticize or applaud efforts to once again try to convince North Korean leaders to abandon their nuclear weapons program.

Under the headline “Paying Kim’s Price,” The Wall Street Journal, “If it turns out that if a new nuclear negotiation really was begun during Mr. Clinton’s visit, it will also send the signal to North Korea that the worse its behavior, the more it stands to gain from the U.S. And it will mean that Kim’s price will be even higher to spring the next American hostages.”

When Peace Negotiations Fail: Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Reporting about talks between “intermediaries” and the Taliban as well as other militant factions in Afghanistan, Dexter Filkins wrote recently that these secret negotiations have taken place “for months,” “accelerated since Mr. Obama took office” and have been conducted with the blessing of the Kabul government and without opposition from Washington. Reportedly, the Taliban and other militants insist that the removal of U.S. and coalition forces from Afghanistan must be part of any peace deal, whereas the Obama administration demands that the Taliban disarms as precondition for negotiations. Imagine for a moment that the two sides would agree to each these conditions and come to a peace agreement.

You would have to believe in the fairy tale to expect that such an arrangement would work in the real world--certainly not as long as Taliban leader and bin Laden ally Mullah Muhammad Omar and his Afghan counterparts spread violence and terror in order to hold and expand their power positions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Officially, it is the goal of the Obama administration to win over “moderates” within the Taliban and thereby strengthen the support base for peaceful cooperation and legitimate participation in Afghan public affairs. But neither this official position nor the indirect talks with Taliban and other militant leaders promise any progress in the search for a peaceful solution in Afghanistan.

One does not have to look further than neighboring Pakistan for evidence. After all, it was the peace-agreement between the Pakistani Taliban and the provincial government of the North-West Frontier region of early 2009 and approved by the national parliament that led to civil war-like conditions, terrorism, and, most of all, a colossal humanitarian crisis. As part of the settlement, the army withdrew from the region. But although the agreement gave the Taliban the right to impose the most extreme form of sharia law and de facto control over the SWAT valley, the extremists did not lay down their arms as they had agreed to. Instead, they fought to expand their rule of terror into other regions of the country with the goal to take down the central government and bring their brand of religious rule to all of Pakistan. 

In short, the agreement that surrendered a whole province with a population of 1.5 million to the Taliban emboldened the extremists to mount a brutal offensive beyond the Swat region shortly after the “peace” deal was agreed to.

Note to Pres. Obama: Public Diplomacy Must Aim at Largest Audience

By Brigitte L. Nacos
That President Barack Obama is sticking to his campaign promise of changing America’s foreign policy approach was obvious, when he granted his first formal White House interview to the Arab TV-network  al-Arabiya and used the occasion as a platform to address the Arab and Muslim street. As Karen DeYoung reports in the Washington Post, the responses to the president’s outreach “have been largely positive.” But her assessment is not based on polls of or interviews with regular Arabs and Muslims but rather on the reactions of various government officials. While there is no doubt that leaders of governments and of non-governmental groups took notice of Obama’s promise for a new start in America’s relations with the Muslim and Arab world, one wonders how many members of general public in these countries watched the actual interview.

Unfortunately, by selecting the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya network rather than the Qatar-owned al-Jazeera, the White House selected a moderate medium with a rather modest viewership over a more Arab-centric network with the by far largest audience in Arab countries.

This, then, was a missed opportunity in public diplomacy in that it did not aim for and did not get the attention of the largest segment of the targeted audience. As the 2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll of the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland found by surveying representative samples of the public in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, taken together al-Jazeera has 53% of the audience whereas al-Arabiya has only 9%. Similarly, a December 2008 survey found that more than 50% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza al-Jazeera was the most watched satellite television compared to 10% for al-Arabiya.

Unlike traditional diplomacy or government-to-government communications—often during person-to-person contacts--, public diplomacy is directed to foreign publics and therefore must aim at reaching the largest number of people. You do not have to agree with the medium of communication as long as you are assured that an interview, a speech, and messages in whatever form are aired in their original form. In other words, al-Jazeera, not al-Arabiya, is the by far best platform for public diplomacy with Arabs and Muslims.

Israel and Hamas: It is Time for Soft Power

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Robert Gates, the present and future U.S. Secretary of Defense, writes in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs that “military force will continue to play a role” in the struggle against terrorists but that the “United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory.” The same holds true for Israel. Just as Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah did not weaken the Lebanese group, the current military conflict in Gaza will not weaken Hamas nor the organization’s will and ability to fight on.  

States that are faced with domestic or transnational terrorism will not and should not altogether exclude military options in form of air-strikes or commando raids against terrorist hide-outs, weapon depots, training facilities, or for the purpose of freeing hostages. But even if successful, such limited measures accomplish only modest objectives (i.e., the decimation of a group’s leadership, the rescue of hostages)--they are not likely to end terrorism or destroy terrorist organizations.

Typically, terrorists and insurgents hide among civilians in cities, towns, or villages. In such situations, even limited military operations are likely to result in collateral damage. One tragic example of high risk offensive actions was an August 2008 ground operation by U.S. Special Operation Forces backed by air strikes in the Afghan village of Azizabad, When the dust settled, more than 90 civilians—most of them women and children—were dead along with three dozen or so insurgents. The damage to America’s reputation in this Afghan village, in all of Afghanistan, and in the international community was far greater than the benefit of eliminating a few terrorists or insurgents. Military actions, especially when they involve the death of innocent bystanders, tend to rally supporters and recruit new ones. The mentioned commando operation and surgical strikes against al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan were followed by a surge in violence by the Taliban and al-Qaeda in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

The scope and risk of missile strikes and commando operations in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan by the U.S. military pale in comparison to the Israel’s use of military force against Hezbollah in 2006 and now against Hamas in the Gaza Strip; the same is, tragically, also true with respect to the large number of innocent civilian victims. The outcry against Israel in generally hostile and friendly countries is fueled by the unspeakable “collateral damage” inflicted on the civilian population of Gaza. Ignored by the audiences of such conflicts is the fact that terrorists, by cowardly operating in the midst of civilians, put the lives of innocents at risk in the first place. But in the age of mass-mediated politics, perception trumps reality.