The crisis affecting Mali and southern Algeria is only the latest phase in a long pattern of conflict. The often nomadic Saharan Tuareg, with populations spreading far beyond northern Mali, have never had a stable relationship with the more settled populations to the south. They have been in rebellion or on [...]]]> via Lobe Log

The crisis affecting Mali and southern Algeria is only the latest phase in a long pattern of conflict. The often nomadic Saharan Tuareg, with populations spreading far beyond northern Mali, have never had a stable relationship with the more settled populations to the south. They have been in rebellion or on the verge of it for much of the last 22 years, and Libya as well as Algeria have played disruptive supporting roles in the course of that troubled period.

The latest blow-up in the southern Sahara cannot be viewed in isolation, especially as various outside parties cast about for ways of resolving it. Mali, neighboring Niger, or both have been wracked by a series of rebellions, largely Tuareg (1990-1995, 2007-2009), and a mix of Tuareg and Islamic extremists in 2012-2013. Tuareg grievances have ranged from greater freedom from central governments based along the Niger River to the south, to, increasingly in Mali, demands for outright autonomy or independence. Beginning nearly a decade ago, they have been taking on more of a militant Islamic character (once again, mainly in Mali).

Muammar Qadhafi was involved as an enabler in the first rebellion in Niger in the 1990’s, providing weapons, training and safe haven for Tuareg rebels fighting and raiding in Niger. In 2009 he played a role in ending the second rebellion, but the rebels again enjoyed access to Libya. The current rebellion was enhanced greatly by the massive infusion of Libyan arms brought down from a fractured Libya by Tuaregs and other militants present there as a result of the previous episodes (with some southerners even used by Qadhafi as combatants in his vain, bloody effort to stave off defeat).

Lately, the focus has been on Algeria because of the 4-day ordeal at the Ain Amenas natural gas complex in the Algerian southeast. Much media coverage has been sympathetic to Algeria’s long struggle against Islamist “terrorism.” The facts cast Algeria in a somewhat darker light.

The authoritarian, dysfunctional, notoriously corrupt, and military-heavy elite in Algeria panicked after the Islamic Salvation Front (or FIS, based on its French title) won the first round of Algeria’s only truly fair national assembly elections in 1991. The military cancelled the second round in January 1992, replacing a President and possible progress toward greater democracy with a military junta and a brutal crackdown.  The Islamists, most previously relatively moderate, took up arms against this ruthless cabal (with support from many ordinary, downtrodden and neglected Algerians more generally).

Algeria was destabilized amidst what became a virtual civil war through 1997, taking the lives of up to 200,000 people.  Ironically, in crushing the uprising, the Algerian military used many of the same ruthless tactics employed by the French during their war to suppress Algerian independence. Later in the conflict, quite a few embittered Islamist fighters turned to extremism, with one offshoot eventually forming the militant Salafist Group for Call and Combat (or GSPC from its French name). Splinter elements of the GSPC took refuge from Algerian forces in the north of an impoverished Mali over a decade ago.

Long shunned by much of the international community for its various abuses in the 1990’s, Algeria, led by authoritarian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (reelected with purportedly over 90% of the vote in 2009), broke out of its isolation after 9/11.  A Bush Administration eager to rope in any assistance curbed the US’ policy of wariness toward the Algerian regime, viewing the latter’s long battle with Islamist “terrorism” as a valuable resource, despite its dismal track record otherwise.

Fragments of the GSPC later morphed into al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), also setting up shop across the border in Mali.  Although the GSPC engaged in kidnappings, drug trafficking, killings and even occasional terrorism back in Algeria, Algerian security forces did relatively little to cooperate actively with countermeasures aimed against the GSPC and AQIM beyond their own borders (despite the near absence of Malian central governance in its Saharan north). While still serving with the US Intelligence Community during an operation against a dangerous GSPC cell in northern Mali some years ago (when Mali had asked for American and Algerian assistance), the Algerians remained largely passive.

For decades there also has been a desperate need for political change in an Algeria where far too little of its growing oil and gas revenues reach the bulk of the population. Yet, the “Arab Spring” fizzled there. Even though demonstrations (including self-immolations) occurred in many locales causing President Bouteflika to terminate (at least formally) a 19-year state of emergency and promise reform, little has changed. Many Algerians remain cowed by the sheer scale of brutality during the grueling internal warfare of the 1990’s.

Many aspects of the hostage crisis at Ain Amenas bear the hallmarks of the chequered performance of Algeria’s government and security forces. First off, after agreeing to allow France over-flights and to provide some intelligence related to the French blitzkrieg against the extremists in northern Mali, Algiers should have been bracing for potential trouble days before the French struck. Instead, Algerian security was caught off guard (despite their familiarity with this highly mobile foe and a nearby Algerian Army base). Next, Algiers resisted meaningful international cooperation and instead launched its own initially clumsy rescue attempt during which Algerian helicopters reportedly blasted trucks containing hostages (hence the grumbling in some foreign capitals).

Stepping back a bit, a major factor to bear in mind as this crisis evolves more broadly is whether the problem will remain primarily confined to Mali — especially if and when French, Malian, and African forces press deeper into northern Mali.  Borders mean precious little in this trackless area to either AQIM or the Tuareg. This mess could easily spill over into the adjacent and equally ill-governed deserts of Niger or Mauritania.

Photo: Tuaregs at the January 2012 Festival au Désert in Timbuktu, just before the MNLA launched the Azawadi rebellion later that month. By Alfred Weidinger (Wikimedia Commons).

Direct talks have been a rarity since 1979. But [...]]]> Since late January, when the White House decided there would be advantage in reverting to a policy of engagement after having acquired political cover in the form of additional sanctions, the possibility of direct talks between the United States and Iran has been in the air.

Direct talks have been a rarity since 1979. But Iranians and Americans got together constructively in Geneva in the autumn of 2001 when Iran was offering help for U.S. operations in Afghanistan, and for some time after that an informal back-channel was kept open.

To secure Iranian agreement to direct talks now, it would make sense to work through an intermediary. The Turkish and Omani governments spring to mind. Turkey and Oman are long-standing friends of the US, but are also friends of Iran (even if the Syrian crisis has created strains in the political relationship between Ankara and Tehran). Algeria might also be ready to help, as it did in 1980-81.

In Tehran approval for talks would have to come from the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Approval would not be a “slam-dunk”. The Leader’s public pronouncements over the years suggest a profound distrust of U.S. sincerity (which mirrors wide-spread American distrust of Iranian good faith). His statements also imply that he considers the U.S. arrogant and aggressive and finds this deeply offensive.

In August 2010, for instance, he is reported to have said:

We have rejected negotiations with the U.S. for clear reasons. Engaging in negotiations under threats and pressure is not in fact negotiating. For the same reason Iranian officials have stated that the Islamic Republic is ready to engage in negotiations but not with a U.S. that is seeking to conduct negotiations under threats, sanctions and bullying.

At Friday prayers on 3 February 2012 he said:

We should not fall for the smile on the face of the enemy. We have had experience of them over the last 30 years…. We should not be cheated by their false promises and words; they break their promises very easily … they feel no shame … they simply utter lies.

So any U.S. initiative could fall on stony ground–unless the White House were to find some way of convincing Ayatollah Khamenei that this time it’s different. For that they have one invaluable asset: the President. To many non-Americans he comes across as a decent man, whose commitment to making the world a better place is sincere. His speeches on foreign policy in 2009 were devoid of arrogance and suggested a new United States of America, bent on respecting other states’ rights.

But the White House would also need to fashion its public diplomacy carefully. Calls on Iran to demonstrate its sincerity, to show it can be trusted, and to build confidence in its intentions would go down badly in Tehran.

Nine years have passed since Iran admitted to the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) that it had failed to declare the acquisition of small quantities of nuclear material, and the use of a fraction of that material to test a few primitive centrifuge machines and conduct laser enrichment experiments. Those failings were soon remedied, as the IAEA Statute required. No further non-declarations have come to light since (unless one believes what has not been proved: that Iran had no intention of declaring the Fordow plant in 2009).  The declaration of basic nuclear weapons research is not required by the NPT.

For two years after its initial admissions Iran volunteered cooperation that went beyond what the NPT requires, only desisting after the IAEA Board demonstrated that it would not tolerate Iran making full use of its NPT rights.  Thereafter Iran cooperated as required by the NPT; only on a point of legal interpretation has the IAEA found fault.

Trust between nations is built through negotiation, not by the peremptory setting of arbitrary tests. A good international agreement includes provisions for verifying compliance, so that the longer the parties remain compliant, the more confident they can be in one another’s good faith.

Of course arrogance and aggression are diplomatic expressions of power. There are circumstances, e.g. the 1995 Dayton peace process, in which they can be effective dispute resolution tools. But the evidence is that they do not work with Iran. Having what it takes to survive when put under pressure is vital to Iran’s sense of self. Successful defiance of U.S. power enables Iran to demonstrate to itself and to other non-aligned countries that it is on the way back from 200 years of humiliation at Western and Russian hands.

A further complication lies in the fact that more issues divide the U.S. and Iran than the nuclear controversy. Americans reckon that the Islamic Republic has harmed U.S. interests in many ways over the last 32 years. It’s natural that this has generated much bad feeling.

But this too is a mirror image of what Iranians feel. Those 32 years have witnessed the U.S. siding with Saddam Hussein in his unlawful invasion of Iran, awarding a medal to an officer responsible for shooting down an Iranian airliner, excluding Iran from the Madrid Middle East peace conference despite cooperative Iranian behaviour, rewarding Iran’s leaders for their help in Afghanistan by branding them as “evil”, trying to cripple the Iranian economy through sanctions, flirting with “regime change”, and threatening unauthorised use of force against Iranian assets.

The combined list of Iranian and U.S. grievances is so long that the only sensible way forward is for both parties to let bygones be bygones and convince one another that they want to focus on improving their relationship. That means identifying where U.S. and Iranian interests overlap and giving expression to that overlap through language that is negotiated fair and square.

Is the White House ready for that kind of engagement? Can they afford to be so reasonable, and unaggressive, in an election year? If they can’t, they’d be well-advised to keep their distance. The last thing the world needs right now is a further twist in the downward spiral of US/Iranian relations.

Peter Jenkins was the UK’s Permanent Representative to the IAEA for 2001-06 and is now a partner in ADRg Ambassadors.