by Mitchell Plitnick
It’s time to ask some tough questions about US policy regarding Egypt. The most pressing being what that policy is, exactly?
I agreed with the easily assailable decision by the Obama administration to refrain from labelling the ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi a coup. It still [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
It’s time to ask some tough questions about US policy regarding Egypt. The most pressing being what that policy is, exactly?
I agreed with the easily assailable decision by the Obama administration to refrain from labelling the ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi a coup. It still is my belief that doing so might be consistent with US law, but would not be helpful to Egypt. Instead of taking funding away from the military which, since it now directly controls the Egyptian till, would simply divert the lost funds from other places (causing even more distress to an already reeling Egyptian economy) it would be better to use the aid as leverage to push the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) toward an inclusive political process that would include drafting a broadly acceptable constitution and, with all due speed, re-installing a duly elected civilian government.
Yet, despite rhetoric supporting just such an outcome, the United States has done nothing to push for such an Egyptian future. The withholding of four F-16 fighter planes means nothing; the SCAF knows they will get the planes in due course and they have no immediate need for them. Mealy-mouthed statements from US officials calling for “all sides” to show restraint are boilerplate and meaningless, all the more so in the wake of the massive violence last weekend, where scores of Egyptian supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were slaughtered.
What is the US’ desired outcome? Surely, the Obama administration is not comfortable with the level of violence we are currently seeing in Egypt. And equally surely, however much SCAF might be the familiar partner — the one we know and who can be counted on to cooperate with US policy initiatives — the administration must realize that a renewal of the sort of military dictatorship embodied by Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak cannot be re-installed permanently in Egypt anymore.
But it is also clear that the United States was not at all comfortable with the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt, or the rise, swept in by the Arab Awakening, of the moderate, anti-Salafist version of political Islam the Brotherhood represented. (Before there is any confusion, I do not believe the West did anything to hasten the downfall of Morsi in Egypt, nor to create the agitation against similar regimes in Tunisia and Turkey. But neither do I believe that Morsi’s failure elicited anything but satisfaction in Washington.)
The question of the US response to the coup in Egypt is not simply about Egypt. It is about the region more broadly. It is about Tunisia, the Gaza Strip, Syria and Turkey. The desire to pivot away from the Middle East, as well as Obama’s disdain for Bush-style “democracy promotion”, meant the US wouldn’t do much about the spread of political Islam. But when Morsi and, now, the Tunisian Ennahda Party, stumbled badly, they certainly didn’t mind.
The Turkish AKP seemed, at first, to have integrated some liberal values, including neo-liberal economics, with Islamist politics, but that too has frayed in 2013. US discomfort with Turkey was certainly sharpened by Turkish support for the Hamas government in Gaza. But it struck harder as Morsi’s Egypt and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s became closer and, using the historic prestige both countries have in the Muslim world, staked out regional leadership roles. There was every possibility that similar Islamist governments could emerge in Jordan and Syria, along with Libya. In time, the Gulf States could also see similar uprisings (as Bahrain already has) that, if successful, might give rise to Islamist governments. The possibility of that sort of regional unity must have given pause to policymakers in Washington, Jerusalem, London, Paris and even Moscow.
So it is not surprising that the US is lobbing rhetoric, rather than substantive pressure, as SCAF seeks to hammer the Brotherhood back into submission; back into an outlaw role. The declaration by SCAF Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi that the crackdown on the Brotherhood was part of a renewed “war on terror” was hardly lost on Western observers. Nor was the accompanying action against Hamas in Gaza, which is of a piece with the domestic battle against the Brotherhood. The US may feel that the SCAF is going too far with its tactics and risking long term instability, but they cannot object to the goal of neutralizing the Brotherhood and similar organizations in the region as a political force.
This is all a serious mis-read of the realities in the Middle East. Morsi brought the strife upon himself, with his bungling governance, his transparent attempt at a power grab and ignoring his campaign promises to create an inclusive government an restrain his own party’s Islamist leanings. The June 30 protest was a very real statement of dissatisfaction.
But since June 30, history has been re-written in Egypt. The Brotherhood was somehow cast as having been an illegitimate ruling party all along. Their electoral victory was supposedly a reflection of the fact that they were the only group that was organized and thus took advantage of hastily scheduled elections. This, of course, completely ignores the fact that the Brotherhood was not the only Islamist party to garner significant support. In fact, 368 of the 508 parliamentary seats went to Islamist parties. Only 115 were garnered by the liberals, centrists and leftists combined. The Egyptian people, having been burned by half a century of secular(ish) dictatorship, wanted to try something new. When that didn’t work, they protested and moved in a different direction. It’s called democracy.
And while June 30 certainly represented widespread dissatisfaction with the Morsi government, the numbers quoted have been called into serious doubt, and it is not at all clear that those demonstrating also supported a coup. What is clear is that the Brotherhood still has significant support in Egypt, along with major opposition. Driving them underground and labelling them terrorists is unlikely to produce a stable Egypt. A better tactic would have been to allow popular disenchantment with the Brotherhood to continue to grow and express itself in the ballot box.
In the last analysis, the US is largely standing by and watching rather than using the leverage it has with the SCAF to push for an inclusive political transition. The hope is surely that a stable Egypt will emerge after a death blow has been dealt to political Islam, not only in Egypt but throughout the region. That hope seems a bit too ambitious. The words of Professor Fawaz Gerges seem to encapsulate the larger view well:
The military’s removal of Morsi undermines Egypt’s fragile democratic experiment because there is a real danger that once again the Islamists will be suppressed and excluded from the political space. The writing is already on the wall with the arrest of Morsi and the targeting of scores of Brotherhood leaders. This does not bode well for the democratic transition because there will be no institutionalization of democracy without the Brotherhood, the biggest and oldest mainstream religiously based Islamist movement in the Middle East… As the central Islamist organization established in 1928, the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood’s first experience in power will likely taint the standing and image of its branches and junior ideological partners in Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and even Tunisia and Morocco. Hamas is already reeling from the violent storm in Cairo and the Muslim Brothers in Jordan are feeling the political heat and pressure at home. The Syrian Islamists are disoriented and fear that the tide has turned against them. The liberal-leaning opposition in Tunisia is energized and plans to go on the offensive against Ennahda. Even the mildly Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Gulen Movement in Turkey are watching unfolding developments in neighboring Egypt with anxiety and disquiet. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to pen the obituary of the Islamist movement.
The US is allowing stability to be sacrificed in the hope that political Islam will be dealt a death blow. It is possible, of course, that its ability to affect SCAF’s behavior is limited, but this seems unlikely. SCAF is dependent on its good relations with the US and Europe; it won’t simply ignore significant pressure from Washington. More likely, that pressure is as absent in private as it obviously is in public. The US will probably pay a long-term price for such a short-sighted strategy. Par for the course in the Middle East. One can only hope that the recent efforts by the European Union, including a visit to Morsi by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, bodes some sort of change in Western policy with Egypt.
]]>by Wayne White
Mali finally signed a ceasefire with Tuareg separatists negotiated by the UN and the EU, potentially opening the way for the return of a central government presence to the key Saharan provincial capital of Kidal. Mali also recently secured a major Western aid package. Yet, tensions between the government [...]]]>
by Wayne White
Mali finally signed a ceasefire with Tuareg separatists negotiated by the UN and the EU, potentially opening the way for the return of a central government presence to the key Saharan provincial capital of Kidal. Mali also recently secured a major Western aid package. Yet, tensions between the government along with its southern Malian base and the northern Tuaregs remain high. Meanwhile, with foreign troops inside Mali, Islamic extremist groups with ties to al-Qaeda have shifted their base of operations to southern Libya, have become more difficult to track, and lately have been raiding Mali’s vulnerable eastern neighbor, Niger.
Late last year, militants of the MUJWA (Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa) capitalized on a Tuareg separatist rebellion in northern Mali to thrust south in an attempt to seize the entire country, advancing nearly to the Malian capital of Bamako. French forces intervened, along with some allied African forces, especially from Chad, to drive them mostly out of Mali, killing hundreds of extremist fighters. That left the Malian Tuareg in peril in their surviving enclave in the north centered on Kidal. The ceasefire with the Tuareg NMLA (National Movement for the Liberation of the Awazad — the Berber Tuareg name for the hazy Saharan region spanning northern Mali, northwestern Niger and southern Algeria) was needed to recover the rest of Mali before the national elections scheduled for July 28.
The humbled NMLA had little choice in the matter. Malian forces had been advancing on Kidal, threatening to attack if no agreement was reached (in which the NMLA agreed to disarm). Deep tensions persist because southern Mali’s African populations remain angry and resentful toward the NMLA for accepting jihadist aid that nearly led to the collapse of the country, and the Tuareg remain fearful of renewed southern repression. An Amnesty International report released last Friday accused the MNLA of abuses (holding southern prisoners, as well as robbing, beating and executing them), but also described Malian security forces’ overall human rights record as “appalling,” which is the reason why French and Chadian forces in Mali have only reluctantly turned militant prisoners over to Malian authorities. They fear more Malian government executions and torture, seen in various areas across the south.
So although a ceasefire has now been worked out with the MNLA, carrying with it the possibility of greater autonomy for the Tuareg north, restoring any real trust will take time. Nonetheless, relations between Tuareg and southerners in Mali must be repaired to the extent that both sides can settle into some sort of working relationship. This means, most importantly, no further Tuareg-Malian government violence or jihadist penetration into the Tuareg north because one inevitably leads to the other.
In dealing with the threat posed by the MUJWA and other jihadist groups — all with links to al-Qaeda — Mali cannot be viewed in isolation. The largely Saharan Sahel region from Mauritania in the west to Chad in the east is much like Mali in terms of north-south tensions between southern capitals and populations tied closely to sub-Saharan Africa on the one hand and less settled Tuareg populations in the north with links to North Africa. So with southwestern Libya having precious little functioning central or even localized tribal militia governance, this trackless void now hosts most all the al-Qaeda linked extremist elements once thriving inside Mali. They now harbor ambitions to consolidate while continuing to lash out at western and unfriendly African targets.
First the notorious Mokhtar Belmokhtar unleashed his al-Qaeda linked break-away Islamist Masked Brigade in retaliation for French victories over jihadist forces in Mali against the Amenas natural gas facility in southeastern Algeria. It was seized along with hundreds of hostages in late January, triggering a major crisis. Then, probably responding to false reports of his death in April, he claimed partial responsibility for simultaneous May 23 MUJWA attacks against an army barracks in Niger’s northern provincial capital of Agadez and the French-owned Somair uranium mines at Arlit, deeper in the desert northeast of Agadez, killing 25. French forces had to intervene to wipe out the last of the Agadez barracks attackers. Also in May, apparently because Chad played the leading African role in Mali against the jihadists, a probable MUJWA attack on Chad’s consulate in the southern Libyan city of Sabha left one dead.
Belmokhtar and other extremist leaders have learned some survival skills from their defeat in Mali. French and Western forces using aerial surveillance to locate militant convoys for targeting have now observed that jihadis no longer travel in large convoys, but rather in single or only several vehicles difficult to distinguish from private and commercial vehicles (that frequently have to travel “off-road” because of the paucity of infrastructure). Also, MUJWA and other extremist groups have recruited large numbers of disaffected sub-Saharan Africans who can infiltrate countries like Niger better than their Algerian, Tuareg and other northern cadres. Despite French, US and British reconnaissance aircraft and drones participating in widespread monitoring of this huge region, a US official recently admitted: “At any given time, they could be anywhere.”
Another problem has been weak regional cooperation. Niger and more distant Chad are doing just about everything they can to help. But Algeria, from which much of this Islamic extremism originally emanated in the late 1990’s as Algerian rebel militants retreated farther into the desert, resents French involvement in the region. Algiers gave only minimal assistance to the campaign in Mali. And Mauritania flanking Mali to the West downgraded ties with Mali in 2010 over the Malian release of a Mauritanian al-Qaeda detainee in a hostage situation. Such local drawbacks caused French President Francois Hollande to concede in late May that, albeit reluctantly, French forces may have to be used elsewhere in the Sahel well beyond Mali.
Mali remains a work in progress with a dicey national election fast approaching to hopefully advance its transition back to a more democratic system lost in a 2012 coup. And clearly a lot remains to be done to achieve a final compromise with the MNLA in the north to suppress further bloodshed. These needs prompted last month’s generous $4.3 million Western aid package to help get Mali back on its feet. Meanwhile, still formidable extremist leaders and combatants regrouping in lawless southwestern Libya promise more regional violence and will remain a daunting challenge to counter-terrorism and anti-insurgency efforts elsewhere in this vast, arid, impoverished region.
]]>by Nick Turse
via Tom Dispatch
The Gulf of Guinea. He said it without a hint of irony or embarrassment. This was one of U.S. Africa Command’s big success stories. The Gulf… of Guinea.
by Nick Turse
via Tom Dispatch
The Gulf of Guinea. He said it without a hint of irony or embarrassment. This was one of U.S. Africa Command’s big success stories. The Gulf… of Guinea.
Never mind that most Americans couldn’t find it on a map and haven’t heard of the nations on its shores like Gabon, Benin, and Togo. Never mind that just five days before I talked with AFRICOM’s chief spokesman, the Economist had asked if the Gulf of Guinea was on the verge of becoming “another Somalia,” because piracy there had jumped 41% from 2011 to 2012 and was on track to be even worse in 2013.
The Gulf of Guinea was one of the primary areas in Africa where “stability,” the command spokesman assured me, had “improved significantly,” and the U.S. military had played a major role in bringing it about. But what did that say about so many other areas of the continent that, since AFRICOM was set up, had been wracked by coups, insurgencies, violence, and volatility?
A careful examination of the security situation in Africa suggests that it is in the process of becoming Ground Zero for a veritable terror diaspora set in motion in the wake of 9/11 that has only accelerated in the Obama years. Recent history indicates that as U.S. “stability” operations in Africa have increased, militancy has spread, insurgent groups have proliferated, allies have faltered or committed abuses, terrorism has increased, the number of failed states has risen, and the continent has become more unsettled.
The signal event in this tsunami of blowback was the U.S. participation in a war to fell Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi that helped send neighboring Mali, a U.S.-supported bulwark against regional terrorism, into a downward spiral, prompting the intervention of the French military with U.S. backing. The situation could still worsen as the U.S. armed forces grow ever more involved. They are already expanding air operations across the continent, engaging in spy missions for the French military, and utilizing other previously undisclosed sites in Africa.
The Terror Diaspora
In 2000, a report prepared under the auspices of the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute examined the “African security environment.” While it touched on “internal separatist or rebel movements” in “weak states,” as well as non-state actors like militias and “warlord armies,” it made no mention of Islamic extremism or major transnational terrorist threats. In fact, prior to 2001, the United States did not recognize any terrorist organizations in sub-Saharan Africa.
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, a senior Pentagon official claimed that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan might drive “terrorists” out of that country and into African nations. “Terrorists associated with al Qaeda and indigenous terrorist groups have been and continue to be a presence in this region,” he said. “These terrorists will, of course, threaten U.S. personnel and facilities.”
When pressed about actual transnational dangers, the official pointed to Somali militants but eventually admitted that even the most extreme Islamists there “really have not engaged in acts of terrorism outside Somalia.” Similarly, when questioned about connections between Osama bin Laden’s core al-Qaeda group and African extremists, he offered only the most tenuous links, like bin Laden’s “salute” to Somali militants who killed U.S. troops during the infamous 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident.
Despite this, the U.S. dispatched personnel to Africa as part of Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) in 2002. The next year, CJTF-HOA took up residence at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, where it resides to this day on the only officially avowed U.S. base in Africa.
As CJTF-HOA was starting up, the State Department launched a multi-million-dollar counterterrorism program, known as the Pan-Sahel Initiative, to bolster the militaries of Mali, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania. In 2004, for example, Special Forces training teams were sent to Mali as part of the effort. In 2005, the program expanded to include Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia and was renamed the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership.
Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Schmidle noted that the program saw year-round deployments of Special Forces personnel “to train local armies at battling insurgencies and rebellions and to prevent bin Laden and his allies from expanding into the region.” The Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership and its Defense Department companion program, then known as Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans-Sahara, were, in turn,folded into U.S. Africa Command when it took over military responsibility for the continent in 2008.
As Schmidle noted, the effects of U.S. efforts in the region seemed at odds with AFRICOM’s stated goals. “Al Qaeda established sanctuaries in the Sahel, and in 2006 it acquired a North African franchise [Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb],” he wrote. “Terrorist attacks in the region increased in both number and lethality.”
In fact, a look at the official State Department list of terrorist organizations indicates a steady increase in Islamic radical groups in Africa alongside the growth of U.S. counterterrorism efforts there — with the addition of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in 2004, Somalia’s al-Shabaab in 2008, and Mali’s Ansar al-Dine in 2013. In 2012, General Carter Ham, then AFRICOM’s chief, added the Islamist militants of Boko Haram in Nigeria to his own list of extremist threats.
The overthrow of Qaddafi in Libya by an interventionist coalition including the U.S., France, and Britain similarly empowered a host of new militant Islamist groups such as the Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, which have since carried out multiple attacks on Western interests, and the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia, whose fighters assaulted U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. In fact, just prior to that attack, according to the New York Times, the CIA was tracking “an array of armed militant groups in and around” that one city alone.
According to Frederic Wehrey, a senior policy analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on Libya, that country is now “fertile ground” for militants arriving from the Arabian Peninsula and other places in the Middle East as well as elsewhere in Africa to recruit fighters, receive training, and recuperate. “It’s really become a new hub,” he told me.
Obama’s Scramble for Africa
The U.S.-backed war in Libya and the CIA’s efforts in its aftermath are just two of the many operations that have proliferated across the continent under President Obama. These include a multi-pronged military and CIA campaign against militants in Somalia, consisting of intelligence operations, a secret prison, helicopter attacks, drone strikes, and U.S. commando raids; a special ops expeditionary force (bolstered by State Department experts) dispatched to help capture or kill Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders in the jungles of the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; a massive influx of funding for counterterrorism operations across East Africa; and, in just the last four years, hundreds of millions of dollars spent arming and training West African troops to serve as American proxies on the continent. From 2010-2012, AFRICOM itself burned through $836 million as it expanded its reach across the region, primarily via programs to mentor, advise, and tutor African militaries.
In recent years, the U.S. has trained and outfitted soldiers from Uganda, Burundi, and Kenya, among other nations, for missions like the hunt for Kony. They have also served as a proxy force for the U.S. in Somalia, part of the African Union Mission (AMISOM) protecting the U.S.-supportedgovernment in that country’s capital, Mogadishu. Since 2007, the State Department has anted up about $650 million in logistics support, equipment, and training for AMISOM troops. The Pentagon has kicked in an extra $100 million since 2011.
The U.S. also continues funding African armies through the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Partnership and its Pentagon analog, now known as Operation Juniper Shield, with increased support flowing to Mauritania and Niger in the wake of Mali’s collapse. In 2012, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development poured approximately $52 million into the programs, while the Pentagon chipped in another $46 million.
In the Obama years, U.S. Africa Command has also built a sophisticated logistics system officially known as the AFRICOM Surface Distribution Network, but colloquially referred to as the “new spice route.” Its central nodes are in Manda Bay, Garissa, and Mombasa in Kenya; Kampala and Entebbe in Uganda; Bangui and Djema in Central African Republic; Nzara in South Sudan; Dire Dawa in Ethiopia; and the Pentagon’s showpiece African base, Camp Lemonnier.
In addition, the Pentagon has run a regional air campaign using drones and manned aircraft out of airports and bases across the continent including Camp Lemonnier, Arba Minch airport in Ethiopia, Niamey in Niger, and the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, while private contractor-operated surveillance aircraft have flown missions out of Entebbe, Uganda. Recently,Foreign Policy reported on the existence of a possible drone base in Lamu, Kenya.
Another critical location is Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, home to a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment and the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative that, according to military documents, supports “high risk activities” carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara. Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rawlinson, a spokesman for Special Operations Command Africa, told me that the initiative provides “emergency casualty evacuation support to small team engagements with partner nations throughout the Sahel,” although official documents note that such actions have historically accounted for just 10% of monthly flight hours.
While Rawlinson demurred from discussing the scope of the program, citing operational security concerns, military documents indicate that it is expanding rapidly. Between March and December of last year, for example, the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative flew 233 sorties. In just the first three months of this year, it carried out 193.
AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson has confirmed to TomDispatch that U.S. air operations conducted from Base Aerienne 101 in Niamey, the capital of Niger, were providing “support for intelligence collection with French forces conducting operations in Mali and with other partners in the region.” Refusing to go into detail about mission specifics for reasons of “operational security,” he added that, “in partnership with Niger and other countries in the region, we are committed to supporting our allies… this decision allows for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations within the region.”
Benson also confirmed that the U.S. military has used Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport in Senegal for refueling stops as well as the “transportation of teams participating in security cooperation activities” like training missions. He confirmed a similar deal for the use of Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia. All told, the U.S. military now has agreements to use 29 international airports in Africa as refueling centers.
Benson was more tight-lipped about air operations from Nzara Landing Zone in the Republic of South Sudan, the site of one of several shadowy forward operating posts (including another in Djema in the Central Africa Republic and a third in Dungu in the Democratic Republic of Congo) that have been used by U.S. Special Operations forces. “We don’t want Kony and his folks to know… what kind of planes to look out for,” he said. It’s no secret, however, that U.S. air assets over Africa and its coastal waters include Predator, Global Hawk and Scan Eagle drones, MQ-8 unmanned helicopters, EP-3 Orion aircraft, Pilatus planes, and E-8 Joint Stars aircraft.
Last year, in its ever-expanding operations, AFRICOM planned 14 major joint-training exercises on the continent, including in Morocco, Uganda, Botswana, Lesotho, Senegal, and Nigeria. One of them, an annual event known as Atlas Accord, saw members of the U.S. Special Forces travel to Mali to conduct training with local forces. “The participants were very attentive, and we were able to show them our tactics and see theirs as well,” said Captain Bob Luther, a team leader with the 19th Special Forces Group.
The Collapse of Mali
As the U.S.-backed war in Libya was taking down Qaddafi, nomadic Tuareg fighters in his service looted the regime’s extensive weapons caches, crossedthe border into their native Mali, and began to take over the northern part of that country. Anger within the country’s armed forces over the democratically elected government’s ineffective response to the rebellion resulted in a military coup. It was led by Amadou Sanogo, an officer who had received extensive training in the U.S. between 2004 and 2010 as part of the Pan-Sahel Initiative. Having overthrown Malian democracy, he and his fellow officers proved even less effective in dealing with events in the north.
With the country in turmoil, the Tuareg fighters declared an independent state. Soon, however, heavily-armed Islamist rebels from homegrown Ansar al-Dineas well as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Libya’s Ansar al-Sharia, and Nigeria’s Boko Haram, among others, pushed out the Tuaregs, took over much of the north, instituted a harsh brand of Shariah law, and created a humanitarian crisis that caused widespread suffering, sending refugees streaming from their homes.
These developments raised serious questions about the efficacy of U.S. counterterrorism efforts. “This spectacular failure reveals that the U.S. probably underestimated the complex socio-cultural peculiarities of the region, and misread the realities of the terrain,” Berny Sèbe, an expert on North and West Africa at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, told me. “This led them to being grossly manipulated by local interests over which they had, in the end, very limited control.”
Following a further series of Islamist victories and widespread atrocities, the French military intervened at the head of a coalition of Chadian, Nigerian, and other African troops, with support from the U.S. and the British. The foreign-led forces beat back the Islamists, who then shifted from conventional to guerrilla tactics, including suicide bombings.
In April, after such an attack killed three Chadian soldiers, that country’s president announced that his forces, long supported by the U.S. through the Pan-Sahel Initiative, would withdraw from Mali. “Chad’s army has no ability to face the kind of guerrilla fighting that is emerging,” he said. In the meantime, the remnants of the U.S.-backed Malian military fighting alongside the French were cited for gross human rights violations in their bid to retake control of their country.
After the French intervention in January, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, “There is no consideration of putting any American boots on the ground at this time.” Not long after, 10 U.S. military personnel were deployedto assist French and African forces, while 12 others were assigned to the embassy in the Malian capital, Bamako.
While he’s quick to point out that Mali’s downward spiral had much to do with its corrupt government, weak military, and rising levels of ethnic discontent, the Carnegie Endowment’s Wehrey notes that the war in Libya was “a seismic event for the Sahel and the Sahara.” Just back from a fact-finding trip to Libya, he added that the effects of the revolution are already rippling far beyond the porous borders of Mali.
Wehrey cited recent findings by the United Nations Security Council’s Group of Experts, which monitors an arms embargo imposed on Libya in 2011. “In the past 12 months,” the panel reported, “the proliferation of weapons from Libya has continued at a worrying rate and has spread into new territory: West Africa, the Levant [the Eastern Mediterranean region], and potentially even the Horn of Africa. Illicit flows [of arms] from the country are fueling existing conflicts in Africa and the Levant and enriching the arsenals of a range of non-state actors, including terrorist groups.”
Growing Instability
The collapse of Mali after a coup by an American-trained officer and Chad’s flight from the fight in that country are just two indicators of how post-9/11 U.S. military efforts in Africa have fared. “In two of the three other Sahelian states involved in the Pentagon’s pan-Sahelian initiative, Mauritania and Niger, armies trained by the U.S., have also taken power in the past eight years,”observed journalist William Wallis in the Financial Times. “In the third, Chad, they came close in a 2006 attempt.” Still another coup plot involving members of the Chadian military was reportedly uncovered earlier this spring.
In March, Major General Patrick Donahue, the commander of U.S. Army Africa, told interviewer Gail McCabe that northwestern Africa was now becoming increasingly “problematic.” Al-Qaeda, he said, was at work destabilizing Algeria and Tunisia. Last September, in fact, hundreds of Islamist protesters attacked the U.S. embassy compound in Tunisia, setting it on fire. More recently, Camille Tawil in the CTC Sentinel, the official publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point,wrote that in Tunisia “jihadis are openly recruiting young militants and sending them to training camps in the mountains, especially along Algeria’s borders.”
The U.S.-backed French intervention in Mali also led to a January revenge terror attack on the Amenas gas plant in Algeria. Carried out by the al-Mulathameen brigade, one of various new al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb-linked militant groups emerging in the region, it led to the deaths of close to 40 hostages, including three Americans. Planned by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of the U.S.-backed war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, it was only the first in a series of blowback responses to U.S. and Western interventions in Northern Africa that may have far-reaching implications.
Last month, Belmokhtar’s forces also teamed up with fighters from the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa — yet another Islamist militant group of recent vintage — to carry out coordinated attacks on a French-run uranium mine and a nearby military base in Agadez, Niger, that killed at least 25 people. A recent attack on the French embassy in Libya by local militants is also seen as a reprisal for the French war in Mali.
According to the Carnegie Endowment’s Wehrey, the French military’s push there has had the additional effect of reversing the flow of militants, sending many back into Libya to recuperate and seek additional training. Nigerian Islamist fighters driven from Mali have returned to their native land with fresh training and innovative tactics as well as heavy weapons from Libya. Increasingly battle-hardened, extremist Islamist insurgents from two Nigerian groups, Boko Haram and the newer, even more radical Ansaru, have escalated a long simmering conflict in that West African oil giant.
For years, Nigerian forces have been trained and supported by the U.S. through the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance program. The country has also been a beneficiary of U.S. Foreign Military Financing, which provides grants and loans to purchase U.S.-produced weaponry and equipment and funds military training. In recent years, however, brutalresponses by Nigerian forces to what had been a fringe Islamist sect have transformed Boko Haram into a regional terrorist force.
The situation has grown so serious that President Goodluck Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency in northern Nigeria. Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke out about “credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism.” After a Boko Haram militant killed a soldier in the town of Baga, for example, Nigerian troops attacked the town, destroying more than 2,000 homes and killing an estimated 183 people.
Similarly, according to a recent United Nations report, the Congolese army’s 391st Commando Battalion, formed with U.S. support and trained for eight months by U.S. Special Operations forces, later took part in mass rapes and other atrocities. Fleeing the advance of a recently formed, brutal (non-Islamic) rebel group known as M23, its troops joined with other Congolese soldiers in raping close to 100 women and more than 30 girls in November 2012.
“This magnificent battalion will set a new mark in this nation’s continuing transformation of an army dedicated and committed to professionalism, accountability, sustainability, and meaningful security,” said Brigadier General Christopher Haas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa at the time of the battalion’s graduation from training in 2010.
Earlier this year, incoming AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez told the Senate Armed Services Committee that a review of the unit found its “officers and enlisted soldiers appear motivated, organized, and trained in small unit maneuver and tactics” even if there were “limited metrics to measure the battalion’s combat effectiveness and performance in protecting civilians.” The U.N. report tells a different story. For example, it describes “a 14 year old boy… shot dead on 25 November 2012 in the village of Kalungu, Kalehe territory, by a soldier of the 391 Battalion. The boy was returning from the fields when two soldiers tried to steal his goat. As he tried to resist and flee, one of the soldiers shot him.”
Despite years of U.S. military aid to the Democratic Republic of Congo, M23 has dealt its army heavy blows and, according to AFRICOM’s Rodriguez, is now destabilizing the region. But they haven’t done it alone. According to Rodriguez, M23 “would not be the threat it is today without external support including evidence of support from the Rwandan government.”
For years, the U.S. aided Rwanda through various programs, including the International Military Education and Training initiative and Foreign Military Financing. Last year, the U.S. cut $200,000 in military assistance to Rwanda — a signal of its disapproval of that government’s support for M23. Still, as AFRICOM’s Rodriguez admitted to the Senate earlier this year, the U.S. continues to “support Rwanda’s participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions in Africa.”
After years of U.S. assistance, including support from Special Operations forces advisors, the Central African Republic’s military was recently defeated and the country’s president ousted by another newly formed (non-Islamist) rebel group known as Seleka. In short order, that country’s army chiefspledged their allegiance to the leader of the coup, while hostility on the part of the rebels forced the U.S. and its allies to suspend their hunt for Joseph Kony.
A strategic partner and bulwark of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, Kenya receives around $1 billion in U.S. aid annually and elements of its military have been trained by U.S. Special Operations forces. But last September, Foreign Policy’s Jonathan Horowitz reported on allegations of “Kenyan counterterrorism death squads… killing and disappearing people.” Later, Human Rights Watch drew attention to the Kenyan military’s response to a November attack by an unknown gunman that killed three soldiers in the northern town of Garissa. The “Kenyan army surrounded the town, preventing anyone from leaving or entering, and started attacking residents and traders,” the group reported. “The witnesses said that the military shot at people, raped women, and assaulted anyone in sight.”
Another longtime recipient of U.S. support, the Ethiopian military, was also involved in abuses last year, following an attack by gunmen on a commercial farm. In response, according to Human Rights Watch, members of Ethiopia’s army raped, arbitrarily arrested, and assaulted local villagers.
The Ugandan military has been the primary U.S. proxy when it comes to policing Somalia. Its members were, however, implicated in the beating and even killing of citizens during domestic unrest in 2011. Burundi has alsoreceived significant U.S. military support and high-ranking officers in its army have recently been linked to the illegal mineral trade, according to a report by the environmental watchdog group Global Witness. Despite years ofcooperation with the U.S. military, Senegal now appears more vulnerable to extremism and increasingly unstable, according to a report by the Institute of Security Studies.
And so it goes across the continent.
Success Stories
In addition to the Gulf of Guinea, AFRICOM’s chief spokesman pointed to Somalia as another major U.S. success story on the continent. And it’s true that Somalia is more stable now than it has been in years, even if a weakened al-Shabaab continues to carry out attacks. The spokesman even pointed to a recent CNN report about a trickle of tourists entering the war-torn country and the construction of a luxury beach resort in the capital, Mogadishu.
I asked for other AFRICOM success stories, but only those two came to his mind — and no one should be surprised by that.
After all, in 2006, before AFRICOM came into existence, 11 African nationswere among the top 20 in the Fund for Peace’s annual Failed States Index. Last year, that number had risen to 15 (or 16 if you count the new nation of South Sudan).
In 2001, according to the Global Terrorism Database from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, there were 119 terrorist incidents in sub-Saharan Africa. By 2011, the last year for which numbers are available, there wereclose to 500. A recent report from the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies counted 21 terrorist attacks in the Maghreb and Sahel regions of northern Africa in 2001. During the Obama years, the figures have fluctuated between 144 and 204 annually.
Similarly, an analysis of 65,000 individual incidents of political violence in Africa from 1997 to 2012, assembled by researchers affiliated with the International Peace Research Institute, found that “violent Islamist activity has increased significantly in the past 15 years, with a particular[ly] sharp increase witnessed from 2010 onwards.” Additionally, according to researcherCaitriona Dowd, “there is also evidence for the geographic spread of violent Islamist activity both south- and east-ward on the continent.”
In fact, the trends appear stark and eerily mirror statements from AFRICOM’s leaders.
In March 2009, after years of training indigenous forces and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on counterterrorism activities, General William Ward, the first leader of U.S. Africa Command, gave its inaugural status report to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It was bleak. “Al-Qaeda,” he said, “increased its influence dramatically across north and east Africa over the past three years with the growth of East Africa Al-Qaeda, al Shabaab, and al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).”
This February, after four more years of military engagement, security assistance, training of indigenous armies, and hundreds of millions of dollars more in funding, AFRICOM’s incoming commander General David Rodriguez explained the current situation to the Senate in more ominous terms. “The command’s number one priority is East Africa with particular focus on al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda networks. This is followed by violent extremist [movements] and al-Qaeda in North and West Africa and the Islamic Maghreb. AFRICOM’s third priority is Counter-LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army] operations.”
Rodriguez warned that, “with the increasing threat of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, I see a greater risk of regional instability if we do not engage aggressively.” In addition to that group, he declared al-Shabaab and Boko Haram major menaces. He also mentioned the problems posed by the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa and Ansar al-Dine. Libya, he told them, was threatened by “hundreds of disparate militias,” while M23 was “destabilizing the entire Great Lakes region [of Central Africa].”
In West Africa, he admitted, there was also a major narcotics trafficking problem. Similarly, East Africa was “experiencing an increase in heroin trafficking across the Indian Ocean from Afghanistan and Pakistan.” In addition, “in the Sahel region of North Africa, cocaine and hashish trafficking is being facilitated by, and directly benefitting, organizations like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leading to increased regional instability.”
In other words, 10 years after Washington began pouring taxpayer dollars into counterterrorism and stability efforts across Africa and its forces first began operating from Camp Lemonnier, the continent has experienced profound changes, just not those the U.S. sought. The University of Birmingham’s Berny Sèbe ticks off post-revolutionary Libya, the collapse of Mali, the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria, the coup in the Central African Republic, and violence in Africa’s Great Lakes region as evidence of increasing volatility. “The continent is certainly more unstable today than it was in the early 2000s, when the U.S. started to intervene more directly,” he told me.
As the war in Afghanistan — a conflict born of blowback — winds down, there will be greater incentive and opportunity to project U.S. military power in Africa. However, even a cursory reading of recent history suggests that this impulse is unlikely to achieve U.S. goals. While correlation doesn’t equal causation, there is ample evidence to suggest the United States has facilitated a terror diaspora, imperiling nations and endangering peoples across Africa. In the wake of 9/11, Pentagon officials were hard-pressed to show evidence of a major African terror threat. Today, the continent is thick with militant groups that are increasingly crossing borders, sowing insecurity, and throwing the limits of U.S. power into broad relief. After 10 years of U.S. operations to promote stability by military means, the results have been the opposite. Africa has become blowback central.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Nation Institute. An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in theLos Angeles Times, the Nation, and regularly at TomDispatch. He is the author most recently of the New York Times bestseller Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (The American Empire Project, Metropolitan Books). You can catch his conversation with Bill Moyers about that book by clicking here. His website is NickTurse.com. You can follow him on Tumblr and on Facebook.
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Copyright 2013 Nick Turse
]]>by James A. Russell
With the disappearance of war between developed states in the post-World War II era, policing intra-state violence on land and trying to punish so-called rogue states constitutes the main security problems facing the international community.
As the world’s sole military power capable of global power projection, many [...]]]>
by James A. Russell
With the disappearance of war between developed states in the post-World War II era, policing intra-state violence on land and trying to punish so-called rogue states constitutes the main security problems facing the international community.
As the world’s sole military power capable of global power projection, many of these problems invariably end up in America’s Inbox. The United States receives calls from various quarters for military intervention around the world in Syria, Iran, Mali and other global hotspots. These calls aren’t going away any time soon, despite this country’s exhaustion after a decade of war. But the world’s problems won’t wait while we lick our wounds and try to take a breather.
Intervention advocates invariably propose that we establish no-fly zones and/or launch our missile-armed drones over their areas of focus. They argue that policing people on the ground from 15,000 feet presents a low-cost, pain-free (at least for us) alternative to putting boots on the ground.
The western intervention in Libya is held up as an example of the benefits of this approach. However, as recent events there indicate, it’s clear that the struggle for political power in Libya has only just begun. The future direction of the country is at best uncertain.
The idea that the United States and its allies can police the world’s ruffians from above is dangerously misguided. It stems from repackaged failed ideas that have been repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried over the last century.
America’s love affair with shooting at the enemy from the sky above and the associated belief that the resulting destruction can somehow control politics on the ground goes back to the early 20th century, when strategists considered the potential benefits offered by airplanes as an instrument of war.
Western armies had fought to a bloody and protracted stalemate in World War I that slaughtered a generation on the fields of France, just as the airplane arrived to survey the carnage below. Shortly thereafter, Italian General Guilio Douhet offered his theories of airpower that cast the airplane as a revolutionary weapon that could destroy enemies on the ground invulnerable from attack. He believed the advent of airpower offered the prospect that armies might not have to close with one another in their bloody and awful embrace to achieve victory.
Douhet’s theories found favor with many, including General Hap Arnold, who then helped mastermind the allied strategic bombing campaign in World War II. Arnold spearheaded efforts to create the United States Air Force as a separate military service drawing upon Douhet’s concepts and adopting the broader mission of long-range strike warfare that, at the time, primarily involved dropping nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union.
But the proponents of bombing from above had several problems. The first was the accuracy of the bombs. As revealed in the Strategic Bombing Survey after World War II, it turned out that our bombers missed most of the military targets they were aiming at, belying one of the promises of airpower advocates. With a few exceptions, most of the military targets actually hit by allied bombers did little to impede Germany’s overall war effort.
Second, airpower advocates greatly miscalculated the political impact of the bombing raids on the enemy. Instead of undermining the enemy’s will to fight, bombing raids on civilian populations had the opposite effect. Hitler’s bombing of London strengthened England’s resolve. The allied campaign against German cities had a similar effect. Twenty years later, the United States unsuccessfully attempted to undermine North Vietnam’s commitment to conquer South Vietnam despite blasting away at the North with more bombs than had been dropped in all of World War II.
These broader lessons, however, were lost on American airpower strategists who were intent on cementing the institutional power of the Air Force and its budgets, and on building the “global strike” warfare complex that today is a centerpiece of the American military.
In the 1990s, advocates of the revolution in military affairs like Andy Marshall, the Pentagon’s long-time director of Net Assessments, argued that the digitization of the battlefield along with a new generation of stand-off weapons (including drones) had solved the accuracy problem, making it possible for us to destroy enemy targets with impunity from above while also minimizing the collateral damage and killing of innocent civilians. Like the airpower theorists of an earlier generation, they argued that the selective destruction of enemy targets from above meant that we didn’t have to close with our enemies on the ground in protracted and costly wars.
The United States unleashed the full force of its strike warfare complex in Afghanistan and Iraq to deadly effect. But the strike complex and its precision targeting from above did not end these wars quickly, and we discovered the hard way that there was no substitute for combat outposts manned by soldiers and marines in the countless and obscure nooks and crannies of these countries.
Moreover, despite the promise of these more accurate weapons, we still killed plenty of innocent civilians. Thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians were inadvertently killed in the crossfire between the United States and its enemies on the battlefield. As shown by McClatchey, drone strikes authorized by President Obama in Afghanistan and Pakistan have resulted in the deaths of scores of innocent people that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda.
Trying to deal with instability on the ground by flying around above it and/or firing down upon it is like pounding a square peg into a round hole. Civil wars are political disputes between parties that either can’t or won’t settle their differences peacefully. This is as true in Mali as it is Syria or anywhere else.
Those arguing for interventions in these disputes must in parallel decide which side to back. Who would we rather have in control in Syria? A Hezbollah/Iran-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad, or another militant version of the Muslim Brotherhood that might lay waste to Syria’s diverse ethnic and religious communities.
Intervention in these local disputes means picking a side and living with the consequences. It also means intervening on the ground with the Marines and/or the Army if we hope to shape the outcome of the struggle.
Our recent record in picking worthy winners in these wars is not great. The United States backed Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq — a choice that has had mixed results for American interests. We’ve backed Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan — a leader that has stolen millions of taxpayers dollars over the last decade and not attracted the political allegiance of Afghans despite our best efforts. What makes us think we’ll have any better luck picking a winner in Syria or anywhere else?
Policing recalcitrant states like Iran by shooting at it from above is a similarly hopeless endeavor. Repeated calls for what amounts to a protracted bombing campaign against Iran to delay its nuclear program are misguided and would only strengthen Iran’s resolve to build its own nuclear weapon. Alternatively, imposing our will on Iran by invasion and occupation is simply not worth the costs and out of the question politically.
These are the unfortunate realities of our 21st century security problems that cannot be answered by the theories of Douhet or the revolution in military affairs. Effective policing means ground intervention with enough force to impose our will on either the warring parties or on the recalcitrant state(s) and being prepared to accept the human, monetary, and strategic costs (as well as potential benefits!) of that action.
]]>by Daniel Luban
The death of Hugo Chavez has triggered a predictably dizzying amount of commentary, and I’ll leave it to the experts to evaluate his complicated legacy in Venezuela and in Latin America more broadly. The accusations of “totalitarianism” from the right were clearly absurd and hypocritical — whatever his [...]]]>
by Daniel Luban
The death of Hugo Chavez has triggered a predictably dizzying amount of commentary, and I’ll leave it to the experts to evaluate his complicated legacy in Venezuela and in Latin America more broadly. The accusations of “totalitarianism” from the right were clearly absurd and hypocritical — whatever his misdeeds, Chavez’s record paled in comparison to the right’s favorite juntas from the Cold War era. On the other hand, after talking to those more knowledgeable about Venezuela than I am, I get the sense that even many who were sympathetic to Chavez’s broad goals ended up being rather disappointed in him, and that opening up space for a generation of Latin American leaders who might share many of his virtues without some of his vices might be his greatest legacy in the region.
But domestic politics aside, Chavez is also noteworthy as a champion — perhaps the last prominent champion — of the kind of “anti-imperialist” politics characteristic of the Cold War era.
(I put “anti-imperialist” in quotes to emphasize that this style of politics was a historically specific phenomenon, not synonymous with opposition to imperialism in general.) Gamel Abdel Nasser was probably the progenitor of this style, and it proved highly influential on leftism during the Cold War — above all, in its frequent identification of imperialism with capitalism, and capitalism with the United States and Western Europe.
Chavez played from this script throughout his political career, initially with a fair amount of success. This success, of course, was centrally tied to the fact that the US and its allies frequently played their own (imperialist) role to the hilt as well. Most strikingly, there was the Bush administration’s endorsement of the 2002 coup against Chavez; more ubiquitously, there were all the free-trade pacts and IMF austerity programs imposed throughout Latin America in that period. Chavez’s brand of anti-imperialism resonated, in other words, because it frequently continued to jibe with reality.
Still, recent years have revealed the limits of the old Cold War anti-imperialism, and Chavez’s reputation (on the left as much as elsewhere) has suffered as a result. The Arab Spring, in particular, demonstrated the pitfalls of taking every regime at odds with the US as an exemplar of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism. By continuing to view the world through the Cold War prism, as Juan Cole notes, Chavez found himself in bed with Bashar al-Assad, Muammar Qaddafi, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; he insisted on seeing in them models of socialist self-determination that had little or nothing to do with reality. (One does not have to favor US. intervention in Syria, Libya, or Iran to understand that anyone who views their leaders as heroic anti-imperialists deserving our steadfast support has gone badly astray.)
Some on the left take these developments as evidence that Chavez took a wrong turn — that he went from champion of liberation to apologist for tyranny. I think, on the contrary, that he was fairly consistent, and that the things he got wrong indicate the weaknesses of his underlying style of politics (just as the things he got right indicate its strengths.) In any case, the style itself was a throwback to an earlier era, and it may very well die with Chavez.
]]>by Emile Nakhleh
As President Obama begins his second term and John Kerry becomes the new Secretary of State, they are faced with worrisome uncertainty in Egypt, civil war in Syria, repression in Bahrain, a moribund peace process, and a defiant Iran. In order to help create a stable Middle East [...]]]>
by Emile Nakhleh
As President Obama begins his second term and John Kerry becomes the new Secretary of State, they are faced with worrisome uncertainty in Egypt, civil war in Syria, repression in Bahrain, a moribund peace process, and a defiant Iran. In order to help create a stable Middle East and shore up American influence and security in the region, they must act boldly and precipitously.
An act of boldness would be for Secretary Kerry to hold a summit with the presidents of Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia to devise a post-autocratic vision for the region. This vision must be grounded in tangible commitments to democracy, justice and human rights.
As representatives of the new Middle East, these leaders and their citizenry would heartily welcome engaging with the US and with other world leaders on the region’s future. Arab publics expect the US to lead up front.
Unfortunately but realistically, Arab reformers and democrats do not anticipate world leaders to act on their own without American leadership and involvement.
Washington should use its economic and military leverage with courage and consistency over the next four years to bring about a less violent Middle East for its peoples and for the international community. Following is a blueprint for a more robust diplomatic re-engagement with two key countries.
Egypt
American diplomacy should help Egypt become more stable through working closely with President Mohamed Morsi and his government. The Muslim Brotherhood is the majority party in parliament, and US diplomats and other world leaders should not shy away from engaging it.
The Egyptian people, not outsiders, will determine whether the MB will be re-elected and for how long. Egyptians have made it clear that they won’t tolerate replacing an old secular dictatorship with a new Muslim one. The Muslim Brotherhood’s credibility as a majority party hinges on its ability to provide for the daily needs of Egyptian citizenry.
In communicating with the Muslim Brotherhood and other political parties, however, American and European diplomacy should strongly push for opening up the political system and respect for the rule of law.
MB leaders, including President Morsi, should speak out forcefully against the repugnant fatwas that some radical Salafi clerics have issued recently advocating violence against peaceful regime opponents, including women, secularists and Christians.
European diplomats also should work closely with the private sector to provide entrepreneurial and job creation initiatives. Historically, the MB has been pro-business and could be an effective partner in promoting economic growth in Egypt. The Islamically rooted Turkish ruling AKP could be a useful model on how to reconcile Islamic ideology with modern business practices.
Egyptian youth should be afforded the opportunity to invest in new start-ups and entrepreneurial initiatives through creative economic aid strategies. Post-Mubarak Egypt cannot move forward without massive job programs and the opportunity for Egyptian youth to build a prosperous future.
Secretary Kerry should follow up on President Obama’s Cairo speech in June 2009 by robustly engaging mainstream Islamic groups across the region in an effort to delegitimize extremists and energize moderates. As a Senator and a Presidential candidate, John Kerry supported engaging mainstream Muslim communities both for moral and national interest reasons.
When I briefed him during his Presidential campaign, he endorsed engaging mainstream Muslim majorities, arguing that military strikes alone did not fend off terrorism. Universal democratic values of good governance and tangible programs that benefit vast majorities of Muslims are much more effective in undercutting the radical message, whether in the Middle East, Africa, or South Asia.
Syria
Regional, American, and European diplomacy should take the lead in bringing the brutal civil war to an end. The understandable concern about the rise of radical, Salafi jihadism should not cripple Washington’s ability to work with the opposition to expedite the regime’s demise.
In a post-Assad environment, the secular multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian Syrian political culture could be a strong antidote against radicals and jihadists.
Washington’s inaction and inability to form an effective international coalition on behalf of the Syrian opposition has emboldened the Syrian dictator. Ensuing regime repression has created lawlessness and chaos, which in turn favors jihadists. On the other side, Hizballah and Iran have been arming and training militias to spread terror and defend the regime.
Iran has been the region’s most vociferous defender of the Syrian tyrant. The reported recent assassination of a senior Revolutionary Guard officer in Syria is an example of the deepening Iranian role and presence in that country.
If the regime is not toppled soon, Iran and Hizballah would pose an even more ominous regional threat than Assad.
Advocates of “leading from behind” in Washington use the so-called Syrian “exceptionalism” argument as a justification for non-action. Although this strategy was designed specifically for Libya, it should not be used as an excuse. Western non-action in Syria is no longer morally defensible or politically acceptable.
What to do?
Jettison the Libya analogy and arm the opposition with anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons necessary to defeat the regime. Second, Secretary Kerry should initiate immediate consultations with selected opposition groups and with neighboring states on how to establish a post-Assad government. The consulting process could be messy and contentious. But it’s necessary.
Recent media reports indicate the White House has nixed a proposal by the State Department, the Defense Department, and the CIA to arm Syrian rebels. If these reports are correct, the administration’s position is nothing short of shameful.
Pro-democracy activists in the region view the President’s statement in the State of the Union that he would maintain pressure on the Syrian dictator as hypocritical and lacking credibility. They view American posture toward the Syrian dictator as lackadaisical and cynical.
They correctly ask, “How many more thousands of Syrians have to be killed before Washington and its international partners decide it’s morally justifiable and politically prudent to act?”
Photo: President Barack Obama speaks at Cairo University in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, . In his speech, President Obama called for a ‘new beginning between the United States and Muslims’, declaring that ‘this cycle of suspicion and discord must end’.
]]>As the Arab Spring turns two, job creation offers the key promise of success in post-autocratic societies. While other important lessons could be gleaned from the unprecedented Arab upheavals, economic growth is the most shining one. Unless Washington and other Western capitals understand the criticality of the economic factor and assist [...]]]>
As the Arab Spring turns two, job creation offers the key promise of success in post-autocratic societies. While other important lessons could be gleaned from the unprecedented Arab upheavals, economic growth is the most shining one. Unless Washington and other Western capitals understand the criticality of the economic factor and assist in fostering an entrepreneurial environment in these societies, the lofty promise of the Arab Spring will quickly dissipate.
Job creation and economic growth are the litmus test of the success or failure of the Arab Spring. The economies of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya have not rebounded from the upheavals of 2011. The new governments remain bogged down in domestic political tumult and endless debates over the role of Islam in governance. They have yet to provide a hospitable environment for entrepreneurship and innovative start-up initiatives.
Democratic governance will not succeed until the new governments are able to provide jobs to their young job seekers. Arab societies will prosper when the youthful generation, men and women, believe they can attain a hopeful economic future. Political dignity cannot be sustained if the economy remains anemic with high unemployment rates among youth.
Last year the World Economic Forum judged the Middle East North Africa region would need to create 75 million jobs in the next decade just to keep employment with current levels. The private sector, not government, is the primary engine that could attain such an ambitious goal.
New enterprises will not grow if archaic statist laws in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen remain inhospitable to free market enterprises and continue to shackle potential investors. Young entrepreneurs who are willing to take risks in harnessing innovative technologies to start new businesses must have the freedom to explore regional and international avenues in search of capital for their projects without oppressive state interference in their activities and foreign connections.
According to the World Bank, job creation opportunities exist in many fields including transportation, restaurants, health care services, energy and water, commerce, care giving and childcare, printing and publishing, and consumer goods manufacturing.
The good news is that the failure rate of new start-ups in Arab countries in the past half-decade has been relatively small. What is particularly encouraging is that women now own and manage numerous enterprises in the region, ranging from traditional textiles to manufacturing. Maintaining this trend requires a new relationship between the state and the citizenry. Government accountability, transparency, and freedom to do business should underpin the new social contract as post-autocratic societies transition to democracy and private enterprise.
The entrepreneurial environment in the Arab world is currently ripe for growth and expansion. Technology, passion, and people power are driving youthful enterprises in all kinds of fields. Wael Ghoneim, the famed Egyptian Google executive who played a pivotal role in mobilizing for Tahrir Square in January 2011, said the newly acquired freedom to “imagine, dream, and innovate” was at the heart of the rising entrepreneurial spirit among the youth in the Arab world.
A fundamental challenge facing the new governments in the next five years, however, would be to dissuade bright, creative, entrepreneurial Middle Eastern youth from leaving their countries and seeking opportunities in Europe, North America, Australia, and other developed countries. A serious brain drain will be detrimental to the economies of the Arab world.
Economic resurgence offers the West numerous opportunities as well. Enterprising Arab youth have begun to explore new start-up opportunities, which require capital, investment risk taking, freedom from state control, and opportunities to travel abroad.
Western governments will be well advised to maintain a small footprint in domestic Arab economic development. Economic linkages, however, could be done through engaging credible, indigenous civil society and business organizations. Examples of these organizations include Abraaj Capital, ArabNet, and WAMDA. Young Arab entrepreneurs know very well that if they want to dream and create, they will have to connect with their counterparts in the US and other Western countries.
As we move beyond the second anniversary of the Arab Spring, Washington’s long-term relations with the region could become grounded in new concepts of stability and security that are defined by the private sector and entrepreneurial communities of interest. Policy and intelligence analysts should deepen their expertise in the domestic dynamics in new Arab societies. Relying solely on old analytic assumptions often misses the boat, as the failure to anticipate the Arab Spring has shown.
Photo: Passengers wait to board a train at Sadat Station in Cairo, Egypt. Credit: Asim Bharwani/Flickr
]]>Several critical issues of unfinished business in the Middle East face President Barack Obama as he begins his second term. Washington must become more engaged come January because these issues will directly impact regional stability and security and U.S. interests and personnel in the region.
The issues include the Syrian [...]]]>
Several critical issues of unfinished business in the Middle East face President Barack Obama as he begins his second term. Washington must become more engaged come January because these issues will directly impact regional stability and security and U.S. interests and personnel in the region.
The issues include the Syrian uprising and increasing atrocities by extremist elements within the uprising, the Arab Spring and the future of democratic transitions, the growing influence of radical Salafi “jihadism” across the Arab world, Bahrain, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran, Pakistan, and Guantanamo and global terrorism.
The Obama administration’s engagement in these issues in the past year has been marginal and uneven, influenced largely by domestic politics and to some degree the ghost of Libya. Washington’s public support for democracy following the start of the Arab Spring was welcomed in the region, especially as dictators in Tunisia and Egypt fell precipitously.
The U.S. image became more tarnished, however, as repression escalated in Bahrain against the Shia majority and as Assad’s killing machine became more vicious, and Syria descended into a civil war.
Washington’s benign response to repression and torture in Bahrain, according to advocates of this policy, is justified by the presence of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and the special relationship with Saudi Arabia. Yet, the U.S. and its Western allies have not used their significant leverage in either country to advance democracy. Nor has the Fleet deterred the Al Khalifa regime from repressing the pro-democracy movement.
The ghost of Libya and the U.S. presidential election also drove Obama’s hesitancy to act against the Syrian dictator. During the foreign policy presidential debate before the U.S. elections, President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney argued lamely that Syria was different from Libya, and therefore the U.S. military even under the NATO umbrella should not be used against Assad.
The fate of emerging Arab democracies and the legitimate aspirations of millions of Arab youth, which the U.S. and many countries worldwide have endorsed, should not be held hostage to political expediency or become a casualty of electoral politics.
U.S. prestige and Obama’s credibility at home and abroad will be tested by whether Washington stands with the peoples of the region against their entrenched dictators, regardless of the so-called Libyan model. Calls for justice and dignity in the Arab uprisings signaled a historic moment that resonated across the globe. The U.S. should embrace this moment and place itself on the right side of history.
President Obama was hailed across the Arab Muslim world in June 2009 when he called for engaging credible indigenous communities on the basis of common interests and mutual respect. A retreat from those ideals would be disastrous for the U.S. and its allies, especially as regime remnants and radical Salafis endeavour to derail the democratic process.
An autocratic tribal ruler in Manama, who has just revoked the citizenship of 31 Bahraini nationals, or a brutal dictator in Damascus should not turn the clock back on the moral inroads that Washington made in the region in the post-Bush era.
The unfolding of events at a dizzying speed and increasing threats to U.S. interests and personnel demand serious attempts to address theses critical issues. In his second-term, President Obama cannot remain oblivious to rising sectarianism, growing Salafi extremism, continued repression, and suppression of minorities and women.
On day one after taking office, the president must turn his full attention to Syria.
Assad must be forced out, and soon. Over 25,000 Syrians have been killed since the uprising began in early 2011, and equal numbers have been “disappeared” by the regime. Hundreds of thousands have become refugees. Atrocities committed by the regime and by some of the rebels are inflicting untold suffering on innocent civilians in Syria.
The Syrian uprising, like those in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, started peacefully. Regime intransigence and repression, however, forced the uprising to become violent. Lawlessness and the porous borders have opened Syria to radical “jihadists” from neighbouring Arab countries.
Whereas, the uprising was initially non-ideological and non-religious, the incoming “jihadists” are Sunni Salafis bent on fighting a religious war against an “infidel” dictator. These “jihadists” have exploited the factionalism of the opposition for their intolerant religious extremism.
They also gained acceptance by the poorly armed rebels because they brought in weapons and money from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and elsewhere. The rise of violent “jihadism” in Syria had been a direct consequence of continued regime intransigence.
A prolonged proxy war between Iran, which supports Assad, and Saudi Arabia, which supports the uprising, over Syria and a resurgent radical Salafi “jihad” within the insurgency cannot be good for regional stability and for the international community.
How to speed up Assad’s exit? Short of putting boots on the ground, Washington and its NATO allies, especially the UK, France, and Turkey, should declare a no-fly zone and provide the Free Syrian Army with adequate anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to fight the regime’s military machine. NATO should seek the consent of Arab and Asian countries for the Syria initiative, including patrolling the no-fly zone.
Media reports reveal that Turkey, with U.S. approval, has deployed Patriot missiles close to the Syrian border. This action seems to signal Turkey’s intention to create and possibly defend a no-fly zone. President Obama and other NATO leaders should vigorously push this action forward.
Syrian refugees cannot spend another winter in tents and under intolerable conditions.
NATO partners also should help streamline the opposition groups and recognise whatever group emerges as a legitimate political representative of Syria. Admittedly, factionalism among the rebel groups on the ground and within the Syrian National Council outside the country is a major impediment to diplomatic recognition and international action.
Once a unified leadership emerges, NATO should provide it with logistics, intelligence, and command and control training. Furthermore, Washington and London should put the Assad regime on notice that attacking Syria’s neighbours or using chemical and biological weapons in any form against any target will result in a massive military response.
Lakhdar Brahimi’s U.N.-Arab mission to Syria has failed to persuade Assad to stop the killing, and any talk of a temporary ceasefire is no more than wishful thinking. Russian and Chinese obduracy in the U.N. Security Council on Syria justifies an immediate and more robust NATO action against the regime. The Syrian dictator has already rejected British Prime Minister David Cameron’s offer for a safe passage out of Syria.
It’s morally reprehensible for the international community to remain insensitive to the continued atrocities against the Syrian people, whether by the regime or the opposition. Moral platitudes no longer cut it.
Once the regime is toppled, the international community should help the post-Assad government with economic recovery and empower the Syrian business community and entrepreneurial civil society to start creating jobs. When that happens, the “Arab Spring” would rightfully claim its fifth trophy.
*Emile Nakhleh is former director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at CIA and author of A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim world.
]]>The Washington Post‘s Greg Miller has begun a three-part series on the future of the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism drone strike program, which will include a “next-generation targeting list” (aka “kill list”) in the form of a “dipposition matrix”.
Though the White House, CIA, JSOC and ODNI declined comment requests, the article cites [...]]]>
The Washington Post‘s Greg Miller has begun a three-part series on the future of the Obama Administration’s counterterrorism drone strike program, which will include a “next-generation targeting list” (aka “kill list”) in the form of a “dipposition matrix”.
Though the White House, CIA, JSOC and ODNI declined comment requests, the article cites “dozens of current and former national security officials, intelligence analysts and others.”
Miller’s report somewhat contradicts the Obama Administration’s frequent assertions that al Qaeda is exhausted and on the run. The officials interviewed essentially offer a redux of the “War on Terror” methodology minus the renditions and speechifying. And, even while touting the success of the program, the Administration remains committed to “embedding” it in national security planning.
According to Miller, the program is meant to outlive the Obama Administration: “White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan is seeking to codify the administration’s approach to generating capture/kill lists, part of a broader effort to guide future administrations through the counterterrorism processes that Obama has embraced.”
The expansion of the US’s drone fleet and African operations were also noted, as was the US’s overall growing reliance on unarmed drone surveillance, now over Libya, and according to the Post, Iran. Meanwhile, The Diplomat notes the US is looking to create a more autonomous drone force that is less dependent on operator-control to carry out missions.
Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations reflects on President Obama’s institutionalization of “extrajudicial killings” in comparison to his predecessor’s more careful approach:
]]>Having spoken with dozens of officials across both administrations, I am convinced that those serving under President Bush were actually much more conscious and thoughtful about the long-term implications of targeted killings than those serving under Obama. In part, this is because more Bush administration officials were affected by the U.S. Senate Select Committee investigation, led by Senator Frank Church, that implicated the United States in assassination plots against foreign leaders—including at least eight separate plans to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro—and President Ford’s Executive Order 11905: “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”
via IPS News
Graphic: The figures signify the number of times each country was mentioned in the Oct. 22 presidential debate. Credit: Zachary Fleischmann/IPS
U.S. strategy in the Greater Middle East, which has dominated foreign policy-making since the 9/11 attacks more than 11 years ago, similarly dominated the third and last debate between [...]]]>
via IPS News
Graphic: The figures signify the number of times each country was mentioned in the Oct. 22 presidential debate. Credit: Zachary Fleischmann/IPS
U.S. strategy in the Greater Middle East, which has dominated foreign policy-making since the 9/11 attacks more than 11 years ago, similarly dominated the third and last debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney Monday night.
The biggest surprise of the debate, which was supposed to be devoted exclusively to foreign policy and national security, was how much Romney agreed with Obama’s approach to the region.
His apparent embrace of the president’s policies appeared consistent with his recent efforts to reassure centrist voters that he is not as far right in his views as his primary campaign or his choice for vice president, Rep. Joe Ryan, would suggest.
The focus on the Greater Middle East, which took up roughly two-thirds of the 90-minute debate, reflected a number of factors in addition to the perception that the region is the main source of threats to U.S. security, a notion that Romney tried hard to foster during the debate.
“It’s partly because all candidates have to pander to Israel’s supporters here in the United States, but also four decades of misconduct have made the U.S. deeply unpopular in much of the Arab and Islamic world,” Stephen Walt, a Harvard international relations professor who blogs on foreignpolicy.com, told IPS.
“Add to that the mess Obama inherited from (George W.) Bush, and you can see why both candidates had to keep talking about the region,” he said.
But the region’s domination in the debate also came largely at the expense of other key regions, countries and global issues – testimony to the degree to which Bush’s legacy, particularly from his first term when neo-conservatives and other hawks ruled the foreign-policy roost, continues to define Washington’s relationship to the world.
Of all the countries cited by the moderator and the two candidates, China was the only one outside the Middle East that evoked any substantial discussion, albeit limited to trade and currency issues.
Romney re-iterated his pledge to label Beijing a “currency manipulator” on his first day in office, while Obama for the first time described Beijing as an “adversary” as well as a “partner” – a reflection of how China-bashing has become a predictable feature of presidential races since the end of the Cold War.
With the exception of one very short reference (by Romney) to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and another to trade with Latin America, Washington’s southern neighbours were completely ignored by the two candidates, as was Canada and all of sub-Saharan Africa, except Somalia and Mali where Romney charged that “al Qaeda-type individuals” had taken over the northern part of the country.
Not even the long-running financial crisis in the European Union (EU) – arguably, one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security and economic recovery – came up, although Romney warned several times that the U.S. could become “Greece” if it fails to tackle its debt problems.
Similarly, the big emerging democracies, including India, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia – all of which have been wooed by the Obama administration – went entirely unmentioned, although at least one commentator, Tanvi Madan, head of the Indian Project at the Brookings Institution, said Indians should “breathe a sigh of relief” over its omission since it signaled a lack of controversy over Washington’s relations with New Delhi.
Another key emerging democracy, Turkey, was mentioned several times, but only in relation to the civil war in Syria.
And climate change or global warming, which has been considered a national-security threat by U.S. intelligence agencies and the Pentagon for almost a decade, was a no-show at the debate.
“There was no serious discussion of climate change, the Euro crisis, the failed drug war, or the long-term strategic consequences of drone wars, cyberwar, and an increasingly ineffective set of global institutions,” noted Walt.
“Neither candidate offered a convincing diagnosis of the challenges we face in a globalised world, or the best way for the U.S. to advance its interests and values in a world it no longer dominates.”
Romney, whose top foreign-policy advisers include key neo-conservatives who were major promoters of Bush’s misadventures in the region, spent much of the debate repeatedly assuring the audience that he would be the un-Bush when it came to foreign policy.
“We don’t want another Iraq,” he said at one point in an apparent endorsement of Obama’s drone strategy. “We don’t want another Afghanistan. That’s not the right course for us.”
“I want to see peace,” he asserted somewhat awkwardly as he began his summation, suggesting that it was a talking point his coaches told him he must impress upon his audience before he left the hall in Boca Raton, Florida.
“Romney clearly decided he needed to head off perceptions of himself as a throwback to George W. Bush-era foreign policy adventurism, repeatedly stressing his desire for a peaceful world,” wrote Greg Sargent, a Washington Post blogger.
So strongly did he affirm most of Obama’s policies that, for those who hadn’t been paying close attention to Romney’s previous stands, the president’s charge that his rival’s foreign policy was “wrong and reckless” must have sounded somewhat puzzling.
As Obama was forced to remind the audience repeatedly, Romney’s positions on these issues have been “all over the map” since he launched his candidacy more than two years ago.
“I found it confusing, because he has spent much of the campaign season in some ways recycling Bush’s foreign policy, and, at least for one night, he seemed to throw the neo-cons under the bus,” said Charles Kupchan, a foreign policy specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations.
“Whether it was accepting the withdrawal timetable in Afghanistan, walking back a more aggressive stance on Syria, or basically agreeing with Obama’s approach on Iran, he seems to be stepping away from a lot of the positions he was taking just a few weeks ago,” he noted. “At this point, it’s impossible for voters to actually know what he thinks because he spent most of the campaign embracing a platform that was much further to the right.”
That Obama, who took the offensive from the outset and retained it for the next 90 minutes, won the debate was conceded by virtually all but the most partisan Republican commentators, with some analysts calling the president’s performance as decisive a victory as that which Romney achieved in the first debate earlier this month and which reversed his then-fading fortunes.
A CBS/Knowledge Networks poll of undecided voters taken immediately after the debate found that 53 percent of respondents thought Obama had won; only 23 percent saw Romney as the victor.
Whether that will be sufficient to reverse Romney’s recent gains in the polls – national surveys currently show a virtual tie among likely voters – remains to be seen.
Foreign policy remains a relatively minor issue in the minds of the vast majority of voters concerned mostly about the economy and jobs – one reason why, at every opportunity, Romney Monday tried, with some success, to steer the debate back toward those problems.
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