More protests and clashes in Iran this weekend; after a protest-turned-violent over the death of the leading opposition cleric, this weekend's unrest came during a Shiite religious festival (of sorts) in honor of the 7th century martyrdom of Mohammed's grandson.
The protests are certainly getting their fair due of attention in Iran, and wearing on the nerves of the ruling "conservatives," but are they effective? Good question. A progressive opposition movement's exposure usually does, over time, lead to an increase in popularity (like in the United States during Vietnam). And as much as violent crackdowns have a serious human toll, they may be winning sympathy for the opposition movement from any fence-sitters left. In addition, the crackdowns are hardening the young men and women (especially women) in the movement now--over time, the old men of the conservatives will die off, and the progressives will strike themselves a big win, maybe in 2014.
But will they run out of steam by then? Or even if they do win, will it be too late for the US to close the Iranian nuclear pandora's box, as it were?
Thinking about this has gotten me to try to get into the head of the President, and figure out what he's doing. He's shown a great deal of restraint with Iran, which a lot of folks oppose. But think about this: should we authorize a strike to take down the Iranian nuclear program, we'd be giving Ahmedinejad and his crew the most incredible propaganda that they could hope for to harden their position. A strike would further radicalize the Iranians, make them more Western-phobic, and even undermine the legitimacy of the opposition movement (Ahmedinejad would have some credence to his accusations of Western influence and manipulation in Iran). No, a strike might be disastrous.
But just how much is the US staying out of Iranian affairs? Surely, opportunities for subtle propaganda influence are not simply being ignored. Even something as simple as Voice of America, a shameless, open alternative network to the Iranian state-run media, is having an effect.
The Iranians are not nearly as good at information control as the Chinese, and the United States is probably taking advantage of that fact as much as Iran's own opposition movement is. This, of course, is a guess. No overt cooperation will happen with the opposition movement, both to protect its legitimacy and to protect its integrity: no Iranian wants to be an American stooge, and the Green Movement won't allow itself to be a puppet.
But the incredible restraint shown by the Obama administration towards the Iranian regime may indicate some intelligence that we don't have. Will there be an internal overthrow of the regime? I think it's unlikely (the population is divided and poorly armed), but if popularity for the opposition movement in 2014 is strong enough, truly sweeping reform could be on the way. And I might be wrong about the level of armament of the population--the Basij militiamen are technically civilians, and are allowed to keep weapons in their homes. Surely, there are guns floating around Tehran in numbers. And the opposition movement is surely making efforts to show that the Ahmedinijad/Khaimeni regime has violated Shiite Islamic law. Under Shiite law, the population has not only a right, but a duty to overthrow regimes that are antithetical to the tenets of Islam. Certainly the motivation and legitimacy for armed revolt are there. If the means are there, too, then the Obama administration's stance makes perfect sense--stay out of Iranian internal politics as much as possible, and let the opposition's support grow slowly over time, until it is ready.
But then again, when was the last time an armed revolt took down a modern, well-armed government? It's been a while.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Geopolitical Complications at Copenhagen
The problems at the various climate summits are economically quite simple--there is both a tragedy of the commons problem (in the emitting of carbon dioxide) and a freerider problem (in the halting thereof). Even Europe has has largely decided that the moral payoff for "leading the way" in CO2 control is not sufficient to break its back alone, especially if it enables other economies to slurp up the CO2 "availability," as it were, that they create.
This, of course, is why anyone trying to control global CO2 output needs a treaty. But it is not so simple to simply forge a treaty on this and tell everyone to stop producing. Should all countries cut a portion of their CO2? Should we create a baseline CO2/capita standard which countries must meet? What, instead, of a CO2/GDP/capita standard? These different standards can be abstractly debated on their own merits, but each representative at Copenhagen is undoubtedly going to support the one that best suits their own self-interest.
Right now, one of the big hang-ups seems to be the US-Chinese rivalry, which stems far beyond simple fairness, egalitarianism, equity, whatever, into rather unsubtle geopolitical/economic warfare. The Chinese want to walk away with a "promise" to reduce CO2 output by a certain percentage, but do not want any oversight into their own in-house emissions reporting. The US, of course, is unwilling to sign anything that lets the Chinese get away with zero transparency, while the US gets constant comb-overs by the EU to make sure that it is putting in sufficient efforts to curb CO2.
And again, this goes beyond fairness, or effectiveness. Could the world at large reduce CO2 production to whatever reasonable levels it sets for itself without the Chinese getting on board until some years from now? Certainly. China may be a big contributor to world CO2 emissions, but it is not yet so big to single-handedly destroy any attempts to put caps on world emissions (where the US is certainly that big, as is the EU). This is, as usual, about long-term and arcane calculations about the relative power of the two perceived titans of world politics, the US and the People's Republic of China.
My own opinions about where the US should be aiming its sights aside (hint: Russia and Iran), the US sees a great threat to its pacific hegemony in the Chinese, and the Chinese probably see a great opportunity in this treaty, if it should come out the right way. Further, the Chinese have an advantage--for years, the Chinese have denied any aspirations of being a "world leader" or any of that claptrap. While they are concerned about their reputation in order to open trade and assuade the military fears of their neighbors, the Chinese lack the desire to be loved, admired, and followed that the US became addicted to in the Second World War (and not for entirely sentimental reasons. The relative love affair that the Western World has had for the US over the past sixty years has allowed the US to make bold moves in its own geopolitical favor and receive backing in legitimacy, money, manpower, military base placement, etc. It's been a very powerful tool, and it's far from lost, all the Bush-era apocalyptic soothsayers' opinions to the contrary. But I digress). The Chinese can legitimately look Copenhagen dead in the eye and say, "we don't care if you approve of our economic or environmental practices," as long as such disapproval
does not grow so large as to threaten boycott (which would certainly be difficult to legitimately threaten, although it would damage the Chinese and Southeast Asian economies far, far more than the economies of the US or EU, under-read cocktail-sipping fatalists' opinions to the contrary. But I digress). It's not an enviable position for the United States.
For the United States has a reputation to uphold, and it may be in a position where it is making a value judgment about that geopolitically powerful reputation and its geopoltically powerful manufacturing industry (which is still the largest and most formiddable in the world, a fact that would be more widely known if we were not so obsessed with predicting our own demise. But I digress). Should the US walk away and say, "no deal without China breaking its back as much as we do," its European allies will grow increasingly impatient and disillusioned about American exceptionalism, altruism, leadership ability, what have you. But should the US say, "the Chinese be damned, we're going to do the right thing," then it will quite disproportionately and quite significantly load a disadvantage onto its own manufacturing industry, its war machine, its economy in general--and ultimately its ability to project power into the pacific.
Manufacturing is a CO2-heavy process, even when it's not a coal-fired steel plant (of which we have precious few these days). You'd probably have nightmares over how much CO2 went into the air to make that brand new Prius you're so proud of buying (and re-buying after a mere 3 years to get the "higher effiency" model, in a misguided attempt to save the earth. But I digress). Military manufacturing is much, much worse. Military manufacturing puts a much higher emphasis on performance over price, to the point that it hits some seriously diminishing returns (to whit, the military often picks some very odd opportunities to say "only the best for our boys!" and "we need to save money," but I digress). And, until renewable technology really picks up, manufacturing price is often fairly well-correlated to CO2 usage to make it (of course, in the case of military hardware, the CO2/price ratio is higher than for most goods).
The short of it is this: A major carbon tax or cap-and-trade will be a disaster for the US military's already- enormous budget, in a country whose debt is already so horrifyingly large that both parties are balking at spending more (and the Greek debt crisis is hopefully teaching a lesson about the limits of the power of borrowing. But perhaps not. I digress). Additionally, the US will simply flat-out lose more manufacturing to China if it should impose limits on its CO2 production and China doesn't. While the US will make sure to subsidize its arms manufacturers, many other industry's won't be so lucky. The US would have to (until renewable technologies mature) be incredibly picky about just which manufacturing sectors are "Critical to national security," or it would annihilate its economy just to keep them all afloat.
And, of course, for every manufacturing plant the US loses, it's one China gains. China's ability to compete, in particular, in high-precision manufacturing would increase significantly--a prospect that US security advisors (for better or for worse) shudder to think about (the US still has rather obnoxious export limits on high-precision manufacturing equipment to China, as well as other "dual-use technology" that the US and EU currently specialise in making. But I digress). This manufacturing would, of course, make China's economic position more powerful in the Pacific, and enable its indigenous military hardware industry (which has been crawling obediently towards independence from Russian supply).
Increased tax revenues, increased manufacturing capacity, and increased trade partnerships in the Pacific would greatly increase China's geopolitical and military position in the region, where the opposite would apply to the US. This is one of the big reasons the US is so very obsessive about making sure the Treaty (that it's actually considering signing) is "fair" in the sense that it hurts the US and China equally.
I doubt, though, that the US is going to get its wish in that particular field until Chinese GDP growth starts to peter out. And if it can handle its looming demographic crisis, China is unlikely to see GDP grwoth slow for some years to come.
This, of course, is why anyone trying to control global CO2 output needs a treaty. But it is not so simple to simply forge a treaty on this and tell everyone to stop producing. Should all countries cut a portion of their CO2? Should we create a baseline CO2/capita standard which countries must meet? What, instead, of a CO2/GDP/capita standard? These different standards can be abstractly debated on their own merits, but each representative at Copenhagen is undoubtedly going to support the one that best suits their own self-interest.
Right now, one of the big hang-ups seems to be the US-Chinese rivalry, which stems far beyond simple fairness, egalitarianism, equity, whatever, into rather unsubtle geopolitical/economic warfare. The Chinese want to walk away with a "promise" to reduce CO2 output by a certain percentage, but do not want any oversight into their own in-house emissions reporting. The US, of course, is unwilling to sign anything that lets the Chinese get away with zero transparency, while the US gets constant comb-overs by the EU to make sure that it is putting in sufficient efforts to curb CO2.
And again, this goes beyond fairness, or effectiveness. Could the world at large reduce CO2 production to whatever reasonable levels it sets for itself without the Chinese getting on board until some years from now? Certainly. China may be a big contributor to world CO2 emissions, but it is not yet so big to single-handedly destroy any attempts to put caps on world emissions (where the US is certainly that big, as is the EU). This is, as usual, about long-term and arcane calculations about the relative power of the two perceived titans of world politics, the US and the People's Republic of China.
My own opinions about where the US should be aiming its sights aside (hint: Russia and Iran), the US sees a great threat to its pacific hegemony in the Chinese, and the Chinese probably see a great opportunity in this treaty, if it should come out the right way. Further, the Chinese have an advantage--for years, the Chinese have denied any aspirations of being a "world leader" or any of that claptrap. While they are concerned about their reputation in order to open trade and assuade the military fears of their neighbors, the Chinese lack the desire to be loved, admired, and followed that the US became addicted to in the Second World War (and not for entirely sentimental reasons. The relative love affair that the Western World has had for the US over the past sixty years has allowed the US to make bold moves in its own geopolitical favor and receive backing in legitimacy, money, manpower, military base placement, etc. It's been a very powerful tool, and it's far from lost, all the Bush-era apocalyptic soothsayers' opinions to the contrary. But I digress). The Chinese can legitimately look Copenhagen dead in the eye and say, "we don't care if you approve of our economic or environmental practices," as long as such disapproval
does not grow so large as to threaten boycott (which would certainly be difficult to legitimately threaten, although it would damage the Chinese and Southeast Asian economies far, far more than the economies of the US or EU, under-read cocktail-sipping fatalists' opinions to the contrary. But I digress). It's not an enviable position for the United States.
For the United States has a reputation to uphold, and it may be in a position where it is making a value judgment about that geopolitically powerful reputation and its geopoltically powerful manufacturing industry (which is still the largest and most formiddable in the world, a fact that would be more widely known if we were not so obsessed with predicting our own demise. But I digress). Should the US walk away and say, "no deal without China breaking its back as much as we do," its European allies will grow increasingly impatient and disillusioned about American exceptionalism, altruism, leadership ability, what have you. But should the US say, "the Chinese be damned, we're going to do the right thing," then it will quite disproportionately and quite significantly load a disadvantage onto its own manufacturing industry, its war machine, its economy in general--and ultimately its ability to project power into the pacific.
Manufacturing is a CO2-heavy process, even when it's not a coal-fired steel plant (of which we have precious few these days). You'd probably have nightmares over how much CO2 went into the air to make that brand new Prius you're so proud of buying (and re-buying after a mere 3 years to get the "higher effiency" model, in a misguided attempt to save the earth. But I digress). Military manufacturing is much, much worse. Military manufacturing puts a much higher emphasis on performance over price, to the point that it hits some seriously diminishing returns (to whit, the military often picks some very odd opportunities to say "only the best for our boys!" and "we need to save money," but I digress). And, until renewable technology really picks up, manufacturing price is often fairly well-correlated to CO2 usage to make it (of course, in the case of military hardware, the CO2/price ratio is higher than for most goods).
The short of it is this: A major carbon tax or cap-and-trade will be a disaster for the US military's already- enormous budget, in a country whose debt is already so horrifyingly large that both parties are balking at spending more (and the Greek debt crisis is hopefully teaching a lesson about the limits of the power of borrowing. But perhaps not. I digress). Additionally, the US will simply flat-out lose more manufacturing to China if it should impose limits on its CO2 production and China doesn't. While the US will make sure to subsidize its arms manufacturers, many other industry's won't be so lucky. The US would have to (until renewable technologies mature) be incredibly picky about just which manufacturing sectors are "Critical to national security," or it would annihilate its economy just to keep them all afloat.
And, of course, for every manufacturing plant the US loses, it's one China gains. China's ability to compete, in particular, in high-precision manufacturing would increase significantly--a prospect that US security advisors (for better or for worse) shudder to think about (the US still has rather obnoxious export limits on high-precision manufacturing equipment to China, as well as other "dual-use technology" that the US and EU currently specialise in making. But I digress). This manufacturing would, of course, make China's economic position more powerful in the Pacific, and enable its indigenous military hardware industry (which has been crawling obediently towards independence from Russian supply).
Increased tax revenues, increased manufacturing capacity, and increased trade partnerships in the Pacific would greatly increase China's geopolitical and military position in the region, where the opposite would apply to the US. This is one of the big reasons the US is so very obsessive about making sure the Treaty (that it's actually considering signing) is "fair" in the sense that it hurts the US and China equally.
I doubt, though, that the US is going to get its wish in that particular field until Chinese GDP growth starts to peter out. And if it can handle its looming demographic crisis, China is unlikely to see GDP grwoth slow for some years to come.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tradeoffs and Wisdom in Obama's Afghan Strategy
You guys read the speech. If not, read the speech."Our resolve is unwavering." But, perhaps, only for the next 18 months.
Seems a strange message. And it is. But it may not be unsound.
(Quick summary: 30,000 additional troops, some begging for 5,000 more from NATO, will take a crack at the Taliban while other troops, particularly from NATO, train Afghan forces at absolutely breakneck speeds. Then, 18 months from now, we begin the drawdown.)
This looks quite a bit like the surge strategy in Iraq. And it is. General Petraeus, now in charge of CENTCOM, is probably relatively satisfied. McChrystal certainly is.
The major criticisms from the left are pretty simple--this is a waste of life, of money, we should be leaving. I think the counter-argument here is that there are a few serious points at stake: the first was brought up by the President. There is a serious security risk here. Certainly more than there was in Iraq. And certainly, this is something that we should weigh on its own as a benefit against the cost of the next 18 months, rather than succumbing to the tragedy of sunk costs. The second point is that the odds of winning are probably higher than the left probably thinks. Like it or not, Petraeus, Gates, and Bush showed that "doubling down" in a region
has the potential to break the fighting will of folks that have spent the past many years slowly grinding and dying in the mountains to eek out momentum. Afghanistan will be harder than Iraq, due largely to an even-more-dysfunctional central government (and much less centralized society), but it can be done. Third, the cost of losing can go beyond simple security in the medium-term. Victory and defeat can significantly affect the relationships between the United States and other significant powers (Iran, Russia, etc); Vietnam and Afghanistan are both excellent examples. When the US lost Vietnam, its security was not threatened by Vietnam, but the Soviet Union gained a long momentum (as the US wallowed in relative misery and indecisiveness), and the momentum switched after the Soviet Union lost Afghanistan. So I think, as a whole, there is a lot to gain, and a decent chance to get it.The criticism from the right is, as far as I can tell, centered around "sending the wrong message," as Senator McCain said. The worry, in essence, is that the US is not able to project the will necessary to break the will of the Taliban--they may simply spend the next 18 months hiding in wait, knowing the exact date at which they should spring forth to take down the Afghani government. It is not an entirely illegitimate claim. But if the Taliban does actually take an 18-month break (or relative break) from the fight against ISAF, then ISAF will have two luxuries: one, it will get to spend its massive resources in building up the Afghan Army and government (likely, the Army will have the bulk of the legitimacy of government forces, like in Iraq for some time). Two, it will allow the US to get aggressive and claim territory, hunt bad guys, etc, rather than play guard duty. Every force likes being on the offensive, and the Taliban will have to choose between actively seeking engagement with NATO troops or hoping that they can hide and be just disruptive enough to not give ISAF the luxury of relaxing and building.
Additionally, it will instill some urgency (and, frankly, panic) in the Karzai government. For all his corruption, Karzai is committed to beating the Taliban and holding onto his power base--he won't achieve his own objectives by sitting back and hoping. Knowing that the US commitment (and thus the NATO commitment) has a time limit is likely to motivate him to get his government in good enough shape to keep it together on its own, rather than free-ride off US and NATO efforts.
All in all, there is a trade-off between the message to the Afghan government and the message to the Taliban, but I think the trade-off is being managed pretty well. Furthermore, the trade-off management might actually make enough Republicans and moderate Democrats happy enough that he'll get the requisition he needs to pull it off.
My confidence here isn't quite as high as it was with the Iraqi surge, but it's probably about the best bet the US has right not to pull a win in Afghanistan (even if, yes, "win" was not a word Obama used. Deal with it.) and walk home with not only a safer Middle East, but a much-inflated geopolitical position compared to 2004.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
How the EU is Handing the US a Victory in Iraq
Whether or not the US has "won" in Iraq yet is a bit unclear--it depends who you ask what the objectives are. And, frankly, I don't think that anyone quite knows the answer, even if they sit down and give you a list of said objectives. But if you imagine the most broad, liberal, and generous of objective lists, it looks like the US is a few key steps away from making Iraq a beacon of American power, determination, and values.
What are the primary obstacles? To be certain, there is corruption, major factionalism, poverty and displacement, security holes, Iranian influence, bureaucratic ineffectiveness. But, frankly, I think the linchpin here will be the Arab-Kurd negotiation process over the status (and size) of Iraqi Kurdistan. Continued ambiguity on the topic will be a major hangup for the resolution of all these other problems, and is the single most likely problem in all of Iraq to cause major destabilization of the regime.
The Arab-Kurd conflict in Iraq is a rather frustrating problem I have lamented a number of times in the past--it has been highly unclear to me exactly how Iraq was going to solve its Kurdistan problem. Kurdistan had both the power and the motive to keep pushing the central government for a greater advantage. As long as its future projections for relative power were good, a stable state could not be reached.
But the strangest of butterfly effects may be taking place. As you probably know, Turkey is hot for a bid into the EU, and has been struggling immensely to realize said bid. There are many obstacles in Turkey's way, the least of which is not racism and Islamophobia in many parts of Europe. More legitimate problems, like governmental stability and human rights questions, have kept it out, as well.
The Turks have taken their rebuffs in stride, carefully noting any concrete objections in order to try to annihilate them and (seemingly) legitimize their bid for EU ascendancy. At the top of this list of objections has been the Turkish treatment of their Kurdish minority. In a 25-year-long low-intensity war to keep the province from breaking away, the Turks have taken great measures to "Turkify" their Kurdish southeast. Banning of wearing Kurdish clothing, teaching Kurdish in school, Kurdish-language television, and Kurdish cultural/national symbols, as well as a bold official renaming of places in Kurdistan to Turkish names have been part of an overall effort that has been (somewhat fairly) called "Cultural Genocide." Frankly, it has also been a failed policy, and has more likely bolstered resistance to integration rather than eroded it.
In a rather stunning about-face, the ruling coalition in Turkey has offered a rather generous peace deal, which includes (among other things) a restoration of the Kurdish right to express a cultural identity (including television, school, clothing, etc). While certainly far from an easy fix, the overture has certainly caused the peace process to gain a great deal of momentum. In an equally stunning reply gesture, 8 PKK members from Iraq crossed the border and laid down their weapons to help cooperate with the peace process.
Obviously, there will be implications in Iraq. The decision clearly seems to be having some impact on Kurdish nationalist motivation--if the PKK (in Iraq, even!) is beginning to walk across the border and lay down arms, the organization as a whole clearly has a lot less steam to fight than it used to. Because Kurds in Iraq are probably approximately as concerned with Kurds in Turkey as other Kurds in Iraq, seeing Turkish Kurds accept a fruitful and just peace process will certainly dampen the "us versus them" mentality that has dominated ultranationalist Kurds since the early 20th century. Furthermore, if the peace process works, government control will be restored to Southeast Turkey, meaning that Iraqi Kurdish fighting groups will no longer have a porous border behind which they can rest, regroup, rearm, etc. They will have lost a key (and much larger) ally in the struggle with Iraqi Arabs, leading to decreased military power and decreased bargaining power.
With deflated motivation and ability (assuming the peace process is as rosy as everyone hopes), Iraqi Kurds are likely to realize that their future negotiating prospects are going to only be going down. This implies that today is the peak of Kurdish power in Iraq (assuming central government power will not also decrease). Any good negotiations theory says that you should (and do in fact tend to) negotiate for a settlement when at your peak of relative power. The Iraqi central government could try to drag out the negotiating process to bargain from a position of higher power later, but if they're smart, they'll want to get this done and over with without giving up too much, such that they can move on to other big problems.
Assuming that these dominoes do fall and the Kurds find a framework in which to get along with the Arab central government, a whole host of problems are going to be solved. First, Kurd-controlled and Baghdad-controlled troops will no longer be squaring off with each other--they can spend their time hunting down the remnants of al-Qaeda that (intuitively) are most dominant in the fuzzy border between the Kurdistan Autonomous Region and the rest of Iraq. Furthermore, a settlement will include election agreements, which should put a dent in factionalism and volatility in Iraqi politics, which should allow more stable ruling coalitions to actually spend political capital to tackle big problems (like corruption, power supply, IDPs, security, etc). Finally, and perhaps most tantalizingly, an agreement will likely include an oil deal, allowing Iraq's vast oil riches to finally be fully exploited--and for both governments to get significant cuts that should fund a strong Army, a strong reconstruction process, and a healthy health/education department (why this is not the case in many other oil-rich states is a very long story, but for a number of reasons I think Iraq is unlikely to fall as far into the dark pits of inefficiency, corruption, and central planning that plague many other oil states).
I don't quite mean to imply that the Turkish-Kurdish peace will will be a cure-all in Iraq. But if the dominoes fall as I think they will, it will remove what is perhaps the biggest obstacle to the Iraqi central government effectively dealing with its top domestic issues. If those can get chugging along, then the Americans can begin to feel pretty secure about having achieved even the most ambitious and extensive goal list in Iraq.
What are the primary obstacles? To be certain, there is corruption, major factionalism, poverty and displacement, security holes, Iranian influence, bureaucratic ineffectiveness. But, frankly, I think the linchpin here will be the Arab-Kurd negotiation process over the status (and size) of Iraqi Kurdistan. Continued ambiguity on the topic will be a major hangup for the resolution of all these other problems, and is the single most likely problem in all of Iraq to cause major destabilization of the regime.
The Arab-Kurd conflict in Iraq is a rather frustrating problem I have lamented a number of times in the past--it has been highly unclear to me exactly how Iraq was going to solve its Kurdistan problem. Kurdistan had both the power and the motive to keep pushing the central government for a greater advantage. As long as its future projections for relative power were good, a stable state could not be reached.
But the strangest of butterfly effects may be taking place. As you probably know, Turkey is hot for a bid into the EU, and has been struggling immensely to realize said bid. There are many obstacles in Turkey's way, the least of which is not racism and Islamophobia in many parts of Europe. More legitimate problems, like governmental stability and human rights questions, have kept it out, as well.
The Turks have taken their rebuffs in stride, carefully noting any concrete objections in order to try to annihilate them and (seemingly) legitimize their bid for EU ascendancy. At the top of this list of objections has been the Turkish treatment of their Kurdish minority. In a 25-year-long low-intensity war to keep the province from breaking away, the Turks have taken great measures to "Turkify" their Kurdish southeast. Banning of wearing Kurdish clothing, teaching Kurdish in school, Kurdish-language television, and Kurdish cultural/national symbols, as well as a bold official renaming of places in Kurdistan to Turkish names have been part of an overall effort that has been (somewhat fairly) called "Cultural Genocide." Frankly, it has also been a failed policy, and has more likely bolstered resistance to integration rather than eroded it.
In a rather stunning about-face, the ruling coalition in Turkey has offered a rather generous peace deal, which includes (among other things) a restoration of the Kurdish right to express a cultural identity (including television, school, clothing, etc). While certainly far from an easy fix, the overture has certainly caused the peace process to gain a great deal of momentum. In an equally stunning reply gesture, 8 PKK members from Iraq crossed the border and laid down their weapons to help cooperate with the peace process.
Obviously, there will be implications in Iraq. The decision clearly seems to be having some impact on Kurdish nationalist motivation--if the PKK (in Iraq, even!) is beginning to walk across the border and lay down arms, the organization as a whole clearly has a lot less steam to fight than it used to. Because Kurds in Iraq are probably approximately as concerned with Kurds in Turkey as other Kurds in Iraq, seeing Turkish Kurds accept a fruitful and just peace process will certainly dampen the "us versus them" mentality that has dominated ultranationalist Kurds since the early 20th century. Furthermore, if the peace process works, government control will be restored to Southeast Turkey, meaning that Iraqi Kurdish fighting groups will no longer have a porous border behind which they can rest, regroup, rearm, etc. They will have lost a key (and much larger) ally in the struggle with Iraqi Arabs, leading to decreased military power and decreased bargaining power.
With deflated motivation and ability (assuming the peace process is as rosy as everyone hopes), Iraqi Kurds are likely to realize that their future negotiating prospects are going to only be going down. This implies that today is the peak of Kurdish power in Iraq (assuming central government power will not also decrease). Any good negotiations theory says that you should (and do in fact tend to) negotiate for a settlement when at your peak of relative power. The Iraqi central government could try to drag out the negotiating process to bargain from a position of higher power later, but if they're smart, they'll want to get this done and over with without giving up too much, such that they can move on to other big problems.
Assuming that these dominoes do fall and the Kurds find a framework in which to get along with the Arab central government, a whole host of problems are going to be solved. First, Kurd-controlled and Baghdad-controlled troops will no longer be squaring off with each other--they can spend their time hunting down the remnants of al-Qaeda that (intuitively) are most dominant in the fuzzy border between the Kurdistan Autonomous Region and the rest of Iraq. Furthermore, a settlement will include election agreements, which should put a dent in factionalism and volatility in Iraqi politics, which should allow more stable ruling coalitions to actually spend political capital to tackle big problems (like corruption, power supply, IDPs, security, etc). Finally, and perhaps most tantalizingly, an agreement will likely include an oil deal, allowing Iraq's vast oil riches to finally be fully exploited--and for both governments to get significant cuts that should fund a strong Army, a strong reconstruction process, and a healthy health/education department (why this is not the case in many other oil-rich states is a very long story, but for a number of reasons I think Iraq is unlikely to fall as far into the dark pits of inefficiency, corruption, and central planning that plague many other oil states).
I don't quite mean to imply that the Turkish-Kurdish peace will will be a cure-all in Iraq. But if the dominoes fall as I think they will, it will remove what is perhaps the biggest obstacle to the Iraqi central government effectively dealing with its top domestic issues. If those can get chugging along, then the Americans can begin to feel pretty secure about having achieved even the most ambitious and extensive goal list in Iraq.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Lisbon Treaty Sees Fissures On Day One
The Czech President Klaus signed the Lisbon Treaty (the last EU leader to do so) today, after the Czech Republic's constitutional court gave the treaty its thumbs-up.
But already, fissures have emerged. The Tories in the UK, who are poised to take over in big numbers by next June at the latest, are furious, and David Cameron (the very-likely next PM) is currently under great pressure to come up with some sort of legal scheme to re-transfer a great deal of power from Brussels to London. It might mean a secession, in the end: there seem to be few options left for the Tories besides total withdrawal.
Italians are also quite irate over a European Human Rights Court decision to ban crucifixes in Italian schools. And it seems that it's not a particularly politically divisive issue in Italy--they're either very attached to these crucifixes or they simply don't want Brussels meddling so deeply in their business. But this is, quite literally, what they wished for.
Disaffection and disillusionment is coming quickly at the heels of the Lisbon Treaty. Skittles and beer are not being poured on the streets in celebration, as the visionaries of the EU had hoped.
The big question: will these jitters settle, or will they undermine the process completely? The United States certainly had similar problems, and still has the occasional fight for sovereignty between a state government and Washington, but it does hold. But then again, a civil war was fought to keep it together. Surely, the Europeans will not go killing each other to preserve the Union; will that make it all too easy for the UK (and then others) to drop out?
But already, fissures have emerged. The Tories in the UK, who are poised to take over in big numbers by next June at the latest, are furious, and David Cameron (the very-likely next PM) is currently under great pressure to come up with some sort of legal scheme to re-transfer a great deal of power from Brussels to London. It might mean a secession, in the end: there seem to be few options left for the Tories besides total withdrawal.
Italians are also quite irate over a European Human Rights Court decision to ban crucifixes in Italian schools. And it seems that it's not a particularly politically divisive issue in Italy--they're either very attached to these crucifixes or they simply don't want Brussels meddling so deeply in their business. But this is, quite literally, what they wished for.
Disaffection and disillusionment is coming quickly at the heels of the Lisbon Treaty. Skittles and beer are not being poured on the streets in celebration, as the visionaries of the EU had hoped.
The big question: will these jitters settle, or will they undermine the process completely? The United States certainly had similar problems, and still has the occasional fight for sovereignty between a state government and Washington, but it does hold. But then again, a civil war was fought to keep it together. Surely, the Europeans will not go killing each other to preserve the Union; will that make it all too easy for the UK (and then others) to drop out?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Afghan Election Gets Key Legitimacy Boost
In an approximately-simultaneous announcement, the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan declared that no candidate in the election attained 50% of the real ballots cast, and Karzai rather generously agreed to the run-off.The agreement is an about-face from his previous stance, which implied that he would dispute results that did not provide him an outright win. This, of course, would have been disastrous. Karzai may have, in fact, just facilitated the only route possible towards long-term governmental legitimacy in Afghanistan (though by no means, of course, did he guarantee it).
A number of obvious reasons are likely behind the decision:
1) Incredible international pressure, from NATO and the UN.
2) Fear of backlash, from Abdullah supporters and anyone else disaffected by fraud.
3) Hopes for increased legitimacy and popularity, by showing generosity and magnanimity.
Apparently, the run-off is scheduled for November 7th--only a bit over two weeks away. This will be necessary to make sure the elections are completed before Afghanistan's harsh winter hits, but will make logistics for ISAF, the UN, and Afghanistan's government incredibly complex.
More importantly: will Abdullah gain enough votes to make this a serious challenge? Karzai winning in the second round (with his cooperation) is certainly better than a "stolen victory" scenario, but it's unclear whether that can be avoided in the second round. Certainly, those working for Karzai have shown a ruthless desire to win (far beyond their desire to promote democracy). Will the scandal over the past weeks deter them from trying again?
It's unclear whether there is much hope to hold on to for this election. But if it should be "free and fair" and, most importantly, convincing, then the government may gain a new "boost" in confidence necessary to help the US "surge" in Afghanistan have a lasting effect.
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