Security Dilemmas

Morsi’s ouster and its aftermath

        Recent events in Egypt have put the Obama administration in a major quandary.  While managing U.S. policy toward its longtime Arab ally has been a challenge for Washington policymakers throughout the political turmoil that has engulfed Egypt since early 2011, until eight weeks ago the circumstances had largely seemed manageable.  But the military overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi in early July and the very bloody crackdown against Morsi supporters in mid-August have brought about a crisis in U.S.-Egypt relations.  As a result, American political leaders are being forced to again confront a situation where U.S. interests and values appear misaligned.

 

        Morsi’s tenure was characterized by incompetence, political polarization, and increasing authoritarianism.  He was, however, also Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, and there can be no doubt that his forcible removal from power by the Egyptian military was a coup.  Unfortunately, some U.S. observers have refused to call the situation what it is.  Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haas wrote that it would be “inaccurate” to describe Morsi’s ouster as a coup d’état and that foreigners should “refrain from describing what has transpired as a coup.”  In an article in Foreign Policy written shortly after Morsi was deposed, Martin Indyk of Brookings (and now U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations) pointedly avoided using the word “coup,” instead describing Morsi’s overthrow as part of “the ongoing revolution in Egypt.” 

 

A look at the Iranian election results

         On June 14, Iranian voters went to the polls for their nation’s first presidential election since 2009 to choose the successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  In an outcome that surprised most outside observers, the election was won by Hassan Rouhani, a 64-year-old centrist cleric who served as Iran’s lead nuclear negotiator from 2003-2005.  During the campaign, Rouhani called for greater social freedoms, greater flexibility in Iran’s relations with the West, and a more pragmatic approach to governance.  His win represents a significant defeat for Iran’s conservatives and a clear desire for change from the country’s current course by the Iranian public.  It is far from clear whether Rouhani will be able to reduce the country’s isolation or improve its troubled economy, but his success at the ballot box is seen as a hopeful sign by many inside and outside Iran.

 

        Rouhani is a longtime Tehran insider who is thought to be personally close with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  He is a moderate, not a reformist.  Much of the media coverage of the election has used the terms as if they are interchangeable, but they are two distinct strands of Iranian political thought.  Broadly speaking, Iranian reformists hail from the political left.  Their focus has been the promotion of greater democracy within Iran and the relaxation of restrictions on social liberties.  They support the Iranian theocracy that was established after the 1979 revolution but believe its legal and moral authority must be derived from popular support.  Iran’s moderates are a bit different.  They do not fundamentally question the existing power structure, but they do believe that strict adherence to the regime’s revolutionary ideology should take a back seat to the more important tasks of modernizing and reforming the country’s economy.  To that end, they favor foreign policies that facilitate Iran’s engagement with the rest of the world, believing that the confrontational approach embraced by hardliners has been counterproductive to the nation’s interests.  The moderates’ standard bearer over the years has been Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s president from 1989-1997 who decided to run again in 2013 but whose candidacy was prohibited by Iran’s Guardian Council at the last minute. 

 

        The third ideological group within Iran, conservative hardliners, had seemed ascendant until recently.  Many Iranians were disillusioned with the tenure of reformist president Mohammad Khatami by the time his second term ended in 2005, and the election of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that year appeared to deal a fatal blow to the reformist movement.  The enormous protests that followed Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection in 2009 indicated that internal opposition to Iran’s conservatives remained strong, but the harsh government crackdown that followed led to the arrest of many reformist leaders and forced others into exile.  With Ahmadinejad having been returned to office with Khamenei’s strong support, conservatives seemed to be in firm control in Tehran.

 

Where things stand in Mali, Part II: International concern and the French intervention

 This is the second segment of a two-part series on the recent turmoil in Mali.  To read the first part, click here.

 

        By the fall of 2012, the takeover of northern Mali by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and other Salafist groups had generated significant concern among Western governments.  The growing presence of Islamists in the region, and their active involvement in illicit drug trading, had attracted growing attention from Washington and European capitals even prior to this development.  The French and U.S. governments began sounding the alarm about the situation and the risks it posed to international security in the second half of the year, but there was little consensus as to how the situation ought to be addressed.  Circumstances were greatly complicated by the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Bamako in March and the subsequent collapse of the Malian military, events which facilitated the fundamentalist takeover in the north.

 

        Momentum eventually developed around a plan to send in a joint force composed of a 3,300 troops from neighboring West African countries and 5,000 soldiers raised from the remnants of the Malian armed forces.  The deployment would be trained and partially funded by Western nations, but there was widespread acknowledgement that such an endeavor would be fraught with difficulties.  The West African countries expected to contribute the bulk of the outside forces possessed little military capacity, and Mali’s army was in tatters.  Moreover, many doubted that the proposed force of 8,300 troops would prove adequate to the task of retaking all of northern Mali from Islamic militants whose exact strength was unknown.  These challenges were compounded by the fact that U.S. law prohibited Washington from providing military assistance to Bamako until democratic governance had been restored.  With Western countries having ruled out direct military involvement, however, there were few other options available to the international community.  In December, the U.N. Security Council voted to authorize the plan, but little movement on this front was expected until the fall of 2013 at the earliest. 

Where things stand in Mali, Part I: Prelude to the turmoil

        Participants in an international conference in Brussels held in mid-May agreed to provide $4.2 billion in aid to help rebuild the beleaguered country of Mali, which is recovering from both a political coup and a traumatic civil war that ultimately led to a direct military intervention by France at the beginning of this year.  Major contributors include France, Britain, the United States, Germany, and the European Union.  That the amount pledged significantly exceeded the conference organizers’ initial goal of $2.6 billion is an indication of the international community's ongoing concerns about Mali’s internal state of affairs and its impact on security throughout northwest Africa – and perhaps beyond. 

 

        The past two years have been extremely tumultuous for the former French colony that not too long ago was seen as a model for democracy in the region.  Three factors converged to bring about the crisis that prompted France to intervene.  Foremost among them was growing disenchantment inside Mali with the country’s sclerotic political and military leadership.  To outside observers, Mali appeared to be a healthy democracy, having experienced two peaceful transfers of power through national elections since 1991.  Public dissatisfaction with government corruption grew over the intervening two decades, however.  A once vibrant political opposition atrophied after President Amadou Toumani Touré took office in 2002.  Widely viewed as a national hero for his role in establishing democratic rule in Mali eleven years earlier, Touré did not belong to any political party.  As president, he co-opted potential opponents by sharing the fruits of power in what was referred to as a “consensus” approach to governing.  In this way, opposition movements were neutralized.  Over time, a single political class congealed in the capital of Bamako that was increasingly disconnected from the population it was supposed to serve.  As a result, the Malian public’s enthusiasm for democracy, which had been relatively lukewarm to begin with, deteriorated considerably.    

Iraq: Ten years later

Iraq is still a violent mess. Its democracy, imposed by the Americans, looks fragile. And the prospect of real harmony between the three main ethnic and sectarian components—Arab Shias, Arab Sunnis and Kurds—looks as distant as ever.”

 

-- Economist, January 5th 2013 

 

        With today’s ten year anniversary of George Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003, it is worth examining where things stand in Iraq now and where the country might be headed.  Few would argue that Iraq is the flourishing, pro-American democracy that Bush and his supporters envisioned at the start of the U.S.-led invasion.  Circumstances there are not nearly as bad as they were from 2005-2007, to be sure.  However, violence continues to be a problem in much of Iraq, and economic conditions there remain poor despite rising oil production.  More importantly, the country’s deep sectarian and ethnic fissures have worsened to the point that they threaten Iraq’s continued viability as a nation state.  

 

        Security in Iraq remains a serious concern.  Most news retrospectives of the Iraq war published in recent weeks have emphasized that Iraq is a much less violent place than was the case a few years ago, but such statements can obscure the reality that mass terrorist attacks are an ongoing phenomenon there.  Bombings with death tolls that dwarf the recent Boston Marathon tragedy occur with some frequency, as do political assassinations.  The number of violent Iraqi civilian deaths increased by about 10 percent during the first year following the U.S. military withdrawal, but violence fell in the last three months of 2012.  There has been a spike in violent activity by al-Qaeda in Iraq and like-minded groups since the end of December, however, with wide scale attacks against Shiites, government security forces, and Sunnis seen to be collaborating with the government in Baghdad.  The State Department issued a warning to U.S. citizens in late February to avoid “all but essential travel to Iraq given the security situation.”  In light of these circumstances, Baghdad officials have reconsidered their earlier decision to decrease security cooperation with Washington following the U.S. military withdrawal at the end of 2011. 

George Tenet’s letter

         As we note the 10-year anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq this week, it is worth revisiting for a moment the pre-war debate about whether or not to go to war in the first place.  It is now widely acknowledged that the two most important rationales put forth by the Bush administration for invading Iraq were simply untrue: Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, and his regime – for all its many evils – had no meaningful connection to al-Qaeda or like-minded terrorist groups.  However, the conspicuous absence of any WMD stocks in Iraq has distorted our collective memory of the pre-war debate.  It has caused many Americans to overlook the fact that even if the Iraqi dictator had possessed such weapons, invading Iraq would still have made no sense.  

        The Bush administration began trumpeting the Iraqi threat from in earnest in September 2002 and quickly called on Congress to authorize the use of military force.  Yet by early October the United States intelligence community had reached two conclusions that dramatically undercut the administration’s rationale for war.  These conclusions were made public at the time.  However, their importance was drowned out by the focus on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction during the lead-up to the war, and the pronounced lack of such weapons has caused them to be largely overlooked during the years that have followed.  Nonetheless, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq provided to Congress on October 1 and a closed door meeting between the Senate Intelligence Committee and senior intelligence officials the following day revealed that in the judgment of the U.S. intelligence community, Saddam Hussein was unlikely to support international terrorism against the United States or use WMD against the U.S. unless his hold on power was threatened. 

The Death of Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi

Ethiopia isn’t a country that receives much attention in the United States.  When Americans think of Ethiopia, they most likely remember the Live Aid concert and other international efforts to raise funds for humanitarian relief efforts during Ethiopia’s famine in the 1980s.  But the Ethiopia of today is a much stronger, more vibrant country from what it was then, one that has arguably come into its own over the last two decades.  Widely considered the oldest nation in Africa, it is the continent’s second most populous country after Nigeria.  Its capital of Addis Ababa has served as the African Union’s headquarters since the organization was founded in 2002.  More importantly, Ethiopia is the lynchpin of the volatile Horn of Africa, bordering Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti.  It’s also practically a stone’s throw away from Yemen, a country that is a prime focus of U.S. counterterrorism efforts.  As former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia David Shinn has noted, “Ethiopia is in many ways key to peace and security (or lack thereof) in the region.”

 

It is in this context that the recent death of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is noteworthy.  Meles ruled Ethiopia for two decades as head of the Ethiopian People's Revolution Democratic Front (EPRDF), the coalition of ethnically based political parties that has governed Ethiopia since 1992.  During his rule, Meles became something of a darling of the West because of his reputation as a reformer on a continent plagued by cronyism, corruption, and widespread poverty.  In particular, Meles was widely applauded for his economic stewardship.  Ethiopia’s economy expanded by 7.5 percent in 2011, and its economic growth has averaged 11 percent annually since 2004.  Meles’s policies have received plaudits from many international observers for lifting millions of Ethiopians out of poverty, improving public infrastructure, and welcoming foreign investment.

Tensions in the Persian Gulf

       The Washington Post published an interesting article on Thursday by reporter Joby Warrick that discussed Iran’s growing ability to challenge U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf and the surrounding region.  It’s a topic that merits examination.  With no end in sight to international tensions over the Iranian nuclear program and the ongoing possibility of a shooting conflict erupting in the Persian Gulf, Iran’s military capabilities should not be overlooked.  No one doubts that the U.S. military is vastly superior to Iran’s armed forces, or that the U.S. would prevail in the event of a conflict if sufficiently determined.  In fact, U.S. military strength in the Middle East has been increased in recent months.  U.S. air power has been bolstered by the deployment of two contingents of Air Force F-15 fighters plus an undisclosed number of F-22s.  Similarly, the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which is responsible for the region, has received four additional minesweepers, an amphibious transport ship modified to support Special Operations forces, and a second aircraft carrier to complement the one already on station there.

       Yet while these military assets provide the U.S. with a potent ability to act against Iran, they also represent potential targets.  This is especially true for American naval forces operating within the close confines of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.  Iran cannot match U.S. military capabilities, but it could still inflict prohibitive losses on U.S. forces in the area in the event of a conflict.  Unlike the United States, which seeks to protect the region’s sea lanes and, if necessary, strike targets inside Iran,Tehran’s overriding military priority is to deny the U.S. military the ability to operate unchallenged in the region and impose unacceptable costs on U.S. forces if a confrontation arises.  In that vein, it has developed a growing array of “asymmetric” weapon systems designed to negate the U.S. conventional military superiority by forcing the U.S. to fight on Iranian terms.  According to military analysts cited in Warrick’s article, “Increasingly accurate short-range missiles — combined with Iran’s use of “swarm” tactics involving hundreds of heavily armed patrol boats — could strain the defensive capabilities of even the most modern U.S. ships.”  Other weapons Iran would probably employ include cruise missiles fired from mobile launchers on shore, submarines, and sea mines.  U.S. naval forces do possess defenses to counter such attacks, and they would hopefully prove effective.  There is a real risk, though, that high-value U.S. ships deployed to the region could find themselves overwhelmed by large numbers of potent, low-cost Iranian weapons able to inflict significant damage, even if only a handful reach their targets.