Foreign Policy Blogs

President Trump’s newly appointed U.S. National Security Adviser, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, has been welcomed by many as a reasonable and educated choice to assist the new administration in upcoming policy decisions. McMaster, along with the new U.S. Defense Secretary General James Mattis, are highly enough regarded that the two generals have been likened as “proverbial canaries in the coal mine”, and are expected to signal early any dysfunction in the Trump administration, according to an opinion piece in the Washington Post.

Recently, McMaster’s reason and education led him to tell his staff that Muslims who commit terrorist acts are perverting their religion, in sharp contrast to other senior Trump advisers who promote a more black and white approach. At a meeting of the staff of the National Security Council, he opined that the label “radical Islamic terrorism” was not helpful because terrorists are “un-Islamic”.

But what does McMaster think concerning another major threat perhaps not on the minds of most Americans—that of Chinese expansionism in the East and South China Seas eventually leading to a Third World War? On China, McMaster seems to take the same reasonable and educated approach, if we take his comments at face value which he made during a military strategy forum hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in May 2016.

During that forum, McMaster drew parallels between Russia’s activities on its borders with similar Chinese activities in the South China Sea, declaring China was “challenging U.S. interests at the far reaches of American power” in an effort to “expand territory and expand their influence at the expense of U.S. interests and the security of our partners in the region”—comparing China’s assertiveness as “militarily analogous to what Russia’s done in Ukraine”.

McMaster characterized China’s land grab in the South China Sea as an effort to “project power outward from land into the maritime and aerospace domains, to restrict freedom of movement and action in those domains, and to—and to secure Chinese influence across those domains”. McMaster argues that China, in the same way Russia has established air supremacy over Ukraine from the ground, will use “cyberattacks, information warfare, [and] a sophisticated economic effort to undermine the post-World War II economic order in the region”.

The general concluded by stating that while the Chinese have “engaged in the largest theft of intellectual property in history”, implying that some of the thefts benefit the Chinese military, the U.S. military currently maintains a technological advantage, and will need to invest in “joint synergy” and “cohesive well-trained teams” to adapt technology to the U.S. military in the future to maintain its competitive advantage. No doubt the Chinese will continue to also pursue advanced technologies for their military in their own fashion, and McMaster is reasonable in focusing on technology as a primary concern in maintaining national security as well as projecting power overseas.

With seasoned and informed generals such as McMaster and Mattis on board, the Trump administration should have a fighting chance at keeping the U.S. military at the top of its game.

The post H.R. McMaster on China appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The plane that is destined to replace the various types of aircraft flown by NATO forces and its allies might have some problems. The F-35 vertical take-off capable stealth fighter/bomber has been targeted by U.S. politicians for various reasons.

The F-35 will be distributed in various versions to different countries, and in return many of these participating countries will have a role in the global production of the F-35—similar to the multi-national production of the Tornado fighter/bomber or Airbus aircraft in Europe. With the suggestion of using the F-18E or an updated version by President Trump and being put into full effect by the Canadian government, the F-35 program will become a lot messier, and therefore more costly to all countries involved.

Trump suggested to Boeing that an upgraded version of the F-18E should be cost out comparable to the F-35. Many see this as a bargaining tactic, by pressuring Lockheed to lower the price on the future F-35. While a high-tech upgrade with stealth capabilities is possible for the F-18E and even the F-15, it would still lack the capabilities of the next generation F-35 that most likely would need to be invented even with a stealthy F-18E or F-15. While President Trump wishes to make it clear that the U.S. might walk away from the F-35 despite the chaos it would cause, it is most likely a bargaining tactic than an actual plan by the new Administration.

It is possible however to have the new F-18E or F-15, as stealthy prototypes have been produced. But in the end, the technologies that will prevent U.S. pilots from being shot down by S-400 and S-500 missiles is based in future developments of the F-35 platform, leading possibly to a revised F-22 with lower costs and higher production numbers. If lowering the costs of the F-35 works, and this cost reduction is transferred to lowering the costs of future projects like a revised F-35 or F-22, it would be worth the pressure on Lockheed for the U.S. government.

The Canadian proposal to replace the F-35 was a political talking point for years before the current government came into power. The Trudeau eventually decided—without much time or consultation, or even a competition—to buy several F-18Es to supplement its forces while it still pays into the F-35 program. Many in Canada believe that the supplemental planes may be a stepping stone to replace the F-35 altogether.

But with fees still being paid into the F-35 program and no consideration for other candidates like the Dassault Rafale or Saab Gripen, it seems as if there is no constructive arguments for keeping both planes in Canada’s inventory. Several retired generals have also voiced their concerns. This call has fallen on deaf ears despite the fact that F-18Es less advanced than the F-35 and that Canada is opting for newer planes instead of de-commissioned ones that could be updated to save costs. In the end, Boeing has won another round against Dassault and Saab, despite the loss of Canadian jobs and possible loss of future pilots.

All in all, pilots and the people they are protecting are paramount, not the reputation of politicians making political decisions without regard to technical information or the lives of the men and women in uniform.

The post The Politicization of the F-35 Program appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

FARC rebels at a demilitarization “settlement” in La Paz, Colombia in Feb. 2017. After reaching a historic peace treaty with the government, FARC members have agreed to surrender their weapons and finally bring a 50-year war to its end. (Federico Rios Escobar/NY Times)

For over 50 years, the government of Colombia engaged in a brutal, seemingly endless conflict with leftist guerrilla rebels. Last year, President Juan Manuel Santos reached a peace agreement with the leading rebel group, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Beginning in February 2017, scenes played out across the country that many thought they would never see: FARC members peacefully surrendering their weapons, and preparing to return to civilian life under the protection of the military that had been their mortal enemy for decades.

Of course what everyone in Colombia wants to know is, is this peace for real? Is this really the end of a seemingly endless struggle in which hundreds of thousands perished? Is Colombia moving into a new era of acceptance and reconciliation? While the outlook seems positive, the road will not be easy.

Rocky road to peace

The current resolution is not without controversy. The peace accord was driven by Santos, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the longstanding yet. Under the deal, FARC rebels would report to demobilization zones overseen by UN personnel. They would disarm and begin a transition/reintegration into Colombian society, monitored by the Colombian government. In return, rebels are to be granted full amnesty, though the government promises to launch a “transitional justice” system to address claims of crimes committed during the war.

Santos had compliance of FARC leaders and the best chance for peace in decades. Yet when Colombians voted on the peace accord in an October 2016 referendum, it was rejected. Many felt the deal was too lenient on the rebels, as the amnesty promise meant none of them would see jail time. As described by Helen Murphy of Reuters, “The accord has been heavily criticized by many.”

So what did Santos do? He circumvented the public’s decision, using the country’s Congress to force the agreement into law in November last year. In other words, the president decided “put the deal in front of voters—and then simply sidestep[ped] them when he did not like the outcome.” Not surprisingly, this angered many Colombians. The next presidential election in Colombia is in 2018, and if Santos is not re-elected the entire agreement may be in jeopardy.

FARC rebels complying

Nevertheless, the transition is moving forward. Around 7,000 FARC rebels have abandoned their remote jungle and mountain encampments and arrived at 26 demilitarization zones throughout the country within the last month. On February 20th, Santos announced that the rebels would begin to surrender their weapons, with UN-overseen disarmament expected to be completed by June.

As a symbol of remembering but moving on from the past, weapons will be melted down and shaped into war monuments. FARC also plans to transition into a leftist political party that could be included in the government it has so long opposed. Families separated for decades by the conflict are reuniting.

Second peace treaty in the works

Also in Feb. 2017, Santos began negotiations with a second prominent rebel group called the National Liberation Army (ELN). An agreement similar to the one reached with FARC is on the horizon, and ELN negotiators stated that the prospect of ending their decades-long conflict with the Colombian government “gives us hope.” However there is still work to be done—on February 20th Colombian authorities held ELN responsible for a bomb that exploded in Bogotá near a bullring, injuring dozens of police officers.

A better future

While the mechanics of the move toward peace have not been smooth, it seems that Colombia is moving closer to peace now than ever before. Whenever enemies become neighbors there will be hostility and uncertainty. But both sides seem to genuinely want the disarmament and reintegration to succeed. Generations of Colombians have only known war, and to see rebels turning in their weapons without opposition (mostly) is a truly incredible accomplishment. The Colombian government, FARC, and the UN now must make sure it sticks. There is too much at stake.

The transition may not be perfect, but there is no question it will lead to a better future for all Colombians. It really does seem that a new era has arrived.

The post Moving Towards a Peaceful Colombia appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

American Democracy at a Crossroads | Photo: Geoff Livingston

When John Yoo—a former Justice Department attorney known for writing legal memorandums on enhanced interrogation tactics—worries about executive overreach, you know things are truly getting serious. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Yoo argued that the Trump Administration was overstepping its bounds in pushing through several executive orders, among them the controversial immigration ban on seven Muslim-majority countries.

Yoo’s main claim to fame involves his authorship of the so-called torture memos during his tenure at the Justice Department. Unsurprisingly then, he has been a consistent advocate of the idea that the U.S. President has almost unlimited discretion over a vast array of policy issues. But even for Yoo, Donald Trump appears to be taking things too far.

Yet, when taking a step back, the Trump Administration’s conveyor belt of executive orders is but an extension of a general trend in American politics. Successive presidents have assumed greater and greater powers vis-à-vis Congress. In fact, that trend is one among many signs that the country’s governmental system is no longer adequate to actually govern effectively. The American presidential system no longer functions.

When it comes to political structure, the United States has always been something of an outlier. Most industrialized countries run parliamentary systems—think Westminster in the UK or the Bundestag in Germany. The crucial difference between parliamentary and presidential systems is the separation between the legislative and executive branches. In the former, these are interlocked to a certain degree, while in the latter, they constitute independent entities.

As political scientist Juan Linz laid out in his seminal 1990 paper, “The Perils of Presidentialism”, there are significant conceptual problems with presidential systems. Among these, the crucial aspect is political legitimacy. Linz explains that

“in a presidential system, the legislators, especially when they represent cohesive, disciplined parties that offer clear ideological and political alternatives, can also claim democratic legitimacy. This claim is thrown into high relief when a majority of the legislature represents a political option opposed to the one the president represents. Under such circumstances, who has the stronger claim to speak on behalf of the people: the president or the legislative majority that opposes his policies? Since both derive their power from the votes of the people in a free competition among well-defined alternatives, a conflict is always possible and at times may erupt dramatically.”

For the longest time, the U.S. has been able to escape these structural issues precisely because legislators have not represented cohesive and disciplined parties with clear ideological outlines. In fact, to the European eye, the two major American political parties hardly represented parties at all, but rather appeared as loose coalitions designed to capture voters. Yet, since the 1960s, the traditional underpinnings of the American party landscape have progressively eroded.

The civil rights era of the 1950s and 60s brought with it a process of ideological separation between Democrats and Republicans. In the U.S. Senate today, there is not a single Republican to the left of the most conservative Democrat. Due to the effects of gerrymandering and practically non-existent campaign finance restrictions, the effect has arguably been even more pronounced in the House. In addition, primaries ensure that politicians are often threatened most by ideological challengers from the left and right (but mostly the right) during election season.

The result is what we are currently seeing in American politics. The system was built precisely on the notion of checks and balances. Yet, these balances are what is producing the kind of gridlock and attrition that ultimately leads to a drift towards executive power. In the best of times, the same party controls both the White House and Congress. As we saw in 2009 with the passing of Obamacare, a lot of things can get done when that happens. But with two-year election cycles, the American norm is for divided government to predominate. It is no wonder, then, that paralysis takes hold in Washington. The product is a do-nothing legislature that attracts the ire of the electorate.

In this situation, the president will have an incentive to make policy by executive fiat in order to advance his (and someday her) agenda. But that is not a role that the White House has traditionally played. In any case, executive orders can only go so far. The Trump Administration has already rolled back a series of Obama era orders. If legislative stability is one of the hallmarks of a functioning democracy, this system is close to its antithesis.

In 2014, Francis Fukuyama wrote in Foreign Affairs that American politics is in decay. He explained that “political decay […] occurs when institutions fail to adapt to changing external circumstances, either out of intellectual rigidities or because of the power of incumbent elites to protect their positions and block change.” As a shorthand for the problems pestering the American political system, he coined the term vetocracy. In essence, there are too many choke points that nip legislative action in the bud. In addition to the split between Congress and the White House, there is the filibuster in the Senate. The states remain powerful, with their own (mostly bicameral) legislatures and state supreme courts. The archaic electoral college has meant that two out of the last three presidents actually lost the popular vote, while giving a handful of swing states massive electoral power.

The situation is not exactly helped by the fact that the U.S. tries to run a modern country on the basis of a 1789 constitution (albeit with a number of amendments). Here, massive conflicts are all but guaranteed. These occur perennially when constitutional originalists such as Clarence Thomas or the late Antonin Scalia—and indeed current Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch—try to superimpose the original text of the constitution on contemporary political issues. It is hardly conceivable that the founders would have been able to foresee the nature of the current American political crisis. From their perspective, the fact that an overabundance of checks and balances would constitute the heart of the problem would have probably seemed outlandish.

But the United States is quickly finding out that its old revered institutions are coming apart at the seems precisely at a moment when long-held norms are also under threat. In fact, failing institutions and norm erosion might well be correlated.

Shortly before last year’s presidential election, Daron Acemoğlu wrote that American politics was in an iconoclastic phase, and that the “icons being targeted are the moral foundations of [American] democracy.” But another icon is the American system of government itself. If the U.S. constitution could be rewritten tomorrow, a set of 21st century founding fathers and mothers would be well advised to scrap the presidential system and put a parliamentary one in its stead. Of course, the structural problems dogging the United States would remain. Still, a more nimble and simple system would mean American government would no longer be part of the problem, but part of the solution.

The post The U.S. Should Get Rid of Its President(ial System) appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Secretary Tillerson, South Korean Foreign Minister Yun, and Japanese Foreign Minister Kishida, pose for a photo before their Trilateral Meeting in Bonn. (U.S. Department of State)

After vaunting his “bromance” with President Donald Trump through an extended 27-hole golf tour at Mar-a-Lago, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was reassured of the trump administration’s “100%” commitment to the U.S.-Japan alliance. The friendly remarks made in response to North Korea’s ballistic missile test (Feb. 12th) indicates that Mr. Abe’s quick-witted tributary diplomacy has paid off.

Despite the “very good” bilateral “chemistry” shown at the joint press conference, however, there was no mention of South Korea, even though the North Korean enigma ought to be resolved in the context of the trilateral alliance and multilateral negotiations (six-party talks).

The proactiveness of Mr. Abe’s Machiavellianism, which has quickly adapted to a new global order ahead of other U.S. allies in Asia, surely offers meaningful reflective lessons, especially for South Korea. While the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye paralyzed South Korea’s diplomatic control tower at the cost of strengthening democracy, Japan worked to strengthen Mr. Trump’s trust by successfully fulfilling a strategic transaction palatable to Mr. Trump’s realpolitik.

To keep up with this development, it is imperative that, in a concerted effort to defy the vacuum in political leadership, South Korean Acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn and legislative leaders reach a consensus in transmitting clear bipartisan messages to the Trump administration during its initial phase of formulating Asia-Pacific policies.

The Trump-Abe honeymoon signaled to the U.S.’ Asian allies that the Trump administration’s engagement strategy in the Asia-Pacific region (at least as concerns security issues) will not diverge much from the conventional foreign policy framework. However, recent developments have left the impression that Mr. Trump’s possible “rebalance of the Bush era’s extreme bilateralism” could eschew the de jure equality of, in particular, the current trilateral security cooperation in Northeast Asia, by establishing informal, de facto inequality between the bilateral alliances.

South Korean pundits have been apprehensive of such a worrisome prospect. The U.S. perception that Japan’s material capabilities are stronger than those of South Korea could bring about an informal hierarchy of alliances, under which the “U.S.-ROK” alliance is relegated to a subordinate position to the U.S.-Japan alliance.

For the U.S., containing China’s ascension to regional hegemony by supporting Japan’s increasingly hard-hedging tendencies against China could be conceived to be a cost-effective way of implementing the Ballistic Missile Defense System in Asia on behalf of its allies. This seems to be an inevitable choice, given that China is often held to deviate from its assumed responsibilities commensurable to its rising status.

Indeed, China’s ethno-centric vision for Asian integration, which aims to transform ASEAN into a polarized security community, is in many ways undesirable for its developing neighbors, for whom the U.S.’ maritime protection of trade routes (freedom of navigation) is crucial. In addition, China’s mimicry of U.S.’ “hub-and-spoke” strategy, which lacks a multilateral consensus, links trade too excessively to diplomatic disputes, and thereby stifles neighbors’ political autonomy.

Nevertheless, these circumstances do not necessarily entail that cooperation between the U.S. and China is infeasible. As the Secretary of State during the era of détente, Henry Kissinger, noted, “If the Trump administration, in the first year or so, can really engage with China strategically in a constructive and comprehensive way, President Trump and [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] will find that the incentives for cooperation are much greater than for confrontation.”

Considering the fact that an escalation of tensions between the two superpowers is avoidable, as long as the leaders do not fall into the trap of heuristic decision-making, it is unwise to unilaterally rely on Japan-led hard-edging as the only possible strategy against China’s rise. Instead of unilaterally central-planning the regional order in Asia according to U.S.-Japan relations, the U.S. should recognize the strategic importance of other allies, thereby maintaining a variety of strategic options.

South Korea’s strategic choices contribute—although the country still lacks the major-power capacity to exert influence at the regional level—to defining the future orientation of the Korean peninsula and, in the long-run, maintaining the balance of power between the U.S. and China, in case the power competition between the two superpowers intensifies.

A recently released CFR discussion paper authored by renowned experts on Korea Scott A. Snyder and his associates insightfully and succinctly assess South Korea’s national interests and the constraints the country faces in striving to achieve its interests, and the strategic options that the country can exercise under the constrained circumstances.

The paper points out that the country has interests in defending itself from North Korea, minimizing fallouts from the power competition between the U.S., China, and other major powers, securing maritime trade routes, and reunifying the Korean peninsula. However, South Korea’s strategic behaviors chosen to achieve these interests are constrained by the uncertainty surrounding North Korea’s nuclear development, the country’s geopolitical locus, being a theater of power competition among the super- and major powers, and the export-oriented economy’s trade dependency and vulnerability to the international market.

The paper expects that the gradual changes in regional geopolitical environment will lead South Korea to simultaneously pursue (soft) hedging, regionalizing, and networking. Unless game-changing regional upheavals occur in East Asia, South Korea will carry on with its current (soft) hedging strategy in response to China’s rise by acceding to some of China’s terms, while strengthening the U.S.-ROK alliance. Meanwhile, the country will continue to regionalize with its East Asian and ASEAN neighbors to create multilaterally institutionalized security mechanisms by promoting regional peace and cooperative initiatives. It will also network among super- and major powers to promote its role as a conflict mediator.

Nevertheless, the middle power is less likely to risk the U.S.-ROK alliance by accommodating China’s hegemonic interests. It will strike a balance between the U.S. and China unless tensions escalate but cannot perpetually remain neutral between the two polarities for geopolitical reasons.

Reflecting South Korea’s likely and unlikely strategic options, the paper ends by suggesting that “the United States should recognize that South Korea’s hedging posture contributes to stability in Northeast Asia by mitigating China’s fear that the U.S.-ROK alliance might be directed against China.”

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We live in a volatile world haunted by rising religious and secular extremism, proxy wars, geopolitical rivalries, predatory capitalism, and by the chronic deficiency of visionary leaders. This state of extreme uncertainty should compel us to reject any initiative aimed to drastically undermine the current system of multilateral cooperation and international order.

Though it still remains controversial, no one can deny that in the past seven decades, the UN has saved many lives through its humanitarian works, its peacekeeping operations as well as its vaccination and education campaigns to save children.

That said, in its current form and function, the United Nations is certainly on course to become irrelevant. Times have rapidly been changing and the current model has been static, at best.

Reformation or Transformation

Over the years, the UN has been described as being the “den of dictatorships” operated by a culture of “numbing bureaucracy” and “institutional cover-ups of corruption.” Worse, the most vital UN organ—the Security Council—has been broadly blamed of being driven by immoral and “undemocratic politics” that approves certain wars in order to stop tyranny or restore peace and for being a bystander through genocide. The Tutsis of Rwanda and the on-going genocide of the Rohingyas of Myanmar come to mind.

In the past three decades, reforming the UN has been a reoccurring theme. A number of recommendations and comprehensive reports were authored to suggest reforming one organ or another, but only one had offered an alternative means of funding it.  This is perhaps the most crucial of all reform proposals, though at this critical juncture, total transformation is the only way to salvage this great institution.

Dark Side of the UN

No other country epitomizes the dark side of the UN better than my own—Somalia. Since the early 90s, over $50 billion was spent on Somalia and there is virtually nothing to show for it. Most of these monies were spent in Nairobi, Kenya—the international NGO hub of squanderance—where projects are subcontracted to their bones before the local scavengers are let loose.

UNSOM is the UN project in Somalia. It is mandated by UNSCR 2102 to “use the UN’s ‘good offices’ functions to support the Federal Government’s peace and reconciliation process” and “to support the Federal Government by providing strategic policy advice including on the development of a federal system, the constitutional review process, and subsequent referendum on the constitution….”

Over three years later, not a single positive step toward peace and reconciliation was taken. The only thing that UNSOM facilitated was the unsustainable clan-based federalism that rendered Somalia into a half a dozen political fiefdoms in perpetual enmity. They have no shared national vision. And each has its own president who is free to make his own foreign, defense, and economic policies and sell out the nation’s future. The UN endorsed ‘federal constitution’ remains written on an Etch A Sketch. Meanwhile, Somalia remains a nation under de facto and indefinite trusteeship, while those who are mandated to facilitate good governance continue to advance their own zero-sum interests.

Though then SRSG (Sir) Nicholas Kay told Chatham House “as the constitution is pending, it is very risky to make any decisions with regards to natural resources,” his office is considered as one of the key facilitators of the most exploitative natural resource deal in the 21st century- the Soma Oil and Gas.

Ironically, in the coming months, this same special interest project is likely to be politically reinforced and its mandate expanded with new UN resolution(s).

The Legacy of Boutros-Ghali

1992—while the Bosnia genocide and Somalia civil-war were in full force —in an historic meeting that brought together the heads-of-state of its members, the Security Council assigned the then Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to conduct a thorough analysis and offer policy recommendations to strengthen UN peacemaking and peace-keeping.

These council member heads-of-state shared the general consensus that “the absence of war and military conflicts amongst States does not in itself ensure international peace and security. The non-military sources of instability in the economic, social, humanitarian and ecological fields have become threats to peace and security.”

As an independent-minded Egyptian academician, veteran diplomat and international relations strategist, Boutros-Ghali has authored a report famously known as An Agenda for Peace. In that report he outlined practical ways that the UN could respond to post- Cold War conflicts.

Though in the diplomatic circles and academia, Boutros-Ghali’s introduction of the concept “post-conflict peacebuilding” is recognized as his most prominent contribution, his independent funding recommendation was what made the report so revolutionary and indeed controversial. His recommendation would’ve bypassed any funding manipulation to ensure subjective outcome by any of the major state funders. UN funding would’ve been generated through nominal taxation on international travels, arms trade, and foreign currency transactions. This would’ve leveled the playing field and rendered all member states as stakeholders and as tax-paying equals.

While some cheered his bold recommendation, it was met with antagonistic opposition from mainly the US Congress. “It will be a cold day in hell before we allow the United Nations to directly tax American citizens,” said Marc Thiessen who was the spokesman for the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the late rightwing Republican Senator Jesse Helms.

Many bi-partisan politicians were of the view that UN independent funding would undermine the US unipolar status to intervene or wage a war against any nation that is not abiding by the “new world order” or acting in accordance with the geopolitical objectives of Pax-Americana. So, in 1996 the US has blocked Boutros-Ghali’s nomination for a second five-year term, making him the only UN Secretary-General not elected to a second term.

A decade later, in the thick of the US global war on terrorism, the neocons who were then leading the US foreign policy placed John Bolton in the UN to employ his infamous mad-man diplomacy.

Another decade later, at her Senate confirmation hearing, Nikki Haley—US Ambassador to the UN—rebuked the UN on passing Security Council Resolution 2334 that declared Israel’s ever-expanding settlement in the occupied territories as “a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution…”

She asserted her willingness to use the 22% of the UN annual budget that US contributes as political leverage. “Are we getting what we pay for?” she asked.

The Immanent Tsunami

2017 is here. BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are strategically and financially set to take their alternative international development institution to the next level to challenge the World Bank and the IMF, dominated by U.S. and Europe.

Already BRICS has established the New Development Bank with starting fund of $50 billion and projected lending of $2.5 billion in 2017. BRICS along with Turkey and Iran are committed to make trade with their own currencies. Whenever American companies and consumers want to purchase goods and services from China or India, for example, they would not be able to purchase in the U.S. dollar. Those transactions would have to be made in the Chinese or Indian currencies, and, in due course, BRICS’ new currency.

This currency war and subsequent financial tsunami will not only devastate the global economies, its ripple effects are likely to shake the foundation of the UN, especially its most crucial and powerful organ. After all, one of the UN’s global roles is to facilitate, and when necessary pave the ground, for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, though each is governed independent of the other.

With growing geopolitical and geoeconomic tensions, the five permanent members of the Security Council have not been talking about a mutually acceptable strategic vision to keep our exceedingly chaotic world stay within the rails or order

While conflicts and wars are dangerous for civilians, they are lucrative for the arms dealers and are open windows of exploitation for politicians. Ironically, the 5 permanent members of the Security Council happen to be some of the biggest international arms dealers.

Is Guterres the Man of the Moment?

António Guterres, assumes his post as the ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations at a time of great uncertainties. He certainly comes with valuable experience, especially in dealing with challenges related to settling refugees. But he must also deal with epical catastrophes in the Middle East, active ethnic-cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar, Israel’s belligerent defiance, Trump world view, and the diminishing credibility of the UN among other issues.

Considering the enormity, geographical vastness, and complexities of the raging conflicts and humanitarian disasters in this century, Secretary-General Guterres must not leave any stone unturned in order to institute necessary changes to meet today’s challenges and prevent the coming ones.

For any real transformation to materialize, the new Secretary-General must propose changes in these four areas:

Institutional Identity: Today, the world is more interconnected and political consciousness is much more spread out than ever before. The international political soul is yearning for change that is appropriate for the dangerous challenges facing the world. Against that backdrop, the Union of Conscious Nations might be more appropriate than the name at hand.

Security Council: If the Security Council must remain symbolically inclusive and substantively exclusive, then the number of the permanent members of Security Council should be increase to 10 nations. Countries such as India, Germany, Brazil, Japan and Turkey should be added in order to reboot the system and rest the dynamics of global influence.

UN Funding: Adopt the late Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s aforementioned funding initiative. Also, the Security Council must create an Independent International Commission for Audit. This office should institute policies to improve the fiduciary ethics and responsibility of every organ of the UN. This office should send experts to various localities where UN projects are being implemented.

The Secretariat: This organ should be stripped of the authority to bypass the collective will of the permanent missions or the General Assembly.

In all political, social,and economic fronts, the world has been changing so rapidly thta it is becoming extremely difficult to keep up with. Across the globe, storms of uncertainty, fear, and hate are throwing societies off balance and turning people against one another.

Against that backdrop, US has elected Donald J. Trump as Commander-In-Chief of the mightiest military in the world. Make no mistake; his election comes with “far-reaching geopolitical implications for the future.” The status quo is both unsustainable and risky.

** This was first published by Diplomatist Magazine.

The post The Global Order in a Post-United Nations Era appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The rise of global multipolarity is set to increase as the rate of change in world politics continues to accelerate. Exacerbating this trend is the risk resulting from uncertainty surrounding the new U.S. administration’s foreign policy with respect to several states. This is clearly evident in the South China Sea as increased uncertainty in the region is not only affecting U.S.-China relations directly, but relations between minor powers and the major states as well.

The Triangle Has Returned

It is currently highly uncertain as to whether there is a coherent U.S. foreign policy strategy at all. Adding to this uncertainty is the incompleteness of the new U.S. administration’s foreign policy team. This uncertainty has the potential to severely negatively affect not only U.S.-Russia relations, but U.S.-China relations as well.

Three issues have arisen in the U.S.-China relationship which may have negative ramifications for the future. This is roughly one new issue every week that the new U.S. administration is now dealing with in its relations with China alone. Controversy has arisen not only over the U.S. phone call to the Taiwanese President (thereby questioning the “One China” policy), but also the possible U.S. imposition of 45% tariffs on imported Chinese goods, and the possible new U.S. naval maneuvers to deny China access to some of its claimed artificial islands as well.

Simply put, the U.S. has more than enough on its plate in terms of U.S.-Russia relations alone without possibly further damaging U.S.-China relations also. It’s no longer sufficient for the U.S. to consider these two key relationships as separate and distinct from one another.  Indeed, both China and Russia have requested a revision in status in terms of their respective relations to the U.S..

With China, the concordant phrase is “New Model of Great Power Relations”. While Russia may have no equivalent phrase (yet), its geopolitical desire for parity with the U.S. has been quite evident for at least the last ten years ever since Russian President Putin’s infamous Munich Security Conference address in 2007. For better or worse, the world has definitively returned to the area of great power politics and its corresponding regional spheres of influence.

While some may consider spheres of influence to be an outdated, 19th century concept, it is very much a harbinger of the future. Both China and Russia have accepted this, being the only true aspiring rivals to the U.S. in terms of global influence. Counterintuitively, however, it is the minor powers’ acceptance of this new reality which has the potential to either increase or decrease global geopolitical risk.

Minor States Punch Above Their Weight

As global uncertainty has increased, an increasing number of minor powers have pursued multi-vectored foreign policy strategies in order to leverage maximum maneuverability between the major powers.  This has been apparent for some time in selected theaters such as Central Asia, where the regional powers balance between Chinese, Russian, and U.S. ambitions alike.

However, Southeast Asia is considerably more complex as several major actors in addition to the U.S. and China are vying for power. These actors include India and Russia as well. In order to diversify not only their respective trade portfolios, but security portfolios as well, Southeast Asian states are pursuing this balancing strategy while maintaining positive relations with as many major players as possible.

Nowhere has this been more evident recently than in the case of The Philippines. The island nation had decidedly (and decisively) pursued a more balanced foreign policy strategy between China and the U.S. However, this includes outreach efforts to other major powers (Russia and India) and minor powers (Japan and Vietnam) too.

While this may decrease geopolitical risk for the individual minor state concerned, it also increases risk for those major powers that are unable or unwilling to adapt to this new reality. This is because certain states, like the U.S., may have grown comfortable with being able to count certain other states as being firmly in its camp.

While this may indeed be the public stance of various client states, it masks the harsh reality of 21st century geopolitics. Lastly, this risk also spells tremendous opportunity for those states which swiftly recognize the fluidity and non-exclusive nature of partnerships in the region and are able to more clearly elaborate their security and trade value propositions not only to the individual client state involved, but to the region as a whole as well.

The post How Do Multi-Vectored Foreign Policies Affect Global Geopolitical Risk? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

For someone who has dedicated 23 years to making the European Union more relevant to the lives of ordinary Europeans, the fact that only a small number of Germans have ever heard of Martin Schulz may be surprising.

However, as the race for the German chancellorship is heating up, Schulz’ relative obscurity has allowed him to position himself as a fresh-faced outsider free from the entanglements of the Berlin establishment. So far, the polls seem to agree: the Social Democrats have overtaken Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats for the first time in seven years. This has the Federal Republic’s left dreaming of a new arrangement in Berlin.

They have good reason to be hopeful, for fresh-faced is not an adjective that could be used to describe Angela Merkel. After 12 years in the Chancellor’s seat, the electorate seems to be looking for a change in the status quo as the SPD is surging to highs not seen since the days of Gerhard Schröder.

Under the leadership of Sigmar Gabriel, the SPD had fallen to lows of around 20%, a level that saw the upstart far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) breathing heavily down their necks. Gabriel’s decision to step aside to make way for Schulz, along with Frank-Walter Steinmeier becoming the next German President, could well be the sign of a new era in German politics, with a resurgent left and a declining conservative center.

Leadership changes have had similar effects on the SPD’s fortunes in the past: the nominations of Peer Steinbrück in 2012 and Steinmeier in 2008 also saw an increase in the party’s popularity of 4% and 3% respectively. In both cases, however, the upsurge was short lived. And while some 56% of Germans surveyed expect the current uptick in the party’s support to be temporary too, there are reasons for the SPD to be more optimistic this time around.

In 2012 and 2008, the party had to contend with an opponent in Angela Merkel who was riding high in the popularity stakes. Today’s Merkel has grown weary from carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. To drive home the point, the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel recently described Merkel as looking “as though she had been forced into the decision [to run for Chancellor again] at gunpoint”.

Another factor working in the SPD’s favor is the discord between the CDU and its Bavarian branch, the CSU, over Merkel’s unpopular open-door refugee policy. CSU leader Horst Seehofer has openly clashed with Merkel on the issue and called for limits to be imposed on the number of refugees to be admitted entry—a demand that Merkel has flatly refused.

The rebuff was a risky move, since protestant Merkel needs Seehofer to rally support for her in the conservative, Catholic state of Bavaria. Although Seehofer is now officially backing Merkel’s candidacy, he is likely to be a weak pillar in her campaign. Seehofer himself is facing regional elections and seeks to distance himself as far as possible from Merkel’s migrant policy to avoid political costs on his home turf. Hence, there is a real possibility of a split between the two parties that could dent further Merkel’s overall support.

One might assume that the votes lost by the CDU on account of Merkel’s pro-refugee policy would naturally flow to the AfD. Schulz’ candidacy, however, presents a viable alternative for many non-decided and non-voters, who might have opted for the AfD in protest against the status quo in Berlin. If he also manages to reinvigorate the SPD’s traditional working class base, the Social Democrats could sway erstwhile supporters who had switched to the CDU under Merkel’s grand coalition.

While Schulz might try to stay clear of this season’s most contentious subject, the ongoing immigration issue threatens to be as much of a vote loser for Schulz as it will be for Merkel. Indeed, as he is forced to lay out his policies for public scrutiny, it is not only his stance on refugees likely to cause him difficulties with significant swathes of the electorate.

His calls for more leniency towards Greece in dealing with its debt burden will doubtlessly leave him out of step with the German public who largely supports the hardline taken by Merkel in her dealings with Southern Europe. He is also likely to face questions about suspicious payments made to his staff in Brussels, a handy brush for the far-right to paint him as the embodiment of all of Brussels’ ills.

These and other issues are surely going to take some of the varnish off Schulz’s campaign, but barring some major upset, the SPD should be in a strong bargaining position when the post-election coalition negotiations begin. The most comfortable fit for an SPD led government would be a coalition with the Left party and the Greens, but a corollary of the SPD’s rise is that it has come at the expense of support for both of these parties.

The German electorate at large is also disinclined to support such a leftist coalition, so running on a red-red-green platform might disgruntle more centrist voters and drive them into the arms of the AfD. However, should the recent trend continue it could leave as the only option a re-installment of the current CDU/SPD grand coalition, but with the SPD in a strong enough position to demand the Chancellorship for Schulz.

After more than a decade during which the SPD  seemed at times to be in terminal decline, Schulz’s election would constitute a remarkable reversal of fortunes and an invigoration of the Left in Germany – so long as Schulz can succeed where his predecessors have failed and cross the finish line with the same momentum with which he has begun the race.

The post The Rise of Schulz: Merkel’s Götterdämmerung? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance (CSIF) recently hosted a series of discussions on “Securing American Interests: A New Era of Economic Power.” They addressed questions of economic and financial power, economic statecraft, and national security, including new offensive and defensive options for the United States. Wide-ranging discussions covered terrorist financing, financial crimes, sanctions as policy, foreign asset control, non-state actors, alternative currencies, and other Department of Treasury concerns.

Cybersecurity was approached from a singular, sober starting point. John Carlin, a former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for National Security, stated plainly:

“There’s no excuse not to know that the system is blinking red when it comes to the potential for a major national security-driven cyber incident to hit our critical infrastructure in a way that causes major economic issues.”

We pledge every year, Carlin continued, that this is the year we will strengthen our defenses, but each year we continue to leave ourselves vulnerable.

A number of big-picture questions were considered, at the geo-strategic level. What are the new international rules? How can the U.S. and its allies help develop these rules? How can new norms and values take shape, with bilateral and multilateral agreements? How can the U.S. and its allies develop agreements with other nations of concern? What will it mean to monitor—and enforce—such agreements? At what point does NATO’s Article 5 take effect, where “an armed attack against one… shall be considered an attack against them all,” provoking allied military response?

The panel outlined a variety of recent cyberattacks and cybersecurity concerns by U.S. adversaries. Among these: Russia‘s release of Democratic National Committee emails to influence the U.S. presidential election, the ongoing theft by China of U.S. industry’s intellectual property and interest in infrastructure controls, Iran‘s attacks on U.S. infrastructure and financial institutions, and North Korea‘s attacks on U.S. media and South Korean financial and military assets.

China garnered special attention. Carlin cited Gen. Keith Alexander, former head of the NSA and Cybercom, calling China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property “the greatest transfer of wealth in human history.” Peter Harrell of the Center for New American Security judged that this IP theft is “beginning to reach a macroeconomic level of risk.” CSIS fellow Zach Cooper noted that China’s cyber efforts are being complemented with strategic investments, “often in dollar amounts that don’t make sense, around U.S. military bases” in the western Pacific Ocean.

Two important insights identified that cybersecurity needs to be seen within larger contexts, instead of only as an isolated, distinct domain. First, we don’t think of security questions by air, land, sea, and space separate from each other. Similarly, we need to think of cyber as one option in a multi-pronged attack. Second, and perhaps more challenging, the panel continued, the United States should think of cyberattacks not as from one country or another, but as multilateral attacks against the U.S. economy, critical infrastructure, and national security assets.

Harrell noted that the U.S. has never had “any systematic evaluation of vulnerabilities either of us or of our close allies and thinking through, in a more systematic way, how do we want to be positioned to play defense for the long term.”

Recommendations included the usual government-industry cooperation, and the need to innovate—this is still new policy-making, in many ways. Traditional statecraft remains important, such as private communications with China instead of public “red lines,” supported by “mundane transgovernmentalism“—technical cooperation among the bureaucratic agencies of allies. Can we use Cold War-era concepts of signaling and deterrence (Harrell) to combat China’s “ambiguity, asymmetry, and incrementalism” (Cooper)?

Cyber is a giant and growing area of military and economic vulnerability for the U.S. and its allies. The CSIF event showed that while some progress is being made in important areas, we need to examine and address the host of issues in a comprehensive way—and soon.

An earlier version of this appeared at Giga-net.org. Video and transcripts from the event are at http://www.defenddemocracy.org/events/securing-american-interests/. All quotes here are from the session on “Shoring Up Our Defenses Against Emerging Threats of Economic Warfare.

The post Blinking Red: Reconsidering U.S. Approaches to Cybersecurity appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

What will global and regional leaders do about Syria?

The victory of the Assad regime in eastern Aleppo in December has been often considered a game changer in the Syrian war. This article lists some reasons why Assad cannot remain in power even after Aleppo. At the same time, it demonstrates why Syria is not fit for the solution claimed by the Geneva Communiqué of June 30th 2012 and the UN SC Resolution 2254 of December 18th 2015 based on principles of territorial integrity, a single inclusive transitional government, and multiparty elections.

1. Fear of a Sunni Arab revenge

No dictatorships in history has lasted forever. This also applies to the Baath regime in Syria. The trenches of sectarian hatred digged by the war are so deep that the Assad regime will not be able to build on other forces beyond a coalition of the Alawite, Christian, and Druze segments of Syrian society.

After the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, we learned that no inclusive transitional government can guarantee access to power for a previously ruling minority. This applies to the Sunni Arabs in Iraq as well as to the Alawite-led coalition in Syria.

Any time a minority regime falls or an inclusive transitional government ends its term, there is a threat of revanchism. Indeed, the majority Sunni Arab population may use this opportunity to exact revenge on the past Alawite-led minority coalition. Even minorities not participating on power such as the Kurds, Turkmens and Assyrians will be threatened by a possible Sunni Arab campaign for domination. Therefore, any post-war architecture must secure the Alawites and other minorities against such a scenario.

2. Arab Spring and Sunni political Islamism

The Arab Spring was an irreversible process of mass mobilization, radically changing primarily the Sunni Arab societies in multiple Arab states. It is true that the Muslim Brotherhood proved to be an nonviable solution for the region. Even its main financial sponsor Qatar eventually stopped supporting it.

However, it is important to mention that the main political sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey’s AKP and its leader Erdogan, significantly consolidated their power in Turkey after the coup attempt in summer 2016. Furthermore, the Muslim Brotherhood is still the most influential Muslim grouping within the European Muslim immigrant community. These two factors are still sufficient for a great comeback of the Muslim Brotherhood on the scene in some Arab states.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia, the main sponsor of the Salafist groupings worldwide, became one of the two great winners of the Arab counterrevolution since 2013. Salafism has probably became the most influential Islamist sect among the Egyptian and Syrian Sunni Muslims.

Any of the two options, the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafism, are bad news for anybody expecting social reconciliation with Shi’a Arabs in the following decades. Any political solution based on a united Syria will intensify the Sunni-Shi’a political competition. It will generate further inter-communal strife just because the Sunni Arab population is not ready for secular solutions anymore. Unless a Sunni Arab regime imposes it like it did in Algeria in the 90s or like the Sisi regime is trying to do it these days. In any case, the Alawite-led regime or an inclusive government are incapable of that.

3. Iran: a regional power

Iran is the other great winner of the Arab counterrevolution. Of course, controlling a continuous strip of land from its western borders, via pro-Iranian regimes in Iraq and Syria, down to the Hezbollah-Aounist coalition in Lebanon on the Mediterranean coast is almost an irresistible temptation for Iran.

On the other hand, Iran may wish to improve its relations with global powers including the U.S. and regional powers such as Turkey and Egypt. It needs to strengthen its influence in Shi’a regions of Yemen and Afghanistan or in Sunni Persian-speaking countries like Tajikistan and Pakistan as well as to join global institutions like the G20. In order to secure these goals, Iran must be ready to make concessions that may substantially change the current status quo in Syria and Iraq.

For Iran, Assad’s monopoly over Syria and a Shi’a  majority government in Iraq are definitely attractive but not the only possible solutions. Finally, Iran, with its outstanding standard of education (in comparison to other Arab states or Pakistan), is not fated to be a Russian puppet and has very good prospects to be an equal partner of the U.S., EU and Turkey.

4. Sunni Arab refugees must return

The burden borne by Turkey, Germany and other European countries as a consequence of the refugee wave caused by Assad’s targeted ethnic cleansing in Sunni Arab areas is so heavy that the current status quo is unacceptable for these powers. This is supported by the attempts to get the atrocities committed by the Assad-Putin coalition in Aleppo in late 2016 before international justice.

The inflow of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs in the EU has caused an unprecedented spike in xenophobia that has the potential to destroy the very foundations of European democracy. The inflow has also triggered Turkey’s hysterical behavior towards the EU. The imperative of return of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Turkey, Germany and other European countries is a strong factor for why Syria cannot be ruled solely by the Assad regime even if the latter eventually wins the war.

In other words, if European governments accept a united Syria under Assad’s rule without creating conditions for return of the vast majority of the Sunni Arab refugees, the EU may be destabilized by the rise to power of mainstream Islamophobic voters. The influence of the anti-European forces in France, Netherlands and Austria and the anti-EU sentiment in Italy are alarming.

5. Egypt: another beneficiary of Russian victory

al-Sisi’s Egypt is another close ally of Russia in the Middle East. Egypt has always had strong interests in Syria and was its closest partner in the modern history of Pan-Arabism: both states were parts of the Nasserist United Arab Republic (1958-61) as well as Sadat’s attempts for the Federation of Arab Republics (1972-77).

In other words, Iran is not the only regional protégé of Putin’s Russia (who is the real winner of the Battle of Aleppo). In turn, Assad is not the only possible option for Russia in Syria. Moscow can also promote the interests of its other regional allies such as Egypt.

The recent rapprochement between Iran and the U.S. is also a potential threat for Russia. Putin cannot bet on a single card and needs to secure Russian interests in the Middle East in case of a future Iranian-U.S. alliance. In addition, Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, is a threat to a close alliance between Putin and the Netanyahu-Lieberman tandem in Israel.

Therefore, Egypt is an ideal Middle Eastern partner for Russia to diversify risk. Being a partner of the U.S. and China (as well as Saudi Arabia and Israel), Egypt with its historical interests in Syria and a secularist military dictatorship is a good compromise solution for power-sharing in Syria.

Finally, Egypt rules most of the Libyan Cyrenaica and Fezzan via its Libyan proxy, general Haftar. This provides additional compensation potential for Russia on the global scene instead of a full domination of Syria.

6. Kurds as a non-Islamist model for Middle East

The Arab Spring and the following years radically changed the Sunni Arab societies, leaving a very limited space for non-Arabic or non-Sunni minorities including the Kurds.

Kurds were already deceived by the West several times: in the Treaty of Ankara splitting Kurdistan between Turkey and France in October 1921, in the Treaty of Lausanne officially annexing large portions of Kurdistan to Turkey in July 1923, in defeating and ending the Barzanji’s Kingdom of Kurdistan in July 1924, in League of Nations Council decision in December 1925 annexing the Vilayet of Mosul to Iraq, by the hostile attitude in spring 1946 resulting in the reincorporation of the Mahabad Republic to Iran and in the betrayal of the Kurdish revolution in March 1991.

Russians also deceived the Kurds several times: in the March 1921 Treaty of Moscow recognizing the Turkish claims on current Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan , in the liquidation of the Kurdistan okrug in August 1930, in the Kurdish deportation from Transcaucasia in 1937, in the termination of support for the Mahabad Republic in June 1946 and in termination of support for the Kurds in Turkey after the coup attempt in July 2016.

Concerns that Kurdish independence would destabilize Turkey and Iran are just a buck passing attitude not reflecting the reality. Iranian Kurdistan is not destabilized at all. The ceasefire between the Turkish government and the Kurds between March 2013 and July 2015 proved that the Kurdish question in Turkey can be solved under Turkish sovereignty.

The only issue is Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan due to the new Arab Sunni Islamism. The alliance between the Turkish and Kurdish leaders, Erdogan and Barzani, proved that Kurdistan outside the Turkish borders (i.e. in contemporary Iraq) is not a destabilizing factor for Turkey. If the so-called Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) gets under the rule of the Iraqi Kurdistan with friendly relationship to Turkey, there is no reason for Turkish security concerns.

Iraqi and Syrian Kurds are the only reliable allies in the war against the Islamic State. Kurds proved that they could organize a country based on national instead of Islamist ideas. Neither Westerners nor Russians should deceive Kurds anymore and should grant them their right to self-determination on the territories of Iraq and Syria without jeopardizing the security of Turkey or Iran.

Today, Kurds are the closest to achieving their century old goal of nationhood. If they fail to achieve it this time, they can lose their confidence in global powers and in their nationalist leaders and, as Palestinians did a decade ago, start supporting political Islamism and the global Caliphate. This is another reason why Syria cannot stay a unified country.

Conclusion: partitioned Syria and Iraq

All the aforementioned arguments rule out an option of a united Syria (and Iraq) after the war, even in case of a Russian, Iranian, and Assad victory. The fear of future Sunni Arab reprisals can only be prevented by establishing a separate country for the Syrian Alawites and their allies. Political Islamism of any color, either Salafism or Muslim Brotherhood, can only be moderated or countered in Syria with a foreign occupation by Sunni powers.

Iran, in order to be accepted as a regional power by the West, can grant some concessions in Syria and Iraq while getting others in Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Ethnic cleansing by the Assad regime in Sunni Arab areas of Syria must be reverted and return of the refugees from the EU and Turkey must be granted.

Finally, an eventual Russian victory in Syria does not necessarily mean a political monopoly of the Assad regime after the war, but possibly the participation of other Russian allies such as Egypt or Turkey.

A lot of blood has been shed in the name of a chimeric political stability and immutability of the borders since the Sykes-Picot agreement a century ago. This blood has proved that boundaries need to be altered in Syria and Iraq in order to get real political stability. This can be achieved if five new nations emerge in Syria and Iraq: a Shi’a Arab state in Iraq, an Alawi Arab state in Syria, two Sunni Arab states in Syria and Iraq, respectively, and a single Kurdish state in Iraq and Syria while Druzes of Syria join Lebanon.

The post Partition Remains An Option Even After Aleppo appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

By Alireza Jafarzadeh

Barely a week after President Donald Trump was sworn in as U.S. president, Iran commenced another round of ballistic missiles to test his tough campaign rhetoric. The most recent launch took place even after the administration officially put the regime “on notice.” In doing so, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continues to lead the charge in defying international will.

Under United Nations Security Council resolution 2231, which coincided with the Iran nuclear deal, the Iranian regime is called upon to refrain from work on such weapons. Accordingly, Iran is barred from launching ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear material.

The missile launches were preceded by half a dozen others that also took place after the conclusion of nuclear negotiations. The regime faced little to no consequence for those provocative acts, but the latest launch was the first one to be carried out on President Trump’s watch.

As should have been expected from Trump’s statements on the campaign trail, the Iranian regime can expect a far less deferent response from the current administration. Some commentators also speculated that the IRGC carried out the test so early in the new presidency to gauge how the administration would respond to subsequent acts of defiance.

The answer was made abundantly clear when recently-resigned National Security Advisor Michael Flynn issued a statement condemning the missile test as being not only in defiance of UNSC resolution 2231, but also part of a long string of confrontational and destabilizing behaviors, including forced close encounters between US Navy ships and IRGC vessels, as well as the targeting of the U.S. and its allies by IRGC proxy groups elsewhere in the region, chiefly the Yemeni Houthi rebels. This statement was backed by Sean Spicer and Donald Trump, and continues to stand following his resignation late Monday.

The statement was equally straightforward in its criticism of the previous administration, noting that it had “failed to respond adequately to Tehran’s malign actions—including weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms.” Similarly, on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Washington should stop “appeasing” Iran. The message is clear that this permissiveness is at an end. This clear statement from Washington was promptly followed by a new round of sanctions issued from the White House.

These responses—both in rhetoric and action—seems to answer significant questions about whether President Trump would stay true to the tough talk that had become a familiar feature of his campaign. But other questions certainly remain, particularly those having to do with exactly what steps the administration will now take to transform tough talk into firm policy.

The natural first step is to impose additional new and relevant sanctions, as well as tightening those that already exist. The push to include additional regime entities on the list of sanctions is a good start.

It has been noted that in opening up Iran to international investment, the Iran deal also opened the door to indirect financing of the IRGC, the organization that is the main driving force behind the missile tests, the provocations in the Persian Gulf, and a wide variety of Iran’s worst behaviors at home and abroad. The worsening of these activities helps to underscore the fact that it is long past time to restrain the influence and activities of the IRGC.

Currently, Western businesses are free to invest in Iranian firms in which the IRGC is only a minority stakeholder, or in which its interests are concealed behind front companies or proxies in the Iranian business world.  It is, therefore, essential for the administration to isolate the IRGC completely from Western funds and business dealings by designating it as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

What the Trump administration cannot do is repeat the mistakes of its predecessor. These include not only the laxity that was referenced in former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s statement, but also a tendency to look toward certain factions of the Iranian government as a source of hope for internal moderation. The experience of the past several years has proven the folly of this approach. The IRGC has only grown more deeply integrated into the Iranian system, having gotten more financing and no serious challenge from so-called moderate President Hassan Rouhani. In fact, the armed forces budget has increased dramatically.

In addition to sanctions and the terrorist designation of the IRGC, the Trump administration also has an extraordinary opportunity to stop Western appeasement of the extremist regime and start engaging the freedom-loving people of Iran. The regime has already been isolated inside Iran and is only surviving through gross human rights violations and executions. It is time for America to support democratic Iranian opposition movements as the strongest strategic deterrent to the regime’s destabilizing behavior.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, the deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is credited with exposing Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002, triggering International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. He is the author of “The Iran Threat” (Palgrave MacMillan: 2008). His email is Jafarzadeh@ncrius.org.

The post Trump Administration Puts Iran “on Notice” & Issues Sanctions. What’s Next?  appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Recent tensions between Russia and Belarus seemed to display the Kremlin’s shattering dreams for integration across the countries of the former Soviet Union. The Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), developed as a rival to the European Union, seemed failing short of its goals, with friendly countries drifting away amidst Russia’s alleged weakness.

Fumes flared up after statements of Alexander Lukashenko Belarus’ strongman leader, who has been in charge of the nation for over 26 years witnessing major historical shifts in the Kremlin’s foreign policy, launched a fierce diatribe during a 7-hour long conference.

He blamed the Kremlin for violating a two decades old bilateral agreement after the FSB established a security zone on the shared border previously free of any regulations. The decision came as a response to Minsk announcing a five-day visa waivers for citizens from 79 countries—including the United States, a gesture deeply disliked by the Kremlin.

Lukashenko also accused Russia of blackmail by cutting oil exports to Belarus by half. He further asked to file a criminal case against the head of Rosselkhoznadzor, a Russian federal service for veterinary surveillance, for inflicting damage on Belarus by restring the export of goods. Over the past years, the country had grown into a major illegal supplier of sanctioned goods to Russia.

Despite unabashedly emotional and critical, Lukashenko made it clear that Minsk will remain within the EEU. His speech, however, raised rumors of the union with Russia entering a bumpy road.

Continuous disputes between the two EEU members might culminate with Minsk drifting away from Moscow’s orbit. Meanwhile, current hurdles seem troubling and unlikely to get resolved any time soon. Rather, they underscore the complex nature of the union that is sweepingly misinterpreted in the West.

As the leadership from countries in the EEU comes from the legacy of the Soviet communist party, treating Moscow as the central authority is not unusual. But, with the acquired sovereignty after the Soviet collapse, the elites of the independent nations have grown increasingly reluctant to share power.

Most of the EEU nations face acute problems with corruption, bloated bureaucracies and authoritarian leadership. Unlike the West, nations do not lecture each other on human rights and democracy promotion, treating the current situation as the norm.

A range of factors from economic dependence to shared cultures and borders make it further impossible for the former Soviet republics to break ties with the Kremlin without shooting themselves in the foot.

The Kremlin foresees this and does not want to repeat the radical backlashes against its influence as in the case of Ukraine. Hence, the only format in which the former Soviet space could coexist and benefit economically is one in which the maintenance of international relations is founded on equality.

Therefore, the Kremlin tries to stay above political incursions into domestic affairs as long as each country maintain its position within the Moscow-led union. In return, freedom of movement across borders and economic benefits remain among key tenets of the EEU along with a certain degree of political autonomy in foreign policy.

Meanwhile, Moscow would be happy to see more support of its actions internationally from the EEU members. In recent years, it has become evident that the economic interests overweight political solidarity—no political support will emerge if it goes against interests of an individual member country.

During the Ukrainian crisis, neither Minsk nor Astana expressed support to Russia’s actions and instead maintained neutrality. At some point, both even criticized its actions in Ukraine, concerned with their own sovereignty and security. Similarly, neither legally recognizes statuses of the so-called People’s Republics in eastern Ukraine or South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia.

Kazakhstan is the only country that has a stable economy across the EEU. Ruled by the 76-year-old president Nursultan Nazarbayev, its political position balances between pro-Russian, pro-Chinese and even pro-American stances when needed. Regardless of whether Putin and Trump eventually get along, Astana is set to benefit from the new administration with Rex Tillerson as secretary of state possibly championing ties and investments into local oil fields.

Kyrgyzstan, another nation of the EEU, has recently launched a more active policy towards China amidst the Kremlin’s inability to fund a promised dam project of Kambarata-1 and the Upper Naryn cascade. The country’s President Atambayev was as harsh as Lukashenko in accusing Moscow over the racist treatment of Kyrgyz migrant workers during the May 9 requiem event for the 71st anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II.

While criticism might pinpoint to the crippling EEU, it rather displays a decentralized partnership encompassing and tolerating internal contradictions, and even democratic forms of interactions among its members. The later comes as a surprise given prevailing authoritarian forms of governance with little tolerance towards dissent domestically. However, it seems that the Kremlin has no choice how to uphold its grip but to maintain such equality in order to keep its Eurasian dream afloat.

The post Despite Hurdles, Russia’s Eurasian Dream Lives On appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

 

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On February 1, Rex Tillerson was sworn in as President Donald Trump’s secretary of state—a role which is shaping up to be one of the toughest jobs in the world. The former CEO of Exxon Mobil, who will help guide the new administration’s “America first” foreign policy, was confirmed by the Senate in a narrow 56 to 43 vote, in part due to concerns over his ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Tillerson will not only be dealing with “combined Russian-separatist forces” in the Ukraine, but also with a rebellion of dissenters at the U.S. State Department who oppose the temporary travel ban on seven majority Muslim nations. He will also need to reexamine Obama’s refugee deal with close ally Australia, economic ties with Mexico, and consider drawing a line in the sand with Iran. With all these issues on his plate, Tillerson and his State Department may soon be overwhelmed as more countries choose to test the new administration’s foreign policy, including China in the East and South China Seas.

Although much of his testimony during the confirmation process focused on Tillerson’s ties to Russia, the former oil executive also sent confrontational messages to leaders in Beijing, including the ominous: “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”

Tillerson also reiterated Beijing’s building and placing military equipment on the contested South China Sea islands were “illegal actions” and “extremely worrisome,” arguing “They’re taking territory or control, or declaring control of territories that are not rightfully China’s,” while adding the territorial grabs were “akin to Russia’s taking Crimea” from Ukraine.

Tillerson has also shown a strong tendency to distance himself from the previous administration’s foreign policy toward China, blaming the continued Chinese aggression on a soft Washington: “The failure of a response has allowed them just to keep pushing the envelope on this,” Tillerson said, adding, “The way we’ve got to deal with this is we’ve got to show back up in the region with our traditional allies in Southeast Asia.” To be fair, the Obama Administration, under its “pivot to Asia,” did deploy greater military assets in the region, but their actions were limited to bomber flyovers, breaches by fighter jets of Beijing’s self-declared “air defense identification zones” and naval patrols to assert the right of free navigation.

Tillerson also commented on Beijing’s relationship with North Korea, arguing for the U.S. not to rely on empty promises from China to pressure Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs – saying “It has not been a reliable partner in using its full influence to curb North Korea.” Tillerson also made the case for secondary sanctions to be imposed on Chinese entities found to be violating existing U.N. sanctions.

Some of Tillerson’s other prepared comments on China (59:10 on C-Span) include:

“We should also acknowledge the realities about China. China’s island-building in the South China Sea is an illegal taking of disputed areas without regard for international norms.”

“China’s economic and trade practices have not always followed its commitments to global agreements. It steals our intellectual property, and is aggressive and expansionist in the digital realm.”

“China has proven a willingness to act with abandon in the pursuit of its own goals, which at times has put it in conflict with America’s interests. We have to deal with what we see, not what we hope. But we need to see the positive dimensions in our relationship with China as well. The economic well-being of our two nations is deeply intertwined. China has been a valuable ally in curtailing certain elements of radical Islam. We should not let disagreements over other issues exclude areas for productive partnership.”

While Mr. Tillerson has seemingly stayed on message with President-elect Trump’s hawkish views on China, exactly how the Pentagon would preclude China from accessing the islands it has built and now controls was not made clear. What is clear is Beijing’s reaction to the statement. In an editorial by the state-owned China Daily, Tillerson’s remarks were “not worth taking seriously because they are a mish-mash of naivety, shortsightedness, worn-out prejudices, and unrealistic political fantasies. Should he act on them in the real world, it would be disastrous.” An editorial in the Global Times, another state-run nationalistic newspaper, warned of a “large-scale war” should the U.S. attempt to block China from the islands, arguing:

“China has enough determination and strength to make sure that his rabble-rousing will not succeed.” 

In the election runup and with the nomination of cabinet posts we have certainly heard some heated rhetoric thrown at China, and Tillerson is no exception. Yet until the new administration develops and agrees upon any plan of action, we still have no idea whether or how these “unrealistic political fantasies” will become reality (or lost in contentious debate) – or merely intended to appease an aggrieved nationalistic audience at home.

In a recent and lengthy letter (PDF) to Senator Ben Cardin, Tillerson seemed to back off from his threat of force to prevent China from accessing islands it occupies, saying:

“To expand on the discussion of U.S. policy options in the South China Sea, the United States seeks peaceful resolution of disputes and does not take a position on overlapping sovereignty claims, but the United States also does not recognize China’s excessive claims to the waters and airspace of the South China Sea. China cannot be allowed to use its artificial islands to coerce its neighbors or limit freedom of navigation or overflight in the South China Sea. The United States will uphold freedom of navigation and overflight by continuing to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows. If a contingency occurs, the United States and its allies and partners must be capable of limiting China’s access to and use of its artificial islands to pose a threat to the United States or its allies and partners.”

His latest statements largely reflect previous U.S. State Department and U.S. Navy policy under the Obama administration, but leave room for action following a “contingency.” How the new Trump administration defines and reacts to this future “contingency” we can only hope will be heavily debated among all the concerned parties.

The post Rex Tillerson On China appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Salman ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud, King of Saudi Arabia since 2015.

Intelligence Squared U.S., or IQ2US, organizes a regular series of debates on issues of public concern and broadcasts them via livestreaming, NPR, YouTube, and podcasts. The organization’s purpose, proudly proclaimed, is “to restore civility, reasoned analysis, and constructive public discourse to today’s often biased media landscape.” (Since it sounds a lot like me, I tend to like it.) The most recent debate, which I had the honor to attend, posed the provocative proposition “The Special U.S.-Saudi Relationship Has Outlived Its Usefulness.”

The debaters arguing for the proposition were Madawi Al Rasheed,* a Visiting Professor at the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics and a research fellow at the Open Society Foundation, and Mark P. Lagon, Centennial Fellow and Distinguished Senior Scholar at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and former Ambassador-at-Large in charge of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Arguing against the proposition were F. Gregory Gause III, the John H. Lindsey ’44 Professor of International Affairs and head of the International Affairs Department at Texas A&M University, and James Jeffrey, a Visiting Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and formerly Deputy National Security Advisor and Ambassador to Albania, Turkey, and Iraq.

Life, of course, is not really as binary as a debate proposition, and in reality neither was the debate. No one said that the United States should abandon its relationship with Saudi Arabia altogether, and no one claimed that there were no problems. While that might strike debate professionals as a bit sloppy on the edges, it does mesh well with the world as we know it.

Those arguing for the proposition focused primarily on negative aspects of the Saudi regime and domestic Saudi policies. They argued that support for the regime undermines U.S. policy there and elsewhere in the Middle East. They believed that the support had been “unconditional” and that the U.S.-Saudi relationship was strong enough that the United States could insist on certain domestic reforms in exchange for that support. Thus they did not call for ending the U.S.-Saudi relationship but for modifying it in a way that would be beneficial to the Saudi population and to U.S. foreign policy interests.

Those arguing against the proposition basically agreed about the negative aspects of the Saudi regime and that, while the situation has improved somewhat over the years, the regimes efforts at reform tend to be rather superficial. They disagreed, however, on the question of whether it was appropriate for the United States to insist that another country modify its domestic political and social system to our liking and whether the United States had the capacity to achieve such changes in any event. The proper and presumably more successful approach, in their view, was to focus on the strategic situation, bolstering Saudi Arabia as a bastion of stability in a region steeped in turmoil.

Personally, I am of a realist bent and my natural tendency is against the proposition. When I hear the argument that our support should be conditioned on their reforming their political and social structures to suit our cultural norms, I find myself being grateful that the Saudis don’t say, “Sure, we’ll sell you oil, the day you stop making your women walk around in public like hussies with their hair showing.”

Yet I do not dismiss the other side out of hand. Their strongest case, I thought, concerns what happens to U.S. policy and U.S. strategic interests if Saudi Arabia’s domestic structures prove so intolerable that its own people overthrow it and then reject the United States for having supported the old regime. This argument was made by Professor Al Rasheed. While she described Saudi Arabia as a “pressure cooker,” the other three, including her debate partner, were more willing to accept the fundamental stability of the regime. One pointed out that Saudi Arabia has been described as a pressure cooker for decades and has yet to stumble. They may well be correct, yet, as Professor Al Rasheed pointed out, people said exactly the same thing about Iran right up to the moment that the Shah was chased out of the country. The complications are that you cannot work with the country at all if you do not cooperate with the regime in power, and the possibility that your own efforts to force reform might trigger the very revolution you seek to avoid.

Although leaning toward the realist perspective, I did not necessarily agree with every point made by that side. In particular, Ambassador Jeffrey made a statement that struck me as very curious. When asked by someone in the audience why the United States should care whether Saudi Arabia or Iran becomes predominant in the Middle East, the ambassador described Iran as a revisionist or revolutionary power not unlike the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, he saw as a force for stability.

I am sure this is the common understanding in this country and probably the basis for policy, but think about it for a moment. Iran, while a revolutionary regime, is operating in Iraq and Syria because it was invited there by their respective governments. In Iraq at the moment, it is a de facto ally of the United States in the fight against ISIS. In Syria the situation is harder to describe: Iran backs the government against various insurgent groups. The United States—officially—is not fighting the government but is supporting one group of insurgents (who would rather be fighting the government) against another group of insurgents, who are the same enemy that the United States and Iran are fighting in Iraq. (Unofficially, of course, the United States is also backing insurgents against the government, but that’s a secret.)

Saudi Arabia, is the one that has established madrassas throughout the region that have inspired Salafi-jihadi insurgents, and Saudi Arabia has encouraged freelance Islamists to join the jihad against the Syrian regime. Individual Saudi donors have contributed to insurgents in both countries and elsewhere in the region as well. It is easy to say the Saudi Arabia and the United States are forces for stability, while Iran is the disruptor, but is it really true?**

Finally, one question that struck me was not raised, a question to those arguing against the proposition. If we are relying on Saudi Arabia for strategic reasons, is it important that Saudi Arabia may not view the world the same way we do? All four panelists agreed, for instance, that world politics is not a zero-sum game and that we can maintain relations with Saudi Arabia and try to improve relations with Iran at the same time if we want to.

I believe that as well, yet I ask myself: Does Saudi Arabia believe it?

The United States and five other countries negotiated an agreement with Iran designed to prevent that country from acquiring nuclear weapons (nuclear weapons that could have been used, for instance, against Saudi Arabia), and Saudi Arabia seemed to treat it as if it were an act of treason. If the United States and Saudi Arabia come to diverge in their understanding of what constitutes strategic interests, then that could be a problem even if we do not try to interfere in their domestic arrangements.

*The “Al” in the name Al Rasheed is not the Arabic article “al-” (which is, indeed, a common element in Arab names), but rather an Arabic word meaning family, clan, or dynasty. The House of Rasheed (Al Rasheed, or Al Rashid) was a rival to the House of Saud (Al Sa’ud) in the late 19th and early 20th century, and the two fought many battles for control of the Arabian Peninsula’s Najd region. Allied with the Ottomans, the Al Rasheed forces were defeated after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. When this past rivalry was pointed out at the beginning of the debate, Professor Al Rasheed quipped that she had not taken part in any of those battles.

**Note that we are talking about stability here, a separate question from whether Assad deserves to be overthrown. Remember, too, that outside intervention, regardless of whether it is Russia or the United States that is intervening, tends to lengthen civil wars and ultimately to increase the overall number of deaths.

The post Has the U.S.-Saudi Relationship Outlived Its Usefulness? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

NAFTA has been made out to be one of the villains of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. While some aspects of NAFTA surely have contributed to changing employment trends, other policy issues may cause as much tension as a renegotiation of NAFTA itself.

Relations between the U.S. and Mexico seem to be openly sour, but both NAFTA partners may suffer some severe consequences with a change in other non-NAFTA related policy developments.

Mexico seems to be in a more dire situation than Canada with regard to possible new trends in U.S. foreign policy. While American jobs are perceived by some to be lost to Mexico, the restrictions the new U.S. administration might place on Chinese manufacturing may raise the cost of Chinese goods coming into the United States and make Mexican goods more competitive.

The boom in Chinese exports to global markets came at a time when Mexico was reaching its peak in manufacturing processes and technology which made the country a good location to produce higher value goods. The rise in wages in Mexico since the beginning of NAFTA made low-wage labor in places like China more attractive to international companies. The growth in Chinese manufacturing affected Mexico greatly, and an attempt by the United States to hinder Chinese imports may have a residual positive effect on Mexican exports.

U.S. policy seems to concentrate on the trade deficit between nations, and with other factors contributing to funds leaving the U.S. and going to Mexico, the U.S. may take a long-term policy approach on the factors that create the greatest job losses over punishing Mexico over a small trade deficit.

Mexico’s greatest exports over the last 20 to 30 years have been their oil and gas industry, run mostly through state-run PEMEX, and Mexicans themselves. What is often not accounted for is that people sending funds back to their relatives from abroad is a massive economic engine for Mexico. While this trend has varied over time, the size of remittances of  Mexicans working abroad as a share of the national economy of Mexico is often so large that at times it brings in more money into the country than oil and gas exports.

With millions of individuals residing abroad, the Mexican state often does not have to provide local services for those individuals. In addition, many Mexicans send money back to their relatives to add another source of funding for locals who would otherwise rely on state social safety nets. Families and communities often grow with funds earned and sent from abroad, and while individual Mexicans and their funds are not linked directly to NAFTA, the effect on hindering these funds coming from abroad may create a larger loss for Mexico than any renegotiation of NAFTA itself.

A clear goal for the current Mexican administration will be to not let the U.S. hinder the remittances from abroad, but also to maintain a balanced approach to immigration so as not to push the U.S. add excessive taxes on funds coming into Mexico from citizens or dual citizens in other countries.

Canada has always been in a good position since the late 1960s when the Auto Pact was signed, giving Southern Ontario linked access to U.S. car manufacturing in Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York State. Now that most of the manufacturing plants have disappeared across the border, the Canadian automobile sector has no logistical partner in the United States.

While the Canadian government has been nervously seeking assurances from the new U.S. administration on NAFTA and trade, the reality is that many American companies are in Canada because of the favorable exchange rate, better healthcare coverage and lower corporate tax rates.

A NAFTA renegotiation has been assured to not affect Canada, but with a competitive U.S. tax rate coming into effect, no auto partners over the border and the Canadian and Ontario government pushing debt financing and high taxes, zero tariffs will not make a difference if there is nothing being produced in Canada to sell.

Added to that, a carbon tax will add costs to producing in Canada at the precise time costs will shrink in the United States. While NAFTA may not change, severe debt and ever increasing taxes and energy costs will surely push the main source of jobs in Southern Ontario out of Canada completely.

To survive a nationalistic U.S. policy approach, Mexico needs to choose its fights wisely and Canada needs to make policy decisions for the benefit of its citizens, their future employment and for the sake of economic reality. Beyond the issue of NAFTA, Mexico and Canada could benefit greatly from a boom in the U.S. economy if it is accompanied by wise domestic policy decisions placing jobs and economic growth above political credit.

The post Beyond NAFTA: Issues in North American Free Trade appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Luwowo Coltan mine near Rubaya, North Kivu. (MONUSCO/Sylvain Liechti)

The mining industry has recently descended on Cape Town for the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference, Africa’s biggest mining conference, which wrapped up last week. At the top of the agenda for many of the delegates was still the issue of cobalt, which companies such as Apple have moved to the category of conflict mineral in regards to sourcing it.

Despite moves by the Trump administration to relax laws on conflict minerals, a recent report by RCS Global’s Dr Nicholas Garrett, director at one of the world’s leading raw materials supply chain auditors, revealed the extent of the challenge to the market in finding ‘ethical’ supplies of the mineral, which is being mooted for inclusion in the controversial conflict minerals category.

Over 60% of the global cobalt supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a legacy of civil war, the persistence of de-industrialized, basic forms of mining, and a weak state all come together to make ethical and transparent sourcing hugely challenging.

“[DRC] mining operations tend to be split between what is called artisanal and small scale mining […] where you have small, independent miners extracting cobalt but hand or with rudimentary tools. In the upstream you also have larger industrial miners extracting cobalt through modern mechanized mining techniques. In the DRC, some industrial mines purchase artisanal production to supplement their own industrial production. For the artisanal production cobalt ore is then sold through local traders who sell the mineral in bulk to international traders and buyers, including refiners,” Dr Garrett says.

In response to complaints of unsafe conditions or labour violations at these artisanal mines, some companies, including Apple, who rely on the mineral to help power their products, have already prescribed cobalt as a conflict mineral, overnight increasing the pressure on the wider electronics markets to do the same. But at the same time demand is set to rise in 2017 as the nascent electric vehicle market goes mainstream. The mineral’s provenance is rapidly becoming a bellwether issue for observers interested in how the wider minerals mining sector is evolving in terms of ethics and transparency.

“Increasingly regulators, NGOs and consumers are requiring brand companies to take a degree of responsibility for their activities in the supply chains […]. The worldwide response to conflict minerals has demonstrated that they do have the power to influence the entire supply chain.” Dr Garrett tells African Business.

The goal for downstream businesses from Tesla to Huwai is how to secure their cobalt supply in an increasingly squeezed market while also proving to their customers and regulators that their supply chain is transparent and ethical. In the last year, regulators in the U.S. and China have intimated that scrutiny will be further tightened while the EU formally announced it would implement a new framework and new regulation to force greater mineral supply chain transparency.

Rising supply chain standards

But the market is responding. According to Dr Garrett, RCS Global itself has researchers, advisors and auditors physically on the ground in mine sites in Africa and other producing regions plus staff in China, the U.S. and Europe who engage with the firms responsible for moving the mineral from mine to market Fine. His firm checks these actors’ facilities and activities as well as working with the industry bodies to develop the systems, processes and tools to support responsible sourcing of the mineral. Other auditors are also now offering similar services as demand for due diligence increases.

But downstream businesses are also directly addressing the issue of supply chain standards for themselves, setting up the Responsible Cobalt Initiative. The driving force behind the initiative is the Chinese Chamber of Commerce for Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters, but companies ranging from HP to Sony are also involved.

Dr Garrett, this move is hardly surprising: “It is now both legally and ethically the responsibility of downstream companies—those that ultimately use the raw material in their products—to ensure actors in their supply chain are adhering to the highest standards.”

Meanwhile with the DRC set to remain the dominant player in the cobalt production, ensuring supply can be verified as ethical and transparent will be key for cobalt producers and downstream customers, he says. Over the last two years cobalt production there has remained stable at 63,000 metric tonnes with an increase in production possible in coming years, dwarfing its competitors.

He explains: “Sourcing can continue as long as [cobalt] shipments are tracked down to mine sites and the integrity of the chain of custody can be assured. There are systems out there, like the Better Sourcing Program, which operationalize hands on due diligence approach in the upstream and are designed to operate in conflict-affected and high-risk areas.”

If firms can secure ethical cobalt supplies he thinks, it will also go a long way to proving real progress in the wider African mineral sector. Only time will tell if this can be achieved but with the Trump administration now considering using an executive order to repeal U.S. legislation (part of the Frank-Dodd act) covering transparent supply chain sourcing in the name of reducing bureaucratic burdens on business, the issue is suddenly looking very topical.

The post Ethical Cobalt Extraction & Trump’s Possible Rules Repeal appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

With the Trump administration having introduced “alternative facts” into the U.S. political lexicon, rational and objective analyses of the threats facing America are more important than ever. At the same time, the administration’s intolerance of alternative points of view decreases the likelihood that they will influence policy.

The National Intelligence Council’s (NIC) latest quadrennial report—Global Trends: Paradox of Progress—invites needed debate over where the world is headed over the next two decades. The report arrived in the wake of President Trump’s unexpected victory and is a chance to assess whether some of the most pressing foreign policy topics are being considered from all angles. On one such topic the report points to some fresh thinking: just how big a threat is Russia?

With discussions on Russia focused with the Trump-Putin relationship, the report offers useful comparative data points. Projecting to 2035, it expects Russia’s population to be slightly more than 1/3 the size of the U.S.’ (135.6 million and 365.2 million respectively). Additionally, after a period where Russian life expectancy plummeted immediately after the collapse of the communist regime, the country will experience only small gains in life expectancy by 2035 (67.1 years for men, 77.8 years for women) and will remain far behind America (80.4 years for men, 83.9 years for women). Russia’s population will also be slightly older than America’s in 2035 (Russia’s median age is projected to be 43.6 years, compared with 40.8 years for America).

By the numbers then, former President Barack Obama was on solid statistical ground when, during his final press conference last December, he described Russia as a “smaller” and “weaker” country. How, then, could it significantly weaken America?

The report cites further economic pressures that could inhibit Russia’s ability to project power. If global growth were to weaken over a lengthy period of time, energy prices would likely decrease, undercutting Russia’s chief source of economic strength and one of its main levers to exert political pressure on its near abroad. Meanwhile, the more nations seek to move away from fossil fuels to combat climate change, the more demand for Russia’s hydrocarbons reserves could weaken, further impacting its economy.

Despite the risks to its economic prospects, the NIC considers projections based on Russia’s recent actions that would see it continue to build its regional influence. In a section considering the near-term prospects for Eurasia, the report concludes that “Russia’s aggressive foreign policy will be a source of considerable volatility in the next five years.”

One of the report’s scenarios sees an international system devolving to individual nations seeking to be “islands in a sea of volatility.” This scenario predicts Russian actions that harken back to George Kennan’s Cold War-era description of Russia’s view of itself, defending its sphere of influence against what it sees as an ever-encroaching world. In this projection, Russia will continue to be active in the former USSR territories both to re-assert its great power status and, in its view, to protect itself. At stake is the independence of the former Soviet satellites and the degree to which America and its NATO allies will defend their security guarantee.

Importantly, the NIC explores the degree to which China’s rise in Asia will impact Russia. Two American antagonists, united in their opposition to U.S. influence in Asia, are likely to devote increasing attention to their own rivalry. “To counter Western attempts to weaken and isolate Russia,” the report reads in a section on spheres of influence, “Moscow will accommodate Beijing’s rise in the near term but ultimately will balk before becoming a junior partner to China—which would run counter to Russia’s great power self-image.”

One weakness of predictive reports is a tendency to assert predictions that are in fact retellings of the past and affirmations of the present. “Moscow will test NATO and European resolve,” the report predicts, “seeking to undermine Western credibility.” This is a timeless statement of Russian policy since the end of World War II, and therefore a safe one to make.

Overall, however, the NIC report delivers on a needed premise: to challenge the discussion on global threats to expand beyond clichés and into fresh thinking. Across its different scenarios, the NIC presents a picture of the world to come as more complex, divided, and volatile. It stops short of flatly predicting the world will be a more dangerous place in 2035, but that perspective permeates its findings. That is enough to give today’s foreign policy planners pause.

The post What does the National Intelligence Council think of Russia? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, February 15, 2017. (AFP / Saul Loeb)

Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump met yesterday. There are many things to unpack from the first meeting of these two world leaders. Here are some takeaways from a few of the issues that were covered, following their short press conference.

Bibi’s Untenable Coalition

Members of Netanyahu’s own coalition warned him not to mention a two-state solution in his talks with President Trump. They warned him the “earth would shake” if he supported a Palestinian state, a concept he has supported—though tenuously—since 2009.

Netanyahu’s biggest threat these days does not come from the Palestinians, the Iranians or the UN Security Council, but rather from the Israeli right. He needs them to keep his coalition in place, and he no longer enjoys the bogeyman that was President Obama. With an overtly friendly American president—the first Republican in the White House concurrently with Netanyahu’s long reign—placing international blame elsewhere will be much harder to accomplish.

Bibi seems to understand that Trump, due to his unpredictability, is not a man to be trifled with. Trump speaks (shallowly) of his love of the Jewish state, but he is unlikely to remain silent if he feels that Netanyahu is embarrassing or undermining him. It’s not hard to imagine an early morning tweet storm from @RealDonaldTrump or @POTUS literally leading to new elections in Israel.

On America’s [New] Foreign Policy Toward Israel

President Trump undermined decades of American foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, when he declared “I’m looking at two-state and at one-state, and I like the one that both parties like.” This is a fine concept for a neutral party, but Trump is now representing generations of diplomatic efforts aimed specifically at creating a two-state solution to the conflict. President Trump, new to government and diplomacy, still doesn’t seem to understand the weight of his words as they relate to American foreign policy.

Settlements

The joint press conference opened with each leader delivering brief statements; Trump kicked things off by reading some prepared remarks: “The United States will encourage a peace, and really a great peace, deal. But it is the parties themselves who must directly negotiate such an agreement. Both sides will have to make compromises.” Trump—the king of adding spontaneous asides to his prepared statements—then looked at Bibi and added this little doozy: “you know that, right?”

Bibi strongly stated that settlements are not an obstacle to peace. Despite Trump’s appointment of an ambassador to Israel who has helped raise millions of dollars to fund settlement expansion and the fact that his trusted and powerful son-in-law has also helped fund West Bank settlements, he clearly isn’t quite as convinced, stating that he would “like to see [Israel] hold back on settlements for a little bit.”

Why would Israel hold back on settlements if they weren’t an obstacle to peace? A good answer did not emerge from the remarks or the Q & A that followed.

Anti-Semitism

When Trump was asked by an Israeli reporter what he would say to those in the Jewish community who “believe and feel that your administration is playing with xenophobia and maybe racist tones,” he responded by bragging about his electoral college victory.

“Well, I just want to say that we are, you know, very honored by the victory that we had: 306 Electoral College votes. We were not supposed to crack 220. You know that, right? There was no way to 221, but then they said there’s no way to 270.”

Moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem

Candidate Trump promised to move the American embassy to Jerusalem. It is an easy promise to make, a far harder one to fulfill.

Such a move might give Bibi some positive talking points with his rightward flank back home, but in the long run it would cost him more political capital with America than he is probably prepared to accept. And it is hard to imagine such a move not leading directly to bloodshed.

Trump purportedly had plans to make the U.S. Embassy move his first act as President. Literally. He allegedly planned to declare a directive to move the embassy at 12:01 on Inauguration Day. But he was seemingly convinced of the broader political ramifications of this choice and opted instead to push off the decision, like many of his predecessors before him.

When asked about the move, Trump said, “I’d love to see that happen, we’re looking at that very, very strongly. We’re looking at that with great care, and we’ll see what happens.”

For a straight shooter who has proven himself to mix things up quickly and sometimes without foresight, it is interesting to see him moderate this particular campaign promise. It is also promising that he understands—for now anyway—that if he wants to be remembered for brokering “the ultimate deal,” he can’t simply do anything he pleases in the build-up.

Pre-conditions for Peace

Prime Minister Netanyahu has a long history of demanding the Palestinians drop all pre-conditions to direct negations while simultaneously setting forth several of his own.

A quick Twitter search of @Netanyahu and @IsraeliPM finds over a dozen tweets stating that preconditions are impediments to peace and that he is prepared to come to the negotiating table, so long as there are no Palestinian preconditions in place.

I have written before about Bibi’s blind spot regarding his own pre-conditions. Today, he again undermined his longstanding argument by clarifying his own pre-conditions that must be met before he will come to the table:

The first will always be a deal breaker for the Palestinians. While they have long recognized Israel’s legitimacy as a state, 20% of the population of Israel is Palestinian. President Abbas isn’t going to recognize Israel as a Jewish state any sooner than the U.S. is going to recognize Taiwan as the legitimate seat of the Chinese state.

The second “prerequisite” is likely to be attained, but only within the confines of a grander peace deal. Why would the Palestinians acquiesce on the right to retain security control over their new state without receiving something in return from Israel? The very concept of preconditions declare that the issue is not up for negotiation—neutralizing it down the road as a bargaining chip.

The Palestinians won’t cede this chip in advance, just like Bibi will not accept preconditions on Jerusalem, the Palestinian Right of Return or settlement expansion. And Bibi knows it. But his language allows him to talk about peace on the world stage while also ensuring that no progress is actually possible.

Netanyahu is well on his way to becoming the longest-serving Prime Minister in Israel’s history. He has shown again and again that he will do anything in order to retain that seat. But really, Netanyahu is not so much Israel’s bold leader as he is a somewhat powerful member of the ruling coalition, working desperately to keep it from falling apart.

Trump threw a few barbs and Netanyahu weathered them. But he also got to stand on the stage as Trump—purposefully or inadvertently—changed America’s longstanding policy regarding the two-state solution.

All in all, this was a good trip for Netanyahu: he can go home with some breathing room from his own conservative wing. At least for a little while.

Follow me on Twitter @jlemonsk.

The post Takeaways from the Trump-Netanyahu Meeting appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The amount of attention lone wolf terrorism has received over the last few years begs the question of whether or not specific types of lone wolves (and there are several) can be compared to a terrorism profile system based on statistical analysis of some characteristics.

The conclusion that no one type of lone wolf personality exists misses the mark because it asks the wrong question. Instead, sort out lone wolves into categories based on ideology, target type, age, business setting of attack, and socio-economic status. Next, perform statistical tests to find statistically significant and substantive relationships between those variables that are both theoretically valid and useful. Such efforts to craft a terrorist lone wolf profile portfolio is found in the empirical part of my new book Corporate Security Crossroads: Responding to Terrorism, Cyberthreats and other Hazards in the Global Business Environment.

To introduce this terrorism profile portfolio system, let’s compare two prominent lone-wolf terrorists: Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, who assaulted a gay discotheque in Orlando Florida in 2016, and Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) in Los Angeles in 1968 during California’s presidential primary.

The empirical testing identifies several statistically significant and substantive relationships between the variables (i.e. attributes) tested. I will discuss three sets of relationships in this article. In tests, Ideology, Target-Type, and Business-Type were dependent variables for the bivariate analysis performed and independent variables that represented other lone wolf terrorist attributes were regressed on those variables. The political ideology spectrum includes: (1) uber-leftist/anarchist, (2) Jewish extremist, (3) Islamist extremist, (4) solitary issue, (5) nationalist, and (6) uber-rightist lone wolves.

The first relationship or profile trait illuminated is Ideology-Age. The results suggest that a lone wolf’s political ideology has a weak to moderate but significant association with terrorist age. In other words, when the spectrum of lone-wolf terrorist political ideology is examined, the results suggest that lone wolf terrorists broken down by political ideology can be distinguished by age. At the same time, it should be noted for some perpetrators like Jared Lee Loughner who shot U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AR) and other “high profile” persons, ideology cannot be discerned because of a perpetrator’s psychopathy. In those cases, the political ideology category was left blank.

Omar Mateen was an Islamist extremist who carried out his Sig Sauer MCX rifle and pistol attack at the club when he was 30 years of age or below. That fits the profile of “Islamist extremist” lone wolves, primarily found in the United States, Western Europe, and Canada, who were mostly found to be thirty years old or younger. By contrast, Sirhan Sirhan was a “nationalist” lone wolf who murdered Senator Kennedy in the Ambassador Hotel with a “Saturday Night Special” Iver-Johnson .22 revolver in Los Angeles in 1968 when he was 24 years old. Even though the percentage of lone wolf “nationalists” who were 30 years old or younger is much lower than the percentage found for “Islamist extremist” lone wolves, Sirhan’s age is consistent with a significant number of lone wolf “nationalists” of that age.

The second relationship or profile trait found is Ideology-Business Setting, where a weak but statistically significant relationship is found. That data category is broken down into direct attacks against business, indirect business attacks where the primary target is not a business establishment, and attacks with no business involvement. Mateen’s assault against the Pulse discotheque was a direct attack on a business. While the majority of lone-wolf attacks did not focus on business targets, “Islamist” lone-wolves had a higher rate of such attacks than did other lone-wolf types considered. Still, what made this attack unusual is that “Islamist” lone wolves usually had comparatively little focus on commercial interests. At the same time, RFK’s murder by Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel is also somewhat unusual with the “nationalist” lone wolf profile for venue because the Ambassador Hotel was an indirect target of attack. The results suggest “nationalist” lone wolves did not carry out a high percentage of such indirect business attacks.

The third relationship profile trait is Ideology-Target Type. It is found that a statistically significant relationship that is weak in strength exists between those two variables. Omar Mateen’s attack against a civilian target is consistent with the substantial percentage of “Islamist” extremist lone wolf attacks against civilian targets—a rate larger than the percentage of those types of attacks against government targets. In contrast, Sirhan Sirhan assaulted a government target in Senator Robert Kennedy, which is consistent with two important findings about “nationalist” lone wolves. First, lone wolf “nationalists” had the highest percentage of government target attacks compared to other lone-wolf types. Second, lone wolf “nationalists” had the second highest percentage of attacks that involved “high profile” government targets after “uber-leftist/anarchist” lone wolves. For both of these lone wolves, one a nationalist and the other an uber-leftist/anarchist, it seems plausible the ideology types they represent would focus rage and similar sentiments against the reification of the cause or movement most hated.

There are several metrics that comprise this lone-wolf terrorist profile system—this article describes only three of those metrics. The first is its “Age-Ideology” metric that reflects the relationship between lone wolf age and political ideology. Omar Mateen and Sirhan Sirhan’s age profiles are consistent with its basic contours. The ages of both terrorists fit within the two categories of 30 years old or less or and over 30 years old; both categories capture the observations of age chronicled for the data set.

The “Ideology-Business Setting” metric is the second metric under consideration. Sirhan Sirhan’s attack on Senator Robert Kennedy in the Ambassador Hotel fits fairly well with the “Ideology-Business Setting” metric, reflecting the relationship between target-type and setting of attack. That is because while “nationalist” lone wolves have a notable rate of indirect attacks against commercial interests as their primary targets are singled out for attack, that rate is still low.

The Mateen case is also unusual because of his preference for a direct attack on a business target, which is rare for lone wolves in general, and only slightly more common for Islamist and uber-leftist anarchist lone-wolves. Still, the Matten case is consistent with the occasional interest Islamist lone wolves have in targeting businesses. It is possible this provides some evidence of what some scholars call the broad all-encompassing nature of the eschatological struggle between the West and Islamic extremists. However, this particular attack with narrow focus against the Pulse discotheque most likely reflected Mateen’s personal rage against homosexuals, a rage inextricably bound up with his own personal struggles.

Both Omar Mateen and Sirhan Sirhan’s personal profile are a good fit with the empirical findings that serve as the basis for the third metric, “Ideology-Target.” For Mateen, an attack against a civilian target like the Pulse discotheque is consistent with broader findings about lone-wolf Islamist preference for civilian targets, even though most civilian targets those types of lone wolves choose for direct attackdo not involve commercial interests.

In closing, it appears these two lone-wolves have personal characteristics that dovetail well with some of the basic characteristic parameters associated with political ideology this terrorist profile portfolio system establishes and describes. It is my hope that in the future, with richer data sets and additional testing, new relationships between variables will appear to give this basic framework additional depth, flexibility, and utility for counterterrorism policymakers.

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In the past two decades, both the West and the Islamic world have been living through destabilizing traumatic experiences. The former’s trauma resulted from random acts of terrorism often carried by violent extremists or deranged Muslims.

These atrocious acts routinely trigger excessive and jingoistic media coverages that paint them as an existential threat; hence the continuous flow of funding for the booming global fear industry that only creates more problems than solutions. This state of psychological tyranny creates helpless dependency and compels the public and policy-makers to submissively outsource their political and intellectual will to scrutinize results and respond accordingly—a phenomenon known as “overblown”.

The latter is a synchrony of manipulation, death, and destruction. It is executed by domestic and foreign actors ranching from corrupt tyrants who are determined to never let go their seats of power, to extremely violent militants whose rhetoric and actions are at odds with the faith they claim to promote, and more sophisticated foreign predators who mastered the art of camouflage.

Against this backdrop, we are compelled to ask one of the most urgent questions facing humanity today: are Islamic values compatible with Western values?

Though the two value systems seem dichotomous, I believe they are more compatible than many believe. And since the Western values are universally known, I will focus mainly on arguments used by Islamophobes to alienate Muslims and highlight Islamic values that support my answer.

The Smearing Process

In the ultra-conservative and extreme evangelical propaganda apparatus, anti-Muslim rant sessions are not just daily occurrences, they are program and gathering rituals. Listening to their hate-seething hosts and so-called terrorism experts leaves credulous minds with a paranoiac impression that Muslims have infiltrated all U.S. institutions, and that sword-wielding Muslim armies are about to take over the U.S. and replace the constitution with “Sharia law.”

In that paranoid tradition, recently, Sen. Ted Cruz introduced a bill to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Apparently the Senator is in agreement with el-Sisi, Egypt’s dictator, who overthrew a democratically-elected President and handed him a life-sentence, and massacred thousands of unarmed protesters in a broad daylight, Cruz alleges that the organization espouses “a violent Islamist ideology with a mission of destroying the West.” With a name like that, the brotherhood perfectly fits the stereotype, though evidence and historical facts indicate the opposite.

Among the most vociferous advocates pushing this de-Islamization campaign are David Horowitz of Front Page Magazine, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, and Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch. These fear merchants who receive tons of monies are part of myth-making groups who use the ill-famed unindicted co-conspirator list concocted to smear almost all Islamic organizations and active leaders on one big political paintbrush. This same group insists that Huma Abedin, one of Hillary Clinton’s senior staff, was a Muslim Brotherhood Trojan Horse positioned to infiltrate the White House. A decade ago, this author was one of their targets. Today, ironically, these hate-mongers have access to the White House and the National Security Agency in Steve Bannon and Gen. Michael Flynn. In that context it is hardly shocking to learn that Donald Trump is overhauling the current counter-terrorism program to exclude militant white supremacists and zoom solely on Muslims.

The ‘Othering’ Process

“(The) West perpetrates two kinds of sins about the Muslim world and Muslim history- sins of omission and sins of commission,” wrote the late intellectual giant, Ali Mazrui. After the demise of the Ottoman empire, some historians—mainly Western—have deliberately left out historical facts underscoring Muslim contributions in various disciplines….while misrepresenting Islamic teachings and adding commentaries that distort the historical application of the Islamic teaching.

When the Ottoman era came to an end, almost the entire Muslim population around the world was living under the subjugation of Western colonial powers. During that period, Muslims have experienced a profound spiritual and intellectual stagnation.

It wasn’t until the 50s and 60s when liberated Muslim nations started to emerge. Alas, with mostly kleptocratic dictators eager to imitate their exclusively privileged colonial masters.

The Divine Blueprint

The Qur’an and the Sunnah (Prophet Muhammad’s deeds, attitudes and illustrations) teach that the ideal society is one that gravitates toward the Divine Will and establishes social, political and economic justice for all. Both underscore the importance of order, systematic process, and negotiating consensus based on mutual interest, even with people of other faiths or no faith. And both Islam identifies the best qualities expected of the leader. It emphasizes the importance of trustworthiness, sense of justice, and the wisdom to serve. These three leadership qualities are considered the most crucial in establishing human relationships beyond trivialities and political facades.

Islam emphasizes the importance of cultivating ethical and spiritually centered citizenry that could become the solid foundation necessary for establishing a good and sustainable society. However, neither the Qur’an nor the Sunnah provides specific details on building a modern state with its internal institutions and membership to multilateral institutions with global mandates. This matter falls in the realm of ‘mu’amalat’ or human relations. Unlike matters pertaining on how best to worship God, matters related to human or state to state relationships are left widely open for negotiation, collaboration, and adaptation. In the heyday of the Islamic civilization, Muslims advanced by trial and error, by adopting from other cultures, and by rewarding research, development, and ingenuity.

Facts Trump Stereotypes

The average contemporary Muslim thinker inclines to the conviction that Islam is compatible with building a modern state. Muslims do not have to sacrifice the core values of their faith in order to participate or be part of that process. Many thinkers and activists believe this very fact is one of the reasons that Islamophobes and white supremacists rely on stereotypes and on the ‘we’re under siege’ fear campaign to sideline Muslims.

Let us forget for a moment all those Muslims who were elected to the U.S. Congress and various state, county and city positions, or as UK Members of Parliament and the Mayor of London, or as Canada MPs or appointed as a Minister. Let’s see what young Muslim scholars and community organizers are doing to make America a better place for all.

Here are two examples: Linda Sarsour who was one of the organizers of the Million Women March. As a tireless advocate for inclusive justice, she is now leading a class action lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s anti-Islamic policies. Sheikh Omar Suleiman who has been an inspirational model of Prophet Muhammad’s message and an active participant in building bridges of understanding between faith communities. Ironically, both of these Muslim leaders are routinely accused of being the torch-bearers of the Muslim Brotherhood by the same Islamophobes.

Contrary to the common misconception, the Islamic faith is anchored on the principle of inclusiveness and collectiveness. Muslims are not commanded to worship God of the Muslims, but God of the Worlds or the physical and spiritual creations—something that practicing Muslims repeat in their prayers at least 17 times a day. Now you may wonder why is it that these facts about Islam are not part of the public discourse. Well, on the one hand, Muslims by and large, have been poor representatives of their own faith. On the other hand, there is a clearly coordinated effort in the West, especially the current White House, to keep Muslims outside the political apparatus by any means necessary.

Throughout the Middle East and beyond, wherever Muslims organized under an Islamic banner and participated in a democratic process, they have won. Though this has routinely outraged many of the losers and their Western backers, democracy does not need political desperadoes, or violent demagogues, or paranoid religious interest groups to reverse outcomes through unlawful and unethical means, it must be done peacefully and through the ballot box.

Stakes are too higher for these kinds of suicidal politicking.

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