Brookings: Topics - Libya

The Libyan Revolution at Two

Ibrahim Sharqieh — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Arriving in the Libyan capital Tripoli, it is immediately (and dispiritingly) clear just how much needs to be done before the country can experience any sort of secure and just order. During my January research trip to Libya, the city seemed to have been overtaken by a paramilitary culture. The streets of Tripoli are thronged with Libyans in military uniform; not members of a national army, but rather of an expanding constellation of independent revolutionary and military councils. The city regularly rings out with automatic gunfire, particularly at night. Its walls, meanwhile, are papered with posters of the 2011 revolution's "martyrs," some of which couple a professional studio portrait with a later, amateur picture of the same man's corpse. Surrounded on all sides by headshots of the Libyan revolution's dead, it can sometimes be difficult to imagine how Libya can achieve national reconciliation and become a stable, functioning country.

Post-revolutionary Libya's accomplishments to date, of course, should not be minimized. The country saw a smooth handover of power in August 2012 from the National Transitional Council to an elected and representative parliament, the General National Congress. The previous month's parliamentary elections to the National Congress, held in a country with no history of electoral politics, were considered generally free and fair by local and international observers. This is a very strong start for Libya's transition process. Libya has witnessed political party formation, another novelty. The country now has functioning political parties -- with offices, staff, and publications -- that work to represent their respective constituencies and took part in last year's elections. Political parties were banned under the ousted ruler Muammar al-Qaddafi. The parliament has also passed a law that governs the drafting of the new Libyan constitution. It sets out how the constitutional committee's 60 members, split evenly among Libya's three districts, will be elected.

Outside the realm of formal politics, Libya has seen a proliferation of civil society organizations, including women's and youth organizations. The women's organizations include those pushing for greater political empowerment and participation for women; in particular, they are advocating the application of United Nations Security Council resolution 1325, which emphasizes the importance of women's political participation in post-conflict societies. And in a reflection of Libyans' hunger to speak freely (and to criticize their government), the country has also seen a flood of new media voices. The blossoming of private television channels and newspapers has created a vibrant media scene you might think has existed for decades, not just two years.

Libya also has some cultural factors working in its favor as it struggles to rebuild. It has managed to avoid some of the issues that have dominated transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, notably the ideological divide between Islamists and liberals. There is an irony in the fact that many pointed to the National Congress elections as a success for liberals. "Liberals'" majority share of the vote can be explained in that the Islamist and non-Islamist divide essentially does not exist in Libya, thanks to the deep religious and social conservatism of almost all Libyans. Supposedly liberal factions like that of former Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril are closer to Islamism than to the sort of "West-leaning liberalism" on display in Egypt. As some like to put it, Libya's liberals are the equivalent of Tunisia's Islamists. Insofar as this neutralizes the electoral advantage Islamists have enjoyed in other Arab countries, it has also helped to avoid the majority-minority and Islamist-secular dynamics that have proven so divisive and poisonous elsewhere.

Still, it is clear that other basic questions of Libyan identity remain disputed and unanswered, and, in the aftermath of its 2011 revolution, the country has in many ways become a blank slate. Libyans reject the Qaddafi-era system and its legacy, and symbols of the old regime have been removed or defaced. There is little certainty, however, on what should take their place, particularly among symbols of the country's past. Omar al-Mokhtar, a hero of the resistance to Italian colonialism, has become a sort of new unifying figure for the Libyan people. (Former King Idris barely figures into the country's political narrative.) Al-Mokhtar, though, is probably the only personality in the country's past and present on whom there is a Libyan consensus; everyone else in Libya today is the subject of disagreement.

These issues are part of a broader effort by Libyans to deal with their national past, reconstructing their history and piecing together a shared narrative of their experience under Qaddafi's rule. Among the problems they face is ambiguity and disagreement over how far they should look back. How much history must be exhumed before the new Libya can move forward? Some argue that it is only necessary to go as far back as the beginning of Qaddafi's "Popular Revolution" in 1973. A consensus seems to be forming, however, on the need to begin from Qaddafi's arrival to power in 1969. This effort to deal with the past is not simply a philosophical exercise. It is crucial to the functioning of the state and the prospects for reconciling different Libyan factions. Qaddafi's Ownership Laws of 1978, under which all properties not in use by their owner were confiscated, present one problematic example. Libyans have been drawn into complicated -- and often violent -- struggles for ownership as some try to reclaim properties taken under these large-scale redistribution policies. The Libyan state must struggle to fairly adjudicate these disputes, which have their roots in decades-old practices of the Qaddafi regime.

The issue of how to deal with members of the former regime is one of the most high-stakes and controversial challenges to realizing Libyan national reconciliation. The National Congress has agreed in principle to a Law of Political Exclusion that will prohibit old-regime figures from participating in politics or occupying leadership roles in the new Libya. The criteria for defining a "member of the former regime," however, have yet to be determined -- and raise difficult questions. There seems to be overwhelming support from revolutionaries and militia members for the exclusion of anyone who was part of the Qaddafi regime. That could include up to 80 percent of the current National Congress, however, if the law is implemented in the broadest sense. There is not even consensus on whether regime defectors should be integrated into the new order. Some say only those who defected in the first four days of the revolution should qualify, others that it should be anyone who joined the rebels before NATO strikes began.

Many are pushing for purging the judiciary in particular of all Qaddafi-era authorities. If such a step is taken, however, there will be almost no remaining judges to try members of the former regime. (Some have advocated bringing in other Arab or Muslim judges from abroad.) Former dissident Saami al-Saadi, a prominent Salafi figure, demonstrates the thorniness of this issue when he notes that the judge who had ordered his execution in a Qaddafi-era court is still working today. "How can I accept him as a valid authority?" he asks.

Libya's new institutions, meanwhile, are hamstrung by the strength of revolutionary groups and militias. It is these groups that represent the real centers of power in the country today. At least two Libyan states, but arguably many more, exist in parallel. The "official state," led by civil authorities and represented by the General National Congress and the government, is relatively weak. The "unofficial state," led by the Supreme Security Committee (SSC, al-Lajna al-Amniya al-Ulia) and other military councils in the country, hold the real power. While the SSC receives funding from the state, it is still outside the official structure of the state. Beyond this body, there is an array of revolutionary unions and organizations in each town that effectively run their own mini-states. Qaddafi's son Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi is, for example, being held in a Zintan prison and will likely be tried in a Zintan court. Libya has repeatedly refused to surrender him to the ICC for trial in The Hague. These rebels' arsenals are one source of their strength -- of a declared 200,000 rebels, only 10,000 have signed up for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs and surrendered their arms to state control.

The revolutionaries, meanwhile, are themselves divided. Mr. Haidar, a prominent leader in the Misurata rebels, is keen to point out that the real anti-Qaddafi rebel forces are only about 40,000-strong in all of Libya. The remaining 160,000 "rebels" are in fact just power-seeking opportunists, he says.

What unites the revolutionaries, though, is a "culture of the victor" that poses a real obstacle to post-conflict reconciliation. This culture has divided Libya into victorious towns and cities like Misurata, Zintan, and Benghazi and defeated ones like Bani Walid and Sirte. The victorious have taken ownership of the revolution and indulge in self-glorification, while the defeated undergo a process of shaming and marginalization. As resentment grows among the revolution's "losers," there is no real sign of the deep divisions between the two camps being bridged.

One former "Qaddafi town," Tawergha, has been entirely emptied of its citizens. When Tawerghan men attacked Misurata during the war, Misuratans say, they systematically raped Misurata's women. Now Tawergha's 35,000 residents are either refugees or internally displaced. The majority of Tawergha is now being housed in three camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) from where most young men have fled. The Libyan judiciary is at a loss for how to deal with a "town accused of rape," and no one has the weight or nerve to convince the rebels of Misurata to allow these people to return to their homes. "We do not have, in our legal system or in our tradition, a way to deal with systematic rape," says Minister of Justice Salah Margani. "We just look at it, acknowledge the suffering of the victims of rape and the IDP camps, and feel powerless about doing anything about it, simply because we don't know how."

The debate over transitional justice has become a central feature of the Libyan transition. A formal transitional justice mechanism is seen by almost all revolutionary factions as a prerequisite to any form of national reconciliation. There is currently no forum in which rival Libyan factions can sit down together, making clear the need for a national dialogue of sorts. There is a general unwillingness, however, to meet with any members of the former regime, foreclosing the possibility of an inclusive transition that could actually resolve the country's security challenges.

Libyans have begun to establish some processes of national reconciliation, but little has actually been achieved thus far. They have set up an independent truth and reconciliation commission led by a judge who served in Qaddafi's Supreme Court but defected before the revolution. Almost a year after its launch, however, the commission has yet to begin its work. A major part of the problem is a lack of technical expertise. The commission's members have sought external advice, but, in the absence of more hands-on cooperation and assistance, they are struggling to make use of it.

If the Libyan people are to restore order to the country and begin to build the modern society Qaddafi denied them, they have a number of key priorities. First and foremost, the establishment of security is an absolute necessity. The lack of security can be seen and felt throughout Libya, whether in raids on Benghazi police stations in the East or the brazen and aggressive smuggling enterprise in Southern city of Sebha. Libya has no future without the return of security and the end of the parallel security-militia state that effectively governs much of the country.

The reintegration of militants into society will require an effective DDR process. Ex-combatants have legitimate grievances and concerns that the state must listen to and address. This will require a state-revolutionary dialogue that, as of now, does not exist. There must also be an end to the culture of victor and vanquished. To whatever extent possible, the state must try to resist the classification of whole tribes and towns as defeated elements of the old regime. As towns like Bani Walid and Sirte and tribes like the Warfella are excluded from the process of rebuilding the country, divisions within society are being deepened. IDPs and refugees have likewise been ignored, which threatens to produce a generation that feels excluded, frustrated, and angry. To the extent that all these segments of Libyan society feel marginalized and abandoned, this situation has dangerous implications for the country's stability. They must be included in the country's rebuilding to avoid the return of violence and civil conflict. For the state to absorb these actors, of course, this process must be coupled with the reform of Libyan state institutions. Libya has made very slow progress in institutional reform, but it can start with its judiciary.

The international community also has a role in the rebuilding of Libya. On border security and the care of refugees (of whom there are approximately one million), Egypt and Tunisia are seen as key partners. Technical support is needed, meanwhile, in initiating a national dialogue, starting the work of the truth commission, and rehabilitating revolutionaries. While the European Union is widely cited as a natural partner for this sort of support, many Libyans have concerns about blurring the line between assistance and intervention. The only real international presence in the country at the moment is the United Nations, which has limitations to what it can achieve. One key message stressed by Margani, moreover, is that whatever assistance is given to the country should not come with conditions that might conflict with "Libyan sovereignty and cultural sensitivities."

Libyans face a long process of rebuilding their country -- or in some respects, building it for the first time. The impoverished state in which Qaddafi left Libyan society has only made Libyans' accomplishments to date all the more impressive. Now is the time, though, to push even harder for a real and comprehensive political transition and to realize Libyan national reconciliation. If not, the forces of revenge and militia violence threaten to overtake everything else.

Authors

Ibrahim Sharqieh

Publication: Foreign Policy

Image Source: © Esam Al-Fetori / Reuters

An Ill-Advised Purge in Libya

Ibrahim Sharqieh — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

At the January national conference of the Association of the Families of the Abu Salim Prison Massacre in Tripoli, I saw the Libyan legislator Abdel Wahab Mohamed Qaid lead a chant in support of the country’s proposed “Political Exclusion Law.”

The law, which Parliament has accepted in principle, will disqualify anyone associated with the regime of Muammar el-Qaddafi from holding public office in Libya — not just senior regime officials, but potentially the country’s upper- and mid-level bureaucracy as well.

In the expansive auditorium in Tripoli, victims’ families responded in unison, cheering Qaid and calling on him to push the law.

I had heard similar sentiments two days earlier when speaking with former revolutionaries protesting in front of Parliament. They told me that the Political Exclusion Law must be approved and strictly enforced if Libya is to protect the revolution and head off corruption in the country’s new government.

Libya’s revolutionaries and the families of victims of the Abu Salim massacre are sincere and well-intentioned in their efforts to both build a new Libya and keep those who contributed to Qaddafi’s rule away from any form of authority.

The emotions at the People’s Auditorium in central Tripoli were high; victims’ mothers and sisters cried, while men chanted “Allahu akbar” (God is great). They had come to the conference for answers — to find out what really happened to their 1,270 loved ones, executed without trial by Qaddafi’s secret police.

Qaid himself spent 16 years in Abu Salim prison; “I grew up in prison,” he told The New York Times last October. He is the brother of Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was described in the article as Al Qaeda’s “brightest star and second in command” and was later killed in an American drone strike in Pakistan. Qaid is now a moderate member of the Libyan Parliament, advocating tolerance and pluralism. Part of his mission is championing the Abu Salim families.

For their part, the revolutionaries protesting in front of Parliament underwent their share of suffering under Qaddafi. In addition to serving long years in prisons, many were either wounded or lost loved ones during the fighting to oust Qaddafi. Now the revolutionaries believe their mission is to defend their victory. They must protect Libya from a counterrevolution they see as beginning with the penetration of state institutions by Qaddafi loyalists.

These impulses to hold former regime figures accountable and build a Libyan state based on good governance are what motivate calls for the Political Exclusion Law. The law’s advocates should be careful, however: Societal division, instability and the regrouping of Qaddafi loyalists could be among the unintended consequences of the law as written.

The advocates must be mindful not to repeat the Iraqi experience of “de-Baathification.” In attempting to strike all members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party from public life, the Coalition Provisional Authority essentially wrecked Iraqi reconstruction, marginalizing large segments of society and fueling sectarianism.

The first, direct outcome of enforcing the Libyan Political Exclusion Law would be pushing smart, influential former officials — some with access to key resources — toward a not insignificant segment of Libyan society unhappy with the revolution’s outcome.

There are currently around one million Libyan refugees in neighboring countries, particularly Tunisia and Egypt, in addition to tens of thousands of internally displaced persons all throughout Libya.

One of the grimmer aspects of the Libyan revolution was that it labeled entire towns (including Sirte and Bani Walid) and entire tribes (including the Warfalla) as pro-Qaddafi, thus excluding them from Libya’s rebuilding process. These marginalized communities — refugees, displaced people and ostracized tribes and towns — are a ticking bomb. The Political Exclusion Law will push a new group of powerful former officials to join these excluded communities. Together, they can regroup to mount a challenge to the revolution and the stability of the country.

The officials targeted by the Political Exclusion Law are also the ones with governing experience and the knowledge of how to actually run the country, including the state’s education, economy and oil bureaucracies. Libya has a shortage of judges, for example, and almost every working judge had some role in the former regime. So the Political Exclusion Law would leave Libya with a paralyzed judiciary, with devastating consequences.

Equally important, the Political Exclusion Law is an arbitrary and ineffective defense against corruption. Corrupt bureaucrats who were not part of the Qaddafi regime would be able to occupy senior positions in the new government, while honest individuals forced to work in the old system for lack of an alternative would be ousted.

The frustration of victims’ families and revolutionaries is understandable and must be addressed. The solution to their grievances is a transitional justice law that targets individuals — not communities — based on their actions under the old regime. The law should hold accountable individuals who are guilty of real crimes, not guilty by association.

Instead of the Political Exclusion Law, Libyans should be investing their efforts in building a thorough and transparent transitional justice law. It would provide a real, fair accounting for those guilty of offenses under the previous regime while allowing victims’ wounds to heal. At the same time, it would avoid further dividing Libya, and spare the country from another wrenching conflict.

Authors

Ibrahim Sharqieh

Publication: New York Times

Image Source: © Esam Al-Fetori / Reuters

Syria Is Not Iraq

Shadi Hamid — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

More than a year ago, a real debate began over whether to intervene militarily in Syria. Here in The Atlantic, Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations was one of the first to propose taking military action - or at least thinking seriously about it. When Cook wrote his article (which, in its prescience, is well worth re-reading today), around 5,000 Syrians had been killed. Today, the number is more than 10 times that, and is now over 60,000 according to some estimates. I remember, early on, wondering whether 15,000 would be a "trigger."

But, apparently, there is no "trigger." Military intervention in Syria cannot not happen without American support and there is nothing to suggest the United States has any interest in intervening, no matter the number of dead. The Obama administration has cited the use of chemical weapons as a "red line," but even that red line has managed to shift back and forth several times.

Opponents of intervention have, understandably, tended to focus on the risky - and potentially prohibitively difficult - nature of military action. Yet, the very fact that some "red lines" do exist suggests that the U.S. would be willing to intervene at some point, in spite of those difficulties. The question, then, isn't so much the difficulty of the operation as much as what is an appropriate red line.

If Bashar al-Assad proceeded to destroy an entire city, killing 100,000 people in the matter of weeks, presumably many of those opposing intervention would decide to support it. But why then and not now? Why exactly is 60,000 people not enough? Sure, the use of chemical weapons should be a red line for national security reasons, but why should strictly national security considerations be a red line, when the killing of tens of thousands isn't? It is this latter point which sends precisely the wrong message to Arab audiences and the broader international community. Nothing fundamental has changed in U.S. policy since the Arab Spring, even though many of us said, and hoped, that new realities required a new way of doing business. As I wrote nearly a year ago,

What made Libya a "pure" intervention was that we acted not because our vital interests were threatened but in spite of the fact that they were not. For me, this was yet one more reason to laud it.

The memory of the Iraq War obviously looms large. The war, itself, was one of the greatest strategic blunders in the recent history of American foreign policy. But its legacy is proving just as damaging, leading to a series of mistakes that we are likely to regret in due time. There would have been much more willingness to intervene in Syria if we hadn't intervened in Iraq. But the Bush Administraton's misguided adventurism abroad has made open displays of ideology, or even simple morality, in foreign policy seem suspect. Today, it is fashionable to play technocrat and ask "what works?" Asking this question, as opposed to others, is a marker of pragmatism and prudence. As difficult as it may be, the thinking goes, we must do away with moral sentiments and attachments, which tend to distort more than clarify.

As Cook pointed out in another piece, fundamental questions of morality and philosophy are what, in part, separate proponents and opponents of intervention. "Is it a morally superior position," Cook asks, "to sit by as people are being killed rather than take action that will kill people, but nevertheless may end up saving lives as well?" The question here, then, isn't whether it will work, but will it be worth it?

Such questions are worth considering, and thinking seriously about, but they're unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. In returning to narrower questions of what, if anything, can stop the killing, a few considerations are in order. First, Bashar al-Assad might have a particularly high tolerance for brutality, but there is little to suggest he has ceased being a rational actor. And the unfortunate reality is that he has no real incentive stop the slaughter of Syrians unless there is a credible threat of military action. It is clear that this is a relevant calculation for Assad and the people around him. The regime has spent the last year testing its limits, seeing how far it can go. Accordingly, the rate of killing has never dramatically shot up. Rather, it has increased slowly and gradually, as Assad gauges the international community reactions and its willingness to intervene more aggressively. He apparently has gotten his answer.

Even if the Obama administration has little interest in intervening, it seems odd, even remarkable, that it would choose to telegraph that lack of interest to the Syrian regime in such a flagrant manner. It would have made much more sense for the Obama administration and leading European powers, along with NATO, to publicly discuss military options and make a good-faith effort to consider them.

So much of the aversion to intervention, as mentioned earlier, has been predicated on Syria's supposed similarity to Iraq and the fear of entering into another quagmire. But no one, to my knowledge, was proposing a full-on ground invasion of Iraq. Instead, what was being suggested was an escalatory ladder of varying military options. An escalation would be contingent on how the Syrian regime (and the rebels) responded. Mission creep is always a risk, but if there was ever an administration resistant to mission creep, it is the Obama administration, as became evident during the Libya operation, when the U.S. went out of its way to limit its involvement, even at the cost of prolonging it.

Another unfortunate feature of the ongoing debate was the tendency to treat the military option and the diplomatic "alternative," as mutually exclusive. They never were. On the contrary, they could have been pursued in parallel. In Bosnia, NATO power forced the Serbs to the negotiating table, leading to the Dayton Accords and the introduction of multinational peacekeeping forces. In Libya, the Qaddafi regime showed more interest in negotiating with the opposition after military intervention, rather than before (Within a few weeks of the NATO operation, Qaddafi envoys were engaging in ceasefire talks).

Lastly, it is worth thinking about what this means for future instances of mass slaughter. With the Libya intervention, there was hope that a post-Arab Spring precedent would be set - that whenever pro-democracy protesters were threatened with massacre, the U.S. and its allies would take the "responsibility to protect" seriously and consider intervention as a legitimate option. But, nearly two years later, what we didn't do in Syria is more relevant than what we did do in Libya.

If I sound defeatist, then it is likely because I am. It is worth speaking frankly, and, unfortunately, this probably requires speaking in the past tense. For Syria, it is likely too late. Notwithstanding something sudden and entirely unexpected, the international community will not intervene. That does not mean that the Syrian people are doomed. They will likely "win" in the end, but their victory, if we can even call it that, will have come at a much greater cost - in the sheer number killed - than was likely necessary. It will have come at the cost of a country destroyed, of sects polarized beyond any hope of reconciliation, of Salafis and Jihadists ascendant, of a state too torn and divided for real governance. As has been reported elsewhere, the Syrian opposition feels that it has been not just forgotten, but, worse, betrayed. They are unlikely to forget this anytime soon. Anti-Americanism, a given among regime supporters, has slowly taken root among the opposition as well. The Syrian protest movement's Friday theme for October 19, 2012 was "America, has your spite not been sated by our blood?" In due time, the Obama administration's inability or unwillingness to act may be remembered as one of the great strategic and moral blunders of recent decades. Hoping to atone for our sins in Iraq, we have overlearned the lessons of the last war. I only wish it wasn't too late.

Authors

Shadi Hamid

Publication: The Atlantic

Image Source: © Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Arab Spring Countries: Beyond Political Upheaval and toward Inclusive Growth

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:00:00 -0500

Event Information

January 31, 2013
2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

Two years after the revolutions that changed the political landscape of the Arab world, countries in the region are still struggling to address the core political and socioeconomic issues behind the protests. Political unrest and an unfavorable international environment have led to economic stagnation and heightened short-term macro-economic risks. Little progress has been made toward achieving the revolutions’ objectives of better lives and social justice. In a series of papers, scholars from Brookings and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) address how these countries can move beyond the political upheaval and support economic and social development.

On January 31, Global Economy and Development at Brookings hosted a discussion on how post-Arab Spring countries can move toward more inclusive growth. Brookings Senior Fellow Hafez Ghanem presented the overall recommendations from the papers and a group of experts discussed their thoughts on the papers and the broader issues. Panelists included: Inger Andersen, vice president of the Middle East and North Africa region at the World Bank; Andrew Baukol, deputy assistant secretary for Middle East and Africa at the U.S. Treasury; Heidi Crebo-Rediker, chief economist at the U.S. State Department; and Akihiko Koenuma, director-general of the Middle East and Europe Department at JICA. Vice President Kemal Derviş, director of Global Economy and Development, moderated the discussion.

Costs of a Fixation: After Benghazi

Paul R. Pillar — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The National Interest.

There appears to be no end in sight to the fixation on the lethal incident last year in Benghazi, Libya and to the determination to wring as much recrimination from it as possible. The topic demonstrates how much an issue launched and exploited during the heat of an election campaign can continue as a national distraction well after the election has come and gone. One might have thought that Secretary of State Clinton's swan-song Congressional testimony this week would mark the end of this preoccupation, but that now seems unlikely. Anyone with an interest in undermining the political prospects of this once-and-possible-future presidential candidate, or of the administration she has been serving the past four years, has an interest in keeping the issue going.

I addressed last fall the principles that need to be borne in mind when thinking about an incident such as the one in Benghazi. I am pleased to note that the director of national intelligence—who does not have a dog in the partisan political fight that has become a subtext of this issue—agrees with my observations enough to have incorporated them explicitly into a speech. The principles remain valid.

The State Department's accountability review board has completed its study of the incident, has issued its report, and has had all of its recommendations accepted by the secretary of state. If this does not bring closure to the matter for anyone who has a straightforward, non-political, non-recrimination-driven concern about the incident, it is hard to imagine what would or should bring such closure.

Given the shape that the preoccupation and associated rhetoric about this incident has taken, we also should note that the fixation on it has a couple of longer term costs.

One of them comes under the heading of the perfect being the enemy of the good. The zero-incident standard that is implied by much of the rhetoric—and that is implied by the discourse that habitually follows many terrorist incidents—risks impeding government operations in ways that outweigh whatever good can be done by pursuing the unattainable goal of zero incidents. In the case of the events in Libya, the impeding has to do with the unavoidable trade-off between diplomats and other foreign-based U.S. officials doing their jobs energetically and effectively, and keeping those same officials secure from those who might do them harm. The longer and louder are the recriminations about Benghazi, the more that future secretaries of state and those who work for them will respond by low-risk approaches that keep their people relatively safe behind the high walls of fortress-like embassies, at the expense of doing their jobs effectively. The resulting damage to U.S. foreign policy can take many forms, including damage to counterterrorism.

Another cost concerns the common-knowledge narrative that seems to be emerging about what led to the attack in Benghazi. The narrative is simply that a terrorist group plotted the attack and that other circumstances, including an inflammatory anti-Islam video that was receiving much attention at the time, had nothing to do with it. That narrative is incorrect as well as damaging, notwithstanding all the laborious reconstructions about this particular attack not growing out of a popular demonstration. Terrorist attacks rarely grow out of popular demonstrations, but popular anger has a great deal to do with stimulating terrorism, providing a permissive environment for it, and increasing the pool of angry people who may resort to or be recruited into terrorism. Anti-U.S. terrorism correlates with people being angry about things associated with America, including unofficial things such as the offensive video and official policies and actions. Failure to understand that connection encourages the unproductive view that countering terrorism is just a matter of eradicating a fixed roster of terrorist groups; making that view the basis for policy increases the chance of more Americans becoming victims of terrorism.

Authors

Paul R. Pillar

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Esam Al-Fetori / Reuters

The Year the Arab Spring Went Bad

F. Gregory Gause, III — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

In the heady days of (relatively) peaceful mass mobilizations that brought down dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, the mantra from American observers in 2011 was: "Now comes the hard part." In 2012, it came -- with a vengeance.

But my guess is that many of those watching the Arab Spring unfold did not really believe this year would be as bloody or fraught with risk as it has turned out to be. Transitions to democracy in Eastern Europe after 1989 were pretty quick and pretty successful. Latin American and East Asian transitions in the 1980s and 1990s had long and troubled backgrounds, but once democratic systems were established, most of them turned out to be stable and peaceful. Why should the Arab world be different?

Well, there are two big reasons. Unlike in those other parts of the world, many of the countries in the Middle East lack long histories of political unity: Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen are all relatively recent creations; their borders are artificial and their populations are divided along sectarian, ethnic, and regional lines.

Furthermore, there is no consensus on core political issues in the Arab world. In Eastern Europe following the Cold War, as Francis Fukuyama famously pointed out, there was no serious alternative political ideology to democratic capitalism. Not so in the Middle East. A majority, or at least a plurality, of people in these countries now say "Islam is the solution" to their problems -- and they are opposed by an equally vehement minority. This year has shown just how potent a recipe for conflict this mix of ideological conflict and divided societies can be.

Without further ado, here is a look at the pitfalls that dashed the rosiest prognostications about the Arab Spring in 2012 -- and still loom large in 2013.

Weak States and Divided Societies

Some Arab countries have always suffered from weak governments. They've gotten there in different ways: Yemen has been hindered by a lack of resources, the Lebanese state has been kept weak by elites' agreement and then civil war, and Muammar al-Qaddafi's Libya was the victim of a bizarre political experiment in direct governance. But however it occurs, the consequences of state weakness -- the strengthening of tribalism, sectarianism, and other sub-state identities and the erosion of the rule of law -- are largely similar.

The Syrian state is now suffering the same fate, eaten away by civil war, defections, and economic weakness. None of this is altogether unfamiliar; the country used to be the poster child for Arab political instability. Between 1949 and 1970, it experienced nine military coups and a brief period of amalgamation with Egypt. But upon taking power, Hafez al-Assad enforced a grim, but in many quarters welcome, stability. He maintained his rule through unvarnished realpolitik, notably building bridges with the Sunni business class and brutally crushing a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the early 1980s. The state was inefficient and corrupt, but it provided a measure of order, and Syria ceased being a playing field in which outside powers meddled and became an international player in its own right.

The nearly two years of fighting seem to have reversed whatever gains in state building that Hafez al-Assad had achieved. Public services have either collapsed or are stretched to the breaking point. Law and order has broken down. Syrians look to their own sectarian communities for safety, not the state -- if they are not fleeing the country.

The problem, of course, is not particular to Syria. Tribal, regional, and sectarian factionalism make political progress in Yemen agonizingly slow, as do tribal and regional divides in Libya. Bahrain's rulers exploit the fears of their co-religionists, the Sunni minority, toward the Shia majority to divide the opposition and solidify their control.

These sub-state identities in weak states create a vicious circle. New governments, even those freely elected, find their ability to govern severely limited. They do not have functioning bureaucracies to implement policies. Libya has struggled to rebuild police and military forces in the face of militias that are, in many cases, better armed, better funded, and better organized than the state's forces. In Yemen, the army itself has split along factional lines.

With centralized state authority weakened, these countries have become the playing fields of regional rivalry. Local actors invite the foreigners in, looking to them for money, guns and political support. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Qatar are all playing in Syria and Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Iran both support factions in Lebanon. The Saudis are still the monopoly players in Yemen and Bahrain, though they warn darkly of Iranian meddling in both countries. Needless to say, such proxy wars are Kryptonite for the authority of the central state.

The Islamist Spring

Egypt and Tunisia do not suffer from weak states and divided societies, and thus still have the best chance of all the Arab Spring countries to forge stable democracies. This year's developments, nonetheless, threw a wrench in both countries' plans, as the heady unity of opposition to the old regime gave way to bruising battles over the country's future. Those battles have mostly been political, electoral, and rhetorical -- though there have been troubling episodes of violence in both countries. The ideological battle lines in these states are exceptionally stark: The core question for both is what role Islam will play in the new order -- and so far the Islamists are winning.

In both Egypt and Tunisia, the process of writing a new constitution has polarized society. Strong electoral showings have given Islamist parties the upper hand in the constitution-writing process. More secular forces -- some liberal, some perfectly comfortable with the old autocratic orders -- are actively opposing them, but do not seem able to rally enough support in society to block the Islamist constitutional projects.

The turmoil is only getting worse. Cairo, Alexandria, and other Egyptian cities witnessed violent confrontations between supporters and opponents of President Mohamed Morsy in the run-up to the referendum. In Tunisia, meanwhile, Salafists have engaged in a number of acts of violence against their domestic opponents.

This isn't a debate about the constitutions themselves, precisely. In neither case are the actual documents all that radical -- neither state is about to become Iran or Saudi Arabia. Both constitutions provide for democratic systems, religious freedom, and personal liberty, albeit with a greater if somewhat undefined role for Islam and its institutions. Perhaps the most important difference between them is that the proposed Egyptian constitution preserves a strong presidency, while the Tunisian proposal calls for a parliamentary system. Rather, this is a test of strength for Islamists -- ascendant after winning elections in 2011 and 2012 -- and their more secular opponents.

While the Islamist-secular divide in Egypt captures more attention in the United States, the more important drama for the future of democracy in the region may be playing out in Tunisia. The most significant criticism of the Tunisian draft constitutional has come from the Salafi movement, which wants a more explicitly Islamist order. The al-Nahda party, which has Muslim Brotherhood roots and won a plurality in the 2011 elections to the constituent assembly, has soft-pedaled Islamist themes in an effort to gain secularist buy-in. But unlike the Salafis in Egypt, Tunisia's hard-line Islamists continue to reject democratic politics -- they have pressed their case through street protests and violence, including the September 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy and an American school in Tunis. If the Tunisian Salafists can scuttle the constitutional experiment in Tunisia, the prospects for a stable democracy look bleak.

The role of Salafis, following an ultra-orthodox version of Islam, will enormously influence the future of political transitions across the Arab world. Historically, they have rejected democratic politics as a Western innovation that contradicts their belief that God, not man, is the lawgiver. They do well in elections when they run, as in Egypt and Kuwait. Their influence is magnified in civil wars, where they are disproportionately likely to join the fight, as in Syria and Iraq. But the Arab Spring has witnessed a split in the movement, with some Salafis ready to participate in electoral politics and others continuing to reject it. While we in the West worry about whether secularists can influence the course of political transitions in the Arab world, the more important question might be whether the Salafis can ever be brought on board for a democratic future.

American Policy

Let's be honest with ourselves: If the keys to stability and democratic development in the Arab world are related to state building and an ideological argument within Islamist movements, then there is not much that the United States can do to help these processes along. Washington demonstrated in Iraq that it is more skillful at destroying states than at building them. Even if we wanted to, our overstretched military and depleted resources means that U.S. priorities must lie elsewhere for now. The United States has even less to contribute to the intra-Islamist debate among Brotherhood and Salafi trends on the appropriateness of democracy.

Nowhere is America's inability to decisively affect the direction of internal political developments in the Arab world more evident than Syria. We have no history of close engagement with either the Syrian military or Syrian society. The most aggressive interventionists want a no-fly zone and greater American support for opposition forces, including the direct supply of weapons. But would a no-fly zone -- which would quickly turn into direct engagements with Syrian forces -- provide the United States with any more influence over post-Assad Syria than it has in post-Qaddafi Libya? It is doubtful. And if we were to take on the task of arming the rebels, could we confidently tell "good secularists" from "bad jihadis"? I see no reason for confidence there, as those receiving arms have an enormous incentive to mask their real preferences from possible patrons.

The best the United States can do is to allow the Arab Spring play out on its own terms. While the convulsions in the Middle East certainly affect U.S. interests, they have yet to directly damage our key strategic concern -- the free flow of oil -- or our relationship with Israel. Weak and failing states, to be sure, are a serious counterterrorism concern, and al Qaeda and its affiliates are sure to try to take an advantage of civil strife to revive their dying brand (see: Benghazi). But these radicals are not about to seize control of any states, and the new governments in the Arab world will certainly see jihadists as a threat once they get back on their feet.

The Arab Spring may not have yet fulfilled the expectations embodied in those early, buoyant demonstrations in Tahrir Square -- but nor has it evolved into a real threat to the United States. We have good relations with the most powerful military player in the area, Israel; with the richest Arab state, Saudi Arabia; and with Turkey, a country that has managed to be both Islamist and democratic and is playing an ever-larger role in the region. With America's strategic position still strong and our ability to affect the direction of domestic politics in the Arab world extremely limited, the Obama administration is best advised to continue to keep its hands off this troubled part of the world.

Authors

F. Gregory Gause, III

Publication: Foreign Policy

Image Source: © Stringer . / Reuters

Responding to New Internal Displacement Challenges: The Displacement of Non-Citizens

Khalid Koser — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 12:00:00 -0500

When the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were completed in 1998, it was against the backdrop of the massive displacement of people inside their own countries, especially as a result of the civil wars in the Great Lakes, West Africa, and the Balkans. This was a new phenomenon for which the existing international response was ill-prepared. The implementation of the Guiding Principles over the last decade and a half has gone a long way to filling the protection gap for these internally displaced persons although much remains to be done.

In recent years, however, a new group of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has emerged in substantial numbers, who were not envisaged by the Guiding Principles. These are non-citizens displaced by conflicts, natural disasters, or political crises, in countries to which they have migrated or through which they are transiting. In 2008 xenophobic violence displaced between 80,000 and 200,000 migrant workers in South Africa, mainly Zimbabweans, but also migrants from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Somalia. Tens of thousands of sub-Saharan migrants were internally displaced last year during the civil war in Libya. Significant numbers of the million or so migrant workers in Thailand were displaced there by flooding last year, and hundreds of thousands of migrants were also displaced in 2011 by violence in Côte d’Ivoire. At the moment there are growing concerns for the safety of the 120,000 migrant workers in Syria, many of whom are female domestic workers.

In many of these cases, migrant workers have eventually been evacuated by their employers, their origin countries, or the international community, although many have been displaced inside the country before they can be evacuated. In other cases, for example in the cases of Libya and Côte d’Ivoire, where migrant workers have had irregular status, or their origin countries are poor, they have stayed displaced in the country until they can find a way out or it is safe to return to the communities where they work.

While there has been very little research on the experiences of non-citizens during crises, it is reasonable to suppose that many of them may be more vulnerable to displacement, and suffer its consequences more acutely, than local populations. They may not speak the local language or understand the culture, they may lack job security, they may lack a social safety net, and they may have insecure legal status. Sometimes they are bystanders in a crisis. In other cases they have been deliberately targeted, for example during the Libyan crisis many sub-Saharan Africans were accused of being mercenaries fighting for the Gaddafi regime and targeted by the opposition. Equally it may be harder for displaced non-citizens to resolve their displacement, especially if they are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin, and they may face specific challenges in regaining property, employment, and identification cards in the country where they have been displaced.

It is not surprising that this particular category of IDPs was not explicitly envisaged in the Guiding Principles, as it is a manifestation of international migration patterns and trends that have accelerated dramatically in the last decade or so. The number of people living or working outside their own country has increased by at least 50 million since the beginning of the 21st century. A greater proportion of migration is between countries of the South, and not from South to North. Labour migration has also become increasingly linked with international trade and economic agreements, as for example in the movement of hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers to work on development and infrastructure projects in sub-Saharan Africa. In other words, there are more migrants, and in more volatile locations, than ever before.

How to respond to this changing reality of internal displacement?

One requirement is for a clear articulation of the legal rights of displaced non-citizens. It may be argued that there is already a sufficient legal foundation to provide protection for displaced non-citizens. They are technically covered by the core treaties of human rights law which extend to all migrants in all situations – irrespective of legal status. International Humanitarian Law (IHL) applies, although only in situations of armed conflict. Other bodies of international law including the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic and Consular Relations are relevant for certain non-citizens. It may also be argued that the Guiding Principles apply to at least some displaced migrants, by referring to people displaced ‘…from their homes or places of habitual residence’, but this is not generally interpreted as applying to short-term or temporary migrant workers, or migrants in transit. Overall, however, the rights of non-citizens during crisis situations or displacement are not explicitly enumerated either in international treaties or standards that protect the rights of people who are displaced, nor in those that protect the rights of migrants (most importantly the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families).

Second, a more predictable response by international agencies is needed. No international agency has a mandate that specifically applies to this category of displacement. UNHCR has a mandate that applies to some non-citizens, specifically asylum seekers, refugees, and stateless people, but not to migrants. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) works with a wide range of international migrants, but does not have a formal protection mandate. During the last few years, as a result, displaced non-citizens have been assisted in an ad hoc and often unpredictable manner by UNHCR, IOM and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). It may be worth considering establishing a coordinating mechanism to try to ensure more effective cooperation across relevant international agencies and with NGOs.

Third, states also need to develop a greater capacity to respond. It is not clear which state should be primarily responsible for protecting or assisting displaced non-citizens. The Guiding Principles ascribe primary responsibility for protecting IDPs to the state where the displacement takes place; but it can equally be argued that where those displaced are the nationals of another country, then that state has a legal, as well as civil and moral responsibility to assist its own citizens abroad. Both sets of states could take concrete steps to develop better responses. The growing number of states that are developing national laws and policies on internal displacement on the basis of the Guiding Principles could be encouraged to make explicit reference to the rights of displaced non-citizens. Countries of origin with large overseas worker populations could develop standard operating procedures for the protection of migrant workers during crises, including detailed information on in-situ protection measures, relocation, evacuation, and repatriation procedures. An international emergency fund could also be considered, for access by countries of origin to evacuate their citizens during crises.

Finally, corporations that employ significant numbers of overseas nationals should develop standard operating procedures on protecting and evacuating workers; establish risk assessment units; and establish senior chief security officer positions tasked with ensuring the safety of all workers in the event of emergencies.

The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement responded to a displacement phenomenon that was not envisaged when the main international framework on displacement was established in the 1950s – a framework which focused on refugees seeking protection outside their countries. The face of displacement continues to change, and in the last decade a new form of internal displacement has emerged that equally was not envisaged by the Guiding Principles. The number of displaced non-citizens may be expected to grow significantly in the future, and it makes sense to prepare an effective response now.

Authors

Khalid Koser

Image Source: © Adnan Abidi / Reuters

Al Qaeda’s Not as Battered as Obama Thinks

Daniel L. Byman — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Just a few weeks ago, in the final stretch of the presidential campaign, President Obama announced that “Al Qaeda is on its heels.” It was a claim echoed by senior administration officials from DNI James Clapper (who declared al Qaeda “diminished”) and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta (who claimed “we’re within reach of strategically defeating al Qaeda”) Republicans were quick to disagree, of course, but they seemed to think their most eloquent rebuttal was simply the 9/11 attack in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans. Suddenly, the threat of al Qaeda seemed horribly clear.

In fact, reports of al Qaeda’s demise are both true and overstated. For as the President and his advisors contend, the core organization now led by Ayman al Zawahiri is on its heels, with key senior leaders dead and many others on the run or in hiding. But as jihadist attacks in Benghazi, Yemen, and elsewhere indicate, the broader movement is alive and in some places prospering.

Al Qaeda is best understood as a set of circles. At the center, the bullseye, is a relatively small organization of perhaps several hundred fighters who swore loyalty to Osama Bin Ladin and now to his successor, Ayman Zawahiri. They are often referred to as the “al Qaeda core,” “Al Qaeda Central,” or the “Al Qaeda Senior Leadership” (of course, this being Washington, this immediately became AQC or AQSL). At the outer circles are a loose set of groups and individuals who share at least some of the core’s ideology and goals: so the “D.C. Five” who traveled from the United States to Pakistan, reportedly to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan, had no operational links to the core but accepted its key tenet that U.S. forces were engaged in an oppressive struggle against Islam and should be fought with all means. In the middle circles are individuals who received some al Qaeda training and support but who have not sworn loyalty to Zawahiri.

Perhaps the most important, and most ambiguous, category today is al Qaeda affiliate groups. For even as the al Qaeda core has been hit hard, affiliate groups have prospered. Al Qaeda of Iraq, Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (based in Yemen), Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (which grew out of the Algerian struggle), and the Shebaab in Somalia all have some formalized relationship with the al Qaeda core. In addition to taking on the al Qaeda name, they have also vowed to attack Western targets and implement an Islamic state. In some cases they have struck at Americans and Europeans in their region and used al Qaeda methods, like suicide bombings. And one affiliate, Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, has tried twice to down U.S. aircraft in sophisticated operations that, if successful, would have been major coups for the jihadist cause. Outside these immediate affiliates, groups have emerged in Mali, the Sinai peninsula, and Nigeria that espouse al Qaeda ideas even though the groups themselves are not (yet) operationally close to the al Qaeda core in Pakistan.

Ansar al-Sharia, blamed for the Benghazi attacks, is inspired by al Qaeda’s ideas but does not appear to have direct links to the al Qaeda core and otherwise appears closer to the edge of the target than to the bullseye. The attack it pulled off was hardly spectacular—basically, it assaulted a weakly defended American diplomatic facility. So it is hard to infer that the terrorism threat to Americans outside Libya from this group is strong. (As terrorism analyst Peter Bergen acidly remarks, “If you buy that, I have a bridge in Benghazi I'd like to sell you.”)

Groups like Ansar al-Sharia, and even more direct affiliates, like Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, pose a threat that is quite distinct than that of the al Qaeda core. The good news is that they are far less able, and for the most part far less interested, in hitting the U.S. homeland. Much of their effort is local, fighting the government where they live and rival groups that contend for the same turf. The bad news is that they are often eager to target Americans in their neighborhood, whether it be official facilities like the consulate in Benghazi or assassinating Americans with the bad luck to stumble in their paths. Perhaps the biggest overall threat they pose is to regional stability. In Mali, that may matter little, but in the Sinai peninsula they could spark another clash between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, while in Iraq their violence might lead to a renewal of the sectarian civil war.

Going after the core with drone strikes and international intelligence and police cooperation remains a priority. But the United States should also think hard about the affiliate question. One important implication is the risk that unresolved civil wars can pose. In Syria, the jihadist presence has gone from non-existent to marginal to considerable: a predictable development in a country where local Sunni Muslims believe the world is doing little to protect them and understandably welcome any help they can get, even if they do not approve of the message of the helper.

Another implication, somewhat ironically, is to ensure the successful transition of Islamist movements like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood into successful political parties. Zawahiri’s message is that violence, not peaceful politics, will advance the cause of Islam and, not surprisingly, he loathes the Brotherhood. Helping show that a peaceful alternative will work is vital to preventing local Islamists from taking up the banner of jihad.

Finally, U.S. officials need an open and sustained dialogue on the question of which affiliate groups are priorities and which are distractions. Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula has tried to hit the U.S. homeland, and helping defeat it in conjunction with the Yemen government is prudent. On the other hand, intervention in Nigeria would accomplish little and probably make jihadists who now focus locally into a strong anti-American force.

The Benghazi tragedy offered a rare opportunity to educate the public about these distinctions but instead degenerated into a way to score political points. As a result, the American people are more confused than ever.

Authors

Daniel L. Byman

Publication: The New Republic

Image Source: © Khaled Abdullah Ali Al Mahdi / Reuters

In Defense of Susan Rice

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Is U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice an appropriate choice as President Obama's second-term secretary of State?

Nearly 100 House Republicans have come out against Rice, joining several prominent GOP senators. Meetings on Capitol Hill this week appear not to have helped her cause with them. They consider her either untrustworthy or incompetent, insinuating that she is too much of a partisan to represent the country as a whole on the world stage. But the Republicans should relent in their opposition.

I am no blind supporter of Rice. She is my friend and former colleague at the Brookings Institution, but I advised Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2007-08 primary campaign, while Rice co-led the Obama foreign policy team, and I supported the surge in Iraq, while Rice opposed it. Despite these battle scars, I consider Rice a person of high integrity and intelligence; she has a strong work ethic and a clear commitment to this country's security. There may be a valid debate as to whether Rice, or Sen. John F. Kerry, or someone else (Adm. Michael G. Mullen and another Clinton come to mind) should succeed Clinton as the nation's next top diplomat. But Rice is a solid candidate and would be a fine secretary of State.

The opposition to Rice begins with the matter of Benghazi. Her Sunday talk-show statements about what happened when Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed on Sept. 11 were mistaken but far from unreasonable. Early on, some in the intelligence community suspected a spontaneous demonstration was the starting point for the situation. Five days later, more was known: The attack was preplanned. Rice qualified her statements, but the emphasis was wrong. Still, no evidence has been presented that her comments were mendacious.

There is a broader criticism of Rice, as well. Some view her as untried, untested, too young or too much of an Obama loyalist rather than an independent thinker. Her record deserves a more careful look.

After serving on the Clinton administration's National Security Council and at the State Department, Rice was at Brookings from 2002 through 2008, and her published work is still available. It shows that she was creative, forceful and in fact ahead of either party in many of her views.

For example, in 2004 and early 2005, long before then-Sen. Obama made it a centerpiece of his foreign policy vision, Rice wrote important opinion pieces calling for direct talks with regimes like Iran or North Korea. This was a reasonable way to change the tone of President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" concept, which had proved unproductive for handling these problem states. Yet anyone who believes this reflected naivete in her thinking about such rogue states need only witness the way she has orchestrated campaigns of pressure and sanctions against both in her current job.

It is also important to put Benghazi in perspective, beyond the issue of what was said on a talk show. It was a tragedy, to be sure, and the administration's State Department needs to learn lessons about how to reduce the risk of similar debacles in the future. But we must not exaggerate the harm done to American interests here. The challenges in Libya remain largely as they were before the killings; the importance of Libya to the broader Middle East remains limited in scale in any case. This is not the issue on which the region or the world will turn in the months and years ahead.

Contrast that situation with another impressive young leader named Rice, the former secretary of State under Bush. When Condoleezza Rice's name was considered by Congress in 2005, Democrats could have made the case that as national security advisor, she had led a broken policy process that left a huge mess in Iraq and that disqualified her from a Cabinet-level rank.

It was not simply that the Iraq war was, in some eyes, a mistake. It was that the United States had no clear single policy that established what we sought in Iraq after Saddam Hussein's demise or what tools we were prepared to employ to achieve it. We had no real plan or capacity to stabilize the country after Hussein's downfall, and chaos as well as insurrection ensued.

The poor political and military planning for the Iraq war was primarily due to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his supporters. But Rice's job as national security advisor was to be sure that inconsistencies were identified and competing views reconciled. She failed to do this, with much weightier consequences for the country than Benghazi will ever cause. She was also part of public presentations on Hussein's weapons of mass destruction that later proved faulty. Yet the Senate rightly confirmed her as Bush's secretary of State, recognizing that many others shared the blame for these problems, and giving her a chance to learn from her mistakes and improve -- which in fact she did in her next post.

The lesson here is clear: If the president decides he so wishes it, Susan Rice deserves a promotion too, and the Senate should confirm her.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: Los Angeles Times

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Scapegoating Susan Rice Does U.S. No Good

Robert Kagan — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Since the challenges confronting U.S. foreign policy in President Obama’s second term are going to be significant — with moments of decision looming on Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, the fighting in Gaza and more — it would be helpful to get this next phase started on a reasonably bipartisan footing.

The president should know that there are Republicans willing to work with him in addressing these crises and that he will be stronger overseas if he has broad support at home. But Republicans also need to do their part to show that the partisan sniping of the recent campaign season is over and that they know it is time to get serious again. One place to start would be to back off their promises to oppose the nomination of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as secretary of state.

I say this not because I carry a particular brief for Rice. Both she and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the two people most often mentioned for the position, are well-qualified. Were the president to choose either of them, the Senate should vote to confirm.

But the idea that Rice should be disqualified because of statements she made on television in the days after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, strikes me as unfair. It seems pretty clear now that she based her statements on information the CIA provided at the time. That information proved erroneous, and why the CIA was giving faulty information to senior administration officials remains unclear. I haven’t seen persuasive evidence to support the theory that Rice’s statements were part of a coverup to hide a terrorist attack. The fact that Rice was working from information provided by the CIA would seem to undercut such a theory.

In any case, the big questions concerning the Benghazi attack are not about what administration officials said or didn’t say in the first few days that followed. Any further investigations ought to focus on why the attack came as such a surprise, why our personnel weren’t better protected and, most important, what we need to do to ensure that our diplomats in the field can continue doing their vital work in reasonable safety. There is also a larger question: whether the administration’s “light footprint” in Libya after the fall of Moammar Gaddafi was too light. These are issues that ought to concern the secretaries of state and defense, the CIA director and others responsible for our diplomats’ security as well as our broader foreign policy doctrine.

But none of this was under the purview of the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. It seems a big reach to suggest that Susan Rice, of all people, should be barred from another job in the Obama administration because of what happened in Benghazi.

With so many potential crises staring us in the face in 2013, the country doesn’t need a nasty fight over who said what when or a brutal confirmation battle that may result in a new secretary of state wounded from the start by a partisan Senate vote. It’s hard to see what national interest would be served by such a spectacle at a time when many around the world wonder whether the United States can get its act together.

Yes, liberals and Democrats have done the same in the past, voting against Republican presidents’ nominees and buying into conspiracies much wilder, and more damaging, than this. But why don’t we try to break the cycle and make an effort to restore some comity to the foreign policy debate? Republicans should let this one go and save their energies for the real problems looming before us.

Authors

Robert Kagan

Publication: The Washington Post

Image Source: © Allison Joyce / Reuters

Between Interference and Assistance: The Politics of International Support in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya

Shadi Hamid and Salman Shaikh — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Summary:

Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have all held relatively successful elections, ushering in parliaments and governments with popular mandates. Tunisia and Egypt also saw landslide Islamist victories, provoking fear among both Arab liberals and the international community, particularly in the West. Libya, which saw a surprising showing for a more liberal grouping, presents a critical case of a political community being created almost literally from scratch.

With three ongoing transitions, the Brookings Doha Center’s second “Transitions Dialogue”—which took place on May 29-31, 2012—provided a venue for addressing the tensions that threaten prospects for successful transitions. Seeking out shared lessons from each country case, the working group brought together a diverse group of mainstream Islamists, Salafis, liberals, and leftists, along with U.S. and European officials, to discuss issues of economic recovery, civil society development, regional security, and the role of the United States and other international actors.

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Read other publications from the 2012 U.S.-Islamic World Forum »

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Image Source: © Mohamed Abd El Ghany / Reuters

@ Brookings Podcast: What Americans Think about the Middle East

Shibley Telhami — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

From the Arab-Israeli conflict, to the paradigm shift of the Arab Spring, to attacks on U.S. government personnel in Egypt and Libya, to the potentially explosive situation in Syria--events in the greater Middle East region continue to resonate here at home. In a recent study, “Americans on the Middle East,” Nonresident Senior Fellow Shibley Telhami finds that Americans have a great understanding and concern about Middle East events. Learn more about these findings in this episode of @ Brookings.

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Shibley Telhami: What Americans Think about the Middle East

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Shibley Telhami

Foreign Policy and the Presidential Election: A Post-Debate Analysis

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 16:30:00 -0400

Event Information

October 24, 2012
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

With just two weeks to go before the U.S. election, President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney will engage in their final presidential debate on Monday, October 22. In this next debate, the candidates will focus on a wide range of foreign policy issues, including the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, U.S. counterterrorism efforts, the Iran crisis, and U.S.-China relations. Given the tone of the Obama-Romney town hall meeting and the critical U.S. and global security issues on the agenda, the foreign policy debate promises to be equally intense.

On October 24, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion on the issues raised during the final presidential debate. Susan Glasser, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine, moderated the panel, which included Brookings Senior Fellows Robert Kagan, Suzanne Maloney, Kenneth Lieberthal and Bruce Riedel. Brookings Vice President Martin Indyk offered opening remarks.

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Foreign Policy and the Presidential Election: A Post-Debate Analysis

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Transcript (.pdf)

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foreign policy post debate corrected transcript

Time to Lay Off the Benghazi Issue

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on CNN.com.

Ambassador Susan Rice has been roundly criticized of late for her comments made on five Sunday morning talk shows the weekend after the Benghazi tragedy in which four Americans lost their lives to a terrorist attack. Because Rice stated her belief that the violence was the result of a mass demonstration gone bad, rather than the planned extremist attacks we now know them to be, some have even gone so far as to demand her resignation from her current cabinet position as United States ambassador to the United Nations.

This is way off the mark and extremely unfair to a dedicated official who has served the country tirelessly and remarkably over her four years in the Obama administration. Rice did not choose all her words perfectly that weekend, even based on what was known at the time, it is true. There should have been a bit more nuance and more acknowledgement of the uncertainty in some of them. But there is no basis for concluding that she sought to mislead, and no reason to think that harm came to the country's interests because of her comments. While there are issues worth debating in regards to Benghazi, to Libya, and to the state of the Arab awakenings more generally, the unkind focus on Rice badly misses the mark.

To begin, Rice’s initial hypothesis was widely shared and reasonably construed. There was strong circumstantial evidence at first to believe the attacks were largely a result of mob reactions to the terrible homemade video entitled The Innocence of Muslims, made by an amateur filmmaker in California. Similar incidents had caused similar outbursts in the broader Muslim world before. Be it the furor over the Danish cartoons of Mohammed several years ago, the mass demonstrations in Afghanistan when Korans were accidentally burned and the bodies of Taliban insurgents mistreated by U.S. troops in the war effort there, or the demonstration in Cairo on the very same September 11 date as the tragedy in Benghazi, there was a track record of such perceived slights against Islam leading to mass unrest and even violence in Muslim countries.

In the business of intelligence, and diplomacy, much information is circumstantial and many theories are initially conjectural. That is an unavoidable reality of the business. Given what was initially known about what happened in Benghazi, this hypothesis was far from unwarranted.

Second, for these reasons, many in the U.S. intelligence community who were tracking this event came to exactly those same hypotheses themselves in the opening days after the Benghazi tragedy. Indeed, their assessments provided the main basis for Rice's comments. I know that because I was in contact with a number of intelligence officials on September 12 and talked to some about it. To be sure, they generally also recognized that the initial information was incomplete and potentially unreliable. But it took several days for their assessments to be revised based on clearer data. In a distant city in a chaotic country where we have minimal presence and relatively few allies, that is unsurprising. Some would call it an intelligence failure, but we use that term far too loosely in this country. The world is not completely transparent to any of us, and nor will it ever be.

As such, Rice’s only mistake was not to caveat her initial conclusions adequately each and every time she voiced them. Taking her statements collectively, I did not detect any major problem in this regard, but individual pieces of several statements could have been phrased slightly more precisely, it is true.

That brings us to the final point, going beyond Rice to the Obama administration more generally. Benghazi was indeed a terrible tragedy, and in principle perhaps preventable. Secretary of State Clinton has nobly accepted responsibility as the nation’s top diplomat for not responding to requests for additional security there adequately. But such mistakes will inevitably sometimes happen in a dangerous world where Americans in and out of uniform serve bravely and with full awareness of the dangers before them. We must not turn them into political tempests. To go to a zero-defect and zero-mistake mentality where we only place diplomats within huge fortified compounds, or only deploy them to the field when accompanied by large contingents of armed guards, is against the credo that most of those diplomats themselves espouse. And it would not serve American interests.

We do not criticize a general each and every time he makes a tactical decision that tragically and perhaps preventably leads to the loss of some of his troops. We must not do so with our appointed officials, or our top civilian leaders in this country either.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: CNN

Image Source: © Allison Joyce / Reuters

Americans on the Middle East: A Study of American Public Opinion

Shibley Telhami — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0400

In mid-September 2012, attacks on US diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt—countries going through revolutionary processes that began with the Arab Spring—shocked Americans in the midst of a closely fought presidential campaign. The very different governments of Libya and Egypt, both new and untested, had to formulate responses to the attacks, which immediately fed in to the American political process. The University of Maryland’s Anwar Sadat Chair and the Program on International Policy Attitudes sought to learn what have been the American public’s first impressions of these events, and how attitudes on other issues in the region may have changed.

Highlights of key findings from the poll include:

1. Most Americans believe that the the recent violent attacks against the American embassies in Libya and Egypt are the work of extremist minorities, not majorities, but most are dissatisfied with the reactions of the Libyan and Egyptian governments.

2. There is support for decreasing aid to Egypt, but not for stopping it.

3. A majority of Americans believes that an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would result in a drastic oil price increase, Iranian attacks on American bases, and a worsened American strategic position in the Middle East.

4. Majorities of the American public support increasing sanctions on Syria and imposing an international no-fly zone, but overwhelmingly oppose bombing Syria, arming rebels, or sending troops to Syria.

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Authors

Shibley Telhami

Publication: Sadat Chair at the University of Maryland and the Program for International Policy Attitudes

Campaign 2012: Arab Awakening

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

September 25, 2012
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Following the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the death of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, the United States is weighing its position and policies in the post-Arab Spring Middle East. More than a year after the initial Arab uprisings, the United States is questioning the state of its relations with the nascent Arab democracies and the emerging Islamist regimes. As the second anniversary of the Arab revolutions approaches, political and economic instability persists alongside growing anti-American sentiment, forcing the United States to adapt its policies to the evolving landscape in the Middle East. With the U.S. election just over six weeks away, many American voters are questioning the presidential candidates’ foreign policy strategies toward the region and wondering how the volatility in the Middle East and North Africa will affect the United States in the months and years ahead.

On September 25, the Campaign 2012 project at Brookings held a discussion on the Arab Awakening, the tenth in a series of forums that identify and address the 12 most critical issues facing the next president. POLITICO Pro defense reporter Stephanie Gaskell moderated a panel discussion where Brookings experts Tamara Cofman Wittes, Shadi Hamid and Raj Desai presented recommendations to the next president.

Participants can follow the conversation on Twitter using hashtag #BIArabAwakening.

Download papers from the event:

Prioritizing Democracy: How the Next President Should Re-Orient U.S. Policy in the Middle East, by Shadi Hamid
Three Key Challenges in Confronting the Arab Awakening, by Tamara Cofman Wittes
The Challenge of a Reform Endowment, by Raj M. Desai

Campaign 2012: Twelve Independent Ideas for Improving American Public Policy is an indispensable guide to the key questions facing White House hopefuls in 2012.

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Audio

Campaign 2012: Arab Awakening

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Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: North African Menace

Bruce Riedel — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, long the global jihad’s weakest link, is now thriving across North and West Africa. Its exact role in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 is still unclear. But the perception that it was involved in the revenge killing of an American ambassador is already developed in the jihadist underworld.

AQIM was created about five years ago from the remnants of an Algerian terrorist group dating back to the 1990s. It started with a big bang, blowing up a United Nations building in Algiers. Then it faded into a small terror gang engaged in kidnapping and extortion in Mali, Niger, and other Saharan states. AQIM had no role in sparking the Arab Spring in Tunisia in early 2011. But it has skillfully exploited the chaotic openings that followed in Libya and Mali.

In northern Mali, AQIM is building a base for orchestrating more such carnage. AQIM has built alliances with other jihadist groups in Mali to take control of an area the size of France or Texas. European intelligence services are already detecting the migration of European Muslim jihadists to training bases in Mali, just as earlier generations of jihadis went to Pakistan and Afghanistan to train with al Qaeda’s core. Moroccan government sources fear Mali is becoming the most serious threat to North African stability in decades. The weak West African states appear incapable of dealing with Mali, and they are not getting much leadership help from outside. Burdened with an economic crisis, Europe does not want to take on the challenge. Mali’s biggest and richest neighbor, Algeria, is disappointing its friends by taking a very low profile in dealing with Mali’s jihadi menace.

Al Qaeda’s mother ship has been severely disrupted in the past four years by the drones in Pakistan. But the collapse of law and order across the Arab world has given the jihadists a huge operational opportunity that it has seized with enthusiasm. A drone attack in South Asia has unintended ripples in North Africa because even a weakened al Qaeda core still can inspire violence across the Islamic world. Bin Laden’s dream of inspiring a global jihad has sadly outlived him.

Al Qaeda has deep roots and connections to associated movements that date back to the 1990s. Al Qaeda’s core leadership in Pakistan for years has also included a sizable Libyan faction with strong connections back home. Among these was Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior operative who was killed in a drone attack this summer in Pakistan. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian Amir of al Qaeda, eulogized him on the eve of Sept. 11 and urged revenge. Now it increasingly looks like AQIM operatives played some role in orchestrating the deadly attack on our consulate to avenge al-Libi. AQIM has publicly called the death of Chris Stevens a “blessed gift” that should be emulated by attacks on other American targets across North and West Africa, from Morocco to Nigeria, to avenge al-Libi, Osama bin Laden, and other “martyrs.”

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: Daily Beast

The Middle East and the Presidential Election: A Live Web Chat with Khaled Elgindy

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:30:00 -0400

Event Information

September 19, 2012
12:30 PM - 1:00 PM EDT

Online Only
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

The recent attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts in Libya, Egypt and other parts of the Arab world have renewed debate about national security issues and U.S. policy in the Middle East as the Arab Awakening continues to unfold. The need to adapt to growing anti-American sentiment and political and economic instability in the region has brought foreign policy issues to the forefront of the presidential campaign.

How do the presidential candidates differ in their foreign policy strategies toward the Middle East? What are the implications of those agendas for the region? On September 19, Brookings expert Khaled Elgindy took your questions and comments in a live web chat moderated by Vivyan Tran of POLITICO.

12:30 Vivyan Tran: Welcome everyone, let's get started.

12:30 Khaled Elgindy: Hello everyone. Glad you could join us.

12:31 Comment from Elizabeth, USA: Is either candidate likely to address the strong anti-American sentiments raging throughout the Middle East before November? Do you think it will come up at the debates?

12:31 Khaled Elgindy: I think both candidates already have, in their own ways.

12:32 Khaled Elgindy: They clearly have different perspectives on the issue, as well as different roles. It's one thing to analyze from the outside, it's another to tackle the issue as the president.

12:33 Khaled Elgindy: I suspect the issue will come up on some level in the debates, though most likely in a fleeting and probably superficial manner. Foreign policy is not typically a major component of presidential debates and usually candidates stick to talking points.

12:34 Comment from Jon: You wrote recently that Obama has fallen out of favor with the public in many parts of the Middle East. What are the major contributors to this drop in popularity?

12:34 Khaled Elgindy: One of the big reasons is, quite simply, exaggerated expectations.

12:35 Khaled Elgindy: Obama came in promising all sorts of things — a new relationship with the Muslim world, Israeli-Palestinian peace, ending wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, closing Guantanamo, etc.

12:36 Khaled Elgindy: None of these has been accomplished.

12:36 Khaled Elgindy: This, combined with historical baggage and misunderstanding, has deepened the sense of disappointment.

12:37 Comment from Karen K.: How can the president, whoever wins, help to create more trust between the Arab world and the United States?

12:38 Khaled Elgindy: The U.S. has to do a better job of connecting with the people of the region, and not just the governments and elites.

12:39 Khaled Elgindy: This is a learning process on both sides of the relationship. There are deep, historical misunderstandings that color how each side (to be simplistic) views the other.

12:40 Khaled Elgindy: Just as the U.S. has strong bonds with other countries in a way that transcends politics and pragmatic interests, the U.S. will also need to start developing bonds with a broad range of social, civic, political, cultural and other actors in countries like Egypt, Libya, etc.

12:40 Khaled Elgindy: That will take time, of course, but it's worth the long-term investment.

12:41 Comment from Patricia: From a political perspective, what would be more advantageous to the Muslim Brotherhood —a second Obama term or a Romney presidency? What about for the Egyptian people?

12:42 Khaled Elgindy: The MB is a large and diverse organization. It's very hard to generalize about what they believe about the U.S .and other issues.

12:44 Khaled Elgindy: The MB's views on the U.S. are also in flux. They have come a long way in the 80 years of the existence. Their instinct, for historical and philosophical reasons, is to view the U.S. with mistrust. But now they are seeing the value of having the U.S. as an ally.

12:44 Khaled Elgindy: The short answer, however, is that they probably do not have a preference as far as Romney or Obama. They tend to view U.S. politicians with equal levels of distrust.

12:45 Comment from Anonymous: In the leaked video from the other day, Romney claimed that a two-state solution for the Palestinians and the Israelis raised too many difficult problems that couldn't be solved. I've listened to other serious policymakers who think a two-state solution is impossible at this point, but they seem to have reasons beyond "it would be complicated." Was there any merit whatsoever to Romney's private declaration that a two-state solution is impossible?

12:45 Khaled Elgindy: It may surprise you but I tend to agree.

12:46 Khaled Elgindy: What Romney did is to state explicitly what is essentially the unspoken position of the Obama administration.

12:47 Khaled Elgindy: The U.S. officially backs a two-state solution and sees no alternative to it — yet it is consistently unprepared to do what is required to bring it about. This is true of Democratic and Republican administrations.

12:48 Khaled Elgindy: Unfortunately, the 2-state solution is not going to be around forever and cannot always be subject to U.S. political calendar, etc.

12:49 Khaled Elgindy: Eventually, there will have to be a price for all the many years and opportunities that have been squandered — and that price may be the 2-state solution itself.

12:49 Comment from Jill: Following on Patricia's concern, what about Netanyahu's perspective? With Romney's recently disclosed statement about the unlikely success of a two-state solution, is Israel likely to throw their support towards him?

12:50 Khaled Elgindy: It's not unprecedented for U.S. and Israel leaders to meddle in each other’s domestic politics, and this time is no exception.

12:51 Khaled Elgindy: There are those in both Israel and DC who feel Netanyahu has already thrown his backing behind Romney and the GOP. It will be interesting to see how the Obama-Netanyahu relationship, which is already strained, will develop in the event Obama wins.

12:52 Comment from Abigail: What kind of balance does there need to be in dealing with Iran? I know Israel has asked for a red line on Iran; how would this impact U.S. relations in the region?

12:53 Khaled Elgindy: A very, very crucial issue.

12:53 Khaled Elgindy: The Iran issue is source of considerable debate here in DC, in the region, and around the world. There is tremendous anxiety about a nuclear Iran.

12:54 Khaled Elgindy: But Iran, of course, is not just about Iran. It also relates to so many other issues in the region — Syria, the Gulf, the price of oil, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, etc.

12:56 Khaled Elgindy: And it's not just the complex, strategic balance and relations in the region that is problematic. This crisis is coming at an extremely volatile and fast-moving moment in the region's history. It is almost impossible to "game out" all of the possible contingencies and things that could wrong in terms of an attack on Iran.

12:56 Khaled Elgindy: That's what makes this so difficult, and why the U.S. remains hesitant to go full throttle on the military option.

12:57 Comment from User in VA: Do you think the Arab world sees America as representative of the type of democracy so many have been calling for throughout the Arab Spring uprisings? Or are many in the Arab world craving a different vision of democracy?

12:57 Khaled Elgindy: The Arab world of course does not have a single view of the U.S.

12:57 Khaled Elgindy: Different countries and groups view the U.S. differently for different reasons.

12:58 Khaled Elgindy: Arabs also have nuanced views of the U.S. — there are some aspects they admire (U.S. democracy is one of them) and others they don't (e.g., U.S. policy).

12:59 Khaled Elgindy: It's a complicated picture for us and for them. But that also means there are opportunities for us to deepen our understanding. The most dangerous thing we can do, here or there, is to take a monolithic or essentialized view of the other. We need to constantly be attuned to changes and nuances.

1:00 Vivyan Tran: Thanks for the questions everyone, see you next week!

Understanding Arab Anger

Shibley Telhami — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

With all the protests and violence in Arab and Muslim countries generated by a despicable and demeaning film about Islam, here is a sobering prediction: There will be more such films and clips, they will be even more provocative, and they will generate even more violent reaction among Arabs and Muslims. And no matter who is behind them, many will see the hands of Israel and the United States.

Yet this is not time for panic but for steady and intensive diplomacy.

This is an easy prediction to make. In the era of the information revolution, any 12-year-old can produce a short film and post it online. There is no shortage of racists, bigots or individuals with sinister goals.

And consider this payoff of a relatively cheap product with minor efforts: disruption of regional and global priorities, affecting U.S. relations with Arab and Muslim countries, influencing internal dynamics in the Middle East and possibly even affecting the outcome of U.S. elections. It is too easy and too tempting, even for those with low personal stakes — and especially for those with higher stakes.

The Arab and Muslim reaction is predictable enough. The people who mobilize and act violently are by no means majorities, but the issues of Islam and the prophet Muhammad touch raw nerves across Arab and Muslim societies so that meaningful calls for calm will remain limited. Coming after a decade during which Muslims felt their religion and values under assault, the empowerment of the Arab uprisings will most likely only bring more people into the public square — and some with more than peaceful anger. Who will stop them?

Authors

Shibley Telhami

Publication: The Baltimore Sun

Feds Hired British Security Firm to Protect Benghazi Consulate

Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The State Department signed a six-figure deal with a British firm to protect the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya just four months before a sustained attack on the compound killed four U.S. nationals inside.

Contrary to Friday’s claim by State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland that “at no time did we contract with a private security firm in Libya,” the department inked a contract for “security guards and patrol services” on May 3 for $387,413.68. An extension option brought the tab for protecting the consulate to $783,000. The contract lists only “foreign security awardees” as its recipient.

The State Department confirmed to Danger Room on Monday that the firm was Blue Mountain, a British company that provides “close protection; maritime security; surveillance and investigative services; and high risk static guarding and asset protection,” according to its website. Blue Mountain says it has “recently operated in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, the Caribbean and across Europe” and has worked in Libya for several months since last year’s war.

A representative for Blue Mountain, reached at its U.K. offices Monday, said no one was available to comment.

The State Department frequently hires security companies to protect diplomats in conflict zones. It usually is done through what’s known as the Worldwide Protective Services contract, in which a handful of approved firms compete to safeguard specific diplomatic installations. In 2010, State selected eight firms for the most recent contract. Blue Mountain wasn’t among them, and the State Department did not explain why the Benghazi consulate contract did not go to one of those eight firms.

It isn’t known how the Blue Mountain contractors performed Tuesday when the consulate came under sustained attack by small arms fire. In an official account provided Wednesday by the Obama administration, embassy security staff — both American and Libyan — failed to break the assault. They required help from Libyan security forces, assisted by a sympathetic Libyan militia, to regain control of the consulate’s main building and end a pitched battle that raged for 4.5 hours.

Nor is it clear if two former Navy SEALs killed in the assault were Blue Mountain employees. One of them, Glen Doherty, told ABC News last month that he was part of a mission sent to Libya to lock down Moammar Gadhafi’s missiles to prevent them from reaching the black market. Blue Mountain’s contract doesn’t refer to safeguarding thousands of rockets and missiles that have gone missing in the aftermath of the 2011 war.

But the call for contract security came at an opportune moment. Shortly after the department issued the contract, extremist elements active in Libya began targeting U.S. and allied installations. On June 5, the consulate sustained a rocket attack shortly after news spread that Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan member of al-Qaida, was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan. Another rocket attack in the city attempted to kill the visiting British ambassador on June 11. (Both attacks allegedly were by the same extremist organization, the Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, which may have played a role in last week’s consulate assault.)

The final modification to the contract came on June 15. It is unknown when Blue Mountain contractors arrived to help secure the consulate. The State Department would not specify how many guards Blue Mountain had posted in Benghazi during last week’s attack. (A department official said that Nuland misspoke about State not hiring private guards in Libya.)

Blue Mountain representatives have yet to respond to an inquiry about the contract. UPI reported in December that the firm “has been operating with Western companies in Libya for several months.”

Much remains unclear about the attack on Benghazi. But the presence of private security guards in the lightly-defended compound helps explain how approximately 25 to 30 diplomatic staff held out for over four hours against a crowd of possibly hundreds armed with rifles, rockets and other small arms without massive loss of life.

Authors

Spencer Ackerman
Noah Shachtman

Publication: Wired Magazine's Danger Room