By Barry Rubin
Good news from the Middle East is that rarest of all things. Solutions (however imperfect or even temporary) to conflicts there is equally rare. That’s why the creation of a new country, South Sudan, is so significant after years of strife between the northern and southern parts of that country due largely to their religious and racial differences. This development also leads to an interesting question: Will south Sudan be a purely African-oriented state or will it play some part in the Middle East?
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Showing posts with label sudan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sudan. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
How Sudan Shows the World's Future; Dictator: America is in My Pocket; Hillary Clinton: We Ignore What He Says
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By Barry Rubin
You might not care about Sudan but Sudan cares about you. Here's a dictator who--as he murders his own people--openly brags: America is on my side. That interpretation of what the Obama Administration's policies mean is likely to spread.
This is a consequence of a foreign policy that can be summed up as: being tough on friends and soft on enemies. This theme reduces American credibility, loses or weakens friends, and emboldens tyrants. To demonstrate this, a number of examples can be given.
In the enemies' category: Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela are most obvious. Bolivia, Brazil, China, Turkey, Lebanon, and Pakistan--countries whose current rulers often aren't helpful and side with America's enemies fairly often--also rate special treatment. In the friends category: Honduras and Colombia, Israel, more than a dozen ex-Soviet states and satellites fearing Russia, and India, among others can be listed. Even Western European countries are getting worried about this pattern.*
But what about Sudan? Here's one of the world's most ruthless dictatorships, accused of genocide and certainly guilty of mass murder. Last October I wrote an article prophetically entitled, "How and Why Engagement with Sudan Shows Precisely What’s Wrong with Obama Administration Foreign Policy." and in the previous month, "The Obama Administration Finds Another Dictatorship to Appease; Makes Friends with Sudan."
Now, Nicholas Kristof, who generally is quite sympathetic to Obama's foreign policy, reminds us that all these fears have been realized. He explains: "I’m afraid that Sudan is getting the message that the Obama administration won’t stand up to Khartoum if it doesn’t honor the referendum in southern Sudan."
He added:
“Until he reached the White House, President Obama repeatedly insisted the U.S. apply more pressure on Sudan so as to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur and elsewhere. Yet as president, Mr. Obama and his aides have caved, leaving Sudan gloating at American weakness. President Bashir, al-Bashir of Sudan, a man wanted for crimes against humanity in Darfur, has been celebrating...telling a rally in the Blue Nile region: ‘Even America is becoming a member [of my political party]. No one is against our will.’ Memo to Mr. Obama, when a man who has been charged with crimes against humanity tells the world that America is in his pocket, it’s time to review your policy.”
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about this on Meet the Press she said something truly remarkable:
"I can’t take anything seriously that Bashir says. He is an indicted war criminal. The United States is very committed to seeing him brought to justice."
She then gave a detailed defense of U.S. policy which Kristof quickly pronounces impressive. The basic theme is that since the United States went easy on Bashir he, too, has lightened up a bit. I don't agree, since Clinton's explanation left out the fact that there could be an alternative policy.
But wait a minute. Clinton is missing an extremely important point. When foreign dictators brag that you are in their pocket they aren't just making propaganda, they may actually believe it. It should be a matter of utmost concern for the United States that aggressive and murderous dictators think they don't have to worry about U.S. policy because it is so soft, appeasing, agreeing with their own world view on several points, and failing to take real international leadership.
And when that happens dictators arrest and murder more people, commit more aggression against their neighbors, and trample on U.S. interests. This is International Affairs 101 but many people seem to need a refresher course.
Clinton and Obama better start paying attention to what Ahmadinejad of Iran, and Putin of Russia, and Chavez of Venezuela, and their counterparts in lots of countries are saying in this regard. They should also pay attention to friendly leaders who express their horror in private, or even in public, about the lack of strong and determined U.S. leadership. Because those basic attitudes are going to determine the world's future for the next decade or more.
Note: *Even this administration is wary of being nice to Cuba and North Korea.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.Monday, October 19, 2009
How and Why Engagement with Sudan Shows Precisely What’s Wrong with Obama Administration Foreign Policy
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By Barry Rubin
The Obama Administration apparently thinks that its policy of engaging repressive radical anti-American dictators has been working so well as to extend it now to Sudan. This is the meaning of the new policy to be on this issue October 19.
That country’s government, once accused of genocide in the south, is now said to have been doing the same thing in the west. Mass murder and ferocious repression—300,000 people have been killed; 2.7 million made refugees--has been so prevalent that the country’s president Omar al-Bashir is under an international indictment for war crimes and Sudan is on the State Department list as a country sponsoring terrorism.
Far from being inconvenienced by this fact, however, Sudan has been playing a leading role in the effort to do the same to Israel: that is, wipe it out while simultaneously accusing it of war crimes. Sudan is the current leader of the “non-aligned” group at the UN, the largest bloc of members, and one of the main countries pushing to indict Israel for war crimes.
So to anyone who understands how international affairs works it would appear:
A. That the United States is rewarding Sudan for its behavior.
B. That the United States has already reached an agreement with Sudan that it will act differently at home and in the UN before giving it a big concession.
C. The United States is afraid of Sudan.
None of the above points are true. Therefore, this raises a case study regarding the most important issue of all whose absence from the Obama Administration list of priorities is most noticeable on every issue:
What will the Sudanese government do for the United States? Imagine, in the same week that Khartoum has flouted U.S. interests by pushing the Goldstone report through the UN Human Rights Council, Washington is going to reward it with a renewed relationship.
This sounds familiar:
The U.S. government announced the withdrawal of a plan to put anti-missile missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland at a time when Russia’s leader rejects sanctions on Iran and reaffirms the rationale for annexing much of Poland in 1939.
The U.S. government agreed to engage Iran immediately following the stealing of an election there and the repression of peaceful dissidents.
So we see the same pattern:
--A major concession while receiving nothing in exchange.
--The timing of a concession at a moment when the other side is acting in a particularly aggressive manner.
This is justified, however, by what might well be called the administration’s “cookie” philosophy. This was expressed by retired Major General J. Scott Gration, who has been handling U.S. policy toward Sudan. The former general, who has no previous diplomatic experience—something he has in common with the president—explained, "We've got to think about giving out cookies,’ said Gration. `Kids, countries--they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."
No, that’s not how things work. Reality is better expressed by a Sudanese dissident who said that U.S. rapprochement with the regime will give it confidence to crack down all the harder and, I might add, be more aggressive abroad. That’s precisely, by the way, the effect of the policy on Iran and elsewhere.
So how does the administration guard against such an outcome? It warns that the violence and humanitarian abuses must stop. But a verbal warning from a government eager to renounce toughness and eager to forget all trespasses against U.S. interests is not exactly credible.
You see, the argument is that engagement will make the lives of people in Sudan better and persuade the regime from stopping its sponsorship of terrorism. In principle, this is a reasonable argument but only if three conditions are met:
--Real pressure is applied.
--Concrete, material proof is presented by that country’s behavior before the benefits are provided.
--There is real evidence the regime wants to change its behavior.
All these conditions are lacking regarding Sudan, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, and every other country the administration is coddling. One can add the Palestinian Authority to the list.
But here’s the problem: If the United States demands that these countries do something, they won’t. This has certain implications:
--U.S. policy toward them will appear to have failed, thus making the administration look bad.
--They will be angry and denounce Obama, thus undercutting his vaunted international popularity.
--The resulting friction might force the United States to engage in tough measures, which could be seen as imperialist bullying.
--Friction could lead to military measures, thus pressing the United States toward having to use force or the threat of force, which would damage the administration’s argument that “soft power” works.
I am not being cynical or joking in providing this list. Such things are the ideas and goals which paralyze the Obama Administration from the kind of policy needed in today’s world.
Equally, there is nothing either conservative or liberal in this analysis. It is the framework by which almost all previous American presidents have conducted foreign polic. If anything, liberals have historically been far more forthright in wanting to pressure repressive dictatorships. Yet here is a presidency supposedly built on compassion whose policy means that Sudan’s people will suffer even more.
Human rights' groups working on the Darfur issue are worried that thist might be a betrayal.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
By Barry Rubin
The Obama Administration apparently thinks that its policy of engaging repressive radical anti-American dictators has been working so well as to extend it now to Sudan. This is the meaning of the new policy to be on this issue October 19.
That country’s government, once accused of genocide in the south, is now said to have been doing the same thing in the west. Mass murder and ferocious repression—300,000 people have been killed; 2.7 million made refugees--has been so prevalent that the country’s president Omar al-Bashir is under an international indictment for war crimes and Sudan is on the State Department list as a country sponsoring terrorism.
Far from being inconvenienced by this fact, however, Sudan has been playing a leading role in the effort to do the same to Israel: that is, wipe it out while simultaneously accusing it of war crimes. Sudan is the current leader of the “non-aligned” group at the UN, the largest bloc of members, and one of the main countries pushing to indict Israel for war crimes.
So to anyone who understands how international affairs works it would appear:
A. That the United States is rewarding Sudan for its behavior.
B. That the United States has already reached an agreement with Sudan that it will act differently at home and in the UN before giving it a big concession.
C. The United States is afraid of Sudan.
None of the above points are true. Therefore, this raises a case study regarding the most important issue of all whose absence from the Obama Administration list of priorities is most noticeable on every issue:
What will the Sudanese government do for the United States? Imagine, in the same week that Khartoum has flouted U.S. interests by pushing the Goldstone report through the UN Human Rights Council, Washington is going to reward it with a renewed relationship.
This sounds familiar:
The U.S. government announced the withdrawal of a plan to put anti-missile missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland at a time when Russia’s leader rejects sanctions on Iran and reaffirms the rationale for annexing much of Poland in 1939.
The U.S. government agreed to engage Iran immediately following the stealing of an election there and the repression of peaceful dissidents.
So we see the same pattern:
--A major concession while receiving nothing in exchange.
--The timing of a concession at a moment when the other side is acting in a particularly aggressive manner.
This is justified, however, by what might well be called the administration’s “cookie” philosophy. This was expressed by retired Major General J. Scott Gration, who has been handling U.S. policy toward Sudan. The former general, who has no previous diplomatic experience—something he has in common with the president—explained, "We've got to think about giving out cookies,’ said Gration. `Kids, countries--they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."
No, that’s not how things work. Reality is better expressed by a Sudanese dissident who said that U.S. rapprochement with the regime will give it confidence to crack down all the harder and, I might add, be more aggressive abroad. That’s precisely, by the way, the effect of the policy on Iran and elsewhere.
So how does the administration guard against such an outcome? It warns that the violence and humanitarian abuses must stop. But a verbal warning from a government eager to renounce toughness and eager to forget all trespasses against U.S. interests is not exactly credible.
You see, the argument is that engagement will make the lives of people in Sudan better and persuade the regime from stopping its sponsorship of terrorism. In principle, this is a reasonable argument but only if three conditions are met:
--Real pressure is applied.
--Concrete, material proof is presented by that country’s behavior before the benefits are provided.
--There is real evidence the regime wants to change its behavior.
All these conditions are lacking regarding Sudan, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, and every other country the administration is coddling. One can add the Palestinian Authority to the list.
But here’s the problem: If the United States demands that these countries do something, they won’t. This has certain implications:
--U.S. policy toward them will appear to have failed, thus making the administration look bad.
--They will be angry and denounce Obama, thus undercutting his vaunted international popularity.
--The resulting friction might force the United States to engage in tough measures, which could be seen as imperialist bullying.
--Friction could lead to military measures, thus pressing the United States toward having to use force or the threat of force, which would damage the administration’s argument that “soft power” works.
I am not being cynical or joking in providing this list. Such things are the ideas and goals which paralyze the Obama Administration from the kind of policy needed in today’s world.
Equally, there is nothing either conservative or liberal in this analysis. It is the framework by which almost all previous American presidents have conducted foreign polic. If anything, liberals have historically been far more forthright in wanting to pressure repressive dictatorships. Yet here is a presidency supposedly built on compassion whose policy means that Sudan’s people will suffer even more.
Human rights' groups working on the Darfur issue are worried that thist might be a betrayal.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Obama Administration Finds Another Dictatorship to Appease; Makes Friends with Sudan
By Barry Rubin
Good news for bad guys. The Obama Administration has found another dictatorship to appease.
Thanks to a superb article in the Washington Post, we can see what’s happening with U.S. policy toward Sudan. That country’s government, once accused of genocide in the south, is now said to have been doing the same thing in the west. While these claims may be exaggerated, we at least have here a case of mass murder and ferocious repression.
Where’s the UN issuing reports, the human rights’ groups condemning these actions, the front-page daily articles, mass demonstrations, protests by intellectuals?
Oh, sorry, I was thinking of Israel.
And far from being a semi-pariah Sudan was recently elected head of the non-aligned group, the largest voting bloc in the UN.
Thanks to an excellent Washington Post article—a newspaper increasingly superior to the crackpot tendencies of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times--we have a detailed report on a usually neglected country. According to the article, Sudan:
“is becoming a test of how President Obama will reconcile a policy of engagement with earlier statements blasting a government he said had `offended the standards of our common humanity.’"
Hmm….I wonder which of these two aspects will win out? It tells you a lot about this administration that no one can doubt it will be engagement.
In the Sudan case, “U.S. diplomacy has remained mostly in the hands of Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, who is pushing toward normalized relations with the only country in the world led by a president indicted on war-crimes charges.”
Gration’s critics in Sudan and the United States say the Administration’s approach on the Sudan “ is dangerously, perhaps willfully, naïve,” being manipulated “by government officials who talk peace even as they undermine it.”
In fact, Gration has ingratiated himself with dictator President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a radical Islamist, and declares he sees signs of goodwill from Bashir who he pronounces ready to change.
Well, that fits in with everything else we’re hearing about the administration world view.
"`We've got to think about giving out cookies,’ said Gration. `Kids, countries--they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.’"
Wow, what a great summary of the American president’s world view!
Incidentally, if Obama was not a liberal Democrat, liberals would be fiercely attacking him for cozying up to reactionary, repressive dictators in total contradiction to historic liberal positions on such issues.
The ultimate problem, however, is what could the United States get out of the Sudan even if relations improve? The killing in west Sudan might be stopping, but that’s because the region has been pacified by earlier killings. The war in the south might well restart. Khartoum will continue to be friendly to Iran and house some terrorist training camps. It will certainly continue to be repressive and anti-American. As one Sudanese observer put it, he fears U.S. rapprochement with the regime will give it confidence to crack down all the harder.
True, some Sudanese critical of the regime also think that he’s doing a good job.
Others don’t: Adam Mudawi, a Sudanese human rights activist, says, "In six months, he'll find out. They are liars."
At least, unlike another country I could name, they won’t have nuclear weapons by then.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR2009092802336.html
Good news for bad guys. The Obama Administration has found another dictatorship to appease.
Thanks to a superb article in the Washington Post, we can see what’s happening with U.S. policy toward Sudan. That country’s government, once accused of genocide in the south, is now said to have been doing the same thing in the west. While these claims may be exaggerated, we at least have here a case of mass murder and ferocious repression.
Where’s the UN issuing reports, the human rights’ groups condemning these actions, the front-page daily articles, mass demonstrations, protests by intellectuals?
Oh, sorry, I was thinking of Israel.
And far from being a semi-pariah Sudan was recently elected head of the non-aligned group, the largest voting bloc in the UN.
Thanks to an excellent Washington Post article—a newspaper increasingly superior to the crackpot tendencies of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times--we have a detailed report on a usually neglected country. According to the article, Sudan:
“is becoming a test of how President Obama will reconcile a policy of engagement with earlier statements blasting a government he said had `offended the standards of our common humanity.’"
Hmm….I wonder which of these two aspects will win out? It tells you a lot about this administration that no one can doubt it will be engagement.
In the Sudan case, “U.S. diplomacy has remained mostly in the hands of Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, who is pushing toward normalized relations with the only country in the world led by a president indicted on war-crimes charges.”
Gration’s critics in Sudan and the United States say the Administration’s approach on the Sudan “ is dangerously, perhaps willfully, naïve,” being manipulated “by government officials who talk peace even as they undermine it.”
In fact, Gration has ingratiated himself with dictator President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a radical Islamist, and declares he sees signs of goodwill from Bashir who he pronounces ready to change.
Well, that fits in with everything else we’re hearing about the administration world view.
"`We've got to think about giving out cookies,’ said Gration. `Kids, countries--they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.’"
Wow, what a great summary of the American president’s world view!
Incidentally, if Obama was not a liberal Democrat, liberals would be fiercely attacking him for cozying up to reactionary, repressive dictators in total contradiction to historic liberal positions on such issues.
The ultimate problem, however, is what could the United States get out of the Sudan even if relations improve? The killing in west Sudan might be stopping, but that’s because the region has been pacified by earlier killings. The war in the south might well restart. Khartoum will continue to be friendly to Iran and house some terrorist training camps. It will certainly continue to be repressive and anti-American. As one Sudanese observer put it, he fears U.S. rapprochement with the regime will give it confidence to crack down all the harder.
True, some Sudanese critical of the regime also think that he’s doing a good job.
Others don’t: Adam Mudawi, a Sudanese human rights activist, says, "In six months, he'll find out. They are liars."
At least, unlike another country I could name, they won’t have nuclear weapons by then.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR2009092802336.html
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Sudanese Government Beats Up Women, Journalist Threatened with 40 Lashes for Wearing Trousers
By Barry Rubin
Perhaps we should start a list of developments Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should denounce as strongly as she did a court decision in Israel affirming that individual Israelis have owned two buildings in east Jerusalem for 100 years.
In Khartoum, Sudan, a UN employee, Lubna Hussein, and two other women are on trial for wearing trousers in public and faces a sentence of forty lashes. When 50 women demonstrated in her favor, the peaceful protest was broken up with a number of women, including Hussein's lawyer, being beaten up. Hussein was arrested during a July 3 raid by police on a cafe. Ten other women present have already been flogged and fined.
Given the way such issues are debated often in the West nowadays, no doubt various academics and even feminists will argue that the law providing floggings for not wearing "Islamic" clothing is culturally determined and therefore should not be criticized.
At one time, burning witches, holding slaves, and treating women as second-class citizens were "cultural norms" in the Western world. Fortunately, many people at the time rejected such practices--and helped to change them--by arguing that certain rights were either granted by the deity, reason, natural law, or some combination of these factors.
No doubt, Hillary would say that she cannot remark about judicial matters in other countries or the content of their laws. Clearly this does not apply to Israel, which is why we use the expression "double standards."
Reader participation section: Massive killings of civilians in Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Pakistan? Repression in Iran? Persecution of Christians in Iraq and Egypt? Murder of women for going to school and blasphemy trials in Afghanistan? Repression in Saudi Arabia (wonder if Hillary raised that with the visiting foreign minister, you think so?); torture of political prisoners in Syria (are U.S. envoys to Damascus raising this issue?); oppression in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip?
Try to think of other things happening in the world about which Hillary Clinton should be outraged and which deserve the attention of U.S. foreign policy.
Perhaps we should start a list of developments Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should denounce as strongly as she did a court decision in Israel affirming that individual Israelis have owned two buildings in east Jerusalem for 100 years.
In Khartoum, Sudan, a UN employee, Lubna Hussein, and two other women are on trial for wearing trousers in public and faces a sentence of forty lashes. When 50 women demonstrated in her favor, the peaceful protest was broken up with a number of women, including Hussein's lawyer, being beaten up. Hussein was arrested during a July 3 raid by police on a cafe. Ten other women present have already been flogged and fined.
Given the way such issues are debated often in the West nowadays, no doubt various academics and even feminists will argue that the law providing floggings for not wearing "Islamic" clothing is culturally determined and therefore should not be criticized.
At one time, burning witches, holding slaves, and treating women as second-class citizens were "cultural norms" in the Western world. Fortunately, many people at the time rejected such practices--and helped to change them--by arguing that certain rights were either granted by the deity, reason, natural law, or some combination of these factors.
No doubt, Hillary would say that she cannot remark about judicial matters in other countries or the content of their laws. Clearly this does not apply to Israel, which is why we use the expression "double standards."
Reader participation section: Massive killings of civilians in Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Pakistan? Repression in Iran? Persecution of Christians in Iraq and Egypt? Murder of women for going to school and blasphemy trials in Afghanistan? Repression in Saudi Arabia (wonder if Hillary raised that with the visiting foreign minister, you think so?); torture of political prisoners in Syria (are U.S. envoys to Damascus raising this issue?); oppression in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip?
Try to think of other things happening in the world about which Hillary Clinton should be outraged and which deserve the attention of U.S. foreign policy.
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