What we may be doing wrong about Libya

I'm pretty glad that we are finally going to bomb Kadhafi with the very planes he didn't want to buy from the French. However there is one question that nobody has truly answered yet: why are we going in?

Military operations usually fail when they are open ended, when they are launched without a vision and a clear objective in mind. Such an objective is very important because it determines from the beginning the shape and scope of the military, diplomatic and humanitarian components of the operation. When leaders focus on urgency and don't take the time to think about the road ahead, the risk is to implement the wrong strategy, adopt the wrong tactics and deploy means of action that are unadapted to local needs and conditions. The two Gulf Wars provide us with great examples of why such a vision matters. Operation Desert storm was a resounding success because there was a clear plan and everybody stuck to it. George Bush 1 courageously resisted calls to go further and capitalize on the momentum to topple Sadam. Operation Iraqi Freedom on the other hand was launched based on fallacious evidence and with no clear objective. Was the goal to topple Sadam and get out? Establish a democracy? Of what kind? Was securing the country and kicking out Al Qaeda part of the plan? What about Pakistan? Nobody took the time to answer these questions and we all know the result: a dead end war that can't be won but still costs America billions of dollars and thousands of lives (not to mentions those of Iraqi civilians).

With Libya, the dream scenario would be for Kadhafi loyalists to abandon the ship and create the right conditions for the regime to finally die. However what happens if Kadhafi hangs on and intensifies repression on the ground? Is a ground intervention on the table? If so lead by who? With what forces and what objective? We need to answer these questions now otherwise we risk finding ourselves with a pretty difficult situation on our hands and images of western soldiers killing civilians may replace those of Libyan rebels waving French flags in Benghazi.

French diplomacy under the limelight

As a write these lines, the UN has given the green light to the use of force against Mouamar Kadhafi's regime in Libya. The situation is still very unclear. Aerial strikes seemed imminent but the recent cease fire declared by the regime (but denounced by the rebels as nothing but a smokescreen) may have put things on halt for a while.

Whatever the outcome of this entire affair, one thing is quasi certain: France is back in the game.

Until recently, it seemed like French diplomacy was in the toilet. Since Sarkozy's accession to power, the Elysée Palace, under the influence of the president's all powerful advisors Claude Guéant and Jean David Levitte, has been steadily sucking power away from the foreign office. Under Bernard Kouchner, the Quai d'Orsay has sunk into irrelevance and disgrace. The Arab revolts only made matters worst by highlighting France's tendency to cozy up to any autocrat that guarantees stability and helps it stem the flow of migrants wishing to reach European shores. In the earliest stage of the crisis, then minister Michèle Alliot Marie even offered Tunisian authorities France's help in managing (ie: squashing) the nascent protests. Then came Libya and awkward memories of Mouamar Kadhafi planting his tent in the gardens of the Hotel Marigny in Paris during a grandiloquent state visit came back to haunt French diplomats. As it turns out, some of the weapons used by Kadhafi to decimate his own population are made in France and things could have been even more embarrassing had France managed to make Libya the first (and only) country to import its much flaunted Rafale fighter plane.

That was SO 2008!

But yesterday, all of that seemed forgotten when Alain Juppé (France newly appointed minister of foreign affairs) lead the charge against Kadhafi and spearheaded the effort to convince the UN general assembly to approve a motion that would allow the use of force against the Libyan dictator. From a strategic point of view, this push was a very adroit (and necessary move). After it's poor handling of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, France decided that it would not be left behind this time and was amongst the first nations to formally recognize the rebel government in Benghazi. Sarkozy even held talks with the leaders of the rebel movement at the Elysée palace, much to the displeasure of Germany whose cautious stance on the issue could later place in on the wrong side of history and prove an embarrassment to Merkel's fragile government already weakened by recent electoral defeats. However as Kadhafi's forces regained lost ground, it appeared that Sarkozy and Juppé might have overplayed their hand and rushed into this entire thing without really thinking it through. Nonetheless, thanks to Juppé's active lobbying, France now looks like the big player in the game and has successfully rushed to fill the leadership void left by America.

For France, recent events mean 2 things:

1- It has shaken off the Irak syndrome: you may not expect a country who so fiercely resisted the American led operation in Irak to adopt such a bold and adventurist posture. And yet it has. Does this usher in a new era of French activism in world affairs? Too soon to tell. But with America busy keeping its head down and incapable of (or unwilling to) leading the way, France may smell an opportunity to play a bigger role on the world scene, especially if the coming military operation is a success. After all, it still has a pretty powerful and well organized diplomatic presence around the world, is less divisive than America and knows the Arab world like its own backyard since,well, it used to be just that.

2- Juppé was a good choice. Only a man of Juppé's stature and intelligence could lead such as effort. With such a heavyweight at its head, the Quai d'Orsay will regain some of its former power, especially as Sarkozy enters campaign mode and focusses on domestic issues. This is a good thing for France's political system and for it's influence in the world.

The IMF Papa and the Hockey Mom

2012 will see two high impact presidential elections: in France, Nicolas Sarkozy will try to win another five year term while in the US Barack Obama will have to convince people that he still has what it takes to lead the country.

In both countries, the pre-campaign circus has been dominated by one strong figure that everybody expects to run and supposedly presents a tremendous challenge to the incumbent. In France, FMI Director and former finance minister Dominique Strauss Kahn was the focal point of attention while in the USA, Sarah Palin was the name on everybody's lips.

At first glance, the über smart economist (who once dreamt himself a Nobel Laureate) and former finance minister of one of the world's largest economies has little in common with the former mayor of Wasilla who famously failed to name a single newspaper she read on a regular basis.

But both personalities have some things in common:

1- They both have a big problem with a certain fringe of the electorate. In order to conquer the presidency, both Palin and DSK will have to first seduce members of their own party and then go on to show a majority of the global electorate that they are the men or women for the job. Clearing that double hurdle might be tough... Palin is strong with Tea Partiers and Republican voters but scares the hell out of pretty much everybody else. Instead of polishing her edges to appear more presidential, she has spent the last few years creating controversies and is now more polarizing a figure than ever. And then there are the numerous gaffes and blunders that make the prospect of her sitting in the oval office quite scary to say the least... Strauss Kahn on the other hand is widely respected by the general electorate but has a problem with his own party. This is not new, DSK (despite having imagined the 35 hour work week) has always been somewhat of an alien in a Socialist Party that regularly flirts with the far left and still officially supports ludicrous policies such a 200€ check for people who can't afford holidays away from home and a 1 500€ minimum wage. In the last primaries, DSK was trounced by Segolene Royal and his chances don't look any better this year: the left wing of the Socialist Party is calling the shots right now with personalities such as Benoit Hamon and Arnaud Montebourg (whose essay about "real equality" is a fine piece of leftist demagogy of the type only France is still capable of producing) gaining importance at the expense of more moderate types such as Manuel Valls. Plus, party leader Martine Aubry exhibits all the sings of somebody who wants to run and even former party chairman François Hollande (whose recent weight lose generates more noise than his ideas) is making a comeback. All in all: winning the primaries will not be easy for the man from Washington.

2- They are the opponent incumbents dream of facing. A Palin victory in the primary would be the best thing Barack Obama could dream of. It would virtually ensure him to stay in the White House for another 4 years. Primaries are about seducing the base, the general election is about shooting to kill but using a big gun. Palin is absolutely incapable of doing that. She is too controversial to have a broad appeal, too much of a loose canon to manage a good campaign and, quite frankly, way too dumb to challenge Obama. (To those who would like to read about what Palin actually looks during during a campaign, I recommend the excellent book "game change" by Halperin and Heileman). DSK is a very competent technocrat but a terrible campaigner. He lacks Sarkozy's charisma and bravado and even if he were to miraculously win the primaries, he would never be 100% supported by the party and his campaign would greatly suffer as a result. The man also has quite a few skeletons in his closets. He was recently at the center of a sexual harassment scandal at the IMF and admitted to cheating on his wife with a Hungarian born IMF economist. You can count on Sarkozy's teams to dig out as much dirt as possible about him if he were to enter the contest.

"I know who you did last summer"

3- They have recently tripped. Recent months have not been good for Palin. Her reaction to the tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, in which 6 people were killed was testimony to her total incapacity to act as commander in chief. Now to be sure I hate the way the American left has politicized the affair and sought to use it to discredit the Tea Party movement but that is no excuse for Sarah Palin's terrible speech in which she accused the liberal media of stirring up hate 3 minutes after saying that Fox news could not be held accountable for the actions of disturbed individuals and offended pretty much anybody with a little culture by using the term "blood libel" (that originally refers to the fabricated legend that Jews use the blood of their own children during rituals). Even conservatives are starting to fear that she could ruin their camp's side of winning back the White House and the fact that she had her own reality show and that her daughter participated in "dancing with the stars" hardly helps... DSK has another problem. After months of favorable opinion polls and positive media coverage he is entering the tougher part of the long road that leads to the campaign. People are now questioning his motivations and speculating about what his program and style of government would be. Attacks against him from his own party are also getting tougher with other potential candidates unwilling to let a man they see as a Washington sell-out steal the limelight.

4- They have much to loose if they fail. DSK loves power and he presently enjoys plenty of it. At the IMF, he managed to give a declining institution some of its former luster. The IMF has played a very important role in managing the aftermath of the financial crisis and DSK now plays in the major league of world leaders. Rumors even have him replacing Jean Claude Trichet as head of the ECB. Is he willing to give this up and tour rural France for 6 months, pretending to give a damn about everybody's problems and patting cows' behinds (a key part of every presidential campaign in France) for a very uncertain result? Sarah Palin is currently making millions giving terrible speeches, selling books and sharing her Alaskan daily life with the nation on TV. She is also part of Fox News' team of pundits. If she she runs and things don't turn out as expected, you can count on her to not just fail but to crash and burn in an explosion of controversies and ill-though out declarations. I believe that Palin played a major role in torpedoing the Mc Cain campaign but she survived the failure by blaming it all on Mc Cain's advisors and campaign managers. If she fails again in 2012 she will have nobody to blame but herself (well she will certainly find other people to blame but this time the public won't buy it). Currently, both DSK and Palin rely on some kind of star power. DSK is seen as being more competent and somewhat above the pack while Palin is supposed to be this maverick hockey mom, an outsider that can take on the liberal clique and the so called "lame stream media". If they run and fail to win the election, their credibility would greatly suffer as a result and their future career in politics would be jeopardized. So they have a tough choice to make...

"To run or not to run?"

So 2012 will see two interesting elections but will we see these two interesting candidates participating? I'll answer that question later :)

The non-ideological age

I've mentioned a few times in my previous posts that current revolts in the Arab world are non-ideological, I'd like to come back on this point.

Yesterday, I was for the first time disappointed by a Nial Fergusson piece in Business Insider. In this article, the Harvard historian and economist warns against revolutions that start by generating enthusiasm both at home and abroad but end awry. His basic point is that America being born out of a successful and relatively bloodless revolution tends to get fired up too fast about other people overthrowing their own governments. He then goes on to draw from past examples that include France, China, Russia and the likes to show that most revolutions fail to live up to the expectations people had of them and end up in sclerosed dictatorships at best and bloody genocide at worst. The bottom line is: we shouldn't get our hopes up about Arab revolutions since history teaches us that popular uprisings rarely end up as we had hoped them to.

I certainly don't think that we should be naive and expect revolutions in the Arab world to produce the stable, liberal, democratic regimes we would like them to. There are still too many unknowns in the equation and nobody can real predict what the region will look like when the dust finally settles.

But still, comparing the Jasmine revolutions to those in Russia and China is misleading (France is another, more complex matter) in many ways. Here are, in my view, the two key differences between them:

1- The Jasmine revolts are remarkable non-ideological. The wave of protests was triggered by a mundane, if tragic, event (the self immolation of a Tunisian street vendor) and carried demands that were highly pragmatic. Other revolutions such as those mentioned by Nial Fergusson were deeply ideological. They came with a "ready to think" theory about economy and world affairs along with a pre-packaged set of enemies (which explains why they were usually followed by international conflict). They were radical and uncompromising in nature and thus prone to spark conflicts within the country or with surrounding powers. As a matter of fact, the Arab revolts are more similar to the American revolution in that they are based on pragmatic aspirations rather than ideological nonsense.

2- As a result of their ideological roots, the revolutions Ferguson uses to illustrate his point were well structured . They had their leaders, their thinkers, their models and their objectives. The Jasmine revolutions, on the contrary, are diffuse and loosely organized to say the least. They bring together individuals and organization from various social and ideological backgrounds and use punctual demands as a mortar rather than immutable ideologies. They rely on the power of individuals, not on the magnetic appeal of a few leaders. They are an embodiment of the "Many to many"organizational model and thus are unlike anything we have ever seen before.

The Iran question

One of the big questions in the air right now is the Iran one. What consequences will current events in the Arab world have on the Islamic Republic? On this matter, two schools of thought compete:

- Team realism: whatever comes out of the current turmoil, Ahmadinejad will be a big winner. A recent Foreign Policy paper makes this case quite convincingly and predicts that a year from now, Iran will be in a stronger position both domestically and internationally than it is today. At first glance, that Iran should benefit from popular uprisings in the Arab world makes little sense. After all, the regime nearly crumbled not too long ago when people took it to the streets to protest against the rigged re-election of President Ahmadinejad. The country's economy is in the toilets, inflation and unemployment are rampant and the regime has gotten more authoritarian over the last few years with the Bassidjs and Revolutionary Guards playing an increasingly important role in the political and economic spheres. However, as the aforementioned paper stresses, the Green Movement may not be as representative as we hope and the regime still enjoys widespread popularity. Most importantly, its followers are hard core fellows that are ready to die protecting the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, nearly all of the countries experiencing turmoil have long maintained staunchly anti-Iran positions to satisfy their Western backers. With these puppet-governments gone, the Iranian regime will be able to extend its networks of allies, isolate Israel and strengthen its position at home.

- Team optimism: with Mubarak, Bin Ali and Kadhafi gone, Ahmadinejad is next in line. Protesters in the Arab world have set an example that their Persian counterparts will dutifully follow. George Sorros is maybe the most famous promoter of this narrative. On the last edition of Global Public Square on CNN, the billionaire investor told host Fareek Zakaria that a year from now, the Islamic Republic would be gone, swept away by the unstoppable wave of popular uprising that is hitting the region. Deposed dictators may be replaced by somewhat less anti-Iran regimes but let's not forget that the current protests are remarkably non-ideological in their nature, making a repetition of the 1979 scenario impossible. It may takes weeks or months, but the mullahs will quickly be sent packing.

I think that there is some truth in both scenarios. Right now, it is absolutely impossible to predict how the Jasmine revolutions will affect Iran. There are two many unknowns in the equation:

- What is the real level of Ahmadinejad's internal support? Bin Ali, Mubarak and Kadhafi went down in large part because they could not rely on widespread popular support. Will Ahmadinejad follow the same path? Many in the western world tend to see him as a textbook dictator that survives only thanks to brute force and the squashing of opposition groups. Things are more complicated. The president enjoys very real, and extremely fervent, popular support, especially in rural regions. How big that support is is another question. I think nobody can accurately gauge how popular the regime really is. Furthermore, the regime's supporters are not the type to defect or keep their heads down. Even if they are greatly outnumbered, they will fight until the very end and it will take an equally fired up opposition to confront them. My personal position is that Ahmadinejad's mishandling of the economy has strongly eroded his support. Don't count on large crowds to support him. If he ever were to be threatened by popular revolts, he will rely on his core of fervent, baton-wielding supporters to defend him.

- Is the Green movement really representative? Being skeptical about the regime's real popularity does not lead me to overestimate the real representativeness of the green movement. One of the reasons why it didn't manage to overthrow the regime in 2009 was that its could not claim to represent a majority of Iranians. The movement is young, mostly urban, liberal and centered on Tehran. I believe that even though Ahmadinejad is unpopular, many Iranians are still uncomfortable with explicit attacks towards the Islamic Republic itself and supreme leader Khameini. I don't think that a revolution that has the Green movement as its primary representative can gather the necessary popular support to be successful.

- Will new regimes in the Arab world be as pro-Iranian as we fear? Short answer: no. To be sure, whatever government comes to power in Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen will start developing normal relationships with the Islamic Republic. Is that such a bad thing? I don't think so. We should look forwards to more governments in the region starting to emulate Turkey's attitude towards Iran (engage in a realistic manner). Such governments could help find realistic solutions to the region's problems (akin to the Iran-Turkey-Brasil nuclear fuel swap proposed in May 2010). The revolts in the Arab world are non-ideological, I don't believe that they can give birth to ideology-driven governments that would support Iran's reckless behavior and nuclear ambitions.

- Does the Islamic Republic enjoy real popular support in the Arab world? I strongly doubt it and always have. Alarmists often point to the fact that opinion polls in the region show that Iran enjoys a better image than the US. This may be true but you don't see many Arabs immigrating to Tehran. People that live under western backed autocrats may support the general idea of a somewhat Islamic state that counterbalances western influence in the region. But being vaguely in favor of an abstract idea does not mean wanting to import the model at home. In the latest edition of GPS, one of the participants likened Arab support for the Islamic Republic to that of western intellectuals for the USSR during the cold war. Sure, Sartre and the likes were ardent defenders of the Soviet Empire but you didn't see them emigrate to Moscow. As regimes propped up by the West crumble and are replaced by democratic and diplomatically independent governments, I am convinced that the Islamic Republic will loose its appeal.

- Will the west intervene? If the west intervenes in Lybia or any other country, chances of a popular uprising in Iran will be completely destroyed. Western meddling in the region is a key part (if not THE key element) of the Islamic Republic's narrative. The more the western powers are active in the region, the stronger the legitimacy of the Iranian regime.

So what's my take on the question? In short: I don't believe in an Egyptian scenario in Iran. I think that the regime might crumble in the next year or so but wouldn't place a large bet on it. Most importantly, if the regime falls, it will be worsening economic conditions that will give a popular uprising the necessary amplitude to have a real impact.

Our Berlin wall moment

I spent hours trying to figure out which subject should have the supreme honor of being covered in my very first blog post. It should be complex without being obscure; accessible without being simplistic; smart without sounding douchy and pretentious. Man, blogging is way harder than people make it look.

My dad told me that our generation is going through it's own "Berlin wall" moment. At first I found the comparison a little far fetched but after giving the matter some thought, I found 3 interesting parallels between the downfall of the USSR and current events.

1: Caught by surprise. Back in the 1980s, few people saw the collapse of the USSR coming. Sure, post facto analysis rationalized the phenomenon, as it surely will with the current Arab revolutions, and we are now all taught in history class that the Soviet collapse was the logical culmination of a succession of events that started with the invasion of Afghanistan. But with hindsight, rationalization is an easy exercise. The truth is that the mighty empire's fall caught people by surprise. For governments and political scientists, the Soviet Empire was an immutable reality and was there to stay. As it was back then, it is today. Who would have thought as 2011 started that the geopolitical scene in the Middle East, Maghreb and Machrek (Ps: I am always horrified by how often journalists and scholars regroup these 3 regions and 3 completely different realities under the name "middle east") would be forever changed by the ousting of some of the world's most powerful dictators. In less than 3 months, the winds of change swept away some of the planet's most well-entrenched autocrats. To say that we were caught with our pants down is a lovely euphemism. As the surprise passes, it will leave place to the usual finger pointing and rationalization exercise that inevitably ensues when such events occur. (Good article on that here). In the end, our children may learn that the collapse of Arab dictators fits neatly into a coherent timeline of events but the truth is that we are like deers in the headlights right now and no amount of post-facto analysis can erase that reality.

2- Uncertainty about the future. People of my generation (ie: those for whom the Soviet Union has never been more than a historical curiosity and the subject of history exams) tend to forget the climate of uncertainty that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Union. What would come next? Would the satellite states regain their independence? Will civil war break out? Would the Communist Party keep a tight grip on power or will a free-for-all liberalization process ensue? Who would step in and rebuild these devastated countries? What would a post-communist Russia look like? It seems to me that we are now getting a taste of that uncertainty. We know what we are leaving but the road ahead is foggy. For decades, corrupt autocrats such as Bin Ali and Mubarak (as I write these lines Kadhafi clings to power but it looks increasingly likely that he, his colorful tents and gaudy tunics will be sent packing) ruled their country with an iron fist, controling every aspect of economic, administrative and social life and leaving little place to other organized groups. The post-autocratic societies in these countries are fragmented, chaotic and lacking in structure. What's more, the revolutions' vectors and catalyzers are more powerful than anything we have seen before, adding to the uncertainty. However hard we try to predict, nobody can really know what will come out of all this. There a numerous questions still waiting for an answer. Will there be a peaceful transition towards liberal democracy or will it be 1979 2.0 (I don't really believe in that scenario but we can't rule it out)? What about the new regimes' attitudes towards Iran and Israel (amongst others)? How many countries will follow the example set by Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans, Algerians, Iranians and Bahrainis ? (even China is experiencing unrest now). We are on standby, waiting to see how things unfold. The unease of diplomats the world over is almost palpable. Nobody knows how to act anymore and fears finding himself on the wrong side of history when the dust settles.

3- America should stay out of it. George H Bush is one of the most underrated US president in history and America could use a man like him right now. During his only term in office, Bush 1 was lambasted for being to timid and not doing enough to promote American interests abroad. But it was precisely this cautiousness and capacity to know when to keep silent and let events unfold that made his success. During the crumbling of the Soviet Empire, he resisted the temptation to aggressively influence the course of events and, as he put it, "dance on the ruins of the Soviet Empire". He and his secretary of state James Baker understood that the transition was an European issue and let Europe take the helm while quietly promoting their agenda in the background. The result was what historian Nial Fergusson calls a "soft landing" and an Eastern Europe that is today relatively stable, globally democratic and staunchly pro-american. Granted, the similarities between the collapse of the Soviet Empire, an event that marked the triumph of US policy and ideology, and the downfall of Arab dictators, that marks quite the opposite, only go so far. But the temptation to meddle in interior affairs, especially in Egypt and Bahrain, is as strong, if not stronger now. All over Washington people are calling for the state department to make sure that Egyptians elect the right people (ie: not the Muslim Brotherhood) and "use democracy responsibly". But what America should really do is shut up and keep its head down.

So it turns out that my old man's comparison was not all that far-fetched after all. Obviously, one can probably find much more differences than similarities between the fall of the Soviet Empire and the ousting of Mubarak and Co. But still, history has a fascinating way of repeating itself and people looking for a way to manage the current crisis might want to look back for some valuable insights.