Politics and Governance

The webinar—organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS)—will also feature Sajad Jyhad, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations' Middle East and North Africa programme; Kristen Fontenrose, director of the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative; and will be moderated by Louisa Loveluck, Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post.

Click here to register and to learn more. 

Speakers included Sajad Jiyad, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and former managing director of the Al-Bayan Center for Planning and Studies based in Baghdad, and Daniela Verena Huber, head of the Mediterranean and Middle East Program of the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI). EWI’s Vice President of the MENA program, Kawa Hassan, severed as moderator.

On May 6, after nearly six months of political deadlock, Iraq swore in a new government headed by Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, chief of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service. Both speakers stressed the new prime minister would seven daunting challenges in his new role: collapsing oil prices; the COVID-19 pandemic; meeting protesters’ demands for an early election; tackling rampant corruption of ruling elites; holding government officials and paramilitaries responsible for the violent crackdown of the October uprising accountable; addressing the proxy conflict between the U.S. and Iran in Iraq, as well as developing balanced relations with the two external powers; and increasing ISIS attacks.   

Concerning Iraq’s internal socio-economic and political challenges, the experts elaborated on the EU’s potential role in supporting the development of a welfare state that would increase the government’s legitimacy, helping it tackle ubiquitous corruption. In addition, an Iraqi welfare state could provide an alternative to ethno-sectarian identity politics, which have often been instrumentalized for political advantages by both internal and external forces. Furthermore, the briefing shed light on the significance of the EU’s support of Iraq’s territorial integrity and ability to carry out federal solutions within a unified country. 

Since 2003, Iraq has been a battleground for the U.S.-Iran proxy conflict. Experts noted that Iraq must formulate a policy to maintain good, diplomatic relations with both powers, pointing to the June 11 U.S.-Iraq strategic dialogue as an example forward. One speaker highlighted that this dialogue might help the U.S. to facilitate the process of Iraq acquiring loans from the IMF and World Bank to tackle the current economic crisis. Others argued that Iraq needs to start a similar, parallel dialogue with Iran, given the importance of the bilateral relationship for Iraq’s stability and security.

Following the killing of General Qasem Soleimani in January, experts observed that while Iran is taking increasing stock of the situation in Iraq, Iraqis are aiming to minimize and manage tension on their own soil—just as they did in the period of 2015-2017, when both Iran and the U.S. supported Iraq in its fight against ISIS.  

The discussants mentioned that the EU has historically engaged in “bandwagoning” with the U.S. when it comes to its approach toward Iraq. This has left the EU without a strong policy of its own. However, with the U.S. stepping out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the nuclear agreement between the EU/E3+3 and Iran—and its tensions with Iran rising, the EU is forced to revise and develop its own position towards Iraq and the MENA region as a whole. A priority in this respect, as mentioned in the briefing, is for the EU to understand its capabilities and strengths. The discussants pointed to several policy areas where the EU could best offer its assistance.

When it comes to Iraq’s relationship with its neighbors, the EU could provide diplomatic assistance by persuading external actors to refrain from interfering in Iraqi affairs. The EU could also play a role in defining norms for interaction and negotiations, since the region lacks its own mechanisms for dialogue and conflict resolution. Furthermore, the EU could offer diplomatic offices that support Iraq in serving as a contact point between states, rather than as a theater for proxy wars. This diplomatic support could provide the groundwork for Iraq to engage in win-win relations with its immediate neighborhood.

The speakers concluded the briefing by recommending that the EU develop a comprehensive security strategy that combines both the traditional security concept and a human security approach. The EU can begin to implement this strategy by focusing on “low-hanging fruits” projects in the trade, health and environment sectors.  

About the Brussels MENA Briefings

The Brussels MENA Briefings are in-depth roundtable discussions on topics of current significance in the MENA region hosted by EWI and CARPO bimonthly, the first week of every second month. As in-person-briefings are impossible due to COVID-19, EWI and CARPO have temporarily turned this series into a monthly webinar. Please note that attendance is by invitation only.

Should you be interested in being considered for the invitation list, kindly send an email to Desirée Custers mentioning your name, affiliation and geographical or thematic area of interest and expertise in the Middle East.

Dates for upcoming Brussels MENA Briefings:

Tuesday, July 7, 2020: How to Rescue Sudan’s Transition Process

Tuesday, September 8, 2020: (topic tbd)

Event Reports from Previous Briefings:

The Status Quo of the Libyan Conflict: Is the Berlin Process Obsolete?  

Post-Sultan Qaboos Oman: Transition Opportunities and Challenges

Iran After Parliamentary Elections

A select delegation of leaders from the U.S. Democratic and Republican Parties and the global business community traveled to Beijing, China to meet with senior officials from the Communist Party of China (CPC) on November 18-21, 2019. The discussions were part of the 11th U.S.-China High-Level Political Party Leaders Dialogue organized by the EastWest Institute (EWI) in partnership with the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (IDCPC). 

Launched in 2010, the U.S.-China High-Level Political Party Leaders Dialogue seeks to build understanding and trust between political elites from the U.S. and China through candid exchanges of views on topics ranging from local governance to foreign policy concerns. The dialogue process consistently involves sitting officers from the CPC and the U.S. Democratic and Republican National Committees. 

In the 11th iteration of the dialogue, the CPC delegation was led by Song Tao, minister of IDCPC. Gary Locke, former secretary of the United States Department of Commerce, former governor for the state of Washington and former United States Ambassador of China; and Alphonso Jackson, former secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development; lead the U.S. Democratic and Republican delegations, respectively. Throughout the dialogue, members of both delegations spoke freely on relevant topics including foriegn policy trends, trade disputes and emerging areas of economic cooperation. 

EWI facilitated a series of meetings for the U.S. delegation, which included a productive meeting with Wang Qishan, vice president of the People’s Republic of China at the Great Hall of the People. The delegates also met with Yang Jiechi, director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs; Dai Bingguo, former state councilor of the People’s Republic of China; and Lu Kang, director of the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The U.S. delegates visited the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and met with their president, Jin Liqun, as well as the Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University to engage prominent scholars on the future of the U.S.-China relationship. 

With U.S.-China competition in full force, amid looming tensions in the South China Sea and across the Taiwan Strait, the 11th U.S.-China Sanya Initiative Dialogue came at a crucial junction where the risk of miscalculation has increased rapidly in the strategic relationship. The dialogue afforded an opportunity for candid exchanges on key current and future flashpoints that are consequential to the security and stability in the Asia-Pacific.

In addition to the closed door exchanges between the American and Chinese delegates, the group has also met with General Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, the governing body of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Senior military and civilian personnel from the United States Embassy in Beijing have also taken part in the event.

Since 2008, the U.S.-China Sanya Initiative has regularly facilitated high-level dialogue between retired American and Chinese generals and admirals in order to strengthen military-to-military ties between the United States and China.

The EastWest Institute (EWI) today released Terrorism in Afghanistan: A Joint Threat Assessment, the culminating report from the institute’s Joint U.S.-Russia Working Group on Counterterrorism in Afghanistan. Authored by American and Russian contributors, the report provides a timely, even-handed assessment of terrorism and armed conflict in Afghanistan, while also exploring the counterterrorism agenda in the broader geopolitical context of U.S.-Russia relations.

“In spite of ongoing tensions between the United States and Russia, Afghanistan and counterterrorism have remained rare dynamic areas for constructive, bilateral dialogue,” said Vladimir Ivanov, director of the Working Group and EWI’s Russia and the United States program. “At this critical juncture in Afghanistan’s road to peace, and as violence continues to plague the country, it is more important than ever for the U.S. and Russia to better align their counterterrorism and peace-making efforts, not just for the safety and stability of Afghanistan, but for the region and world.”

Click here for the full report. The Russian translation of Terrorism in Afghanistan: A Joint Threat Assessment will be made available in June 2020.

Terrorism in Afghanistan: A Joint Threat Assessment is intended to serve as an analytical tool for policymakers and an impetus for joint U.S.-Russia action. The report provides an overview of the security situation and peace process in Afghanistan, taking into account U.S. and Russian policies, priorities and interests; surveys the militant terrorist groups in and connected to Afghanistan and explores the security interests of various regional stakeholders vis-à-vis Afghanistan. Challenges relating to border management, arms trafficking and terrorist financing in Afghanistan are also briefly addressed.

Launched in October 2017, the Working Group convened U.S. and Russian policy and technical experts in Moscow, Washington, D.C., Brussels and Vienna over the course of two years. The Working Group has since garnered positive feedback and support from key interlocutors, including the U.S. Department of State, U.S Department of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

On May 20, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen will be sworn in for her second term, while strains in the tripartite relationship between China, Taiwan, and United States reach unprecedented levels. Taiwan continues to be used as a ploy in the political games between the world’s two superpowers, with both sides turning up the heat in the Taiwan Strait. Tsai’s inauguration coincides with U.S. lobbying efforts to help Taiwan secure observer status at the World Health Organization (WHO)’s 73rd World Health Assembly, as well as increased pressure from Beijing to have more say in the self-ruling island’s status. Though it is likely that Tsai will maintain her track record of capably preserving the cross-strait status quo, U.S.-China competition may emerge as a potential game changer in the unresolved Taiwan Strait crisis, especially with the U.S. presidential election drawing closer.

Tsai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) she represents won a landslide victory in the January election, which was widely seen as a referendum on the future of Taiwan and its relationship with China. Over 8 million voters cast their ballots for Tsai, placing confidence in her ability to defend Taiwan’s democracy and sovereignty. The election took place when Taiwan’s heightened sympathy for Hong Kong’s fight for democracy was juxtaposed against the precipitous erosion of the “one country, two systems” formula, originally developed for Taiwan by former Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping and only later adopted for Hong Kong. Three decades after the formula’s conception, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s overture to the Taiwanese about “inevitable” reunification has been quickly dismissed and the prospect of Taiwan returning to China is a taboo subject for Taiwanese politicians. Not surprisingly, the Kuomintang (KMT) opposition party is still licking its wounds from the electoral defeat that was driven, in no small part, from its struggle to move past its Beijing-friendly position.

Click here to read the full article on The Diplomat.

Currently, we witness a volatile, polarized and destabilizing international security environment that has exposed us to the grey zones of war and peace. Security challenges arising from both hybrid threats and hybrid warfare (both multiple and synchronized threats that aim to target states’ vulnerabilities at different levels covering domains other than military) seem to have held front seat on the global security agenda thereby altering the relevance of nuclear deterrence. Deterrence is generally understood as an ability to dissuade a state from embarking upon a course of action prejudicial to one’s vital security interests, based on demonstrative capability. The nuclear deterrence theory, as propounded by Brodie (Brodie 1946, p. 76), which is grounded in political realism, enriches our thought process to comprehend the potential character of nuclear weapons. The focus of nuclear deterrence was on averting wars through the psychological manipulation of an adversary’s mind. Thus, it is argued that renewed warfare domains and non-military threats seems to have marginalized the relevance of deterrence theory. Therefore, new mechanisms are required to defend societies and build a correlation between deterrence and evolving wide-raging threats that are non-military in nature. It is further argued that a long-term holistic approach to deterrence as an instrument is needed that focuses on both current military and renewed non-military threats which cover political, economic, social and digital landscape.

Click here to read the full article on E-International Relations.

Click here to watch the interview. Hassan's comments begin at 17:09. Read a paraphrased summary of his remarks, below.

Finally, there is a new government in Iraq and that is good news. Whether Al-Kadhimi will be able to solve all the problems Iraq is facing is a big question mark. This is a provisional government—probably for one or two years. Al-Kadhimi said his aim is to prepare the ground for an early, free and fair election, ensure Iraq is not a theater for proxy wars between Iran and the U.S., that the Iraqi state has a monopoly of violence and that all militias will be under the control of the state. There is a good opportunity for Al-Kadhimi to achieve the last aim by gradually bringing militias under state authority, since there is consensus and support among the key Iraqi players. More importantly, Iraq’s lack of a strong state, which controls the means of violence, is one of the reasons for the nation’s current instability. It is a big question whether he [Al-Kadhimi] will succeed in bringing to justice those [officials, leaders] who were responsible for the killing of demonstrators and address the corruption of the ruling establishment.   

Recent ISIS attacks are alarming and worrying. The terrorist organization was weakened in 2018 and 2019, but now, it made a comeback [in rural areas] because of the fragile state of Iraqi institutions, the fragmentation of the political scene and the lack of a national plan for the resettlement of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and reconstruction of liberated areas. The fact that ISIS is “resurging” [in rural areas] means that the political establishment failed to learn lessons from the previous expansion of the terrorist organization [in 2014]. 

The problem of the corruption of the ruling elite is as strong and destructive as ever. Yes, there has been some progress in terms of the resettlement of the IDPs—so far, 4.6 million IDPs have been resettled. But there are still almost 1.4 million IDPs that remain. IDP camps are an excellent place for the expansion of the sectarian and destructive ideology of ISIS—in a way, these camps could be the ideal "university" for the "graduation" of [future] ISIS militants because of a lack of national consensus and strategy on how to reconstruct the liberated areas, lack of proper coordination between the different intelligence and security services responsible for preserving security in those areas and, more importantly, lack of a security structure trusted by the local population. 

There is a new dynamic [with respect to the proxy conflict between Iran and the U.S.]. At the moment, Iran is preoccupied with dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Iran is still trying to fill the void left by the killing of General Qasem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis. Soleimani had enormous influence and relations with key political players across the board. At the same time, the U.S. administration is preoccupied with addressing the spread of coronavirus in the U.S.; also, you hear in certain conservative circles in Washington that there is an Iraq fatigue—that we have been helping Iraqis for the last seventeen years, but look at the situation today, where powerful pro-Iran groups [have gained influence]. As a result, there is a space for the new Iraqi government to take initiative and try to build balanced relations with these two powers—these two key players have two different strategic aims when it comes to Iraq and how they view security and stability in the country.

Collapsing oil prices have a destructive impact on Iraq's economy. It is worrying that there is less and less international interest in fighting ISIS and to help Iraq economically, partly, because of Iraq's structural problems and the corruption of the ruling elite that came to power in 2003.