Middle East & North Africa

John Mroz: "The World is Doing Much Better than One Year Ago."

In a recent interview with Slovenia's Delo, EWI president John Mroz discussed a range of issues including cybersecurity, energy resources, and recent international conflicts. The interview was conducted following a panel session Mroz moderated at the 2013 Munich Security Conference on February 2.

Click here to access the original interview text in Slovenian.

Among more than 400 participants of this year’s Munich Security Conference there are 11 heads of states or governments, 43 foreign ministers and 20 defense ministers. Has this high concentration of global decision-makers brought any good?

At a conference such as this one in Munich, which is the biggest security conference in the world, the most important thing is to capture the general sense of how good or bad the current situation is. Last year it was genuinely depressing, people were not enthusiastic – today it’s much better, although they are not naively positive either. The world is doing much better than one year ago.

 

But now we have wars – in Syria, Mali…

There will always be wars, and although what’s going on in Mali is terrible, a collapse of the Eurozone would have been something totally different. People are now much more optimistic and eager to cooperate. It’s true that the UN Security Council can’t take action on Syria, but the real concerns are elsewhere. I led a debate on cybersecurity in which we all agreed that the threats are higher than one year ago. In some areas the situation is worse, but if we take everything into account, the overall environment is much better, especially in Europe.

 

If we stay on Syria and Iran for a moment – how should we observe the Russian foreign minister’s meeting with Syrian opposition leaders?

Lavrov’s meeting with the opposition is a dramatic move, yet what is even more dramatic is that the opposition leader also met with the Iranian foreign minister. It’s exactly why these conferences are important – a lot is going on in the background, leaders meet day and night.

 

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said in Munich that international politics can get personal. Do you see any shifts in the U.S. foreign policy as President Obama begins his second term?

Vice President Biden was careful not to announce anything big before President Obama outlines his big foreign policy plans for next four years in his State of the Union address. There are some hints, though – climate change will certainly be one big theme of Obama’s second term.

 

Another important topic at the Munich conference was the new technologies of shale oil and gas extraction. As America ends its reliance on imported fossil fuels, and even becomes a major exporter, how will all this change international relations?

Many countries will be affected – Russia will bear strong consequences. Russia has so far influenced the prices with its long-term contracts, but its global economic position is about to change dramatically. Nobody knows how this is going to look like in the end, but the situation is going to be much, much different.

 

How about China?

Chinese leadership is under intense domestic pressure; there’s widespread corruption, a huge emerging middle class that demands clear air and clean water, millions of people still living in poverty. They are facing very difficult challenges – Chinese leaders have their hands full.

 

At the conference you led a discussion on fighting crime or even war in cyberspace, just as the leading U.S. newspapers accused China for launching cyber attacks as retaliation for their reports on the Chinese prime minister’s family fortune.

Yes, the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal all complained about the attacks. There’s a lot going on on the Internet, but cyber crime is still the greatest challenge. It all starts with individuals – how smart we are with our passwords; how often do we change them, how complex they are;do we use one password multiple times. If we go further to companies, organizations and governments, there’s no cyber warfare, but a lot of industrial espionage going on, not just by Russians and Chinese. Democratic countries are in the game, too: Israelis, French, we Americans. But it all gets back to individuals – your computer gets infected with a virus and, while you go to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, for example, the organized criminals take control over your computer; this trend is really dangerous.

 

Your organization, the EastWest Institute, aims to build trust and solve problems in international relations. Are you succeeding?

Building trust is about dealing with other human beings. If you need somebody, you automatically want to trust that person. If it is somebody from a different culture, religion or ethnic group, acquiring trust takes a little bit longer. If there is bad experience involved, then building trust takes even more effort. Trust-building is a long process that doesn’t depend just on a presumption that you are a good person and therefore I want to trust you. Building trust is a two way street, where we have to work together. In cybersecurity we work in this way with the Chinese on spam. Two thirds of all emails are spam, large number carry viruses, so we are delivering global standards to fight spam.

 

What are your other projects?

A lot of them deal with water and food security, on the issue of water in Africa, we worked together with the French G20 presidency. Climate change has dramatic impact on water resources, threatening wars and mass migration of people. We deal with this in Central Asia as well, in the Amu Darya basin, which involves 5 countries, including Afghanistan. Once there were rumors of war, now they work together on better management of river flow, etc. The same process is going on between Egypt and Ethiopia. In very practical terms, we did in the Amu Darya basin what we used to do in the Balkans: we brought together people that can help and we focused on practical issues of deforestation and erosion of river basins. These are small things, but it is how you build trust and change people’s mindsets. It’s a hard work that you can’t do at a conference, but somebody has to do it.

 

Clear air and clean water have impact on clean environment. What about fracking, which wall also talked about? Many Europeans reject the idea, because of strong chemicals involved.

There are arguments for and against. In my country, the U.S., the level of pollution went down to 1982 figures, almost exclusively because we replaced coal with gas. Gas has side effects as well, but nothing compared to coal. Imagine, therefore, if China could replace a third of their coal based power plants with gas. The biggest problem is water, because fracking requires a lot of water mixed with chemicals. In five years, new technologies will emerge that will require smaller amounts of water and no chemicals at all, which will make shale oil and gas extraction environmentally friendly. Shale fossil fuel resources are not found just in America, but China, Ukraine, Poland, Argentina, Brazil and Chile. This is a game-changer.

 

Years ago, you used to work in Western Balkans. What would you say about the border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia?

The EastWest Institute goes where the situation is toughest, where there is an imminent threat of war: there’s nothing like that between Slovenia and Croatia. A lot depends on the political will, but also on the people, that must say: “That’s enough!” Just when I look at the European economy, and then look at the issue of Cyprus, I think: how ridiculous is that! Let’s resolve this and focus of economic growth.

 

For Slovenians, however, the access to international waters is a very important issue.

That is something else, that is part of history and should be addressed. I believe that the people should be more vocal in demanding that these open issues should be resolved. However, it is true that nationalism is growing nowadays. Everywhere – in Japan, Korea, China, as well as in Europe. It’s one of the effects of globalization, people are more nationalistic, which makes the problems, like the border one that you mentioned, harder to resolve.

 

Are you afraid of new currency wars?

No, people might be more nationalistic but they are not mindless to shoot themselves in the foot. I don’t think it will come to that. Many people around the world are aware of everything that Europeans had to undertake. Faced with the crisi, they understood the difficult decisions that had to be made; even in Greece the level of unrest was not that high.

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Media Coverage of WSC9

EWI's 9th Worldwide Security Conference, held in Brussels this November 12-13, brought together 300 high-level policy makers, business executives and public opinion leaders to focus on reshaping economic security in Southwest Asia and the Middle East. Here's a round-up of media coverage on the event:

New Europe

The News

AP Pakistan

Kuwaiti News Agency

Asia-Plus

Central Asian News Service

Federation of Arab News Agencies

New Europe

JŪRA MOPE SEA

DiploNews

WSC9: An Appeal from Martti Ahtisaari

At the opening session of the EastWest Institute's 9th Annual Worldwide Security Conference at the World Customs Organization in Brussels on November 12, Finland’s former President and Nobel Laureate Martti Ahtisaari appealed for the creation of new regional organizations in the Middle East and Southwest Asia to curb conflicts. “The catastrophe of Syria demonstrates this need,” he declared. “The nations of Southwest Asia need to work to build a security organization that bridges major divides.” 

Ahtisaari, who is also a member of the board of directors of the EastWest Institute, addressed approximately 300 high-level policy makers, business executives and public opinion leaders, citing the critical urgency of their work. The conference is focused on "Reshaping Economic Security in Southwest Asia and the Middle East."  While encouraging participants to make specific recommendations on cross-border infrastructure, the water-energy food nexus, youth unemployment and social marginalization, Ahtisaari emphasized the need for effective peace-making.

The former Finnish President conceded the difficulties of forming a regional organization. “We know that the issue of Palestine and other big issues, such as Iran’s nuclear program, have prevented even the idea of such an organization,” he said. ”But history shows – as the UN Charter foreshadowed – that regional organizations are a powerful tool in successful conflict resolution and peace building.”
 
For now, Ahtisaari added, “the moral imperative” of the Syrian conflict demands more urgent measures. “Perhaps one can recommend a holding action: find a way to get humanitarian access, and to stop the fighting unconditionally, but premised on a commitment to new and fair elections, organized for example by the UN and supported by a substantive UN peacekeeping operation.” But he conceded that the immediate chances for any such solution look slight.
 
 
The conference was held against the backdrop of the looming 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan as well as the continuing turmoil in the Middle East. Topics for the sessions included: Economic Security and Regional Cooperation; New Directions for Water-Energy-Food Security Policies; Afghanistan and its Neighbors; and the role of private sector investment in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.
 
Afghanistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin emphasized the importance of his country’s integration into the region. “Come 2014, Afghanistan will hopefully achieve stability, but terrorism won’t go away,” he said. Pointing to significant new investments by China, India, Turkey and others, he urged more such regional cooperation. “It’s time for the region to bet on our success rather than to bet on our misfortunes,” he added. While Afghanistan’s ties to more distant allies remains important, “we know that our future lies within the region,” he concluded.
 
As a result of the Arab Spring, the Middle East faces major new challenges, speakers pointed out. “Unfortunately, in the Arab world we have not prevented political troubles from harming economic interests,” said Ambassador Hesham Youssef, the Assistant Secretary General of the League of Arab States. During 2011, foreign investment declined by 38 percent, he pointed out.
 
Potential conflicts over scarce resources, particularly water, are another major concern. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the Arab world has 0.7 percent of the world’s water, Youssef added. “This is why many experts have been predicting that the next war in the Middle East will be about water.”
 
Nonetheless, Youssef also saw hope in the transition to more democratic governments, which are more likely to work together to focus on their common challenges than previous regimes. “Governments will succeed if they move fast and meet the expectations of their people,” he said.
 
Ahtisaari sounded a similar cautious note about the scope of the challenges. “The broad area of Southwest Asia and the Middle East has too often been host to regional tension and conflict, and a battle ground for competing outside interests,” he said. “In the 21st century, this vast area has become the core of global politics. I am convinced that it is a region whose further development and direction will determine what kind of 21st century we all will be facing. It is also a region where the very credibility of the international community is at stake.”
 
 
In his report from the conference, EWI board member Ikram Sehgal, who chaired one of the panels, discusses the impact of the looming 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan.  He writes that this event “is bound to have a profound impact in the region and present significant challenges.”  You can read Sehgal’s full report here.

EWI Honors Afghan and Pakistani Women Parliamentarians and the People of Japan

With three foreign ministers and many additional dignitaries in attendance, the EastWest Institute presented the 2012 Leadership Award to Afghan and Pakistani women parliamentarians, and the 2012 International Peace Building Award to the people of Japan. Dr. Fehmida Mirza, first woman speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, and Ms. Shinkai Karokhail, a renowned women’s rights activist and member of the Afghan Parliament, received the leadership award for their inspiring records.  Japan’s Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba accepted the International Peace Building Award on behalf of the Japanese people, who have provided critical economic and development assistance to Afghanistan. The reception and dinner took place on  Sept. 27, 2012, at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York.

 
EWI Board Chairman Ross Perot, Jr. presented the awards to the parliamentarians, the first to Dr. Mirza. “We are proud that she has been personally instrumental to the success of our Parliamentarians Network and its Women, Peace and Security initiative. She is an inspiration to us all,” Perot said.

Shezreh Mirza, the award winner’s daughter, and Ms. Donya Aziz, a prominent member of the National Assembly of Pakistan, accepted the award on behalf of Dr. Mirza. Speaking of her mother's firm belief in women's empowerment, Shezreh Mirza quoted her as saying: "Women don't make war. They make peace. Women don't take life. They give life."

In accepting her award, Shinkai Karokhail spoke passionately about the challenges women face in her country: “Half of the population still lives under violence.  Half of the population still has no rights to make decisions for itself. Half of the population in my country is still living as second class citizens. What my government should learn is that this half of the population is half the talent, half the energy and half the commitment to peace, and should be taken into account.”  

Karokhail Recieves Award

Sarah Perot Presents Ms. Shinkai Karokhail with the H.H. Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Values-based Leadership Award.

Dr. Mirza and Ms. Karokhail are the first recipients of the Leadership award named for a strong advocate of women’s rights, H.H. Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak. The wife of the late Sheikh Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, she founded the first UAE women’s organization in 1973: the Abu Dhabi Society for the Awakening of Women.  

These honorees are deeply involved in EWI’s Women, Peace and Security trust-building work in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This awards dinner coincided with EWI’s release of Women, Peace and Security, a report on the first visit of Pakistani women parliamentarians to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister  Zalmai Rassoul presented the International Peace Building award to Japan’s Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba, who accepted on behalf of the people of Japan. “We have a unique and special historic relationship  between our two nations,” said Rassoul. He added that his nation is deeply appreciative of Japan’s generous backing for his country’s efforts to rebuild after years of struggle.

Gemba congratulated the women parliamentarians on their commitment and dedication to their countries, and spoke of Japan’s continued support of Afghanistan’s economic  development. “We are looking forward to fair elections in 2014 and to supporting sustainable development and reconstruction. It is a long road to prosperity, but you will get there,” he said.

The International Peace Building award recognizes individuals and groups that have made great strides in building peace across borders and cultures. Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and Sergio Vieira de Mello, the late United Nations high commissioner for human rights, are among the previous recipients of the award.

EWI President John Mroz noted that the institute recognizes the role that women play on a global scale, not succumbing to a “policy community that is comfortable in its old ways.” 

“There are few more important ways of  instigating positive change in the world than the empowerment of women for heightened participation in political decision making including foreign and defense matters,” said Mroz.  “Dr. Mirza and Ms. Karokhail are groundbreaking, visionary leaders.  Their leadership deserves to be recognized beyond their borders as a beacon of inspiration to others.” He added: “ It is also a great honor to present the prestigious International Peace Building Award to the people of Japan.”

Trustlaw reports on EWI's 2012 Awards Dinner

Writing for Trustlaw, a Thompson Reuters Foundation service, reporter Lyric Thompson discussed the EastWest Institute's 2012 Awards Dinner held yesterday at the Four Seasons Restaurant.

"I have followed [EWI award recipient Ms. Shinkai] Karokhail’s work since she was profiled in the PBS Series Women, War and Peace," writes Thompson.

"Although the relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan are famously fraught," she continues, "Karokhail is particularly optimistic that it will be possible to improve things by promoting dialogue and understanding between female leaders on both sides, which has already begun."

Click here to read the Trustlaw article in full.

Women in the Arab World

In an interview published in Jordan's Living Well magazine, EWI board member Haifa Al-Kaylani, Founder and Chairman of the Arab International Women's Forum, discussed the many challenges facing women in today's Arab world.

What inspired you to establish the Arab International Women’s Forum (AIWF)?

While living in London, I found that there was a lot of stereotyping of Arab women. And, so, after becoming the president of the Federation of International Women’s Associations in London, I began inviting Arab women leaders to speak. Eventually, I fully realized the richness of the women that we have in the Arab region and how more of them needed to appear on an international scale. So, with a few of the Arab women that came to London and with some others whom I was currently working with, we decided to start a non-profit, non-governmental, non-political organization based in London that links Arab women both with each other and with the international community. We believed in two things when we established the forum: One, there is no economic and social development without women playing a role. Two, we are living in a world without borders, and the Arab world is a part of that global community.

Click here to read the rest of the interview at Living Well Magazine.

T. E. Lawrence's Prescient Warning about Syria

Writing for The National Interest, EWI's Franz-Stefan Gady assesses the legacy of colonialism and the implications for Syria today.

“They were discontented always with what government they had; such being their intellectual pride; but few of them honestly, thought out a working alternative, and fewer still agreed upon one.” Thus noted T. E. Lawrence in his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which recounts his exploits as part of the Arab uprising against the Turks during the First World War. “They” are the Syrians, and Lawrence provides a vivid description of the land and its people, which he and a Hashemite-led Arab army were about to wrestle from Ottoman control.

Today, the discontent described by Lawrence remains, this time among the rebel groups opposed to the ruling Assad regime. For example, the Free Syrian Army recently condemned a meeting held in Cairo between the Syrian National Council and representatives from France, Tunisia and Turkey; they claimed the delegates were “rejecting the idea of a foreign military intervention to save the people . . . and ignoring the question of buffer zones protected by the international community, humanitarian corridors, an air embargo and the arming of rebel fighters." With growing international pressure for military intervention in Syria, T. E. Lawrence’s analysis of a fractured nation—although written by an outsider and almost a hundred years old—may caution us to think carefully when arguing for Western involvement in the region.

Prior to the establishment of the modern state of Syria under a French protectorate following the First World War, the term Syria denoted the entire Levant, including Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon. However, Lawrence in his work especially singled out the Syrian cities of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo when describing the political issues of Syria. He also focused on the Yarmuk Valley, running along today’s Syrian-Jordan border; Hauran, a volcanic plateau and people in today’s Southwestern Syria; and Daraa, also located in Southwestern Syria, which he saw as “the critical centre of Syria in all ages.”

Lawrence thought that in order to succeed in Syria, he had to have the Sunni majority on his side. He therefore cautioned that the “only independent factor with acceptable groundwork and fighting adherents was a Sunni prince, like Feisal, pretending to revive the glories of Ommayad or Ayubid.” Yet he also knew that any new form of government might be seen by some parts of society as imposed by a foreign power: “An Arab government in Syria, though buttressed on Arabic prejudices, would be as much ‘imposed’ as the Turkish Government, or a foreign protectorate, or the historic Caliphate. Syria remained a vividly coloured racial and religious mosaic.” He was deeply pessimistic about the outcome of any uprising in the country: “Time seemed to have proclaimed the impossibility of autonomous union for such a land. . . . It was also by habit a country of tireless agitation and incessant revolt.”

Lawrence acknowledged the potential for a general insurrection against the Turkish government in Damascus but again cautioned that it not be foreign led:

Syria, ripe for spasmodic local revolt, might be seethed up into insurrection, if a new factor, offering to realize that centripetal nationalism of the Beyrout Cyclopaedists, arose to restrain, the jarring sects and classes. Novel, the factor must be, to avoid raising a jealousy of itself: not foreign, since the conceit of Syria forbade.

In the light of the current uprising, T. E. Lawrence’s words seem almost prescient, although they were written more than ninety years ago. In a sense, the incumbent Alawi- and Shia-dominated government under Bashar al-Assad has reproduced the ancient foreign Ottoman administration, with the top tiers of government dominated by a Shia minority that constitutes less than 20 percent of Syria’s total population. Lawrence described the Alawi as “clannish in feeling and politics.” Thus, the current revolt would not be a surprise to him.

But due to the suppressive nature of the Alawi-dominated Assad regime, the internal strife so feared by Lawrence has been stifled ever since the Corrective Revolution of 1970 (with the exception of the Muslim Brotherhood uprising of February 1982). Yet inserting additional foreign elements into this complex and volatile kaleidoscope of tribal and religious factions may prove disastrous for all involved. The major lesson Lawrence drew from the history of foreign interventions in Syria, starting from the Ottomans to the British and French, is that they have been marked by disappointment. The defeats have come not so much in military struggles—both the British and French prevailed in that sphere—but in the failure of political settlements and the transition to peace once the fighting ceased. Or as T. E. Lawrence alliterated, “Any wide attempt after unity would make a patched and parceled thing.”

Click here to read this piece at The National Interest.

Inter Press Service reports on EWI-FES Middle East Workshop

The Inter Press Service reports on The Changing Middle East, a workshop hosted by EWI and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York Office.

With ever increasing sanctions against Iran, escalating violence in Syria and the continuing political struggles in Egypt, a new dynamic has been added to the long-standing policy challenges in the Middle East.

“The Middle East is a place where the weak minorities are wiped out… Peace is viable so long as no one is stronger than us,” said Ephraim Sneh, Chair of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue at Netyanya College, Israel.

He spoke at a one day workshop in New York on Wednesday, hosted by Freidrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York and the EastWest Institute, which brought together speakers from Turkey, Iran, Israel and Egypt, as well as Russia, the United States and Europe.

“Small nations can rely only on themselves and we will never deposit our future in the hands of anyone,” said Sneh. “Israel will not abandon its military balance.”

The mounting international pressure on Iran was also a key topic of discussion, with many concerns raised for the efficacy of the imposed sanctions. “The [Iranian] population is suffering tremendously from the sanctions that have been imposed,” said Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council.”

Click here to read the rest of this piece at Inter Press Service.

The Changing Middle East

The EastWest Institute and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York Office hosted "The Changing Middle East--Implications for Regional and Global Politics," a day-long workshop that led to lively debates about the current dramatic developments in the region.

“The dynamic of change is the people themselves, which is what makes this exciting and unpredictable at the same time,” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center and fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. “This is a process that is long overdue.”

Others saw both opportunities and perils in the new situation. Egyptian Foreign Ministry official Tamim Khallaf described the changes as part of a larger process of de-militarization of Arab governments, and he hailed the first free presidential elections in his country. Turkish economist Gökhan Bacik called the Arab Spring “a great economic opportunity for Turkey.”

But others warned of the dangers of populism when the early euphoria turns to disappointment as economic problems persist, and expressed concerns about new divisions, particularly within Islamic movements. “We are witnessing centrifugal forces at work that are pulling at the old religious and tribal divides,” said Isobel Coleman of the Council on Foreign Relations.

While some panelists disagreed on whether to call the upheavals in the region a revolution or an awakening, there was consensus that, whatever label is used, the magnitude of the changes cannot be denied. “This is not something seasonal or brief,” said Dan Arbell, Minister of Political Affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. “I see this as a tectonic shift.”

Predictably, there were sharp disagreements on Iran’s nuclear program. Ambassadior Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who served as Iran’s spokesman during its nuclear negotiations with the European Union from 2003 to 2005, declared: “Iran is prepared to accept a deal based on maximum transparency measures.” But according to Israeli diplomat Arbell, “The window for the diplomatic option is closing.”

Panelists also discussed the Syrian crisis, the internal disagreements in Israel about that country’s future, the impact of the regional upheavals on women and minorities, and the prospects for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.

For more information on speakers and panel sessions, click here to download the agenda.

 

MP3s of panel sessions:

Panel I: Unfinished Transformations in the Middle East and their Effect on the Regional Security Dynamic (1:43:38)

Panel II: The Two-Level Game: How are Current Domestic Politics Affecting Foreign Policy Decision-making? (1:37:34)

Panel III: Chances for Rapprochement: What Role for Multilateral Initiatives? (1:28:18)

 

Portions of the livestream recording are available for viewing here via EWI's Ustream channel:

 

Click here for more coverage of the event by the Inter Press Service.

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