Tuesday, June 25, 2013
A Special Project with the New America Foundation and the Project on Middle East Political Science
Qatari emir transfers power to his son
On national television Tuesday Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani announced he is transferring power to his son, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. A peaceful transition is rare in the Gulf where most rulers stay in power for decades, most until they die. The al-Thani family has held power in Qatar for almost 150 years. Sheikh Hamad seized power in a bloodless coup in 1995 when his father Sheikh Khalifa was on an overseas trip. Sheikh Tamim, 33, will be the youngest leader in the Arab world. It is unclear when Sheikh Tamim will take office, but according to a Qatari official, he will address the country Wednesday and choose a new government. There is speculation that long-serving Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani may step down. However, some analysts believe Sheikh Tamim is unlikely to stray far from his father's policies. Qatar's economy has grew from $8bn to $174bn while Sheikh Hamad has been in power, largely due to the country's natural gas reserves, making it one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Syria
U.S. and Russian officials are meeting at the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday for a second round of talks in efforts to plan an international conference on Syria. At the first meeting in early June, U.S. and Russian envoys agreed on a basic formula for the conference, but did not decide who would attend, and what would be the role of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. U.N. special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said he doubted the conference would take place in July. He remarked, "The opposition has their next meeting on July 4-5. So I don't think they will be ready." As such, he called for regional powers as well as the United States and Russia to contain the conflict. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is traveling to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to meet with officials to work on coordinating support for Syrian opposition fighters.
Headlines
- A series of bombings in Iraq Monday, mostly in and around the capital of Baghdad, have killed at least 42 people and injured 125 others.
- Turkish police have detained 20 people in raids over anti-government protests accusing them of membership in an unspecified terrorist organization.
- Tunisia's army chief Rachid Ammar announced his retirement Monday amid growing political tensions over the country's democratic transition and criticism over the army's ineffective operations to catch militants near the Algerian border.
- Saudi Arabia has switched to a Friday and Saturday weekend to match the other Gulf countries so that it will now have four common business days with the West.
Arguments and Analysis
'Obama Succeeded in Libya; He's Failing in Syria' (Steve Clemons, The Atlantic)
"In the case of Libya, Obama acted surgically and preempted the typical slippery slope to a larger military intervention that involved 'owning the outcomes' inside Libya. Obama's strategy worked, and the U.S. in partnership with France, England, the UAE, and Qatar delivered a low-cost political transition inside Libya.
With Syria, Obama is behaving in ways that run counter to the decision criteria he applied in Libya. He is committing intelligence and military resources to a crisis that does not have UN Security Council sanction, and he is not framing his response to the chemical weapons use in terms of either punishing the commanders who authorized their use -- or to secure those weapons. Instead, Obama is joining the rebel forces and committing to a regime change formula that could potentially falter. And that is before calculating the global strategic costs of getting in a nasty stand-off with Russia whose support is needed on other global challenges.
This is sloppy interventionism -- strategically inchoate, potentially at conflict with other larger and more important U.S. strategic goals, and potentially the kind of commitment that obligates the United States to support a rebellion that America avoided doing in the Libyan case."
'Obama needs to act now on Syria' (Michael Doran and Michael O'Hanlon, USA Today)
"By all accounts, President Obama reached his recent decision to supply arms directly to Syrian opposition groups with great reluctance. The president clearly understands that while getting into a war is easy, getting out is hard. The example of Iraq no doubt weighs heavily on his mind. But he also learned the lesson firsthand in Libya. After signing on to a limited mission, he was quickly forced to increase the level of U.S. participation or face the prospect of a rebel defeat.
Nevertheless, the delay in committing the United States to the success of the Syrian rebels is regrettable. More lives have been lost, and battlefield gains the insurgents enjoyed six months ago have been squandered. Regaining the momentum will take more than just the limited outside intervention currently contemplated. And even if it were possible to achieve the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad on the cheap, his departure would no more guarantee peace in Syria than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 brought stability to Iraq.
The fundamental point is this: A peace deal is not feasible under current conditions. It will require greater military effort up front and it will also require, in the end, international peacekeepers to implement it."
--Mary Casey & Joshua Haber
BERTRAND LANGLOIS/AFP/Getty Images
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