SOURCE: AP/Susan Walsh

U.S. President Barack Obama meets with then-Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in Washington on February 14, 2012. Obama and Xi, now Chinese president, face weighty issues when they meet at a private estate in California this month.

Despite remaining somewhat in the background, the world’s most important bilateral relationship continues to move forward. In recent weeks, unrest in the Middle East related to the tragic ongoing civil war in Syria and to Iran’s nuclear program, as well as domestic disputes over the budget and presidential judicial appointees, have understandably grabbed the majority of U.S. headlines. The announcement that President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet for the first time since Xi became China’s leader is a positive sign that the two sides are ready to earnestly address some of the numerous issues they face together. Even as other events and pressing issues steal the spotlight, the meeting remains truly significant on a global scale.

Though the choice of venue—Sunnylands Estate in Rancho Mirage, California, just outside of Los Angeles—may seem more appropriate as a vacation spot than for this meeting of the minds, it is actually an indication that both sides are taking this visit very seriously. It allows the two leaders to avoid the pomp and formality of state visits to Beijing or Washington, D.C., so they can focus on advancing the relationship.

The two sides will not be at a loss for discussion topics; everything should be on the table. China and the United States have stakes in problematic security issues at both the global and regional level.

Regionally, China seems to be taking a harder line on North Korea’s recent provocative behavior—by implementing financial sanctions for the first time, for instance—which opens up the possibility for real cooperation between the United States and China on reversing Pyongyang’s accelerating nuclear program. At the same time, island disputes between China and various countries in the South China and East China Seas should be a topic of discussion, not only because the disputes involve a number of U.S. allies but also because the United States wants to maintain open access in those international waters.

The cybersecurity issue must also be discussed in a forthright and open manner without the two sides talking past one another as they have in the past. While President Obama should continue to press his case that Chinese cyberspying has advanced beyond normal intelligence gathering and into outright corporate espionage, he should also listen to China’s own concerns and find areas where the two can cooperate, such as countering cyberpiracy. Most importantly, however, the cybersecurity issue must be a part of the constructive developments in the military-to-military relationship, which should be built upon and expanded.

As the two largest economies in the world, economic issues such as trade disputes and intellectual-property rights are, of course, also fertile grounds for discussion. And as the world’s two biggest energy consumers and greenhouse gas emitters, energy and climate cooperation could certainly be on the agenda as well, though these issues will likely feature more prominently at the July Strategic and Economic Dialogue meeting than at this presidential summit.

The previous time President Xi visited the United States in February 2012, then-Vice President Xi advanced the idea of building a “New Style Great Power Relationship” between the United States and China. Since that visit the idea has gained increasing attention largely from the Chinese side, although President Obama and other high-level U.S. officials have said positive things as well. Given the history of great power relationships and conflicts, the idea of a new kind of relationship between the two countries is worth pursuing. Both sides recognize that violent conflict is simply not an option in today’s global environment because of how dependent each country is on the other.

But while President Xi’s proposal is a sign that China is serious about avoiding such a conflict, the Chinese have mostly presented the idea in terms of what the United States can do for China, not what each country can do for the relationship. President Obama should use this California meeting to lay out what China can do for the world at large. As China’s influence continues to grow with its economy, the country needs to step up and play a constructive and responsible role on the world stage without hiding behind the excuse of still being a developing country.

More than 41 years ago, when Henry Kissinger and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai were preparing to announce that President Richard Nixon would be visiting China the following year, Prime Minister Zhou said the announcement would “shake the world.” Back then cooperation between the two countries was unthinkable; now, on a wide range of world and regional issues, cooperation between the two is unavoidable. This does not mean that agreement will come on every issue or that a two-day meeting will come anywhere close to solving the more intractable sticking points. But the past has shown that these presidential meetings can play a large role in pushing the bilateral relationship forward. The Sunnylands summit is therefore an important opportunity for both sides to talk honestly and frankly with one another, determine areas of mutual agreement, and help rebuild some of the trust that has frayed a bit in recent years.

Rudy deLeon is the Senior Vice President for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. Robert Roche is a trustee for the Center for American Progress.

SOURCE: AP/Gurinder Osan

President Barack Obama is greeted by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the airport in New Delhi, India.

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this report.

As the United States reduces its military presence in Afghanistan and transfers security control to the Afghan government in 2014, the governments in New Delhi and Washington should find ways to strengthen their partnership in Afghanistan. At the same time, they should embed it in a sustainable structure of regional cooperation in order to ensure the future stability of Afghanistan. The United States and India share a number of objectives in Afghanistan and the wider region, including:

• A unified and territorially integrated Afghanistan
• A sovereign, independent, and functional Afghan government based on the principles underlying the current constitution, including democracy, nonviolent political competition, and basic human rights for both women and men
• An Afghanistan that prevents terrorist groups from using its territory to train and mount attacks both in the region and around the world
• An Afghanistan that serves as a central trade and transit hub connecting South and Central Asia
• A stable and responsible Pakistan that prevents militant groups from operating within its territory and seeks economic and political cooperation with its neighbors

Until recently the United States discouraged active Indian military involvement in Afghanistan due to sensitivities toward Pakistani fears of encirclement by India. New Delhi’s own instinct was to move cautiously in Afghanistan, focusing on economic development, building infrastructure, and social-sector projects despite its larger security interests. But as the relationship between India and the United States has deepened over the last decade—combined with plans for the transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan government in 2014—U.S. and Indian policymakers have an opportunity for an enhanced partnership in Afghanistan. As U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns stated during his visit to India in

October 2012, “there has never been a moment when India and America mattered more to one another. And there has never been a moment when partnership between us mattered more to the rest of the globe.”

While shared objectives provide a foundation for U.S.-India collaboration in Afghanistan, deeper cooperation is not inevitable. U.S. and Indian policies have often worked in parallel rather than in concert and have been further impeded by differing policy approaches in Afghanistan, as well as in the region. The United States has been directly involved in Afghanistan, deploying thousands of troops and billions of dollars of economic assistance, while India has sought to build up diplomatic and economic ties with the country.

Differences between the two countries remain. While the United States and India share many of the same concerns over negotiations with the Taliban, the reliability of Pakistan as a partner in supporting peace in Afghanistan, and the need for Afghan ownership of any political settlement, the Indian and U.S. assessments of the risks involved and the best path forward do not always coincide. Such differences are understandable given the two countries’ differing locations, rivalries, political pressures, foreign-policy priorities, and capacities for addressing challenges in Afghanistan and around the world.

Both the United States and India share the goal of a negotiated political settlement in Afghanistan. To this end, the United States has fitfully pursued talks with the Taliban and other Afghan militants since 2010 while maintaining a realistic view of the potential for success. While India is more agreeable now to the overall goal of a negotiated settlement, policymakers in New Delhi say that they are more suspicious than their Washington counterparts of the Taliban and other militants. As a result the path forward for both countries will be in finding common ground on the course and substance of future efforts to negotiate a political settlement in Afghanistan.

Both the United States and India similarly believe that Afghan stability requires Pakistani support and that accommodation of Pakistan’s legitimate security interests will be necessary. The challenge for the United States and India is to determine a mutually acceptable understanding of Pakistan’s “legitimate” interests. India, similar to the United States, is wary of the Pakistani military defining these interests, and New Delhi believes that the Pakistani military has not given up its longstanding goal of a weak and pliable Afghanistan aligned with Islamabad. Because the government in New Delhi feels more directly vulnerable to Pakistani actions or inactions, many Indian policymakers fear that the United States will be too quick to trust the Pakistani military leadership and cede it an outsized influence over Afghanistan’s future.

At the same time, Indian and U.S. policymakers view Iran and its potential role in Afghanistan differently. U.S. policymakers are much more adverse to Iranian involvement given Tehran’s malign international behavior—from its failure to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency over its nuclear program to Tehran’s direct support for terrorism groups. Indian policymakers, on the other hand, aim to maintain an amicable relationship with Iran in order to ensure access to Afghanistan if instability worsens or tensions with Pakistan rise, as well as to satisfy growing domestic energy demands.

Concerning the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, the Obama administration argues that the United States needs to draw down the vast majority of its forces in order to be able to better align its military posture and resources with a changed strategic environment—one in which Afghanistan is not a central priority—as well as to reduce the negative consequences of a large U.S. military presence and force Afghan leaders to take greater responsibility for their own security and future. U.S. policymakers ultimately believe that the United States can protect its interests and contain the instability in Afghanistan through a small reserve force post-2014, performing counterterrorism operations and training of the Afghanistan National Security Forces, or ANSF. India, however, worries that the United States is withdrawing too quickly and that it will leave behind an unstable environment in which Pakistan wields excessive influence and terrorist groups can find sanctuary.

The United States and India should address these differences over the next year and beyond to prevent a divergence in policy approaches. India and the United States must seek better coordination of their policies or risk deepening instability in Afghanistan. Washington and New Delhi can complement each other’s efforts by utilizing their strengths, unique relationships with countries in the region, and relationships with Afghan actors to further mutual goals related to security, economic integration, and political stability. The trilateral diplomatic framework between Afghanistan, India, and the United States, for example, offers one such forum for the pursuit of these discussions and should be bolstered.

The following recommendations offer a way to move toward a common regional strategy between the United States and India. The United States and India should undertake the following:

• Support a strengthened political consensus in Afghanistan.
• Support Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential elections in 2014 through greater encouragement and emphasis on the creation of an Independent Election Commission, an electoral complaints mechanism, and clear rules surrounding the elections.
• Encourage the political consensus building among Afghan elites and civil society that is occurring alongside the formal election process in order to foster a more legitimate electoral outcome.
• Strengthen Afghan government institutions and advance broader Afghan political reforms through training Afghan government officials at all levels and allocating more assistance through the Afghan government while leveraging these funds to push for good governance reforms as committed to in the Tokyo Framework.
• Consult more extensively on negotiations with the insurgent groups while recognizing that the United States will play a more central role in those negotiations than India.
• Facilitate a larger reconciliation effort among a diverse set of Afghan stakeholders and countries in the region. The United States and India should use their unique relationships with Afghans and membership in organizations to advance political agreements among Afghans while nesting them within a larger regional framework.

• Encourage political and economic regional integration through U.S. and Indian collaboration to bolster regional trade and dialogue.
• Consult more closely on U.S. and Indian approaches to Pakistan. The United States should attempt to facilitate dialogue between India and Pakistan, and between India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in a quadrilateral forum.
• Maintain focus on economic integration through sustained engagement with the private sector, multilateral forums and organizations, and other countries to ensure sustained financial support for Afghanistan’s economic integration into the South and Central Asia regions.
• Extend dialogue to additional countries by leveraging the respective regional partnerships and alliances of the United States and India to advance shared goals in Afghanistan. This includes India’s relationships with Iran and Russia, and the United States’ relationship with Pakistan.

• Strengthen Afghan National Security Forces, with India providing more financial assistance, training, and support.
• Allocate Indian government funding for the ANSF in consultation with existing NATO and U.N. security force trust funds, including the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, in order to best coordinate with other international donors in line with the needs of the Afghan forces.
• India should respond positively to the requests from Kabul for greater material assistance to the Afghan National Security Forces.
• Increase Indian training of the Afghan National Police and continue training the Afghan National Army.
• Support the development of military infrastructure in Afghanistan based on the needs of the Afghan government.
• Create a mechanism for consultation between the government of India and the NATO International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, to increase the effectiveness of their security assistance programs to Afghanistan.

SOURCE: AP/Thanassis Stavrakis

Thousands of protesters gather for a rally at Taksim Square in Istanbul late Monday, June 3, 2013.

Protests this past weekend in Istanbul’s historic Taksim Square began with a small group of demonstrators protesting plans to redevelop Gezi Park, one of the city’s few remaining public green spaces, into a shopping mall. But what started as a peaceful protest quickly turned violent, after a brutal and disproportionate police response garnered attention and grew the crowd to between 4,000 and 5,000 protesters over the course of Friday night. By Sunday, the crowd had grown to more than 50,000 people, and at the time of publication, more than 1,000 protesters have been arrested and at least one person had died in a car accident.

After pitched battles between protesters and police, the protests spread to 48 of Turkey’s 90 provinces and expanded to encompass wider disaffection with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s bullying political style and the increasing prominence of religion in the public sphere. The weekend’s turmoil demonstrated three features of the current political environment in this key U.S. ally:

• Widespread discontent with the manner in which Prime Minister Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party, or AKP, are governing the country has reached a point at which people in Istanbul and many other cities are willing to take to the streets to exercise their democratic right to political protest.
• The mainstream Turkish media have been thoroughly cowed by Prime Minister Erdoğan’s heavy-handed tactics, resulting in delayed, fragmented, or nonexistent coverage of the protests over the weekend.
• Prime Minister Erdoğan’s abrasive and confrontational response to legitimate and necessary protest, if continued, will see him outlive his usefulness for Turkey, the government, and his own political party.

Gezi Park has now become a metaphor for middle-class Turks demanding higher standards of tolerance, pluralism, and individual freedom than the AKP-led government is willing to accept or concede. Milliyet columnist Aslı Aydıntaşbaş told CAP that, “people want to have a say in how their city is run—they don’t want one man to decide every aspect of their lives.”

In large part, the Taksim protests reflect a backlash from urban elites against Prime Minister Erdoğan’s paternalistic and majoritarian style of government and the prime minister’s overwhelming personal dominance of Turkish politics.

The violent and unnecessary crackdown on protesters has also prompted notable dissent within the AKP. President Abdullah Gül, who has often quietly cajoled Prime Minister Erdoğan to adopt a more open, conciliatory tone, insisted that freedom of expression must be defended. The responses of rank-and-file AKP members in parliament to the prime minister’s bellicose public statements have ranged from concern to outright anger.

The current confrontation between the government and the protesters is rooted in the cumulative effect of the ongoing suppression of journalists, a government with little interest in consulting or tolerating criticism, massive infrastructure projects being pushed by the government without regard for local concerns about potential effects, and the aggressive pursuit of a political agenda that is seen as reflecting an overly religious, socially conservative worldview.

But as one Istanbul think-tank analyst speaking to CAP put it, “the mass media [in Turkey] are the big losers” in the wake of the protests. Sabah, Turkey’s largest daily newspaper, which is owned by the prime minister’s son-in-law, did not cover the protests. Habertürk, another large daily paper, likewise refused to report on the unfolding crisis. While CNN’s international coverage informed its viewers about the events on Taksim Square, CNN Türk broadcast a documentary on penguins. The reluctance of major Turkish news outlets to report on the country’s most important story this past weekend is a direct consequence of Prime Minister Erdoğan’s aggressive response to criticism from the press and frequent harassment and jailing of journalists.

Furthermore, the prime minster’s recent comment labeling Twitter a “curse” is indicative of his disrespect for participatory democracy. Indeed, his public comments over the past two days with regard to the protests prove that he has interpreted his electoral victories as permission to execute power without regard for minority opinion or legitimate political opposition.

While the prime minister is likely to remain the most popular politician in Turkey in the short term, despite these demonstrations and having engineered successive and legitimate electoral victories by winning the support of a plurality of Turks, he is likely undermining his own long-term support. Yavuz Baydar, ombudsman of Sabah and a respected columnist with English-language Today’s Zaman, told CAP that for years he and other journalists argued to the government that “independent, free, diverse journalism was essential for democratization and consensus,” but that those arguments have been “to no avail.” By pursuing “their narrow agenda,” Baydar continues, the AKP and Prime Minister Erdoğan are weakening their long-term political future.

Particularly troubling is Prime Minister Erdoğan’s effort to shift the debate from politics to religion by highlighting a previous plan to build a mosque in Gezi Park, which doesn’t do anything to lessen the impression that he is once again attempting to ignore dissenting voices. “Now trying to shift the debate from building a shopping mall in Gezi Park to the building of a mosque instead is a prime example of how religion is used to cover up and generate popular support in Turkey,” wrote columnist Ihsan Dagi. “The ruling party seems to have been aware of the discontent in its grassroots and is trying to unite them behind the idea of building mosque in Taksim.”

Prime Minister Erdoğan takes pride in his close connection with Turkey’s political pulse, but the weekend’s events indicate he may have lost touch with current events. His statements demonstrate that he and his team have little comprehension of the disaffection among a considerable number of their fellow Turks, even those within his own party. Ironically, this is also a demonstration of the AKP’s economic success story: As more Turks have become wealthier and better educated, they have developed higher expectations of political legitimacy, responsive government, and fair treatment by police forces.

The prime minister has thus far been tone deaf in responding to this crisis, and his rigidity has hardened into ignorance. This week marks an important moment in modern Turkish history, as an increasingly sidelined constituency has boldly reasserted itself and challenged the political system to address its grievances. Independent of the outcome in the next few weeks, Turkey will find itself at a key juncture of its political journey, and it is important for the United States to press this journey forward, not backward.

Michael Werz is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Matthew Duss is a Policy Analyst at the Center, and Max Hoffman is a Research Associate at the Center.

SOURCE: AP/Thanassis Stavrakis

High school students hold up a Turkish flag during a protest at Gezi Park in Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, Monday, June 3, 2013.

The sudden and unanticipated uprising that began in Istanbul’s Taksim Square last Friday has some obvious parallels to the protests that arose in the Arab world two years ago. Similar to the protests that began in Tunis, Cairo, Tripoli, and Damascus, seemingly small, ineffectual, and localized expressions of discontent in Istanbul suddenly hit critical mass last week and became game-changing confrontations between popular will and governing authority.

But there are also critical differences—at least on the surface. The Arab Spring drew heavily on poor economic conditions in countries in which the demonstrations occurred. Turkey, however, has a per capita gross domestic product, or GDP, that is more than twice that of Tunisia and more than three times that of Egypt or Syria. And under the leadership of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the country’s economy has expanded by more than 50 percent in the past decade—a pace matched only by China among the major G20 economies.

Everywhere you travel in Turkey, massive numbers of new apartments are under construction, infrastructure is being improved, and there is a general sense of expanding prosperity.

A second theme in the Arab Spring was democracy, or lack thereof. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria all lacked any real semblance of functioning democratic institutions. Turkey, on the other hand, has ended the cycle of military involvement in civil authority since the ascendance of Prime Minister Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, in 2002. The AKP government has been re-elected twice since then, and each time with a larger plurality in the Turkish parliament.

Furthermore, Turkey has made real headway in solving a number of the most pressing issues affecting human rights and the status and rights of minority communities. Most significant has been dramatic progress in terms of the deep and dangerous divisions between Turks and the Kurdish minority.

But below the surface, there is much about which Turkey, as well as its friends and allies, should be worried. And those problems explain why the confrontation between police and demonstrators over the future of a park in central Istanbul resonated so broadly with people in communities all across the country.

While the AKP has been remarkably sensitive to solving some of the nation’s minority issues, it has been remarkably insensitive to solving others. This is particularly true when it comes to minority groups that have aligned with the political opposition. The largest of these groups is the Alevi, a religious group more closely related to the Shia branch of Islam and long persecuted by Sunni Muslims under both the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. Estimates as to the number of Alevi in Turkey range widely because surveyors believe many of the faith are unwilling to openly divulge their beliefs out of a fear of retribution. Some estimates are as high as 40 percent of Turkey’s 80 million inhabitants, while others are as low as 10 percent.

While the government supports the mosques and pays the salaries of the imams of the nation’s Sunni majority, it has refused equal status to the Alevi. More problematic is the generalized feeling that the AKP government has deliberately fanned the bigotry and hatred toward the Alevi that is present in certain parts of the Sunni community. In the 1500s there were full-scale programs against the Alevi that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of the followers, who at that time represented half or more of the population of Anatolia. As recently as 1993 a gathering of Alevis at a hotel in the city of Sivas, Turkey, was attacked; the hotel burned and 37 Alevis were killed. This followed an attack in 1978 in which more than 100 Alevis died.

Inexplicably, Prime Minister Erdoğan and his party have not only dragged their feet on securing legal rights and protections for the Alevi, but they also recently announced that they will name the planned third bridge in Istanbul crossing the Bosporus strait from Europe to Asia after Yavuz Sultan Selim, known as “Selim the Grim,” who is widely credited with the mass killings of the Alevis in the 16th century.

Although the Alevi issue is not frequently mentioned in U.S. or European coverage of the confrontation at Taksim Square, the Erdoğan government’s insensitivity regarding the naming of the bridge is seen as closely related to the government’s insensitivity exhibited in failing to seek community input and consensus on the future of one of the few remaining green spaces in central Istanbul.

Prime Minister Erdoğan, who previously served as mayor of Istanbul before becoming prime minister, seems to share a trait with many politicians: He does not like to give up one hat simply because he has gotten a larger one. Bulldozing the trees in Gezi Park in order to build a shopping mall in the style of the Ottoman military barracks that once occupied the land is clearly an issue that the prime minister has taken an active interest in and does not feel that local objections should deter the plans he and his party have concocted.

His attitude on the park and the bridge denotes a majoritarian and unilateralist style of governance that does not consider consensus building an important concern in developing policy at either the community or national level. In what might be viewed as a veiled criticism of the decision-making process leading to the park and bridge confrontations, Turkish President Abdullah Gül commented, “Democracy is not only about elections.”

But what seems to have been most troubling to a broad segment of the Turkish population was not the decision made by the government on either the bridge or the park but rather the response the government made when those decisions were peacefully challenged. There seems to be a growing feeling that a man who has contributed much to the country’s political and economic development has gotten too big for his britches—that he is not only unilateral in his approach to policymaking but is also authoritarian in its implementation and in dealing with anyone who gets in his way. It is that perception that turned a demonstration of 5,000 people at a park in central Istanbul into nationwide demonstrations attracting huge numbers of protesters in more than 80 locations.

Prime Minister Erdoğan pulled back the Istanbul police on Saturday when things appeared to be spinning largely out of control but has since returned to his typical hardline approach of blaming his political enemies and insisting that the rule of law depends on his moving forward with the plans that he and his party appear to have concocted with little real input from the people whose lives those plans would impact. In the meantime his country has taken a black eye in the international press, the Turkish stock market has suffered a serious setback, and many of the retailers who were interested in leasing space in the new mall have said they would locate elsewhere.

We live in a world in which social cohesion is a necessary condition for sustained economic progress. Prime Minister Erdoğan should either redirect his policies toward building cohesion or turn the reins of power over to someone who can.

Scott Lilly is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, who spent the last two weeks traveling in Turkey.

SOURCE: AP/Jim Young

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to discuss a restart of the Middle East peace process after more than four years of hardly any talks.

Secretary of State John Kerry arrives today in Jerusalem on his fourth visit to the region since accompanying President Barack Obama in March. Secretary Kerry will continue his efforts to establish a framework for negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, having repeatedly made clear his view that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is a key interest of the United States. “So much of what we aspire to achieve and what we need to do globally, what we need to do in the Maghreb and South Asia, South Central Asia, throughout the Gulf, all of this is tied to what can or doesn’t happen with respect to Israel-Palestine,” Secretary Kerry said during his Senate confirmation hearing.

A key component of Secretary Kerry’s peace process strategy over the past several months has been an effort to reintroduce the Arab Peace Initiative, which he has long believed could serve as a starting point for a comprehensive regional solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. In a 2009 speech at the Brookings Institution, then-Sen. Kerry called the peace initiative “The basis on which to build a Regional Road Map that enlists moderate Arab nations to play a more active role in peacemaking and to paint a clearer picture than ever before of the rewards peace would bring to all parties.”

Origin of the Arab Peace Initiative

Saudi Arabia’s Crown-Prince Abdullah, now the king, promulgated the Arab Peace Initiative at the 2002 Beirut summit of the Arab League. The text of the declaration called upon Israel to:

• Complete its withdrawal from the occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights to the June 4, 1967, line and from the territories still occupied in southern Lebanon
• Attain a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees to be agreed upon in accordance with the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194
• Accept the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital

In return, the Arab states committed to:

• Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict over, sign a peace agreement with Israel, and achieve peace for all states in the region
• Establish normal relations with Israel within the framework of this comprehensive peace

The Arab Peace Initiative was unanimously reaffirmed at the March 2007 Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia, during which all 22 Arab member states except Libya were present, and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, the militant group that now governs the Gaza Strip, abstained from the vote. Earlier that month, Jordan’s King Abdullah II delivered a speech before a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress, highlighting the continued salience of the conflict in the region’s politics and calling on lawmakers to support U.S. efforts at peacemaking.

The Israeli response

When the Arab Peace Initiative was first introduced, Israeli leaders reacted extremely cautiously if not outright negatively to it. They claimed the initiative, which came during a particularly violent moment of the Second Intifada, put the onus for peace entirely on Israel. In a statement at the time, then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres recognized the Arab Peace Initiative as an important step but one “liable to founder if terrorism is not stopped.” Other Israeli leaders rejected what they saw as the non-negotiable nature of the proposal. “If the Arab initiative is take it or leave it, that will be a recipe for stagnation,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said in response to the peace initiative’s re-adoption in 2007.

Other Israeli leaders had a problem with the initiative’s framing of the Palestinian refugee problem, stating that a return of Palestinian refugees to Israel in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 would threaten Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. “If 300,000-400,000, or maybe a million, Palestinians would invade the country, that would be the end of the state of Israel as a Jewish state,” said Likud Party spokesman Zalman Shoval in 2007.

Some Israeli officials attempted to reach out to Arab officials to start a discussion on the proposed Arab Peace Initiative. Former Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who was an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2002, for example, recently told the Times of Israel that he had attempted to meet with a representative of the Saudi government in Washington, D.C., in 2002 in order to assess the seriousness of the peace initiative but that the Saudi representative had reneged on the planned meeting. Reports in 2007 and 2008 indicated that the Israeli government was considering a response to the Arab Peace Initiative, but as yet there has been no formal counter-proposal.

In remarks introducing former Sen. George Mitchell (D-ME) as his administration’s special envoy for Middle East peace in 2009, President Obama said the initiative “contains constructive elements that could help advance these efforts.” Mitchell later said that the administration intended to “incorporate” the peace initiative into its policy, but there did not seem to be a strong public effort to do so.

Speaking in 2011, former President Bill Clinton questioned the lack of Israeli response to the peace initiative. “The King of Saudi Arabia started lining up all the Arab countries to say to the Israelis, ‘if you work it out with the Palestinians … we will give you immediately not only recognition but a political, economic, and security partnership,’” Clinton said. “This is huge. … It’s a heck of a deal.”

In late March 2011 a group of prominent Israelis, including former heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet security services, put forth the Israeli Peace Initiative, a response to the Arab Peace Initiative with the goal to generate popular support for greater Israeli peace efforts. It called on the Israeli government to recognize the Arab Peace Initiative “as a historic effort made by the Arab states to reach a breakthrough and achieve progress on a regional basis, and sharing the API statement ‘that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties.’”

“We looked around at what was happening in neighboring countries and we said to ourselves, ‘It is about time that the Israeli public raised its voice as well,’” said Danny Yatom, a former head of Mossad and a signer of the Israeli Peace Initiative. “We are isolated internationally and seen to be against peace,” said former Shin Bet head Yaakov Perry, another of the document’s supporters. Perry continued, “I hope this will make a small contribution to pushing our prime minister forward. It is about time that Israel initiates something on peace.” Perry is now a member of the Knesset and the number-two man in Yesh Atid, the centrist party that made a surprisingly strong showing in Israel’s January elections.

A 2012 paper by Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies called on Israel’s leaders to re-examine the Arab Peace Initiative. Warning that the Arab Peace Initiative “will not survive indefinitely,” the paper’s authors, Gilead Sher and Ilai Alon, argue:

Precisely now, in light of developments in the Arab world and the relative fluidity inherent in every revolution, the possibility of influence is greater and the price Israel will eventually have to pay to reach its national goals and attain peace with the Arab world may be lower.

Kerry’s efforts

In late March, shortly before President Obama’s Middle East visit, Israeli media reported that Secretary Kerry would seek to revive the Arab Peace Initiative as a starting point for future talks. In early April it was reported that the Obama administration had informed the Palestinian Authority that its new approach to peace negotiations would be based on the Arab Peace Initiative and that President Obama had discussed the matter with the Palestinian leadership during his March visit to Ramallah.

Palestinian sources later said that, in discussions with Secretary Kerry, the president had proposed two small changes to the initiative to make it more palatable to Israel: the 1967 lines could be modified through mutual agreement, along with stronger security guarantees for Israel.

After meeting in Washington in late April, the Arab League agreed to support limited, mutually agreed-upon land swaps as part of a peace deal. “The Arab League delegation affirms that agreement should be based on the two-state solution, on the basis of the 4th of June 1967 line” with the possibility of a “comparable and mutual agreed minor swap of the land,” said Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, speaking on behalf of the Arab League.

Moreover, al-Thani told reporters that the Arab League delegation understood that “peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis is … a strategic choice for the Arab states.” Shortly thereafter, the Fatah Central Committee accepted the Arab League’s proposal on land swaps and welcomed U.S. efforts to revive peace negotiations with Israel.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh rejected the move, saying the Arab League was not authorized to make such concessions on behalf of Palestinians. “The so-called new Arab initiative is rejected by our people, by our nation and no one can accept it,” Haniyeh said. “The initiative contains numerous dangers to our people in the occupied land of 1967, 1948 and to our people in exile.”

New developments in Israel

The Israeli response to the amended Arab Peace Initiative was mixed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that the conflict is not about land but about the Palestinians’ refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist, ignoring the fact that the Palestinian Liberation Organization officially recognized Israel in 1993. Dani Dayan, a former head of the Yesha Council—an umbrella organization of municipal councils of West Bank settlements—dismissed the amended peace initiative, writing that land swaps “were never obligatory and are no longer practical.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, on the other hand, criticized the government’s failure to embrace the Arab Peace Initiative. “We are speaking of an opportunity that must be seized to renew the diplomatic process. … It’s a very important development,” he said and urged Israeli leaders to “stop making excuses.” Israeli Labor Party leader Shelly Yachimovich likewise called on Netanyahu to pursue the initiative, as did Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who officially handles the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations file.

There is some evidence that Israel may now be prepared to respond more positively to the Arab Peace Initiative than it has in the past. Just this past January two prominent signers of the Israeli Peace Initiative, Yaakov Perry and Merav Michaeli, were elected to the Knesset, the legislative branch of the Israeli government. And this month saw the establishment of a pro-two-state caucus headed by Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Hilik Bar of the Labor Party in partnership with the Israeli Peace Initiative and the grassroots One Voice movement.

Conclusion

Amid turmoil of the ongoing transitions in the Middle East, it is significant that Arab leaders remain publicly committed to the Arab Peace Initiative and have signaled that the proposal could serve as a basis for negotiations rather than demanding a take-it-or-leave-it offer. In particular, the demand for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan Heights will likely have to be re-examined in light of Syria’s continuing civil war.

A durable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict must be one that involves as many regional stakeholders as possible. With the recent adjustments, the Arab Peace Initiative is consistent both with multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions relating to the conflict, with the policy of multiple U.S. administrations, and with the overwhelming international consensus regarding the creation of two states for two peoples. As a recent Pew poll showed, Israelis and Palestinians have very different views regarding the other side’s commitment to peace, but one thing they agree on is the necessity of U.S. involvement in achieving that outcome.

For the past two decades, the United States has worked to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Secretary Kerry’s attempt to revive a broader regional framework for negotiations is an important component of the strategy to create a more favorable environment for supporting peace in the Middle East. At a time of great uncertainty in the region, these efforts should be encouraged.

Matthew Duss is a Policy Analyst and Director of Middle East Progress at the Center for American Progress.

SOURCE: AP/Erik Schelzig

The Rev. Daniel Rosemergy, a minister with the Greater Nashville Unitarian Universalist Congregation, speaks in Nashville, Tennessee, in opposition to a legislative proposal that would make it a felony in Tennessee to follow some versions of Sharia law.

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF of this report.

*Author’s note, May 23, 2013: This report has been updated to reflect the new anti-foreign law bill that recently passed the North Carolina House.

Over the past two years, a number of state legislatures have moved to ban the use of foreign or international law in legal disputes. As of the date of this report, lawmakers in 32 states have introduced and debated these types of bills. Foreign law bans have already been enacted in Oklahoma, Kansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arizona, while a related ban on the enforcement of “any religious code” has been enacted in South Dakota. Most recently, intensive campaigning by the Anti-Defamation League and religious freedom groups resulted in the defeat of a proposed foreign law ban in Florida. But at least six states are poised to pass similar measures in 2013 and 2014: Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, and Iowa. Table 1 below illustrates the anti-foreign law movement across the country.

Although packaged as an effort to protect American values and democracy, the bans spring from a movement whose goal is the demonization of the Islamic faith. Beyond that, however, many foreign law bans are so broadly phrased as to cast doubt on the validity of a whole host of personal and business arrangements. Their enactment could result in years of litigation as state courts struggle to construe what these laws actually mean and how they interact with well-established legal doctrines. The legal uncertainties created by foreign law bans are the reason why a range of business and corporate interests as well as representatives of faith communities have mobilized against them. The American Bar Association, the country’s largest and most respected association of legal professionals, has also passed a resolution opposing the bans.

The most vociferous proponents of foreign law bans are a small network of activists who cast Muslim norms and culture, which they collectively and inaccurately labeled as Sharia law, as one of the greatest threats to American freedom since the Cold War. Ground zero for this effort was Oklahoma, and the lessons learned there provided a template for anti-Sharia efforts in other states. On Election Day 2010 Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved the Save Our State referendum, a ballot initiative that banned the use of Sharia in the state’s courts. While the Oklahoma measure was immediately challenged in court, and ultimately struck down as unconstitutionally discriminatory toward American Muslims, its proponents launched a nationwide movement to recast anti-Sharia measures as bans on foreign and international law. This involved removing specific references to Islam in order to help the measures pass legal muster and successfully tapping into deep-rooted suspicions about the influence of foreign laws over the American legal system. While the intent of foreign law bans is clear, proponents of these bans hope that the foreign law veneer will save the measures from being invalidated on constitutional grounds.

Most foreign law bans are crafted so that they seem to track the rules normally followed by courts when considering whether to apply foreign law. State courts consider drawing upon foreign law in situations ranging from contract disputes where the parties have selected the law of another nation as controlling, to cases where the validity of a marriage or custody arrangement concluded in another country are questioned. And state courts routinely apply foreign law provided it does not violate U.S. public policy. State courts, for example, will not recognize polygamous marriages, which are permitted in some Muslim countries, and most of them will not recognize marriages between same-sex couples, which are permitted in many European countries. While cases involving foreign law occasionally impinge upon American public policy concerns, most are quite uncontroversial. A typical case involving foreign law—described by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in a recent speech—would be one where the Court, for example, was called on to decide whether a corporation organized in the British Virgin Islands was a citizen or subject of a foreign state. The answer to the question depended on English law, and so the Court naturally looked to that body of law, said Justice Scalia.

The very premise of foreign law bans, however, is that law that comes from outside the United States is something to be feared. The bans depart sufficiently from current practice and jeopardize well-established rules regulating the application of foreign law in American courts. Several of the bans suggest that the use of foreign law is prohibited not only when the law at issue in a particular case is at variance with constitutional values, but also when the legal system of the country from which the law emerges is itself not in conformity with these values. That is to say laws from countries that do not protect rights in the same way that the United States does should be prohibited in U.S. courts. Kansas, for example, prohibits state courts from relying on foreign laws from any system that does not grant the same measure of rights provided under the U.S. and Kansas constitutions. The anti-foreign law bill that was recently signed into law in Oklahoma, as well as bills under consideration in Missouri and Iowa, are similar in scope. By essentially engaging state courts in wholesale evaluations of foreign legal systems, these bans open up the type of broad inquiry that is inimical to the case-by-case approach typically applied by American courts.

Through a detailed examination of the anti-Sharia movement and a look at how U.S. courts have traditionally approached foreign and religious law, this report shows that the foreign law bans are both anti-Muslim in intent and throw into question the status of a range of contractual arrangements involving foreign and religious law. The report begins by explaining how the anti-Sharia movement evolved into an anti-foreign law campaign in order to avoid the patently unconstitutional practice of explicitly targeting Muslims.

It next explains the role of foreign and international law in American courts and the difference between the two. The international law to which the United States subscribes—for example, treaties ratified by the Senate—is part of the law of the land by virtue of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Foreign law, on the other hand, is the domestic law of other countries and is used by American courts only where its application does not violate public policy. This section explains that while the use of foreign sources in constitutional interpretation is hotly contested, the consideration of foreign law in everyday disputes—such as those involving contracts—is largely uncontroversial and that courts have long used carefully calibrated tools to ensure that application of foreign laws does not violate U.S. policy.

We then turn to the specifics of the foreign law bans and demonstrate that some bans are inconsistent with the practice of U.S. courts and that all bans create uncertainty about how non-U.S. legal sources will be treated. The foreign law bans also raise serious questions under separation of powers principles, as well as the Full Faith and Credit and Contract clauses of the Constitution. The report next details the possible disruptive consequences of foreign law bans, particularly for American families and businesses, and then uncovers the true purpose of foreign law bans. Simply put, it is to target Muslims. Based on this context, we argue that the bans are vulnerable to challenge under the First Amendment and several state constitutions as unduly burdening the free exercise of religion.

The report concludes by recommending that state legislatures considering such bills should reject them, and those that have passed foreign law bans should repeal them. The bans set out to cure an illusory problem but could create a myriad of unintended real ones. These bans, moreover, send a message that a state is unreceptive to foreign businesses and minority groups, particularly Muslims. And, as this report details, these bans sow confusion about a variety of personal and business arrangements. The issues raised by foreign law bans may lead to decades of litigation as state courts examine their consequences and struggle to interpret them in ways that avoid constitutional concerns and discrimination against all minority faiths.

Fazia Patel is the co-director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. Matthew Duss is a Policy Analyst at American Progress. Amos Toh serves as a legal fellow at the Brennan Center.

SOURCE: AP/Carolyn Kaster

Then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, March 31, 2011, before the House Armed Services Committee hearing on military operations in Libya.

President Barack Obama’s political opponents are trying once again to manufacture a scandal out of the tragic deaths of four American government personnel at a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, last September. Among those killed was the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. The current political and media feeding frenzy surrounding the Benghazi attacks is no more than a parsing of interagency debates on postattack talking points, and it is based on what former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called “cartoonish” views of U.S. military capabilities.

This Washington convulsion may serve the political interests of President Obama’s domestic opponents, but it obscures two far more important issues: the deterioration of the overall situation in Libya, and the longer-term challenge the United States faces of managing security risks when conducting diplomacy in insecure locations. The mindless political debate over Obama administration talking points from last fall harms efforts to come to grips with both of these issues and shows how superficial our debates on national security have become.

Militias and the deteriorating security situation

The security situation in Libya is getting worse, not better. In the last month alone, car bombs have hit the French embassy in Tripoli and a hospital in Benghazi. Earlier this year unknown assailants attacked five British activists near the Egyptian border, and U.S. and European governments have warned of “imminent” threats in Libya.

Due to the deteriorating situation, a few days ago the U.S. military put its forces in Europe on a heightened state of alert. Also in the past week, the United States and Britain withdrew some of their diplomatic staff from Libya due to the increased threats there. Clearly, the security situation inside Libya—and what the United States and other countries can do to help Libya stop the downward spiral—should be the focus of the debate.

This deterioration is due in large part to the continued power that militias wield in Libya. By laying siege to the foreign and justice ministries in Tripoli and attacking those who protested their actions, the militias forced the government to pass a draconian “political isolation law.” What’s more, militias continue to run their own prisons—and continue to detain Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the highest-ranking survivor of the Qaddafi regime, who is wanted for crimes against humanity. The Libyan government’s capitulation to brazen coercion by militias and their political allies severely undermines its halting efforts to build national-level security services and establish the rule of law in Libya.

In short, these groups continue to sow instability throughout the country by preventing the government from establishing credible security institutions and the rule of law. Worse, they have openly used the threat of violence to force a democratically elected government to bend to their wishes, and they have employed violence against those with whom they disagreed. This lack of stability and security also gives violent Islamist extremist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia, which attacked the Benghazi facility last September, freedom of movement and action. It also facilitates the spread of weapons and militants from and through Libya, as was apparently the case in the January 2013 Algerian gas-facility attack.

The United States, its partners, and international institutions could help rectify this situation by providing training, equipment, and other forms of security assistance to the Libyan government. This support could help the government consolidate its security sector and establish public order and the rule of law. However, the zero-risk mentality produced by the scandal mongering currently dominating the debate is likely to prevent any new security-sector reform initiatives in Washington. The United States and its partners are now stuck in a vicious circle: They cannot offer requisite levels of assistance to the Libyan government because they are unwilling to risk the poor security situation, and the poor security situation is not likely to improve without the requisite level of international help.

Managing diplomatic risk in insecure locations

More broadly, the furor over the Benghazi attack talking points could do severe damage to U.S. national security and diplomatic efforts. For several decades the United States has been hampering its diplomats’ ability to shape and influence the situations in countries that are vital to U.S. interests by imposing increasingly rigid security restrictions. Numerous independent assessments have noted the negative impact these measures have had on the State Department’s ability to advance its mission.

In 2009 the Government Accountability Office warned that security procedures:

… for State’s diplomatic corps [have], at times, been in tension with State’s diplomatic mission. For example, Diplomatic Security has established strict policies concerning access to U.S. facilities that usually include personal and vehicle screening. Some public affairs officials—whose job it is to foster relations with host country nationals—have expressed concerns that the security measures discourage visitors from attending U.S. embassy events or exhibits. In addition, the new embassies and consulates, with their high walls, deep setback, and strict screening procedures, have evoked the nickname, “Fortress America.”

The effort to turn the Benghazi attack into a political albatross for current and former Obama administration officials has done and will do significant damage to American diplomatic efforts in hostile environments. Policymakers may become even more reluctant to take risks with diplomatic personnel in these situations for fear of a political boomerang if something goes wrong.

As a result, the default policy may be to retrench behind the walls of so-called fortress embassies, take few if any risks with nonmilitary personnel, and surrender potential American influence on the ground in dangerous parts of the world. By flogging the phantom scandal of Benghazi, Obama administration critics who demand more direct intervention in Syria ironically are undermining their own argument. And if something goes wrong and Americans die, the administration will likely be rewarded with scandalmongering by advocates of the very policy that put American personnel at risk in the first place. The State Department’s Accountability Review Board, convened in the event of loss of life or destruction of property at U.S. diplomatic facilities abroad, recommended the administration “work more rigorously and adeptly to address” the security challenges inherent in diplomacy and to discuss its recommendations. Instead, congressional investigators have chosen to impugn the integrity of the board’s leaders, with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) accusing respected former diplomat Thomas Pickering of having “heard what the administration wanted to hear” in his investigation. In addition, they focused their attention on postattack debates and unrealistic rescue scenarios. None of these approaches help stimulate a debate on the proper level of risk that diplomats should assume, sending instead the implicit message that the answer should be none at all.

The hue and cry over Benghazi simply detracts from the two fundamental issues going forward: the level of acceptable risk for American diplomats in dangerous environments and the ongoing deterioration of security in Libya. It will be impossible for the Obama administration—or any administration that comes after it—to make rational decisions on the latter without a shared consensus on the former. The politicization of Benghazi accomplishes nothing except to make the default acceptable level of risk for American personnel abroad zero. However defensible such a posture may be in political terms, it does not allow the United States to exercise sufficient influence abroad to deal with emerging security threats and address pressing foreign policy problems.

Brian Katulis is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Peter Juul is a Policy Analyst at the Center.

SOURCE: AP

Anti-Syrian regime protesters hold a banner and Syrian revolution flags during a demonstration in the town of Haas in the northwestern province of Idlib, Syria.

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this issue brief.

As President Barack Obama and his national security advisors continue to weigh the costs and benefits of providing greater financial and materiel support for elements of the Syrian opposition—potentially including lethal aid—it is important to understand the structure of the Syrian opposition, which remains plagued by many divisions.

Supporting the foundation of a cohesive future government of Syria is one of the core objectives of the United States, as the Center for American Progress has stated in the past. The success or failure of efforts to form a more cohesive opposition will shape the ongoing effort to advance a transition in power from President Bashar al-Assad, as well as the stability of a post-Assad Syria. In order to understand the viability of U.S. policy options in Syria in both the near and long terms, a thorough understanding of the Syrian opposition—including its structure, leadership, funding sources, and internal divisions—is needed.

It is important to understand that information about the various rebel groups operating in Syria is limited. Policymakers and analysts are reliant on in-country reporting by the small number of journalists and intelligence officers operating in Syria, leading to gaps in knowledge, conflicting information, and a range of estimates that varies widely on the size of the rebel groups. In addition, obtaining reliable information is complicated by the fluid situation on the ground—alliances shift, rebel groups change in size and structure, and the relations between these groups evolve. That being said, a basic outline of the Syrian opposition can be pieced together through the information available in open- source reporting.

This issue brief outlines the official organization of the political and military elements of the Syrian opposition, along with the informal relationships and interactions between these groups, in an attempt to provide policymakers with a more accurate picture of the anti-Assad rebellion.

Limited national coordination

Two main organizations form the national structure of the Syrian opposition. The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, also known as the Syrian Opposition Coalition, and the Supreme Joint Military Command, or SMC, are provisional bodies, formed in November and December 2012, respectively, with significant support from the international community. These two interconnected but independent bodies aim to coordinate a cohesive, national, and democratic opposition that could fill the potential power vacuum following President Assad’s fall.

There is a sizable discrepancy, however, between the structure that these bodies attempt to impose on the opposition movement, and the chaotic, disorganized nature of the various rebel groups on the ground that they represent. The Syrian Opposition Coalition and SMC are designed to impose a top-down national strategy and governing structure for the political and military arms of the Syrian opposition, using their international political, financial, and military support as leverage with in-country rebel groups.

Instead, the two bodies have displayed a limited ability to manage or control the myriad of opposition groups and civilian councils in Syria. They receive bottom-up legitimacy from in-country groups, which voluntarily pledge a degree of loyalty to these two national organizations in order to receive materiel and financial support from the international community. In practice, the Syrian Opposition Coalition and SMC are the international faces of the Syrian opposition and act to secure resources for the rebellion but have so far been unable to provide the internal cohesion or strategy they were designed to create.

The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces

The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, also known as the Syrian Opposition Coalition, or SOC, has been recognized as the legitimate political representative of the Syrian people by the United States and the majority of the international community but has not yet been recognized as the legal representative of the Syrian people. It was formed in November 2012 at a conference held by Syrian opposition groups in Doha, Qatar, based on veteran dissident Riad Seif ’s Syrian National Initiative proposal.

Objectives

The Syrian Opposition Coalition seeks to represent and coordinate the political elements of the Syrian opposition and unite them around a provisional government that would govern Syria following the collapse of the Assad regime. It is designed to provide international donors with a legitimate, unified channel for all aid to the rebellion by acting as a moderate umbrella group representing the majority of activists, militia, and local councilmen in the Syrian opposition. The formation of the SOC would, in theory, allow the Syrian opposition and the international community to isolate and marginalize more extremist elements of the rebellion.

Leadership

The Syrian Opposition Coalition is made up of 71 representatives of key opposition groups, including the Syrian National Council, the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria, the Syrian Revolution General Commission, Local Coordination Committees, local revolutionary councils from across the country, individuals with long histories of opposing the regime, and a small number of Kurdish political leaders. Ghassan Hitto, a Western-educated businessman strongly backed by the Syrian National Council and the Muslim Brotherhood, was elected prime minister of the Syrian Opposition Coalition’s transitional government in March 2013. Moaz al-Khatib, a moderate Islamist opposition leader, served as president of the SOC from its formation in November 2012 until his resignation this April following a dispute over Hitto’s election as prime minister. George Sabra—a Christian teacher, former communist, and chief of the Syrian National Council—is serving as the interim president in Khatib’s absence.

Internal divisions

The Syrian National Council—an organization founded in October 2011 in an attempt to form a unified opposition framework—is one of the Syrian Opposition Coalition’s main constituents, and current and former members of the Syrian National Council make up roughly half of the SOC’s leadership. Both Hitto and the Syrian National Council have deep ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a point of conflict within the Syrian Opposition Coalition’s leadership and among its international backers.

More moderate opposition leaders such as former president Khatib have pushed for a transitional government—one that combines leadership of the opposition with members of the current Syrian government—as a means of retaining the governmental structure and avoiding chaos in the transition to an elected-civilian government. Prime Minister Hitto and members of the Syrian National Council have instead pushed for the formation of a provisional government, which would replace the current Syrian government and exclude all members of the Assad regime.

International backers have supported their preferred factions within the Syrian Opposition Coalition in an attempt to shape the political direction of the organization. Qatar and Turkey, who both have close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and share some ideological elements of their platform, supported Hitto’s election as prime minister. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are deeply suspicious of the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence within the nascent political organization, have been supportive of Khatib and members of his faction within the SOC.

As a political entity composed primarily of exiled Syrians—many of whom have not been in the country for months or years—the Syrian Opposition Coalition is frequently criticized by rebel groups for being out of touch with the in-country rebellion, contributing to its limited credibility on the ground. Whether or not it is able to effectively and prudently disperse the foreign aid it receives will likely determine its standing among rebel groups.

Funding

The Syrian Opposition Coalition receives political and financial support from Western and Arab states alike. Its primary backers are the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Supreme Joint Military Command

The Supreme Joint Military Command, or SMC, was officially formed to act as the Defense Ministry of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, yet it functions on its own authority. Rebel commanders from across Syria—260 in all—participated in its foundation in December 2012.

Objectives

The SMC’s primary goal is to unite the various armed groups in the rebellion and gradually form a national army by establishing a formal chain of command, though in practice little effort has been made by the SMC to control ground units, as its commanding officer publicly admitted. The SMC would then develop a cohesive national strategy by coordinating regional militias, existing provincial-level military structures, and international supply chains. As part of this process, the SMC was designed to reduce the influence of extremist groups in Syria by serving as the principal channel for all international financial and materiel aid.

Composition

The SMC comprises a council of leaders from various armed opposition groups and coalitions across Syria. The level of coordination between these armed groups and the SMC varies group-to-group. The council of leaders includes representatives from the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian Liberation Front, the Syrian Islamic Front, independent brigades, regional military councils, and defectors from the Syrian army. The council is made up of 30 elected members split evenly to represent the country’s five geographic fronts: eastern, western/middle, northern, southern, and the district of Homs. The council has no structural hierarchy, and command across the five fronts is not uniform. Instead, the SMC’s legitimacy is bottom-up, voluntarily given by the commanders that comprise it but with little coercive power by the SMC to control local commanders.

SMC Chief of Staff Gen. Salim Idriss—a former general in the Syrian army and current commander of the Free Syrian Army—is viewed primarily as a political leader rather than the head of a top-down chain of command. Gen. Idriss was chosen to facilitate coordination between the SMC, the Syrian Opposition Coalition, and the Free Syrian Army due to his strong relationships with foreign officials and international suppliers of arms and equipment. The SMC receives direct military aid from a number of Western and Arab states and has vowed that it will only disperse this aid to approved rebel groups operating under the SMC structure.

Funding

The SMC receives financial, materiel, and limited lethal support from Western and Arab states alike. Its primary backers are the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

Various armed opposition groups

The Syrian armed rebellion, often discussed as a singular movement working in unity to overthrow President Assad, is more accurately described as an array of ideologically diverse and uncoordinated brigades and battalions with limited areas of operation. One high-ranking U.N. official recently estimated the number of armed militias operating in the Syrian rebellion at “more than a thousand.” These anti-Assad groups range from defectors of the Syrian army to civilians with no formal military training to fighters affiliated with terrorist organizations.

Some brigades and armed groups have developed a degree of ideological and tactical cohesion by operating in larger coalitions such as the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian Liberation Front, or the Syrian Islamic Front. But even these coalitions are merely allied groupings of disparate brigades from across Syria and do not adhere to a uniform command structure. Despite the unifying goal of ousting President Assad, these alliances and their subunits have a range of tactics, constituencies, and visions of what a post-Assad Syria should look like.

The Free Syrian Army

The Free Syrian Army, or FSA, is the largest group within the Syrian armed opposition. It is an umbrella group comprising small, ideologically moderate, and uncoordinated militias and battalions operating at local levels. The FSA’s leadership is fully incorporated into the SMC and is closely linked to the Syrian Opposition Coalition. The term FSA has often been used to describe the overall armed opposition to the Assad regime, but, in practice, the FSA is one of several alliances of rebel groups operating in Syria.

Composition

The FSA is made up of small, localized battalions from all across Syria, organized loosely through provincial military councils. These battalions tend to fight in small geographic areas in defense of their hometowns and are less ideologically driven than others. It is estimated that there are as many as 50,000 fighters who align themselves with the FSA.

Command

Commanders of FSA-affiliated brigades and battalions do not receive strategic or tactical orders from FSA and SMC leaders such as Gen. Idriss but instead operate unilaterally in the control of their forces. The FSA leadership’s primary responsibility is to facilitate coordination between battalions. Gen. Idriss is officially the commander of the FSA but serves as more of a political leader than as a field commander.

Funding

The FSA receives financial, materiel, and limited lethal support from Western and Arab states through the SMC, as well as individual donors and informal funding streams.

The Syrian Liberation Front

The Syrian Liberation Front, or SLF, also known as the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front or Jabhat al-Tahrir al-Souriya al-Islamiya, is an alliance of approximately 20 brigades and battalions across Syria. An estimated 37,000 fighters are affiliated with the SLF, making it the largest coalition of rebels independent of the Free Syrian Army. Each of the SLF’s subunits has its own name and operates independently; there is no inherent strategic or tactical unity in the coalition. The most powerful and well known of these brigades are the Suquor al-Sham brigades and the Farouq battalions.

The SLF’s leadership has largely been incorporated into the Supreme Military Command, but the alliance remains more of a militant grouping than a political entity. SLF-affiliated groups are considered to be ideologically moderate Islamists, putting them at odds with some of the extremist groups operating in the country. While the SLF maintains brotherly relations with the FSA, it has criticized the FSA’s exiled leadership for being too detached from the realities of the in-country military conflict. The Saudi Arabian government has been the primary supporter of the SLF, but Saudi Arabia agreed in April to channel all future assistance through the SMC.

The Syrian Islamic Front

The Syrian Islamic Front, or SIF, also known as Jabhat al-Islamiya al-Tahrir al-Souriya, is an alliance of approximately 11 brigades and battalions across Syria, most notably the Ahrar al-Sham brigades. An estimated 13,000 fighters are affiliated with the SIF. SIF-affiliates are viewed as conservative Salafists, who are more religiously motivated than the Free Syrian Army or the Syrian Liberation Front. Most SIF-affiliated groups, however, are considered to be Syrian nationalists that don’t share the most extreme ideological elements of Al Qaeda-affiliated groups such as support for a transnational Islamic caliphate. The Syrian Islamic Front’s subunits each have their own name and operate independently but are beginning to merge leadership and forces, making it a more hierarchical and structured rebel coalition than the SLF or the FSA.

The Syrian Islamic Front’s leadership is not well incorporated into the SMC, but it has ties within the leadership council and its subunits have been cooperative with the SMC. The Syrian Islamic Front is largely financed by wealthy individuals from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Gulf states.

The Nusra Front

The Nusra Front, also known as Jabhat al-Nusra, is an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group, comprising approximately 6,000 foreign and domestic fighters. The Nusra Front has reportedly been receiving significant funding, arms, and training from Al-Qaeda and the Al Qaeda-affiliated group, Islamic State of Iraq. Some of Nusra’s fighters are foreign jihadists, many of whom are veterans of the Iraqi insurgency; it is unclear, however, what percentage of the Nusra Front’s supporters are foreign fighters as opposed to Syrian nationals. The Nusra Front is a well-armed group that has claimed responsibility for multiple suicide bombings and asymmetric attacks against Assad-regime targets. The Nusra Front is also considered to be a fiercely sectarian Sunni group in violent opposition to Syria’s Alawite community—an ethnoreligious group of Shiite Muslims who comprise 12 percent of the Syrian population and the majority of the Assad regime.

The Nusra Front has a mixed relationship with other elements of the Syrian rebellion. Shared opposition to President Assad and the effectiveness of Nusra Front fighters have led to some cooperation between the Nusra Front and other rebel battalions, including the SLF’s Deir ez-Zour Revolutionary Council and the Syrian Islamic Front’s Ahrar al- Sham. Opposition to the Nusra Front’s extremist ideology and the influence of foreign fighters within the group, however, has led to direct confrontation between the Nusra Front and other rebel groups throughout Syria. Leaders of the FSA and the SLF have sought to publicly distance themselves from the Nusra Front following its open pledge of allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Kurdish groups

Kurds are an ethnic group representing 9 percent of Syria’s ethnically diverse population and are concentrated in the country’s north and northeast regions. Until recently, most Kurds had not taken sides in the rebellion, but the expansion of indiscriminate violence by the Assad regime against population centers and the prospect of greater autonomy for Kurdish regions in Syria have led to an increase in Kurdish support for the rebellion. While Kurdish militias still prioritize the independence and protection of their communities over a nationalist or revolutionary agenda, their role in the conflict may grow. As of late March, the Kurdish People’s Defense Units, often referred to as the YPG, has agreed to share control of a district in northern Aleppo with other rebel groups. Additionally, some Kurdish fighters have been incorporated into the SLF, the Tawhid Brigade, and the Suquor al-Kurd Brigade. There have been reports of clashes earlier this year between Nusra Front battalions and Kurdish groups in the north, leading to criticism of the Nusra Front by fellow rebel groups for wasting precious resources that could otherwise be used in the fight to remove President Assad.

Independent groups

There are also roughly nine brigade alliances that operate independently of the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian Liberation Front, or the Syrian Islamic Front. Some of them have been incorporated into the SMC structure, while others, particularly fringe extremist groups, remain independent. The largest of these independent brigades is the Ahfad al-Rasul Brigade. Its leadership is incorporated into the SMC and it coordinates with the SLF. It is composed of an estimated 15,000 fighters and has been funded by the Qatari government. Other notable independent groups with leadership incorporated into the SMC are the Syrian Martyrs Brigade, the Fajr al-Islam Battalion, and the Al-Haqq Brigade.

Multiple funding streams

Support for Syrian opposition groups, particularly the armed portion of the rebellion, comes from a variety of sources, including national governments, wealthy individuals, and nongovernmental organizations. For the majority of the rebellion, financial and materiel support was delivered to Syrian opposition groups through ad hoc or informal channels, which created an uneven set of capabilities for armed groups and a disproportionate amount of influence by the most ideologically extreme groups. The expansion of the war, however, and the increasing, though limited, cohesion of the Syrian opposition has created a more formal process of support for the rebellion and has placed an emphasis on foreign-government aid. The core group of foreign-government supporters—including the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—have pledged to direct all military aid and assistance through the SMC, allowing the coordinating body to direct funds as necessary to rebel alliances and brigades, a process the Center for American Progress has advocated for since August 2012.

Still, it is unclear whether this international pledge to use the formal SMC process will have the intended effect of forming a more cohesive Syrian opposition and strengthening the more moderate elements of the rebellion. The formal assistance processes are in their nascent stages, which have led to the inefficient dispersal of aid and supplies to the areas in need. Furthermore, many rebel groups, even those who are closely linked to the Syrian Opposition Coalition and the SMC, still receive much of their funding from informal channels and ideologically motivated supporters. Finally, in order for the formal process of assistance to work, Western and Arab governments will need to adhere to their pledges and maximize the amount of support delivered through the SMC, thus giving it the financial leverage it needs to coerce greater unity from the different rebel groups in Syria.

But several of the most important foreign-government funders of the opposition support specific factions within the rebellion, with Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates each backing different political and armed groups. Even the United States has supported rebel groups without going through the formal SMC process, as seen most clearly in U.S. training for Syrian rebel groups operating along the Jordanian border. The competition for limited resources within the Syrian Opposition Coalition and the SMC— exacerbated by informal funding streams and factionalism—poses the most immediate risk to the effort to create a cohesive, national Syrian opposition that could immediately step in and fill the ensuing security vacuum if and when the Assad regime falls.

Effect on U.S. policy options

Though the Syrian Opposition Coalition and the Supreme Joint Military Command have made some progress turning the Syrian rebellion from a disorganized series of armed groups and political actors into a united opposition force, their efforts remain far short of what is needed to establish a single, coherent voice and strategy for a post-Assad Syria. The current limitations of opposition coordination complicate existing U.S. policy options and demand greater planning for several potential contingencies stemming from the lack of a cohesive national opposition. As the Center for American Progress has stated on multiple occasions, increased materiel support and lethal aid to the rebels should be contingent on better organization by the opposition in order to limit the potential for a proliferation of weapons. Without a stronger mechanism by the SMC to distribute supplies and arms, it is unlikely that directly arming the opposition will contribute significantly to the anti-Assad effort. But failing to provide the Syrian Opposition Coalition and the SMC with any financial and materiel support will eliminate what little leverage they currently possess over the transition efforts.

Additionally, the internal divisions and lack of an effective national strategy by the Syrian opposition reduce the likelihood that the rebels will be able to contribute to several critical postconflict priorities. In particular, the prospects of securing Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpile, eliminating the space for terrorist groups to operate, safeguarding the country against collapse into sectarian violence, and leading the country through on effective and stable political transition are tenuous at best based on current levels of rebel organization. The United States and the international community will need to think carefully about how to address each potential contingency without being able to count on a unified Syrian opposition to shoulder the burden.

The central question for U.S. policymakers now becomes whether enough progress has been made and enough potential remains to establish a truly unified Syrian opposition. If the answer is yes, then a redoubling of efforts must be made to bolster the international and domestic legitimacy of the Syrian Opposition Coalition and the SMC. This includes ensuring that all international supporters of the opposition adhere to their commitment to deliver all funding, supplies, and arms through these formal channels.

If the answer is no, then policymakers should begin determining how best to pursue U.S. goals and priorities working through channels independent from the formal opposition. This may include independent action to secure or destroy chemical-weapons stockpiles, funding and training individual brigades for specific tasks such as maintaining a refugee camp on the border with Jordan, or reaching out to more moderate members of the current regime, who could help maintain order and security if and when President Assad is removed from power.

Understanding the capabilities and limitations of the Syrian opposition is crucial to assessing the situation in Syria and what options exist. Before any decisions are made, U.S. policymakers should consider whether the opposition has the capability to effectively and peacefully step in and assume control in a post-Assad Syria. Without factoring in the structure and organization of the Syrian opposition, there are simply no options on the table for U.S. policymakers.

Ken Sofer is a Research Associate with the National Security and International Policy team at the Center for American Progress. Juliana Shafroth is an Intern with the National Security team at the Center.

SOURCE: AP/Thanassis Stavrakis

A montage of nine Turkish newspaper front pages are seen in Istanbul, Monday, June 13, 2011.

Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF version of this issue brief.

The issues of press freedom and freedom of expression in Turkey have for several years attracted a great deal of attention and provoked extensive debate both in Turkey and in other Western countries. Dozens of journalists critical of the government have been jailed, and hefty fines have been levied against media outlets seen as opposing the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP. The perceived deterioration of the situation has raised concerns about the course and character of Turkish democratic development.

This brief provides political context, historical background, and strategic analysis of this problem, and offers steps that the United States can take to help address the situation. The intention is to broaden the discussion and improve understanding of the issue among a wider audience, particularly in Washington, D.C., in the hopes of encouraging greater U.S. engagement. What follows is based on secondary research, extensive interviews with Turkish journalists, editors, and outside experts, and working-group meetings in Istanbul and Washington, bringing together prominent Turkish journalists and U.S. and European experts.

Our goal is not to provide an exhaustive exploration of the current state of press or media freedom in Turkey, nor is it to provide new data on the exact number of jailed journalists or the character of their alleged crimes. There are a number of informative reports that provide those details and include insights on the current state of press freedom in Turkey. Marc Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Turkey, has perhaps the most up-to-date and balanced study. The Committee to Protect Journalists plays an important role in tracking the exact number of jailed journalists, monitoring their legal status, and advocating on their behalf; their website and recent reports have detailed breakdowns of these issues. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the U.S. Department of State both exhaustively track the trials of journalists and evaluate the broader human-rights environment in Turkey, and their periodic reports contain a wealth of information.

By understanding the historical sensitivities feeding the current political crisis in Turkey, outlining the suppression of certain forms of political discourse, and examining the issue in the context of U.S. engagement with Turkey and the wider region, a new picture emerges. The United States wants Turkey to be a capable and secure democratic partner with whom it can engage the broader Middle East, and therefore it should more clearly voice its concerns about the deterioration of press freedom and freedom of expression in the domestic political context. Given the wave of popular mobilization in the region and the careful negotiations between the Turkish government and Kurdish separatists, it is more important than ever to preserve the democratic nature of the “Turkish model,” which we discuss in more detail below.

Historical context

To understand the current political situation and the importance of reinforcing democratic principles over the coming years, it is necessary to provide some historical context of press freedom and freedom of expression in Turkey.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, journalists were targeted and sometimes killed by actors ranging from ultranationalists to Islamists, far leftists to the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or PKK, who seek Kurdish autonomy and greater legal and cultural protections. Current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP has successfully defused much of the violence that characterized the extreme polarization of Turkish society in those years since coming to power in 2003. But the 2007 murder of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, shot outside his newspaper’s offices in Istanbul for advocating official recognition of the Armenian genocide, served as a reminder that the violence underlying political tensions and freedom of expression in Turkey has not disappeared.

Since the AKP’s electoral success in 2002, the country has seen a remarkable period of economic growth, political reform, and relative stability. This has given the party the chance to institutionalize the changes it has brought to the Turkish state such as greater legal and cultural recognition of Kurdish and Armenian minorities. The party was formed as a broad alliance of religious conservative parties that were previously banned under Turkey’s secular constitution, members of the newly emergent Anatolian middle class, social conservatives, and liberal elements that were frustrated with the incumbent Republican People’s Party, or CHP.

Electoral success and economic growth has also made Prime Minister Erdoğan one of the most influential leaders in the Middle East. This clout was visible during his tour of the Arab world following the upheavals of 2011—he was greeted by cheering throngs at nearly every step. His and Turkey’s popularity increased talk of a “Turkish model” of democratic development, secular government compatible with Islamic conservatism, and economic growth. The Turkish model means many things to many people throughout the region but is undoubtedly one narrative open to moderates seeking to shape new political cultures in the wake of the Arab Spring.

The AKP’s rise to power was a manifestation of trends that began in the 1980s, when center-right Prime Minister Turgut Özal—later president from 1989 to 1993—oversaw the opening of new economic markets and the modernization of the Turkish economy. This process had unintended consequences for the country’s established elites—the far-right Nationalist Action Party, civilian administrators, powerful Istanbul oligarchs, and influential military leadership—who had long benefited from the strong state and military apparatus built by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The macroeconomic conditions, liberalization of the Turkish economy resulting from Özal’s reforms, and deepening trade ties to the Middle East all contributed to rapid urban growth in Anatolia and the rise of an Anatolian business class, which would become a crucial constituency for the AKP. By 2011, when Erdoğan’s AKP secured 50 percent of the popular vote, more than 20 cities in central and eastern Turkey were each generating more than $1 billion of trade.

The emergence of these new centers of economic power in Anatolia over the past two decades has had profound political repercussions. Many among the new Anatolian business classes resented the clientelist nature of the Kemalist elite, centered on patronage and loyalty to statist doctrine, and came to closely associate with the political coalition behind the AKP’s rise and electoral success. The more virulently nationalist elements of the Kemalist camp only contributed to these suspicions and resentments by attempting to stifle dissent and freedom of expression by outlawing Islamist political parties and banning symbols of cultural or religious diversity such as the headscarf or the Kurdish language.

The Kemalist old guard could claim the mantle of constitutional legitimacy for much of this process, defending the constitution that is still in place today—written under military rule in the early 1980s—which limits cultural and political liberties, requires the country to be governed “loyal to the nationalism of Atatürk,” and assures the military considerable political influence. Despite this veneer of legitimacy, democratic principles were repeatedly ignored through this process. In 1997, for example, the military forced out the government of the AKP-predecessor Welfare Party in the so-called post-modern coup, arguing that the religious conservative movement had become a threat to Turkish security. Prime Minister Erdoğan himself, then the mayor of Istanbul, was imprisoned for a short time in 1998 for reciting a poem protesting the ban of the Welfare Party, which authorities deemed was inciting religious hatred.

Despite these hurdles, the reconstituted and modernized religious-conservative-reform movement, now under the umbrella of the AKP, managed to win a large majority in parliament in 2002, due in part to widespread anger at official corruption and the state of the economy. Given the historical fear of the Turkish deep state—the conspiratorial statist and corporatist elements that many Turks still believe run the military and intelligence apparatuses—the legacy of repeated military coups, and the recent memory of the 1997 military intervention and subsequent banning of the Welfare Party, it is unsurprising that upon gaining power in 2002 the AKP moved quickly to curb the influence of the military and other branches of the Kemalist establishment that it felt hindered the burgeoning democracy and threatened the party. The party’s reforms, accomplished over many years, included abolishing the military courts that had been influential in stifling dissent, loosening restrictions on the press and religious or cultural expression, asserting civilian authority over military commanders, and pushing to rewrite the constitution.

The AKP’s democratic initiatives had a number of positive outcomes. First, because the religious-conservative movement had been stifled through many of the same tools that the security apparatus used to repress Turkey’s Kurdish minority, the AKP broke down many of the taboos that had surrounded discussion of the Kurdish issue. Second, real progress was made on the longstanding Turkish intentions to join the European Union. The AKP frequently turned to the European Court of Human Rights and made significant progress implementing the reforms needed for EU membership, often using the EU accession process as a way to counter the influence of the old elite, particularly within the judiciary. Finally, in part because the AKP’s electoral victory was such a watershed event in Turkish political history, and in part because the party had so recently experienced censorship and repression, the AKP accession prompted a profound opening of the Turkish political debate. From 2002 to 2009 numerous topics of discussion that had previously been banned from public discourse—such as the status of the Kurdish minority, Turkey’s history with Armenia, and the role of the military in politics—were openly and vigorously debated in parliament.

The AKP’s consolidation of civilian control and its breaking down of religious and cultural taboos was deeply disruptive and threatening to many of the elite Turks raised on the strict Kemalist doctrine of secularism, statism, and military prestige. This shaped a situation of mutual paranoia, wherein all sides of the political debate harbored deep suspicions regarding the motives of their opponents, and longstanding grudges—often intensely personal—animated many political actions.

This mutual suspicion is still strong in Turkey today. Kemalists and many secular Turks express fear of a creeping Islamist takeover or concern about conservative religious groups’ presence in the police forces and the judiciary. Meanwhile, fears of the deep state and mistrust of the military remain powerful among AKP circles, despite considerable improvements in civilian control of the military. It is in this context that concerns have grown that the cycle through which the AKP oversaw a necessary retrenchment of the Kemalist security apparatus has gone too far, and that the AKP has begun to assume some of the repressive characteristics of the regime in whose shadow it was originally formed. Against this backdrop, and because so much of the AKP’s coalition was formed around a critique of illegitimate use of power, Prime Minister Erdoğan’s increasingly aggressive responses to criticism from the press is especially troubling.

Strategic concerns trump democratization issues

Strategic concerns have dominated policy discussions of Turkey in Washington, D.C., for several years. President Barack Obama’s administration has worked hard since 2009 to renew ties with Turkey and cultivate Prime Minister Erdoğan’s AKP as an important partner and interlocutor in the region. As such, U.S. officials and policy analysts focused on defining a cooperative regional agenda, improving security ties, widening economic access, and working to resolve the longstanding Kurdish issue. Questions surrounding Turkey’s ongoing democratization, including issues of press freedom and freedom of expression, were therefore often sidelined.

The diplomatic thinking was sound in 2009—Turkey was, and is, a NATO ally, a democracy, an important regional military power, and a fast-growing economy with increasing ties to the Levant. The relationship between the two nations had deteriorated during the George W. Bush administration and needed renewal. Turkey had held successive free and fair elections for nearly a decade, overseen important economic reforms, made important and highly symbolic concessions to its Kurdish minority, and was beginning the process of rewriting and updating its constitution. Additionally, due to economic ties and the Kurdish population in the southeast region of the country, Turkey was likely to play an important role in shaping the future of Iraq after the American withdrawal. The possibility of escalating tensions with Iran regarding its nuclear program also loomed on the horizon. Despite being a close U.S. ally and regional counterweight to Iran, Turkey is dependent on Iranian energy resources and therefore crucial to any tightening of sanctions on Tehran to complement the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts.

For all of these reasons, the Obama administration placed strategic concerns at the heart of the U.S.-Turkish bilateral relationship. The United States did not explicitly sideline issues of democratization, but these issues were superseded by more pressing concerns. This strategic focus was lent further urgency by the political upheavals that swept the region in 2010 and 2011 and by the continuing violence in Syria, which left the United States searching for stable allies in the region.

As a result, issues of democratic reform lost significance for many in the policymaking establishment. Prime Minister Erdoğan’s repeated electoral victories—increasing the AKP’s share of the vote in both 2007 and 2011—and his growing personal dominance of Turkish politics elicited concern from civil-society activists, who worried about his rigidity in response to criticism, but officials in Washington and Ankara largely relegated such concerns to second-tier status.

The sidelining of press freedom, minority rights, and judicial reform now threatens to impact the joint strategic project being advanced by the United States and Turkey to establish secure and democratic governance in the region and foster economic growth. The fact that Turkey has regressed on issues of press freedom and stalled on judicial reforms undermines the persuasive power of the Turkish democratic model in the wider region. In a parliamentary system, public opinion is an important check on political power. The legitimacy of elected governments is tied to the free exchange of opinions, ideas, and criticism—this is how the public compels political authorities to remain accountable on a daily basis. If Prime Minister Erdoğan and the AKP are serious about overcoming Turkey’s undemocratic traditions, then maintaining and deepening freedom of expression and permitting dissenting voices in the public sphere is critical.

Given the turmoil in the region, with many nascent political movements searching to define their future paths, Turkey cannot afford to come across as undemocratic or as cracking down on freedom of expression. The issue of press freedom is at the core of Turkey’s development as a modern democracy. Vigorous—and often controversial—internal debate is necessary to help reinforce Turkish leadership in the region and the strategic partnership with the United States.

A key juncture in Turkish politics

The next two years will be tremendously important in directing the next phase of Turkish democracy, with the rewriting of the constitution, the proposed shift to a system embracing a strong presidency, the ongoing reform of the judiciary, and continuing outreach to PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and negotiations with field elements of the PKK all currently underway. Each of these processes requires a strong and vigilant press to voice criticism and provide oversight, meaning it is crucial that the freedom of the press be protected.

The role of the press is lent further importance by the current lack of serious political opposition to the AKP. The primary opposition party—the CHP—is still undergoing a long-term reshuffling to widen its appeal beyond the urban elites and remove some of the old guard, who have so closely associated the party with the excesses of the old Kemalist structure. The extended period of AKP dominance has allowed it to consolidate control of the courts and weaken the military’s political influence. But this consolidation, even if necessary or natural after a decade of rule, has left the press as the only government oversight body and as such has perhaps helped make it a target for the AKP, which has developed an increasingly confrontational relationship with critical journalists and news outlets.

The stalled EU accession process has also played a role in establishing this dynamic. Throughout the early 2000s, this process had incentivized Turkey to undertake important reforms and protect democratic processes, but the European Union’s economic hardships and the wariness of many European politicians to support Turkey’s bid have together made accession a less-enticing prospect than it was for much of the past decade. This has meant that progress on meeting the EU membership requirements has slowed and that criticism from the European Union, which had previously been influential in pushing Turkish reforms, is increasingly ignored. Given the United States’ relative silence on press freedom in Turkey and clear prioritization of other issues in the region, there are few outside voices holding the AKP accountable.

Political journalism in Turkey

The issues outlined above have led the Turkish administration to assert increasing control over the political debate in the country and have led to meaningful lapses in democratic governance. Prime Minister Erdoğan wants to be remembered as a transformative leader who established legitimate democratic governance—the bookend to Atatürk himself in modern Turkish history—and intends to establish a presidential system wherein he can continue to govern after term limits end his time as prime minister in 2015.

Despite these goals and his record of accomplishments since 2002, Prime Minister Erdoğan has come to view any criticism of his government as a personal attack. Despite the measured reforms and removal of many taboos, Turkish political culture and journalism are both intensely personal. For many in Turkey, political disagreements end with participants debating a person rather than an idea and engaging in ad hominem attacks. Sometimes provoked by journalists’ vitriolic attacks, politicians—including the prime minister himself—often mention critics by name in print or in speeches, which can lead to threats or intimidation from unscrupulous supporters. The prime minister has also filed five libel suits against journalists for personal attacks since 2005. While some of the criticism for which Prime Minister Erdoğan has sued is distasteful—depictions of the prime minister as an animal, for example—the political power of his office is such that these lawsuits have a chilling effect on legitimate political debate. Given his overwhelming political power, Prime Minister Erdoğan would do better to rise above such slights and work to cement a new precedent for political leadership.

So far, the government’s behavior has tended toward greater repression. But a disclaimer is necessary before delving into the details of the imprisonment of journalists and media ownership, as well as direct and indirect censorship in Turkey. While these are very serious concerns demanding attention and resolution, comparisons of Turkey to authoritarian countries such as Iran, China, or North Korea are off base. Some organizations monitoring the situation in Turkey have drawn such comparisons in order to attract attention to the plight of imprisoned journalists, and while their motives may be good, such overreach undermines the wider political effort to ensure reform, as it provides the government with the opportunity to dismiss all outside criticism as overhyped. Turkey today is more democratic than in the past, if perhaps less socially liberal. The country has, in many ways, a healthy civil society, enshrined civilian authority, and a vibrant political debate. While there is still work to be done, we should not dismiss how far the country has come since the “post-modern” coup of 1997.

Jailed journalists

As of the end of 2012, Turkey had imprisoned at least 49 journalists for their reporting—more than any other country in the world. As Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, has written, “Turkey has no business being the world’s leading jailer of journalists.” Turkish civil society is vibrant; its television shows are enjoyed throughout the Middle East. And the AKP has grown its share of the popular vote in three successive, legitimate national elections. What reasonable explanation could there be for such widespread imprisonment of journalists?

A study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace shows that the jailing of journalists is linked to the lack of a resolution of two larger issues: the ongoing Kurdish unrest and the role of the military in Turkish politics. Of course, those two issues are in turn associated with the judicial-reform process and the drafting of a new constitution to replace problematic remnants of the military constitution that still governs the country. The existing constitution’s broadly defined laws governing national security and territorial integrity provide ample room for abuse by overzealous prosecutors, while the twin fears of the military deep state and Kurdish separatism lead to prosecutions of those who may be engaged in legitimate reporting or political advocacy.

The majority of imprisoned journalists are Kurds charged under the remit of Article 314 of the Turkish Criminal Code or under the Turkish Anti-Terror Law. According to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s most recent study of the issue in August 2012, 68 percent of Turkish journalists in prison were jailed on charges related to the Kurdish issue; 13 percent were related to the ongoing Ergenekon trial of alleged right-wing coup plotters; and 19 percent were jailed on assorted other charges.

Both Article 314 of the Turkish Criminal Code and the Turkish Anti-Terror Law are overly broad and poorly defined, leaving them open to abuse by prosecutors and judges for a wide array of reasons. The Turkish Anti-Terror Law, for example, declares it a crime to “print or publish declarations or announcements of terrorist organisations.” The law is intended to target those dispensing terrorist propaganda but leaves open the possibility of prosecution for any number of journalists trying to cover the activities of the PKK or other terrorist groups. The Anti-Terror Law also deems anyone a terrorist if he or she is a member of an “organisation with the aim of changing the attributes of the Republic as specified in the Constitution, the political, legal, social, secular or economic system.” Of course, the current constitution was written under military rule, and any number of legitimate political actors want to “change the attributes of the Republic as specified in the Constitution,” making this a particularly problematic clause for a modern democracy.

Turkish government officials are quick to point out that some of the imprisoned journalists were probably members of the PKK, labeled a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union. Equally, there are journalists imprisoned who are clearly not members of the PKK or even advocating on the organization’s behalf. Even delving into the details of individual cases, it is very difficult to know the truth, and therein lies another central problem—the lack of transparency surrounding the process. Government sources claim that a number of jailed journalists were in fact engaged in illegal activities, while the Committee to Protect Journalists found that there was not sufficient evidence to determine guilt, according to their investigation. The fact that this is a matter of debate between government officials and their supporters and a nongovernmental organization is in itself a condemnation of the lack of transparency and due process under the law when it comes to prosecuting journalists.

The abuse of the Anti-Terror Law’s broad provisions has provoked criticism from the U.S. Department of State, the European Commission, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the U.N. Human Rights Committee, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Turkish government has every right to defend Turkish citizens, the state, and its territorial integrity and to prosecute terrorists. The impasse, however, is rooted in what has been, until recently, a mostly military approach to the Kurdish issue. The criticism comes about because of the frequency with which prosecutions tend to target those who could claim to be merely reporting on PKK activities, a reasonable journalistic pursuit, while not being members of the group themselves. As Marc Pierini, former EU ambassador to Turkey, has written, the “judicial system tends to blur the line between the intention to incite, praise, legitimize, or relativize terrorist violence and the expression of an alternative, critical, or even disturbing opinion.”

The solution to the issue of imprisoned journalists certainly lies in the dual need for a new constitution and judicial reform. A new constitution could eliminate the legal loopholes that allow for the prosecution of political opponents under overly broad legal justifications. The other issues linked to imprisonment are largely a result of badly needed judicial reform and proper due process. Many journalists are charged and then held in prison for extremely long periods of pretrial detention, and their release on bail is uneven and unpredictable. Defendants and their lawyers repeatedly complain of a lack of access to evidence, while those trying to monitor the trials are foiled by the utter lack of overall transparency. A new constitution could also contribute to the permanent peaceful resolution of the Kurdish issue through constitutional protections for minority rights.

It is time for Turkey to truly embrace the role of a confident democracy by allowing the open debate of these issues, particularly the Kurdish question. The AKP is the dominant force in Turkish politics, enjoying electoral legitimacy and broad popularity, and therefore should be encouraging such discourse rather than stifling it through the shadowy use of outdated security laws or judicial malpractice.

Media ownership

Turkey’s crisis of press freedom extends beyond the outright silencing of journalists through imprisonment. The government and its allies have also utilized more subtle forms of pressure in recent years. Much of the problem stems from the consolidation of major media holdings over the past two decades and the cross-ownership of media outlets by large conglomerates. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Commission’s 2012 Progress Report, and the U.S. State Department’s Human Rights Report have all identified the cross-ownership of media outlets as a threat to freedom of the press in Turkey.

This cross-ownership of media entities—wherein large conglomerates with major economic interests in other sectors such as construction or energy control media outlets—can open up reporters, editors, and owners to a variety of pressures. Companies with interests across economic sectors often rely on government contracts or regulation, leading to situations where they are asked or decide to apply pressure to limit political criticism, which could jeopardize those interests or contracts. While smaller companies are not as influenced by potential pressure on wider business interests, big conglomerates are under tremendous pressure. Numerous Turkish journalists cited instances where they were told to tone down government criticism or had columns pulled because of such concerns. This pressure manifests itself in direct pressure on news-outlet owners from government officials and more subtle forms of self-censorship from editors and journalists afraid of dismissal.

The independent think tank Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, or TESEV, has documented that the Turkish media market came to be dominated by several cross-sector companies through a series of mergers following the end of the state monopoly over broadcasting in the 1990s. As can be seen from the table above, this consolidation of holdings has led several companies to dominate the Turkish media scene, across different mediums.

The case of Doğan Group illustrates this point most clearly. In 2009 the Turkish authorities levied a $2.5 billion fine against Doğan Group, then the largest media company in Turkey, for unpaid taxes. The fine was widely viewed as a political move to punish Doğan for its media outlets’ negative coverage of the AKP and Prime Minister Erdoğan. For weeks before the fine was announced, Prime Minister Erdoğan spoke publicly against the opposition press, telling his supporters at rallies, “Don’t buy these newspapers, they are full of filth and lies,” adding that audiences should “sentence them to poverty.” Such language, besides being inappropriate for the office of prime minister, tends to undermine the tax authorities’ claims to an unbiased assessment of the Doğan Group’s alleged financial improprieties.

Multiple sources in Turkey described the fine against the Doğan Group as having a “chilling effect” on journalists, editors, and media owners. For some Turks, particularly those in the opposition media, the Doğan fine was the highest-profile incident in what seems to be a trend of tax or bankruptcy proceedings intended to silence opponents in the press. Skeptics point to the uncontested auction of the ATV-Sabah media group in 2008, when the company held large shares of both print and television markets, by the Turkish Savings Deposit Insurance Fund, or TMSF, to allies of Prime Minister Erdoğan, including his son-in-law and brother, following bankruptcy proceedings as a point of concern. The uncontested state auction of a large media company to a close ally of Prime Minister Erdoğan stoked fears that the prime minister was seeking to assume informal control of the media.

More systematic concerns exist as well, surrounding the leasing of broadcast frequencies, issuance of journalist credentials, and the problematic Media Law, which states that television broadcasters must lease their frequencies from the government, as stipulated in Article 26 of the constitution, because they are regarded as finite resources, meaning the rights can also be revoked by regulators at the Radio and Television Supreme Council, or RTÜK. For journalists critical of the government, obtaining press credentials can also become an issue; the government periodically denies credentials to opposition newspapers. Finally, under current law the government can prosecute and fine media outlets and journalists, for example, for ill-defined offenses linked to national security, decency standards, and libel. As with the terrorism laws, such poorly defined legal standards open the door to abuse and political prosecutions.

More subtle censorship

Faced with this array of pressures, many journalists and editors practice varied forms of self-censorship. Because of the examples made of critics through outright prosecution, fines, or public mention by the prime minister or other officials, many conclude that it’s not worth the risk to explore sensitive issues such as the PKK or the Ergenekon trial. Several sources in Turkey reported receiving death threats in the wake of public criticism of the government or in response to particularly controversial columns on traditional political taboos such as discussion of Kurdish political activities or the death of more than 1 million Armenians during and after the First World War.

Journalists and editors also report pressure on content from owners, leading to fears of dismissal. Indeed, there are countless instances of columnists or journalists being dismissed for refusing to tone down criticism or for breaking controversial stories. Most recently, veteran journalist Hasan Cemal was dismissed from Milliyet newspaper for defending the publication of minutes from a meeting between representatives of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, and the PKK leader Abdullah Ӧcalan. The leaked minutes provided fodder for nationalist critics of the peace process, angering Prime Minister Erdoğan, who publicly criticized Milliyet and condemned Cemal’s column on the subject, declaring, “If this is journalism, down with it!” Such public condemnation from a sitting prime minister brought tremendous pressure to bear on Milliyet’s owner, who refused to publish a subsequent column and then fired Cemal.

The concerns of critics and outside observers should not shroud the fact that many owners, editors, and journalists are quite happy to self-censor or cooperate with the authorities. The motivations for this cooperation can vary from political proximity and personal ties, to business interests and a desire for access to information, to a genuine yearning for unity on issues of national security. The blame for such censorship does not lie squarely with the government but also has its roots in the varying quality of journalistic training and ethics across the profession in Turkey.

Solutions for a freer press in Turkey

Turkey has made some progress in the past six months to address the issue of press freedom, but fundamental reforms are still needed.

Perhaps responding to international and domestic political pressure, the number of jailed journalists dropped sharply from 61 to 49 in December 2012 due to a number of releases, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Helping this process was progress on the Kurdish front, with direct negotiations between the AKP government and Abdullah Ӧcalan yielding a historic ceasefire announcement from the jailed PKK leader, who declared on March 21 that it was time to “solve the arms problem without losing time or another life.” This opening may help ease one of the points of tension resulting in many of the charges against journalists—the Kurdish issue—and prompt the government to embrace a broader alleviation of censorship.

The most recent positive development is an amendment to the Anti-Terror Law passed on April 11, 2013. The Turkish Parliament passed several AKP initiatives to narrow the definitions of prosecutable offenses, which are now limited to those who voice opinions deemed “a clear and an imminent danger to public order” or those who promote violent acts. While this limited step does not address the fundamental problems with the judicial system or the constitution and still leaves room for abuse under the “public order” clause, it is nevertheless a positive development.

Numerous reports have outlined in detail the steps necessary for Turkey to overcome this problem and fully institutionalize a vibrant and free press. First, Turkey’s EU accession process was a unifying thread that helped incentivize democratic governance, prevent the excesses of the security apparatus, and encourage reforms through the early AKP years—and hope is needed on that front. While politicians in Turkey have soured on EU accession of late because of Europe’s economic woes and the dismissive attitude of certain European leaders, Turkey’s entry into the union is in the interest of all parties.

Second, Turkey needs a new constitution. A modern democracy has no business being governed by a constitution written under military rule. The new constitution must prioritize the protection of minority rights and freedom of expression. This is not just meant as a protection for Kurds and other minorities, but also represents the only path to a peaceful, democratic Turkey, and will unleash new economic potential in previously marginal areas. Further, constitutional reform should include the removal of the most problematic “catch-all” phrases and clauses in the current constitution, particularly those regarding insulting the state or “Turkishness.” If Prime Minister Erdoğan wants to be remembered as Turkey’s democratic leader, then this should be his overarching goal.

Third, alongside the process of constitutional reform, the AKP must continue to pursue the evenhanded reform of the broken judicial system. The four judicial-reform packages passed since 2002 represent incremental progress, but the government would now be best served by bringing its full attention and resources to bear on the problem. As it stands, people accused of crimes spend far too long in jail awaiting trial, and release pending a trial is uneven and unfair. Related to this problem, trials proceed too slowly, contributing to the problem of long pretrial detentions and leading to financial and personal strain on the accused. Too often in Turkey, the accused are treated as guilty before due process has been served. The accused and their legal counsel must have full access to evidence, and the cloud of secrecy surrounding politically sensitive prosecutions should be removed. This will allow for greater accountability and will prevent overzealous prosecutors, often eager to gain favor by going after critics of the government, from abusing the broad definitions within the media law or the Anti-Terror Law.

Fourth, the Kurdish issue must be addressed through negotiation; military force alone will not solve the problem. To its credit, the AKP has begun this process, and negotiations continue with the departure of PKK fighters from Turkish soil pending a broader amnesty agreement. Much can still go wrong in this fraught political process, but the AKP has finally acknowledged that the only real way to end this struggle is to win the debate—not resort to force. And, of course, in order to win the debate, the AKP must allow the debate to take place.

Finally, the United States can and should do more to encourage its partner to more fully embrace its role as a modern democracy. All reports from both sides indicate that Prime Minister Erdoğan values his relationship with President Obama very highly. Beyond this personal relationship, Turkey and the United States share many strategic goals and a valuable military alliance. While policymakers must assess the value of public pronouncements given the political situations in both countries, private or personal appeals from President Obama might prompt action from Prime Minister Erdoğan. President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and other members of the U.S. government should make clear to Turkish officials that the partnership does not end with military or strategic considerations. While making clear that Turkish democracy will continue to reflect Turkish culture and history, U.S. leaders must show that they consider freedom of the press to be non-negotiable.

Conclusion

The course of constitutional and legal reform in Turkey over the next two years, along with the fate of the PKK negotiations, will likely decide whether the events of the past five years represent either a necessary, if sometimes unpleasant, correction after so many years of military and Kemalist domination or a longer-term deterioration of democratic norms in Turkey. The 2014 presidential elections may also reveal the extent to which the current controversies are the product of specific leadership personalities or a case of the familiar tools of power wielded by new hands. It is unclear whether a figure less dominant than the prime minister would exert less control over the press or if the problem is more institutional.

But the blame must not be placed solely on the government, which is laboring under an outdated constitution and must deal with a stubborn opposition that mistrusts its intentions. Turkish politics must continue to address the wider problem of a political culture where the line between personal insult and outdated notions of honor and legitimate criticism or debate is blurred. Turkish society has also not fundamentally decided what balance of security and freedom of expression is right for their country—should reporting on bombings or carrying the statements of separatists be considered criminal? The question of media ownership is also thorny, with no indication that the trend toward consolidated ownership of news outlets by large conglomerates is slowing.

The owners of large media companies also often have a wide range of business interests with the government and fear that critiquing the AKP could negatively impact government contracts or other business operations. These overlapping interests and owners’ fears of government backlash have undoubtedly contributed to the current crisis of press freedom, with many proprietors applying pressure to journalists or editors who criticize the government. Indeed, a 2011 survey of top journalists by Bilgi University demonstrated the twin pressures facing journalists and editors, with 95 percent of those surveyed reporting government interference in news production and 85 percent reporting intervention by media owners.

What is certain is the central importance of press freedom to the entrenchment of democratic norms in Turkey. For nongovernmental organizations there is room to help monitor the situation and provide venues and support for independent journalism. Funding freelancers or helping set up independent publishing outlets along the lines of ProPublica could help circumvent many of the pressures placed on journalists in Turkey. A form of such adaptation is already going on with the rise of social media and the large online followings top journalists have acquired, but financial and institutional support are still lacking.

The United States has a clear interest in ensuring press freedom in Turkey. This interest extends beyond any general desire to promote democratic governance and freedom of expression and encompasses important strategic concerns. And the United States can be forthright in expecting more from Turkey’s leaders. Veteran U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Frank Ricciardone has been outspoken on the subject of political intervention in the Turkish press and has said that there is no need for high-level Turkish officials to constantly intervene. Ambassador Ricciardone is right to question the governing party’s efforts to suppress opinion.

Given Turkey’s history of coups and censorship, and the pluralism and diversity present in the early years of the AKP government, it is hard to understand why the prime minister and some of his cabinet members would risk those achievements, prompt a backlash from Turkish society, and damage the country’s international reputation by attempting to stifle dissent. Prime Minister Erdoğan and the AKP are strong enough and enjoy sufficient legitimacy to allow dissent and debate. Cracking down on such activities is a sign of weakness, not strength. Furthermore, the prime minister and his party have the opportunity to set a new tone in the political debate and to entrench a more open political culture.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued that, “The struggle for human rights begins by telling the truth over and over again,” affirming that the “United States will stand with those who seek to advance the causes of democracy and human rights wherever they may live.” This discussion represents the finest American tradition—even when there are political costs to advancing such issues—and it is in the U.S. interest to defend freedom of speech in close strategic allies such as Turkey.

Foreign policy and bilateral relations have become increasingly democratized in this modern era, requiring more debate and engagement on questions of legitimacy, and “intermestic” concerns have gained prominence. Secretary Clinton’s drive to engage societies in addition to governments recognized this phenomenon, and this approach should be more fully extended to Turkey. That is precisely why President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry should consistently raise the subject in meetings with Prime Minister Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. If personal assurances are not backed up by substantive action, more public exhortations may be necessary.

The United States and Turkey have a solid strategic partnership on which to build, but in the long run, deepening this association—which is in both countries’ national interest and is sought by many on both sides—will require a shared understanding of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

Michael Werz is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Max Hoffman is a Research Associate at the Center.

This project was made possible in part by support from the Open Society Foundation—Turkey.

SOURCE: AP/ Evan Vucci

President Barack Obama answers questions about the alledged use of chemical weapons in Syria during a news conference in the White House.

The news that U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed “with varying degrees of confidence” that the regime of Bashar al-Assad “very likely” used chemical weapons “on a small scale” in Syria, along with recent Israeli strikes against select targets in that country, has been met with an all-or-nothing debate over potential U.S. policy responses. On the one side, advocates of intervention such as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Michael O’Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, have used these recent developments to argue for open-ended, large-scale U.S. military intervention in Syria’s stalemated civil war. The debate between these noisy interventionists and skeptics such as political commentator and blogger Andrew Sullivan, who appear primarily interested in countering interventionist claims and rhetoric, has obscured the possibility of an American policy response that is proportional to the transgressions of the Assad regime. But the national debate over what the United States should do in regard to Syria’s civil war and its chemical-weapons arsenal should not be framed as a false, all-or-nothing choice between large-scale military intervention and doing nothing.

The most common calls of those favoring intervention remain constant: arming Syrian opposition forces, imposing a no-fly zone over the country, or using ground troops to carve out safe zones inside Syrian territory to protect civilians. These options would likely have only a marginal impact on addressing the issue at hand—the regime’s likely chemical-weapons use. The United States has already reportedly trained rebels on securing chemical-weapons sites and stockpiles, and equipping the fractured rebel movement with antiaircraft and antitank missiles is unlikely to make much of an impact on the ground against regime forces. In any event, a rebel victory appears unlikely to be as swift as necessary to preclude further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime—with or without arms supplies from the United States and Europe.

No-fly zones would address one aspect of the chemical-weapons problem. After a no-fly zone is established, the Assad regime would find it difficult if not impossible to deliver chemical weapons by aircraft. But unless the no-fly zone is extended to cover targets on the ground that are not related to ensuring the safety of allied aircraft, a country-wide no-fly zone would not address artillery or missile chemical-weapons delivery systems. In other words, a strictly no-fly-zone approach would stop only one possible method the Assad regime could use to deploy its chemical weapons.

If the overall goal is to prevent the Assad regime from using its chemical-weapons arsenal with airpower to the furthest extent possible, an even broader air campaign against the regime’s command and control, chemical-weapons sites, and missile and artillery batteries would be necessary. While the Nuclear Threat Initiative lists 12 major chemical-weapons facilities in Syria—including three depots—the U.S. intelligence community does not have firm knowledge of where the Assad regime’s chemical weapons are at any given moment. As Director of National Intelligence James Clapper put it, the ability of the United States to secure Assad’s chemical weapons “would be very, very situational dependent.” Even a more expansive air campaign targeting Assad forces on the ground is unlikely to eliminate the threat of Syria’s chemical-weapons arsenal.

What’s more, a no-fly zone is a technically ambitious military undertaking. While likely degraded by fighting over the last two years, Syrian air defenses likely remain more formidable than those faced by the United States and its allies in Libya and the Balkans. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey put it, “The U.S. military has the capability to defeat that [Syrian air defense] system, but it would be a greater challenge, and would take longer and require more resources.” Keeping that system in check while allied warplanes conduct combat air patrols or take out targets on the ground would require constant efforts as well, with no foreseeable end in sight.

Advocates of a no-fly zone such as Sen. McCain argue that imposing a no-fly zone on Syria would not present the difficulties that Gen. Dempsey outlines because Israel is able to penetrate Syrian air defenses. But it is inaccurate to compare one-off Israeli air strikes against very specific targets—including strikes in which Israeli planes reportedly did not even enter Syrian airspace—to a country-wide air campaign aimed at either establishing a no-fly zone or sufficiently safe conditions to conduct air strikes against the Assad regime’s forces in the field. Quick strikes against discreet targets are a very different proposition than establishing and maintaining a no-fly zone for an indefinite period of time.

The question is not whether the United States and any partners in military action could, from a technical military perspective, establish a no-fly zone over Syria but whether doing so achieves America’s and its partners’ strategic objectives at an acceptable cost. If the overriding strategic objective is to prevent or punish the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons, a no-fly zone would fail to achieve it. Moreover, the number of aircrafts, the length of time, and hence the financial cost that such an operation would entail are much higher than those that a strike on a single target or series of targets would require. While an air campaign directed against the Assad regime’s ground forces might be more effective in addressing the chemical-weapons problem than a simple no-fly zone, it would require additional aircraft and time.

Likewise, safe zones established by U.S. or other foreign troops on the ground inside Syria to protect civilians would suffer from similar problems. They would not directly address the problem of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons and could provide tempting targets for the use of these weapons by the regime. Advocates of such safe zones should answer practical questions of logistics, rules of engagement, and diplomacy before their proposals are taken seriously, including how the forces conducting safe-zone operations would be supplied; how these forces are to defend themselves and the safe zones they establish so as to avoid the terrible fate of the Srebrenica safe zone in Bosnia; what diplomatic support the United States will get from its allies in Europe and regional partners such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel; and how the United Nations factors into this political-military equation.

All three options presented by the most vocal interventionists ultimately do little to address the problem of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons while at the same time drawing the United States deeper into Syria’s civil war. The two most aggressive options—some sort of an air campaign or the establishment of ground safe zones—would undoubtedly short circuit any attempts, however unlikely their prospects, to achieve a negotiated political settlement to end the civil war. Nowhere in the region—neither among America’s allies nor in the United States itself —is public opinion clamoring for the sort of intervention being advocated by Sen. McCain and others. A healthy measure of caution is needed when contemplating any military response to Syria’s civil war or the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons.

The U.S. policy response to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons should be proportional to and directly address the actions in question. Diplomatic efforts should remain a key component both to determine the truth regarding current allegations of chemical-weapons use and to prevent their further use by the Assad regime. The Obama administration’s attempt to build the strongest and broadest possible coalition as it moves forward remains a vitally important task. Given the complex regional and international political and security dynamics, the United States cannot afford to go it alone in Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry is traveling to Russia with hopes of reviving efforts to achieve a political solution to Syria’s civil war. Similar diplomatic efforts should be made to pressure Assad to refrain from using his chemical-weapons arsenal. Should such efforts fail and the Assad regime either uses or appears ready to use chemical weapons, the United States should be prepared to conduct limited military strikes against the regime’s chemical-weapons delivery, logistics, and command and control systems, as American Progress has argued. Such strikes would be proportionate to the imminent or actual transgression of the Assad regime’s chemical-weapons use.

The civil war in Syria remains a difficult problem, and the United States’ policy debate is ill-served by a discussion that reduces potential options to either costly, large-scale interventions that do not address the pressing problem of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons or simply doing nothing. All-or-nothing thinking should be resisted, and a broader conception of the tools at the disposal of the United States should be put forward. Keeping the United States’ response to the Assad regime’s offenses proportional should remain a guiding principle moving forward.

Peter Juul is a Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress.

SOURCE: AP/Mohammad Hannon

A Syrian refugee chants anti-Assad slogans and waves the victory sign during a strike at Zaatari refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan, Thursday, April 25, 2013.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, currently traveling in the Middle East, has confirmed British, French, and Israeli government reports that the Assad regime in Syria has likely used a sarin nerve agent against opposition forces. In letters to Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), the Obama administration said that while U.S. intelligence agencies “cannot confirm how the [sarin] exposure occurred and under what conditions,” the United States “does assess with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria.” This would mark the first use of chemical weapons since the signing of the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993—signed by all but six member states, one of which was Syria—and the first use by a state since Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons and nerve agents against Iran and his own people in the 1980s.

At the same time, Syria’s civil war continues. More than 70,000 Syrians have died in the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad that began in March 2011, and 1.3 million have fled their homes and country. Neither the Assad regime nor a fractured and disorganized opposition are capable of defeating one another on the battlefield, and no political settlement is on the horizon. Syria itself appears to be heading toward a de facto partition between areas held by the Assad regime and those held by various rebel groups.

Together, the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons and the regional strain of the refugee crisis call for additional actions from the United States, its regional partners and allies, and the international community as a whole.

American strategy so far has aimed at using tools short of direct and overt U.S. intervention to bring an end to the Assad regime. These tools have ranged from international diplomacy to create a framework to end the conflict, to attempts to unify the opposition, to current efforts to train rebel fighters in cooperation with regional allies. Given these new realities, however, additional steps are now required.

Three steps the United States can take going forward to lead the response to these concerns

Demand an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on the Assad regime’s likely chemical-weapons use

The United States should take the lead calling for in such a meeting and force Russia into active diplomacy that prevents it from serving as a shield for the Assad regime’s unacceptable behavior. A U.N. investigation team has been idling in Cyprus for more than a month now, barred from entering the country by the Assad regime. Russia has tacitly backed the Assad regime on this score, accusing “certain states” rather than the regime itself of disrupting the inspection. Moreover, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has already played the Iraq WMD card, saying reports of Assad regime chemical-weapons use are “an attempt to politicize the issue” and create an “Iraqi scenario.” Nonetheless, Russia has called for immediate investigation “on the spot” of these reports.

The United States should call an emergency Security Council session and hold Russia to these words. The Obama administration’s considerable caution on alleging the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime will prove useful in this endeavor, as they show the United States is more than eager to make sure it has the facts straight before taking action. The U.N. inspectors waiting in Cyprus should be given access to the samples and other data used by the United States and others in their assessments of Syrian chemical-weapons use, but diplomatic efforts in the Security Council should focus on ensuring these inspectors are given immediate and unconditional access to provide an independent assessment to validate existing reports of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons use.

Engage NATO and regional partners in planning the U.S. response

The Obama administration should involve NATO and regional partners in planning its response to the Assad regime’s crossing of President Obama’s red line on chemical-weapons use. Action will require precision planning, definitive American leadership and direction, and the participation of a broad alliance ready to preclude any further Assad regime chemical-weapons use by destroying appropriate military targets, including delivery systems, logistics, and applicable command and control.

Confirmed use of Syrian chemical weapons against their own people will require a necessary and decisive response from the United States and its allies. CAP recommended last December that the United States and NATO should prepare a response to Assad regime chemical-weapons use, and such planning should be accelerated if already in motion. Regional partners that are already affected by the civil war in Syria should also be consulted and included in this planning. Any plans the Obama administration makes to punish the Assad regime for chemical-weapons use should be made on a multilateral basis. Violating international laws and norms on the use of chemical weapons is a matter of grave concern to all states.

Nonetheless, the United States and its partners should avoid entangling itself in Syria’s civil war to the extent that doing so is possible. The actions of the regime and Islamist rebels are producing increasingly sectarian overtones to Syria’s violence. In particular, the interplay between the Assad regime and Sunni Islamist rebels has heightened the sectarian nature of the conflict, as each group leverages sectarian claims to win support. Alawites, a minority Muslim sect to which President Assad belongs, have become increasingly implicated as regime supporters, while the presence of Sunni Islamists among the rebels lends credence to the Assad regime’s black-and-white rhetoric among Alawites, Christians, and other sectarian minorities. Punishing the Assad regime for its likely chemical-weapons use should not entail more involvement in the increasingly complex Syrian civil war than is necessary.

Request that NATO and other allies begin planning for a major multinational refugee relief mission in Jordan

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, is running out of money with which to assist Syrian refugees, receiving only a third of the $494 million it sought in the first six months of 2013, and Jordanian society and Syrian refugees are starting to show the strains of a situation without an end in sight.

Such a major multinational relief mission would necessarily involve the military capabilities of NATO members, such as airlift, ground transportation, medical assistance, and basic security. It could also significantly relieve the strains Jordan faces in coping with a growing Syrian refugee population. Relevant Jordanian civil and military officials and institutions should be included in this planning at appropriate stages. In particular, planning should endeavor to incorporate current Jordanian efforts to ensure that the relationship between NATO and Jordanian national efforts is as seamless as possible should these plans be implemented. Similar studies should be undertaken with regard to Lebanon, though that country’s ever-complicated domestic political situation and the potential spillover of fighting from Syria make it less amenable to a large-scale NATO-led relief mission than Jordan.

Conclusion

There are no good policy options in Syria, and the reports of likely chemical-weapons use by the Assad regime only reinforce this conclusion. The military stalemate has not yet produced incentives for a political settlement for either the intransigent Assad regime or the fractured opposition. The worsening humanitarian situation is destabilizing a key U.S. ally in Jordan and a fragile Lebanon, while the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, when validated, crosses a red line that President Obama has repeatedly drawn.

The United States can take important steps forward by further solidifying and accelerating NATO planning on these issues, as well as making an all-out diplomatic effort in the U.N. Security Council to investigate reports of Assad regime chemical-weapons use.

Peter Juul is a Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress. Rudy deLeon is the Senior Vice President of National Security and International Policy at the Center. Brian Katulis is a Senior Fellow at the Center.

SOURCE: AP/Musa Sadulayev

A Chechen girl holds her brother on the balcony of a flat in a destroyed house in Grozny, Chechnya, March 15, 2007.

In the days following the dramatic manhunt in Boston for surviving terrorism suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, questions have multiplied regarding the significance of the Tsarnaev brothers’ Chechen roots. Thus far, it isn’t clear whether this connection played any role in their fatal attack on the city last week, which resulted in the deaths of three people and more than 170 casualties, but it will likely continue to be investigated in the weeks to come.

Why and how 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, killed in a firefight with Boston police on Friday, turned to violent extremism is a central question in the ongoing investigation. On Friday the FBI confirmed that it questioned Tamerlan in 2011 after a “foreign government” requested information about him, and it also emerged that Tamerlan spent several months last year in Russia’s North Caucasian republic of Dagestan, which is east of Chechnya and where the brothers’ parents currently reside. While Tsarnaev’s religious radicalization in the context of an immigrant life in the United States will be what many choose to focus on, his ethnic Chechen roots and potential links to radicals in the North Caucasus remain subjects of interest as well, despite his mainly diasporic association with the region.

The so-called Chechen connection is, perhaps, of less interest in the case of his surviving 19-year-old brother, who by many accounts was a reasonably well-adjusted American-immigrant youth. Dzhokhar allegedly identified with his religious and ethnic origins in Chechnya but was also tied to multiple subcultures, attached to his older brother, and experiencing serious academic difficulties in college.

While conflicting accounts of the family’s origins exist, we know that they lived for many years in Kyrgyzstan, one site for Joseph Stalin’s mass deportation of Chechens during World War II. The family reportedly moved to Chechnya in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and they may have returned to Kyrgyzstan as Chechnya descended into chaos and war. By 2001 they were back in the North Caucasus, in Dagestan, and they then made their way to the United States as refugees.

As the Chechen connection continues to be investigated, here are some things to keep in mind about Chechnya and the North Caucasus, as well as the potential impact of developments on U.S.-Russian relations.

1. There is no ‘Chechen’ insurgency—ethnic or religious—in Russia’s North Caucasus today.

Chechens declared independence from the Soviet Union in the final months of its existence in 1991 and continued to insist upon their independence from Russia. The Russian government sought to retake the territory by force from 1994 to 1996, in what became known as the First Chechen War. This disastrous war, causing mass casualties and destruction in Chechnya, ended in a stalemate and Chechnya’s temporary de-facto independence. This period saw a rise in crime, lawlessness, and general mayhem in the region, splits between the local government and insurgents, and an increasing Islamicization of the rebel movement, in part encouraged by the entrance of former mujahedeen—radical Islamists who fought in Afghanistan—to the region from the Arab world.

In 1999 Russia launched the Second Chechen War after insurgent Chechen forces crossed into Dagestan ostensibly to defend local Islamists from Russian federal forces, along with a series of suspected terrorist attacks. This second brutal war ended in the re-establishment of federal control over Chechnya and a drawn-out insurgency that Moscow eventually pacified, in part by co-opting some local fighters. By early 2007 the insurgency had been crushed.

Local strongman Ramzan Kadyrov is the current leader of Chechnya and has, together with Russian federal forces, kept Chechnya largely quiet. At the same time, a relatively low-level insurgency has spread throughout the broader North Caucasus region, with Dagestan as the greatest hotbed of activity. The insurgency also has a presence in regions west of Chechnya in the republics of Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria, the latter less than 200 miles east of the city of Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

2. Domestic terrorism was an element of the Chechen insurgency, and terrorism has played a role in the broader North Caucasian insurgency.

North Caucasian Islamist insurgents target local military, police, and other government personnel and facilities as a matter of course, often in suicide attacks. They have also engaged in several major attacks against civilians. The First Chechen War saw a rise in the taking of civilian hostages by Chechen rebels. The Second Chechen War was precipitated in part by a series of apartment bombings in Moscow and elsewhere that authorities blamed on Chechen terrorists. In 2002 Chechen terrorists seized a crowded theater in Moscow, leading to the deaths of roughly 130 civilians during the subsequent siege by government forces and their use of knockout gas. In 2004 terrorists carried out two suicide bombings in the Moscow metro and another two on airplanes, and more than 300 civilians—more than half of which were children—were killed in a terrorist attack and subsequent government rescue attempt on an elementary school in Beslan, North Ossetia, west of Chechnya.

More recent major attacks include a bombing on a Moscow-St. Petersburg train in 2009, a Moscow metro attack in 2010, and an attack in Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in January 2011. Many women, including some widows of fighters, have participated in attacks, and some of the more recent attacks have been perpetrated by non-Chechens, including Dagestanis and Ingush, the Chechens’ immediate western neighbors, as well as Chechens.

At the start of 2012, the nominal head of the pan-Caucasus insurgency, Doku Umarov, publicly called for the cessation of attacks against civilians. No terrorist attacks against major civilian targets have taken place since.

3. As an organized movement, the insurgency has been overwhelmingly focused on a local agenda.

As mentioned, Arab mujahedeen fighters found their way to Chechnya in the 1990s and exerted some influence on the insurgency. Some of these fighters also developed links with Al Qaeda, but the role of foreign fighters dwindled in the 2000s.

North Caucasian insurgents have focused overwhelmingly on their home territory, which they claim to want to transform into an “Islamic caliphate.” Chechens and other North Caucasians have never featured prominently among leadership networks in Al Qaeda or related groups, and observers continue to debate whether individuals from the North Caucasus ever fought in Afghanistan or other jihadist battlefields in any significant number. As an organized movement, the insurgency is locally focused, without a large global or anti-Western element. That being said, some individuals from the North Caucasus have been implicated in international terror plots, and some Chechens have also reportedly been fighting alongside Islamist rebels in Syria.

4. The Boston terrorist attack may provide for an uptick in the U.S.-Russian security partnership, but we should be careful not to overdramatize its significance for overall U.S.-Russian relations.

The Russian response to the Boston attack was entirely welcome, as sympathetic and supportive as have been American responses to terrorist attacks in Russia. In a call that Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated to President Barack Obama, the two leaders discussed the possibility of increased counterterrorism cooperation. The impact of the attack on U.S.-Russian relations has provided an echo of the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, which prompted a boost in the U.S.-Russian security partnership.

This may seem like a dramatic turnaround given the decline in U.S.-Russian relations over the past year, especially in light of Moscow’s January termination of an agreement on law enforcement and counternarcotics cooperation. But in recent months the U.S. and Russian governments have been seeking ways to renew security cooperation on issues such as nuclear nonproliferation and arms control via updated mechanisms. The Boston attack provides an entry point for discussions in the counterterrorism sphere.

At the same time, the history of post-9/11 relations suggests that a stable and constructive U.S.-Russian relationship cannot be built mainly on a counterterrorism foundation. One element of the Russian response to the Boston attack has been the narrative that the United States is selective in its dealing with terrorists worldwide and that this attack should convince Washington to adopt a stricter line against all forms of Islamist extremism, such as, for instance, extremist elements in the Syrian resistance. While we should welcome greater U.S.-Russian counterterrorism cooperation, we should also temper expectations that the United States and Russia will develop entirely convergent policies of counterterrorism and counterextremism—or that such cooperation will be sufficient to overcome the still-substantial challenges in U.S.-Russian relations.

Cory Welt is an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for American Progress and associate director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

SOURCE: AP/ Amr Nabil

Egyptian chant anti-Muslim Brotherhood slogans following a funeral service at the Saint Mark Coptic cathedral in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, April 7, 2013. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has failed to address the Muslim Brotherhood's denial of women's basic rights.

In the two years since the Egyptian revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood has become the dominant force in Egyptian electoral politics. The U.S. government and other international actors have attempted in good faith to work with Muslim Brotherhood government leaders and with the group’s affiliated Freedom and Justice Party to remedy the array of political, security, and economic crises that require immediate attention in Egypt. But the Brotherhood’s views on the role of women in Egyptian society and recent efforts to codify these views into law are an increasing threat to the country’s nascent democracy.

Ensuring the rights of women should be a top priority for U.S. policy in Egypt since Egypt serves as a linchpin of the Middle East and a weathervane of progress for similar uprisings across the region. The Center for American Progress has continually said that U.S. policymakers should take a long view of the events in Egypt and help Egypt move toward a prosperous and pluralistic democracy. As U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson clearly stated in February, “To build the future Egypt deserves, Egypt will need its entire people, regardless of their faith, ethnic background, or gender.”

The Muslim Brotherhood’s position on women’s rights was most recently displayed in the group’s harsh response to a U.N. declaration on the elimination and prevention of all violence against women, which included provisions on reproductive rights, access to proper sexual health services, and efforts to reduce the economic marginalization of women. The Brotherhood contended that the document would serve as a “destructive tool meant to undermine the family as an important institution [and] would drag society back to pre-Islamic ignorance.” The Brotherhood urged all Muslim countries to reject the document, despite the fact that Egypt and most other Muslim countries signed the U.N.’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The Brotherhood’s statement is not a change in policy by the group or the Freedom and Justice Party, but it is the first publicly articulated statement on many of their long-held beliefs about gender roles. The Brotherhood’s statement, for example, argues that women should not be allowed to file legal complaints of spousal abuse against their husbands, nor should women be afforded the same inheritance rights as their brothers or sons. According to the statement, accepting the U.N. declaration’s basic human rights and civil liberties for women would “lead to the complete disintegration of society, and would certainly be the final step in the intellectual and cultural invasion of Muslim countries.”

Days after the Muslim Brotherhood made its announcement, a group of 15 senators led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) delivered a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking him to denounce the Brotherhood’s statement and ask Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi to “rebuke those who dishonor women by denigrating their status in Egyptian society.” The senators urged Secretary Kerry to “continue [his] efforts to make women’s rights a global priority, especially when working with our allies in the Middle East.”

Though no longer officially part of the Brotherhood or the Freedom and Justice Party, President Morsi remains close with both organizations. Most of his key political advisors are Brotherhood members, and he campaigned as an executor for the Muslim Brotherhood’s platform. The Morsi administration tried to distance itself from the Brotherhood’s statement but did not reject it outright.

While the Morsi administration’s rhetoric on women’s rights is not as disconcerting as the Brotherhood’s, his presidency is failing to respond to several critical women’s issues, most notably the disturbing rise in sexual assaults against women in Egypt. Statements by administration officials and members of parliament suggest ambivalence or even outright hostility toward the victims of sexual assault.

When asked about the 18 reported cases of sexual assault during protests this January in Tahrir Square on the two-year anniversary of the uprisings, a Freedom and Justice Party lawmaker responded, “How do they ask the Ministry of Interior to protect a woman when she stands among men?” Another stated, “A girl contributes 100 percent to her own raping when she puts herself in these conditions.” Instead of criticizing the lack of security in Tahrir Square or blaming the attackers, conservative members of the Shura Council—the upper house of the Egyptian parliament—blamed the victims. The Muslim Brotherhood criticized the protest organizers as well for failing to separate men and women, thus enabling an environment for sexual assault.

The new Egyptian government also failed to offer specific protections for women’s rights in the new constitution. This causes concern among human rights advocates that the new constitution leaves too many opportunities for interpretations of the law that restrict civil liberties for women. Article 10 of the constitution, for example, says: “The State is keen to preserve the genuine character of the Egyptian family, its cohesion and stability … and enable the reconciliation between the duties of a woman toward her family and her work.” Human rights advocates argue that this clause is a not-so-subtle way of saying that women should be kept in traditional roles.

The Egyptian government also failed to incorporate women into the new political reality of Egypt. Female representation in parliament sharply decreased from 12.5 percent in 2010 to 2 percent after the 2011 elections, when the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces removed the quota on female parliamentarians during the transition to a civilian government. Despite the growing desire among Egyptian women to participate in politics and vote in elections, 85 percent of women said no political party accurately represents their views and opinions, according to a recent survey.

The popular protests in Tahrir Square that brought an end to Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade reign as president were a call for a government founded on democratic principles and responsive to the needs and aspirations of all Egyptians. Women were at the forefront of this fight for an open, inclusive democratic government, and they played a critical role in sparking and sustaining the revolution. The global community rightfully expected a greater role for women in a new Egypt, yet over the past two years as a new government was elected and a new constitution ratified, the hopes for increased women’s rights diminished.

Promoting women’s rights isn’t just an issue of values; it’s an issue of Egyptian national interest. The hopes of a modern, successful Egypt cannot be realized if half of its population is denied basic rights.

The importance of women to the success of Egypt is particularly true in the economy. Economic opportunities for women declined in Egypt more than any other country last year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s yearly report. Egypt cannot afford to have a female unemployment rate of 28 percent, which greatly exceeds the overall national rate of 13 percent. In a country facing an annual budget deficit of $27 billion and dwindling foreign currency reserves, Egypt needs the benefits of full female participation in the labor force. If Egypt could raise female employment levels to those of their male counterparts, the country could see a 34 percent increase in their gross domestic product, according to a new study by Booz&Co. For Egypt, empowering women is about economic survival.

But the Muslim Brotherhood’s position on women’s rights may just be one symptom of a larger and much deeper problem. The Brotherhood’s increasing power through the presidency and through the Freedom and Justice Party in the Egyptian parliament, alongside even more conservative groups such as the Salafist Nour Party, is raising concerns about a backsliding toward the authoritarian tendencies and tactics of the Mubarak regime. President Morsi’s administration and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood took a majoritarian approach to governance, demonstrated most clearly in Morsi’s November 22 decree granting himself sweeping powers in the controversial process of drafting and ratifying the country’s new constitution. This approach to governance does not lay the foundation for an effective and politically legitimate government, and it raises serious concerns about the Egyptian government’s respect for the interests of political minorities, the rights of women and religious minorities, and civil liberties.

Respecting the rights of women, religious minorities, and other vulnerable groups represents one of the fundamental pillars of U.S.-Egyptian relations, in addition to playing a constructive role in regional peace, ensuring political legitimacy, and establishing an open, competitive economy. As Ambassador Patterson said last month, “While elections and constitutions are a necessary part of democracy, they are not enough. For Egypt to complete its transition to a free democratic nation, it needs much more.”

The U.S. government should more clearly articulate the value it places on women’s rights, and all civil rights for that matter, and that it will not ignore fiery rhetoric from an ally that actively conflicts with our values. The goal of helping Egyptian women is part of a larger effort by the United States to empower women and advance their rights around the world—an effort prioritized under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and one that should remain a priority under Secretary Kerry. As a first step in Egypt, Secretary Kerry should ask President Morsi to publicly denounce the Muslim Brotherhood’s statement on the U.N. declaration and pledge to address the most pressing issues of concern to women in Egypt such as sexual assault and economic disenfranchisement.

The United States is a global leader as an open and free society that promotes the rights of all individuals, regardless of gender or minority status, and we need to call out countries when they do not respect these rights, even when they’re our allies.

Annie Malknecht is a Research Associate with the Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative at the Center for American Progress. Ken Sofer is a Research Associate with the National Security and International Policy team at the Center.

SOURCE: AP/Charles Dharapak

President Barack Obama speaks about his proposed fiscal year 2014 federal budget, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.

In its latest budget proposal to Congress, the Obama administration has requested $526.6 billion in baseline funding for the Department of Defense, a $1 billion increase from the administration’s defense budget request last year. In accordance with the long-term budget plan it announced last year, the Obama administration’s FY 2014 defense budget request holds the baseline defense budget steady at historic highs after a decade of tremendous growth.

This is a missed opportunity to realign our national security priorities. Unnecessary defense spending does not make us safer; it diverts resources away from other critical investments here at home that create jobs and rebuild our infrastructure. Moreover, many of the big-ticket items in the Pentagon’s budget request are ill suited for dealing with the complex transnational threats facing the country today, serve only to reinforce the United States’ overwhelming superiority in conventional and nuclear weaponry, and come at a considerable cost to American taxpayers.

If Congress and the administration are serious about deficit reduction and serious about cracking down on wasteful federal spending, they should both aim to return the baseline defense budget to pre-9/11 levels as soon as possible.

A budget that’s holding steady

In unveiling its FY 2013 budget request last year, the administration announced its plans to reduce baseline defense spending by $487 billion over the next decade, as mandated by the Budget Control Act. These proposed “cuts,” however, came from projected increases in defense spending; the administration’s plan would have actually held the defense budget steady over the next 10 years in inflation-adjusted dollars.

With its FY 2013 budget proposal, the Obama administration ended the irresponsible increases in baseline military spending that have occurred since 9/11, but its long-term budget plan did nothing to reverse this growth or bring the budget down from near historic highs. And unfortunately, the proposed FY 2014 budget maintains this unwillingness to return military spending to prewar levels or historical norms in real terms.

Simply put, the United States can—and should—safely reduce military spending by more and can do so more quickly than the administration’s current plan envisions.

Despite the national concern about the size of the federal deficit, the Pentagon’s budget has remained relatively stable in real terms in recent years, as shown in Figure 1. In fact, the only noteworthy reduction in defense spending since 9/11 occurred this year, in FY 2013, when sequestration required a $41 billion cut.

An alternative to sequestration

In its latest budget proposal, the administration outlines a deficit-reduction plan, including both new revenues and spending cuts, which can replace sequestration and its across-the-board cuts. This plan includes about $100 billion in cuts to the defense budget beginning in 2017.

Sequestration, with its across-the-board cuts, is not a smart way to reduce defense spending, and the administration’s desire to replace these automatic cuts with a more targeted deficit-reduction plan is understandable. By cutting all programs evenly, sequestration denies Pentagon officials the ability to manage the budget drawdown by targeting underperforming programs while protecting initiatives that have proven effective.

Yet if the administration is truly serious about deficit reduction and cracking down on wasteful federal spending, the Pentagon can afford to cut more than $100 billion, and these cuts should begin before 2019. In fact, as shown in Figure 2, U.S. military spending reached unprecedented peaks during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the United States winds down its involvement in Afghanistan, it can return the budget to peacetime levels, which will require reductions of nearly $100 billion per year, not $100 billion per decade.

Responsible defense cuts

Over the past four years, the Obama administration has demonstrated that it is serious about protecting the United States and its interests abroad. But the country needs a defense budget that’s effective, not just enormous. In 2011 we spent more than China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Brazil, Italy, South Korea, Australia, and Canada combined on our military.

Last year the Center for American Progress released an issue brief outlining politically feasible defense cuts. If implemented, these reductions would present a moderate first step toward returning the budget to sustainable levels. Here are the ideas we proposed:

• Eliminate the Navy’s purchase of the troubled over-budget F-35C jet and instead purchase the effective and affordable F/A-18E/F jet. Savings: about $17 billion over 10 years.
• Reduce the size of our ground forces to their prewar levels. Savings: about $16 billion over the next decade.
• Reform the Pentagon’s outdated health care programs. Savings: roughly $40 billion over 10 years.
• Reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons to 1,100 by 2022 from about 1,700 today. Savings: more than $28 billion over 10 years.

Further, Congress must also accept many of the administration’s common-sense cost-savings proposals, including modest changes to health care benefits for military retirees, the creation of a new Base Closure and Realignment Commission to close down unneeded military installations, and targeted reductions or slowing down the procurement of over-budget or ineffective weapons systems.

The United States faces no existential threats or rival superpowers. We should not be spending as much on defense as we did during the Cold War. Returning the defense budget to historical norms will force the Pentagon to better manage its affairs and will help ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent responsibly.

Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Alex Rothman and Max Hoffman are Research Associates at the Center.

The Center for American Progress and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung organized consultation workshops for a large group of civil-society actors in Afghanistan in November 2012 and March 2013 to generate a set of recommendations related to Afghanistan’s political system and transition in 2014. CAP and Heinrich Böll Stiftung also brought a smaller delegation of Afghan civil-society leaders to Washington, D.C., and New York City in February 2013 to understand the concerns of U.S. policymakers and the broader public and to share their views. Their paper, “Afghanistan Beyond 2014: Elections, Political Settlements, Reforms,” is the product of their deliberations. This is their paper alone.

These Afghan civil-society leaders, whose organizations are listed at the bottom of the document, focus the paper on three areas where they believe more attention is needed by Afghans and the international community—the elections, a political settlement process, and political reforms for the Afghan government—and provide specific recommendations in each category. They believe that Afghan civil society has an important role to play in preserving the gains that have been made and in leading the effort for further change. And they ask for the international community’s continued support in bolstering a more democratic, inclusive, and responsive Afghan state.

Read the paper here. This paper was also published by Heinrich Böll Stiftung.

Caroline Wadhams is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

SOURCE: AP/ Ilyas Omarov

Representative from China, Germany and Russia listen during talks on Iran's nuclear program in Almaty, Kazakhstan. World powers hope Iran will respond positively on Wednesday to their new offer to lift some sanctions if Tehran scales back nuclear activity the West fears could be used to build bombs

The latest round of talks between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council—the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France—as well as Germany, also known as the P5+1, ended last week without notable progress on answering the outstanding questions about Iran’s nuclear program.

The P5+1 put a new proposal on the table that would require Iran to suspend, but not completely shut down, enrichment at its Fordo facility. Located near the city of Qom, the facility was first revealed in September 2009 and is now the main location of Iran’s medium-level enrichment work. For its part, Iran continued to insist that recognition of its right to enrich uranium is an essential step in negotiations.

While sources present at the talks indicated that substantial discussions occurred over these proposals, the gaps between the two sides clearly remain considerable. One Western diplomat told Reuters that, “The Iranians indicated readiness to take some steps but they were small.” According to Lady Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief and lead negotiator for the P5+1, “It became clear that our positions remain far apart.”

The key issue surrounding Iran’s nuclear program relates to unanswered questions posed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, which is the U.N. body responsible for monitoring compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty under which countries agree not to pursue nuclear weapons in exchange for access to peaceful nuclear technology. Iran joined the treaty in 1998, but in 2005 the IAEA discovered that Iran was not complying with the treaty’s terms because of failure to report its nuclear activities.

On Monday the head of the IAEA, Yukio Amano, said that his agency could not rule out the possibility that Iran was actively seeking nuclear-weapons technology, and that it is up to Iran to clarify the agency’s outstanding question.

Beginning in 2009 the Obama administration and its partners in the P5+1 have participated in several rounds of negotiations with the Iranian government in an effort to bring its nuclear program into compliance with the treaty and to satisfactorily answer the IAEA’s questions regarding the possibility of any military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear work.

Speaking at a press conference on April 7, Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that the Iranian election scheduled for June 2013 “complicates the choices with respect to the politics of Iran. And we’re aware of that.” But he added, “The President is determined to continue to pursue the diplomatic channel. We will continue to have discussions through the P-5+1 process. And we remain open and hopeful that a diplomatic solution can be found.”

Some members of Congress already announced that they will propose yet more sanctions against Iran, which is already dealing with the most stringent economic limitations ever applied to any country. According to Bloomberg News, this new measure “would penalize foreign countries that do business with any Iranian entity controlled by the government. It also would bar Iran from using earnings from oil exports to purchase anything other than food and medicine.”

While frustration over Iran’s intransigence is understandable, it’s unclear whether applying more pressure can accomplish what a considerable amount of pressure has thus far failed to achieve. A recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace examining Iran’s behavior over the past decades determined that economic pressure is unlikely to halt Iran’s nuclear work, which “is entangled with too much pride—however misguided—and sunk costs simply to be abandoned.” The report concluded that, “The only sustainable solution for assuring that Iran’s nuclear program remains purely peaceful is a mutually agreeable diplomatic solution.”

As for next steps, it’s important to remember that there is time to deal with the problem. In an Israeli television interview in March, President Obama, citing U.S. intelligence data, said it would take Iran a year or more to build a nuclear weapon in the event that it chose to do so—which U.S. intelligence services believe it has not yet done.

As President Obama said in his speech in Jerusalem on March 21:

Strong and principled diplomacy is the best way to ensure that the Iranian government forsakes nuclear weapons. Peace is far more preferable to war, and the inevitable costs, the unintended consequences that would come with war means that we have to do everything we can to try to resolve this diplomatically. Because of the cooperation between our governments, we know that there remains time to pursue a diplomatic resolution.

Matthew Duss is a Policy Analyst with the National Security and International Policy team at the Center for American Progress.