By Barkos Warjri
There is much talk going around about the significance of current events around the world notably in America, Europe and the Middle East. America is witnessing its most unusual election and ongoing presidential inauguration process. Donald Trump, a man with no political experience, has been elected after a bitter and no-holds-barred campaign. The war of words between the rival camps has now largely been taken over by the growing gulf between the current administration and Trump, even with the formal inauguration due in five days.
Trump came into the campaign loudly trumpeting an abrasive approach, at one point questioning, without evidence, the fairness of the election process. This was a scene not uncommon in nascent democracies of the third world but unthinkable in a bastion of democracy. Sowing such doubts in the minds of voters may, however, run the real risk of damaging public faith in democratic institutions and sowing seeds of future unrest. He has been crude, uncouth and capricious, leaving the whole world wondering and indeed even nervous. His threat about undoing the policies of the Obama administration is perhaps one reason the outgoing president has entered into a flurry of activity, attempting to make it as difficult as possible for Trump to discard the policies and programmes he has set in place.
Obama is keen to leave a legacy and he is doing all he can to preserve it. He came in when America was facing a looming economic depression. His measures arrested what, at that time, looked like an impending doom. His trade and economic policies had varying levels of success. His foreign policy was also marked with a rapprochement with Iran. However America seems to have lost out in the Middle East as a whole. Turkey, an old ally has inched towards Russia, so much so that it was the first country Erdogan visited after the failed Turkish coup of July last year. This was surprising as Turkey was engaged in a bitter spat with Russia after its military had shot down a Russian jet just a few months earlier. The Syria cease fire reached at the end of the last year has happened without the US, perhaps for the first time in the Middle East, having anything to do with it.
The super power in Syria is Russia and Putin has been able to draw his long term ally Iran along with Turkey, who are on opposing sides of the Muslim divide, to broker the cease fire, after a wasted Aleppo, the commercial centre of Syria, and its biggest city was taken by Syrian government forces. Turkey, which sees itself as a champion of the Sunni cause is intent on crushing the Kurds who have a substantial presence in Turkey, while Shiite Iran is doing all it can to ensure that Bashir Assad, an Alawaite, remains in power in Syria. The fact that a cease fire has been holding so far in the Syrian civil war, riddled with a maze of conflicting interest groups, is a feather in Putin’s cap, strengthening his standing in the world stage and raising the super power status of Russia once again. And this after he had easily annexed Crimea with hardly any resistance from the Ukraine ally and reigning super power, America!
Obama had begun his presidency with a flurry of diplomatic activity in his effort to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This raised the world’s expectations from an evidently articulate and promising young president of the USA, who happened to also be the first Black man to hold that office, so much that the Nobel committee decided to award him the Nobel Peace Prize just a few months into his term before he could even show concrete results. The award was evidently given to encourage him on his efforts. The onset of the Arab Spring however soon engaged him with more immediate problems. Now at the fag end of his term he is trying to ensure that he leaves his mark, and check Russia’s gains with another flurry of activity. For the first time in about forty years, on 23rd December 2016, America chose not to protect its closest ally in the region, Israel, by choosing not to exercise its veto power in the Security Council, as Resolution 2334 was passed. This uncharacteristic turnaround infuriated Israel. The American action was not altogether unlikely given that the Obama-Netanyahu relationship has been the worst between an American President and an Israeli Prime Minister.
This is not the only reason, perhaps for Obama’s shift in the long held American position regarding Israel. Trump had openly stated in September, when Netanyahu had visited him in New York, that he would shift the US Embassy in Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem. All countries, in deference to the UN Resolution from 1947, presently locate their embassies in Tel-Aviv. Though the US Congress passed an act in 1995 to have the US embassy in Jerusalem, every president has since then exercised the national-security waiver placing the Act under suspension. Trump seemed intent on fulfilling his promise when he named David Friedman, a pro-Israel hardliner, as his ambassador to Israel. The status of Jerusalem is one of the main sticking points in the implementation of the Two State Solution envisioned in UNSC Resolution 242. Jerusalem is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Having the embassy in Jerusalem, besides amounting to discarding the Two State formula, would most likely unleash a torrent of angry retributions. The reaction from Arab countries could be severe with the potential for renewed conflict. Reactions from other Muslim countries are likely to be equally severe. Trump has openly stated that he would back Israel and when UNSC resolution 2334 was being moved, he opted for an unprecedented action in asking Egypt not to propose the resolution, and promised that things would change after the 20th January. No President-elect has ever interfered by openly lobbying against a policy action of an existing administration. Egypt backed out and the resolution was delayed by one day after other countries acted as proposers. All this has potential for raising the temperature in the Middle East.
Obama meanwhile is doing his best to preserve his legacy and make it difficult for Trump to act upon his promises. The Middle East Peace Conference due on Sunday in Paris has attracted vitriol from Israel, with Netanyahu labelling it “rigged”. 72 nations are expected to meet and reach an agreement which could then be formalised as a resolution of the Security Council which meets two days later. The weight which this conference can carry will be questionable, coming as it does on the initiative of a French President close to the end of his term and the support of an outgoing US President keen to leave his stamp. It also comes after an unexpected rebuke of Kerry’s speech from No. 10 Downing Street, which did not see it appropriate for Kerry to label the government of an ally. Nevertheless, if the basis it could possibly lay is formalised as a Security Council Resolution, any administration which seeks to unravel it will bear the responsibility for the consequences.
Obama also has to retrieve some ground after his failure to prevent the Russian takeover of Crimea and to assure anxious allies especially in Eastern Europe. This is all the more necessary given that Trump has questioned the relevance of NATO. The Kremlin, on Thursday, hit out at the biggest deployment of US troops in Europe since the Cold War, with 1000 troops out of 4000 arriving this week in Poland along with 87 tanks and 144 armoured vehicles. This follows the land based missile defence system, commonly known as the European Shield, the first station having been activated last May in Romania and followed by Russia’s plans to move missiles closer to Europe in November 2016 to improve its own defence or response capability.
Europe has not been idle. Trump’s statements on NATO have spurred Europe into accelerating its own plans for a European Army. Events seem to have unfolded beyond human manoeuvring. The Brexit vote was followed by urgent calls from European leaders for Britain to quickly sever its ties with the EU. It was not merely economic issues which would be affected. Security issues also quickly came to the fore in the developing situation. With the most powerful military power in Western Europe leaving the EU, the most powerful voice against a European army also went out. On 22 November 2016, the EU parliament in Strasbourg passed a resolution to create a defence union.
Trump on the other hand has been stating that he would like to have good relations with Moscow and indeed with other countries. This however does not sit well with established policy of competing with Russia or other powers like China or Europe towards enlarging areas of influence for political and economic reasons. The recent row over Russian interference in influencing the presidential elections to favour Trump has another frightening dimension, besides showing Trump as a Russian stooge. It also opens the question of the validity (perhaps even the relevance) of the election process, further weakening the foundations as it followed Trump’s allegations which questioned integrity of the process. Though we do not know yet the extent or indeed the correctness of these allegations, the effect has been a certain loss of faith in the election process itself, a frightening development for a country which stands as a model of democracy. It sows seeds of civil unrest and possibly even civil war, something dangerous for the whole world. Such a situation could throw the whole world into chaos setting a scene where several ambitious countries take advantage of a ‘lawless’ state of affairs. Countries like Taiwan could become extremely vulnerable.
We are perhaps at one of the most critical points in modern history.
(The writer is former Chief Secretary, Govt of Meghalaya)