Diplomacy & Crisis News

Just how much information on U.S. military drones did China have to steal for its own designs?

To stop nuclear and rocket demonstrations, measures need to be more targeted.

The international community’s hope that a unity government could take the lead in fighting IS has remained just that: a hope. It is not likely to be fulfilled anytime soon if the world’s focus remains on securing a top-down political deal. The implementation of the Libyan Political Agreement is already stalling, just as the talks that preceded it stalled until Western and regional powers imposed it on largely recalcitrant Libyan stakeholders. This situation was predictable as long as diplomatic efforts continued to focus on Libyan political actors who are unable to bring along most of their supporters.

Suite aux récentes violences qui touchent la Turquie, avec notamment l’attentat qui a eu lieu mercredi 17 février dernier à Ankara, nous vous invitons à relire le dossier sur la Turquie et le(s) Kurdistan(s) du Politique étrangère n°2/2014, à commencer par l’introduction de Dorothée Schmid, responsable du programme Turquie contemporaine à l’Ifri.

« En novembre 2013 le maître de la Turquie, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, recevait avec les honneurs Massoud Barzani, président du Gouvernement régional du Kurdistan (GRK) irakien, à Diyarbakır, « capitale » kurde de Turquie. Le même Barzani, qui tient efficacement tête au gouvernement de Bagdad, était quelques mois plus tôt à Paris le héros d’une campagne d’affichage vantant le Kurdistan irakien comme « îlot de stabilité au Moyen-Orient ». Au même moment, d’autres Kurdes commençaient à découper en Syrie des enclaves pacifiques en marge de la guerre civile, combattant au passage des groupes djihadistes craints de tous. En Iran même, les guérilleros du Parti de la vie libre au Kurdistan (Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê, PJAK), cousins du Parti des travailleurs du Kurdistan (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, PKK), semblent hésiter sur la tactique à privilégier face à la répression des mollahs.

Ces instantanés révèlent une réalité inattendue : le Moyen-Orient vit aujourd’hui un moment kurde. Éternels oubliés de l’histoire, les Kurdes s’imposent partout sur la carte régionale, et pas comme on les attendait. À rebours de l’imagerie bien ancrée du peshmerga et de l’activisme révolutionnaire, ils font désormais beaucoup de politique, et leur quête de respectabilité contraste avec les errements de régimes qui les ont réprimés pendant des décennies.

Le retournement de situation est réellement spectaculaire : en 2009, Hamit Bozarslan décrivait encore dans un ouvrage de référence[1] la logique de sécurité collective unissant la Syrie, l’Iran et la Turquie dans une même obsession du danger séparatiste kurde, et qui débouchait partout sur des pratiques d’assimilation et de répression. L’auteur plaçait alors son espoir de progrès dans le GRK, seule entité politique à l’époque en mesure d’incarner un destin kurde indépendant. Aujourd’hui, le rapport des forces s’est inversé un peu partout à la faveur des puissantes dynamiques croisées à l’œuvre dans la région : poussée démocratique, réaction autoritaire, délitement des frontières issues des accords de Sykes-Picot de 1916. Ce contexte encourage la quête d’autonomie des Kurdes au sein des États, voire leur propre quête d’État. La perspective d’arrangements transkurdes augmente encore leur poids critique ; et l’exploitation des ressources au Kurdistan irakien et en Syrie les rend potentiellement riches. De variable d’ajustement, les Kurdes deviennent ainsi faiseurs de rois : ils peuvent ébranler en Irak le pouvoir du Premier ministre arabe chiite Nouri-al-Maliki, tandis qu’Erdoğan doit constamment rechercher leurs voix pour conforter son emprise sur la Turquie, et que la rébellion et le régime syriens se disputent leur appui.

La conjoncture leur est certes particulièrement favorable, mais les Kurdes ne sont pas surgis du néant. « Minorité » nombreuse – les estimations concernant leur nombre total, souvent intentionnellement sous-évalué pour des raisons politiques, variant généralement entre 30 et 40 millions (15 ou 20 % de la population en Turquie) –, ils ont toujours joué un rôle politique non négligeable dans l’histoire du Moyen-Orient. Vassaux ou alliés des empires, ils tenaient une place importante dans le dispositif d’équilibre entre l’Iran safavide et la puissance ottomane. Floués par le traité de Lausanne, qui escamotait en 1923 les promesses franco-britanniques d’un État, dispersés entre des patries imposées, ils sont devenus le révélateur des excès et fragilités de la culture politique du Moyen-Orient : dialectique entre autorité de l’État et communautarismes, cercle vicieux de la révolte et de la répression, instrumentalisation des minorités au service de conflits régionaux – on se rappellera les massacres perpétrés par Saddam Hussein contre une partie de la population de son pays en marge de la guerre Iran-Irak, et surtout le drame du bombardement chimique de Halabja en 1988 (5 000 morts).

Ce contexte violent a renforcé, tout au long du xxe siècle, une perception orientalisante et romantique des Kurdes, issue de la période ottomane[2]. Victimes et résistants, ils emportaient l’adhésion des militants tardifs du droit des peuples à disposer d’eux-mêmes. Dans le même temps, la militarisation de leur lutte nationale – qui a tout de même amené la Syrie et la Turquie au bord du conflit en 1998, avec pour enjeu le contrôle des activités du PKK – a permis aux Turcs de les étiqueter comme terroristes. En France même, leur image évolue maintenant entre deux pôles opposés : le mystérieux assassinat de trois militantes du PKK en plein Paris au mois de janvier 2013 a révélé la persistance d’une violence opaque, dont on ne sait si elle est d’ordre politique ou criminel ; mais le succès critique et public du « western kurde » irakien de Hineer Salim, My Sweet Pepper Land (2013), acte un changement de registre en cours : le sujet kurde se dé-marginalise, il devient sympathique au-delà de petits cercles d’initiés, et peut même être traité sur le registre de l’humour.

Victimes de l’histoire, ou d’eux-mêmes ? La vitalité de la poussée identitaire kurde attire aujourd’hui l’attention sur une diversité qui, en réalité, a toujours été porteuse de divisions. Domestiqués et largement acculturés par les États dans lesquels ils vivent, les Kurdes ont eux-mêmes toujours été organisés en clans puissants, parlé des langues diverses, transcrites aussi depuis le xxe siècle dans des alphabets différents (carte 1). La projection d’une identité kurde commune doit beaucoup au travail de leur diaspora européenne, longtemps structurée autour du noyau des Kurdes de Turquie, majoritaires. Les dynamiques politiques aujourd’hui à l’œuvre sur les terres d’origine des Kurdes posent à terme l’inévitable question de l’organisation politique globale et du leadership de la communauté. Entre Abdullah Öcalan et Massoud Barzani, les Kurdes syriens enfoncent un nouveau coin, qui complique encore la perspective d’ensemble. Reste à comprendre si les Kurdes souhaitent aujourd’hui avoir leur propre État, ou s’ils veulent plutôt trouver avec les États existants des arrangements politiques et sociaux viables, permettant de dépasser définitivement le négationnisme identitaire pratiqué jusqu’ici. »

[1]. H. Bozarslan, Conflit kurde : le brasier oublié du Moyen-Orient, Paris, Autrement, 2009.

[2]. Sur la politisation des études kurdes, dans des contextes et avec des objectifs variés, de la période ottomane à la guerre froide, voir l’article de S. Alsancakli, « Des kurdologues et des études qui font l’histoire », Qantara, juillet 2013, p. 54-55.

Retrouvez les autres articles du dossier sur Cairn.info :

 – Les Kurdes et l’option étatique, par Hamit Bozarslan

– Turquie : le mouvement kurde à l’heure du « processus de paix », par Olivier Grojean

– Quelle politique kurde pour l’AKP ?, par Yohanan Benhaim

– Les paradoxes du printemps kurde en Syrie, par Jordi Tejel

– L’introuvable frontière du Kurdistan d’Irak, par Cyril Roussel

S’abonner à Politique étrangère.

The 6 December parliamentary election in which the Venezuelan opposition won a landslide victory and a two-thirds legislative majority, combined with the ongoing economic meltdown, should have encouraged a more conciliatory stance by the government and a mutual search for a basic political agreement. But it has not, and the country is very near political and economic implosion. As the risk of an extra-constitutional response by either side or a military coup increases, the Organization of American States (OAS) should take up the matter urgently and prepare an emergency political and humanitarian initiative to prevent serious violence and a collapse that would bring instability to the region and deepen the misery of Venezuelans themselves.

In most cases the scenario is similar: over the past decade, oil exporting countries used excessive revenues from oil to expand public services, or simply pursue populist policy in order to buy political stability. Once oil prices started to fall, the budgets did not shrink accordingly, which created a wide gap between the oil revenues and swelling fiscal demands.

In order to stem the rapid outflow of foreign reserves, the governments were forced to devaluate their national currencies. An unwanted consequence is almost always the rise in inflation and household prices, along with a decline in living standards and stalled economic growth.

Here are the five most affected countries by this devaluation trend.

Azerbaijan

The former Soviet republic is the first country to request a $4 billion emergency loan from the IMF and the World Bank in order to cover losses caused by low oil prices. Although the Azerbaijani government officially denied the need for a bailout, the country is in dire straits.

Income from oil and gas makes up around 75% of the country’s revenues, and the recent devaluation of the national currency manat by more than 30% incited public protests that might easily disrupt the political stability of the authoritarian regime of president Ilham Aliyev.

Venezuela

Venezuela has gone through an equally depressing scenario since July 2014. Although the country’s economy wasn’t sustainable even with triple digit oil prices, a prolonged period of low oil prices brought the economy close to a breaking point. Over the past two years, the national currency, the bolívar, lost more than 90% of its value. According to the IMF’s forecast, inflation will reach 720% in 2016.

Venezuela’s domestic woes are further aggravated by the government’s efforts to limit imports in order to raise enough cash to stave off default.

There is, however, an increasing danger that with a further slump in oil revenues, and with sovereign bonds yielding at around 30%, Caracas might default on its debts at some point in 2016. The real question is, how long will the Maduro regime be able to suppress the growing social discontent and increased pressures from the opposition-controlled parliament?

Nigeria

Africa’s largest economy was hard hit by the falling oil prices. The national currency, the naira, dropped against the dollar by 25% over the past year. On January 30, the Nigerian government requested a $3.5 billion loan from the IMF and the African Development Bank to plug its $15 billion budget gap.

The country’s oil revenues are expected to fall by 70% in 2016, while the hard currency reserves almost halved from $50 to $28 billion, and the state’s emergency fund went from $22 billion in 2009 to $2.3 billion currently.

Angola

Angola earned around $500 billion from oil exports between 2000 and 2014. But today the country’s economy is among the hardest hit in Africa. Inflation is at 14% and the national currency, the kwanza, devaluated by more than 50% since January 2015.

The country earns 75% of its fiscal revenues from oil exports, which make up around 95% of total exports. As a consequence, José Eduardo dos Santos’ regime is starting to feel the pressure from well-organized public protests that might turn into more widespread unrest if the economic situation continues to worsen.

Russia

Russia is going through some tough economic times, as the toxic combination of Western sanctions and low oil prices is devastating the country’s economy and living standards. Since June 2014, the rouble devaluated by more than 100% against the dollar. GDP is expected to shrink by 3.7% in 2016 alone.

How do these numbers affect the everyday lives of average Russians? Real wages fell by almost 10% in 2015, and the percentage of households that cannot afford sufficient food or clothing has increased from 22% to 39% over the previous year.

Although Russia is not an average developing, oil-exporting country, the severity of Russia’s economic and potential political troubles, which might come along with the low oil prices, puts the country well inside this infamous club.

These five countries are already feeling the effects of low oil prices and devaluation. And there are more candidates: Brazil, Ecuador, and even the rich Gulf countries are starting to feel the pinch, and it seems that the end to depressed oil prices is nowhere near.

This article was originally published by Global Risk Insights and written by GRI analyst Ante Batovic

The post The Five Oil Exporters Most Affected by Currency Devaluation appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

/ Développement, Eau, Faim, Sécurité, Santé, Société, Climat, Environnement - Environnement - Biodiversité / Développement, Eau, Faim, Sécurité, Santé, Société, Climat, Environnement - Environnement - Biodiversité

/ Industrie, Climat, Environnement, Pollution - Environnement - Pollution / Industrie, Climat, Environnement, Pollution - Environnement - Pollution

One of the most dangerous elements of Ukraine’s nearly two-year-old conflict remains the unpredictability of its neighbour Russia’s tactics. Despite repeated expressions of support for the Minsk peace process and recognition of Ukraine’s sovereignty over the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DNR, LNR), Moscow’s current actions in eastern Ukraine seem designed to strengthen those entities than prepare them for dismantlement.

Die vielen Flüchtlinge belasten das Projekt EU. Um die Finanzkrise zu lösen, brauchte es nur Geld. Nun geht es um mehr: um unsere Werte. Eigentlich eine Stärke Europas!

Source: Reuters

Written by Shehab Al Makahleh

Turkey, long hailed as a bastion of secular democracy in the Muslim world, could be spiraling toward an all-out civil war as conflicts between Turkish security forces and Kurds as well as other ethnic minorities continue to escalate. These conflicts have been exacerbated by the catastrophic war in neighboring Syria, which has created a refugee crisis in Turkey, expanded the government’s campaign against Kurds in Iraq and Syria, and pushed Turkish officials into collusion with ISIS.

The lurch toward autocratic rule by President Recep Tayyib Erdogan has long worried regional and Western observers, with curbs on freedom of speech and political repression of the Kurds. That policy has taken a bloody turn with the repeated bombing of Syrian and Iraqi Kurds and, since July 2015, escalating crackdowns at home.

The murder in November of Tahir Elci, a leading Kurdish human rights advocate and president of the Diyarbakir Bar Association in southeastern Turkey has dramatically increased tensions inside Turkey and put the Kurdish issue—seemingly settled only a few years ago—back on the agenda.

Turkey has other problems to contend with. The Russians—playing an increasingly important role in the region—have long maintained that Turkey is receiving oil from ISIS, through official complicity, illicit criminal networks, or some combination. The Associated Press corroborated Russia’s account by stating that upwards of 30,000 barrels of oil are being extracted each day by ISIS from Syria, with much of it ending up in Turkey.

While Erdogan and his ruling party have not been sanctioned by the U.S. or anyone in the West for that matter, one can only conclude that this willful blindness means that the U.S. is fearful for Erdogan’s political stability, not to mention Russia’s ascendant position in the region.

On the economic front, Turkey has recently lost a lifeline of non-energy trade with Russia–including agriculture and textile projects, tourism and construction—that supports tens of thousands of jobs in the country. It was severed following Turkey’s downing of a Russian plane flying combat sorties in Syria, a dangerous move by the Turks that could have easily (and perhaps justifiably) led to a Russian counterattack and a larger war involving NATO.

Russia held its fire, responding calmly when many expected escalation, and instead imposed economic sanctions against Turkey. This squeeze on vital elements of the Turkish economy could give rise to further internal discontent in the country. Lest we forget, bread riots helped start the civil war that toppled Egypt’s Mubarak, and economic issues sparked the fall of Ben Ali in Tunisia.

A more subtle but no less powerful force is also at work against Turkey: regional resentment. The region has a long memory of the “Ottoman yoke” which was ended 100 years ago by the Hashemite-led Arab revolt and finally the expulsion of the Turks from Arab lands.

Turkey’s brash role in the region today—backed implicitly by U.S. and NATO firepower–is seen by some as coming at the expense of its Arab neighbors, especially as more evidence on Turkish involvement in illicit trade with ISIS grows. Turkey’s assertive role in a new regional triangular power structure with Saudi Arabia and Qatar has also created greater diplomatic isolation from much of the region.

The confluence of these internal and external factors has put unprecedented pressure on the Turkish state as a viable entity. The conflict with the Kurds seems to be tearing the nation at its seams—the very idea of the secular, pluralist state is at risk.

But other clouds—economic, diplomatic, and military—are looming over the horizon. What happens next is not entirely in Erdogan’s control. Will Russia’s military restraint hold? Will the fragile regional alliances against ISIS shift against Turkey? Will ISIS itself continue to shake the Turkish people’s confidence? Or will it be Erdogan’s own policies that ultimately undermines the Turkish state?

Shehab Al Makahleh is a journalist and co-founder of Geo-strategic and Political Studies of the Middle East Media.

The post Could Turkey Implode? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

La lenteur des négociations climatiques contraste avec la grande accélération de l'histoire humaine, tandis que les instances internationales se montrent impuissantes à inventer des outils et des modes de pensée à la hauteur des enjeux. / Droit international, Écologie, Énergie, Mouvement de (...) / Droit international, Écologie, Énergie, Mouvement de contestation, Mutation, Matières premières, Climat, Environnement, Pollution, Organisation internationale - 2015/11

/ Mutation, Climat, Antarctique, Environnement - Environnement - Biodiversité / Mutation, Climat, Antarctique, Environnement - Environnement - Biodiversité

(Own report) - A serious government crisis is shaking up a pro-western Ukraine. Yesterday, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk barely survived a no-confidence vote, after President Petro Poroshenko urged him to resign. Hundreds had assembled in front of the parliament building to protest against his policies, which are impoverishing large sectors of the population. Lately, people have been particularly upset over the hike in gas prices - making, for many, heating throughout the icy Ukrainian winter an expensive luxury. Berlin and Washington are worried that the country will no longer be controllable, due to the disastrous economic situation and the dramatic loss of popularity of the President and government. Western powers have therefore begun to call on Kiev to get serious about fighting corruption. Spectacular resignations of several ministers and the deputy general prosecutor have provided greater urgency to this demand and accentuated the government crisis over the past few months and the last few days, with no solution in sight. The formation of a "government of technocrats" under a longtime western diplomat is in discussion, in other words, Kiev would be placed directly under western control.

Zika: a looming threat to tourism and health standards in Brazil

Lately, the Zika virus made its way into the spotlight with a sudden and explosive growth of micro-encephalitis in newborns across Latin America. As a result of Brazil’s climate, inadequate public health system, and poor system for sanitation and water supplies, the virus found an ideal location to develop rapidly. While Zika has a devastating effect on pregnant women, especially in the low-income population, this issue has also brought to light other prevalent concerns regarding the Olympics this summer.

Zika looms over the Brazilian population and future tourists traveling from the around the world to watch the Olympic Games. The government’s response has been slow and inadequate; the Brazilian healthcare system has been heavily underfunded in recent years, with many poor areas in Rio de Janeiro lacking even basic infrastructure. In January 2016, hospitals ran out of money to pay for drugs, equipment, and salaries. Some patients died after they were not allowed into underfunded public hospitals.

Brazilian officials expressed concerns over the possibility of visitors staying away from Rio de Janeiro out of fear of contracting Zika. The city has taken precautions to ensure that tourists and athletes of the Olympics do not feel threatened, and officials have announced that venues would be inspected on a daily basis four months in advance, aimed at eliminating any stagnant water that could serve as breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

These efforts have not been able to eliminate global concerns over the issue. With the World Health Organization declaring it a global health emergency, Brazil has already been criticized for downplaying the risks of contracting the virus at the Olympics and the ongoing Carnival celebrations, which attract 1.5 million tourists a year.

Bribery and political corruption: the Brazilian way of business

Recently, allegations of bribery against the Brazilian speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, and five construction companies involved in Olympics projects have emerged. Brazil’s attorney general, Rodrigo Janot, claimed that some construction companies, already under investigation for their ties to the Petrobras scandal, paid bribes totaling USD 475,000 to Eduardo Cunha to help secure contracts for the building of venues and other works for Olympics.

These allegations are another example of the large impact the Petrobras scandal has had on Brazilian politics and the economy. Companies involved in Olympics construction projects found themselves blocked from receiving bank loans and credit lines during the ongoing Petrobras investigation, forcing Rio de Janeiro’s city government to act as a bank and lend companies money to prevent an inevitable slowdown in construction. Despite their efforts, projects for the Olympics have already been delayed and sometimes halted, including essential repairs on sewers in Rio de Janeiro.

However, Olympic officials have denied any delays and vow that the games will be free of corruption, serving as an example of how business in Brazil can be done “above the board”.

Social unrest and security issues

On November 16, three days after the Paris attack, a leading French recruit for ISIS tweeted “Brazil, you are next”. Attacks by Islamist gunmen in Egypt, Mali, Paris and elsewhere in 2015 has raised the alarm for big international events like the Olympics. Brazilian security agencies have trained over 85,000 security personnel, 47,000 police officers, and 38,000 soldiers to guard the 10,500 athletes and thousands of tourists attending the 2016 Games.

However, the security forces will need to focus on more than terrorist threats for the Olympics.  Violent political demonstrations, increased levels of robberies and shootings, and a growing amount of areas that are considered dangerous have worsened the already poor security situation in the city.

A looming recession

Amid a deteriorating fiscal situation, the once proud member of the BRICS has gotten used to its degrading economic status. Olympics organizers have tried to cut at least USD 500 million from the USD 1.9 billion operating budget for the Games, and already laid off temporary workers. Despite their efforts, the cost recently increased with an additional USD 100 million for electricity generation, with the final budget totalling USD 9.8 billion.

Brazil might be heading towards one of the deepest recessions since 1931. The currency plunged 33% in 2015, state security forces face a budget cut of 25%, inflation has risen to at least 10%, and unemployment has been hovering around 9%.

Brazil has also faced challenges in improving its public transportation system, particularly in the critical subway extension project. If it cannot be completed on time, Rio de Janeiro will face huge traffic jams along its mountainous coastal roads and potential empty seats in the new Olympic venues. Additionally, critical levels of water pollution and delayed infrastructure project led city officials to admit that they failed to improve sewage system in lake areas and the Copacabana coastline by 80%, a promise that was made in their Olympics bid in 2009.

Even if Brazil is able to host the Olympics with all venues prepared on time, there will be bumps in the road. The combined challenges make it very difficult to believe in a positive Olympic experience for Brazil. The legacy has the potential to do serious economic and social damage, requiring a brutal prioritization and fiscal austerity from the government afterwards. Rio de Janeiro city officials’ promise of showing how business can be done in Brazil “above board” is becoming more of an illusion than a reality.

This article was originally published by Global Risk Insights and written by GRI analyst Alicia Chavy.

The post Is Rio Ready for the Olympics? appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Many leaders who are currently in power were decision makers during the time the events of the Rwandan genocide unfolded. Despite peacekeepers showing evidence of what was occurring and Western leaders having full knowledge of the genocide in Rwanda, next to nothing was done to stop the violence.

The situation was ignored to such an extent that peacekeeping forces stationed in Rwanda at the time were left to fend for themselves, despite tradition, law and regulations requiring  assistance from their respective countries and the international community . The Rwandan genocide cost the world approximately two million people, distancing the lessons of the Nuremburg trial away from modern political expediency.

Debate and discussion is essential in ensuring that genocide does not become an expected byproduct of conflict in the modern world. Political motives for blurring the recognition of genocide, creating different parallel narratives, have the purpose of keeping leaders in power in places like Brussels and Washington D.C.

Governments are expected to remember the Nuremberg trials when the U.S. and the rest of the world agreed that genocide should “never again” be perpetrated while outsiders stand idly by. However, the Rwandan experience exemplifies the recent mass extinctions of small minority groups.

While group like CYCI out of Montreal, Canada seek to save individuals from their fates in troubled war zones directly, they operate outside the government’s policy goals and funding. Those groups are only successful due to the commitment of several exceptional and brave individuals who place humanity above all.

Canadian broadcaster Vision TV presented a video debate on the issue of refugees this week on the show The Zoomer. The Canadian government committed itself to assist a large number of Syria refugees. But with questions around ill-planned settlements, the lack of proper identity and security checks for the number of individuals, and the lack of specific assistance to vulnerable groups like Yazidis, Kurdish and Christian Syrians and Iraqis, a heated discussion ensued.

While the debate over Canada’s new refugee policy  is contentious, it is one that is not publicly acknowledged by most local media. Opening up the debate is the first step in preventing another genocide, followed by the acknowledgement of atrocities against minority groups currently fighting for survival in Syria and Iraq. You can watch the Zoomer debate here.

Refugees

The post The Value of Having a Heated Discussion on Refugees and Genocide appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Islamic State fighters on the border between Syria and Iraq. Photograph: Corbis/Medyan Dairieh

Mounting territorial losses and a return to terrorist tactics in Iraq, Turkey and overseas, suggests that the Islamic State’s favored strategy of moving fighters to take territory elsewhere when it comes under overwhelming pressure on one front is no longer working so effectively.

The Islamic State (IS) launched a small offensive last month against Syrian government forces inside the besieged eastern city of Deir ez-Zur. Media reports suggested that the militants had been driven back, but only after they had carried out indiscriminate killings of troops and civilians.

The failed attack comes at a time when the group is under pressure on multiple fronts as Russia, the U.S. and Iran, the major international players opposing it on the ground, have begun to support proxy forces arrayed against it more closely.

Islamic State has a sophisticated and well-run military machine for a militant group. It inherited many highly-trained personnel from Saddam Hussein’s armed forces and seized large stocks of equipment from the Iraqi army when the latter melted away during IS’ conquests of cities like Mosul or Ramadi. But it is not the strongest military power involved in the conflict and its victories have come from preparation, infiltration, nimbleness and a higher morale than its more numerous enemies.

Above all, the group benefited from the political vacuum left to by the collapse of old colonial era borders, the quarreling between Turks, Kurds and Arabs over how to reform their political communities and the mutual hostilities between Russia, Iran, America and Saudi Arabia.

Now the situation in both Iraq and Syria seems to have tilted against the group. In Syria, Moscow’s intervention seems to have injected new vigor into Damascus. Meanwhile the formal ending of a network of complex sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program has strengthened the hand of ‘moderate’ Iranian leaders who see a transactional relationship with Washington as politically possible.

That opens up avenues for future areas of cooperation such as military efforts inside Iraq, which have been weakened by the American’s refusal to operate alongside deeply sectarian Iranian-backed Shi’a militia groups doing most of the fighting. Benefiting from the release of formerly frozen funds, Teheran may now swing more of its weight behind the Iraqi government and army in the battles ahead against IS.

The group’s relationship with the leading Sunni regional powers, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, is ambiguous and also deteriorating. Although both Turkey and Saudi Arabia have backed militant jihadi groups in Syria, their proxies have clashed with IS militants repeatedly over territory.

Despite almost certain Turkish complicity in the movement of militants back and forth across the border and in the oil smuggling that funds the group, IS has repeatedly bombed Turkish territory. Up to now the Turkish government has found IS to be a useful counterweight to the Kurds and has refused to allow Kurdish forces to close off the last 60-mile long stretch of territory which is the group’s last access and exit point with Turkey. That calculation may be changing under American pressure and the gradual defeat of Turkish proxies by the Russian-backed Syrian army in the north.

Meanwhile the recent U.S. moves towards reconciliation with Iran have further disillusioned the Saudis with their American partners, but this has not meant that the House of Saud’s selective embrace of Islamic militants has grown to include IS. While Riyadh’s recent spate of executions drew international attention by including the prominent Shi’a cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, the vast majority were Sunni extremists.

Riyadh has further drawn the militants’ ire by declaring the formation of a global “Islamic Alliance” to fight terrorism. While Riyadh’s major focus is still on thwarting Iranian influence in the Middle East, it also regards the Islamic State as a dangerous competitor.

Lacking outside alliances and with the geopolitical situation slowly starting to tilt against it, Islamic State’s pretensions to act as a legitimate government seem to have its days numbered. IS has already lost substantial territory to Kurdish forces in Syria and major operations in Iraq to retake Mosul will begin in 2016 according to the Iraqi government.

This comes with the caveat that just seizing the areas IS has occupied will not destroy the group itself, unless the re-conquest is also accompanied by the offer of an alternative political program for the Levant’s Sunni Arabs, particularly in Iraq. Already there are reports of security problems in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, which was recently retaken from Islamic State.

It was the passive support of Iraqi Sunnis in Anbar province that allowed IS to rebuild itself after its previous incarnation Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was obliterated. IS also has deeper support there than in Syria, where it is competing with a host of other Sunni militant groups.

In Iraq, it was the sectarianism and corruption of then-Iraqi government of strongman Nouri al-Malaki that drove Sunnis into the arms of IS, presently the sole insurgent Sunni faction there. Malaki systematically froze Iraqi Sunnis out of political power and began a process of “sectarianizing” the Iraqi army, leading to its abrupt collapse when IS attacked Mosul in 2014.

If the world’s governments truly wish to see the end of the Islamic State, Baghdad’s numerous competing patrons will have to emphasise together that their support is contingent on allowing Sunnis in Iraq real representation inside the country’s political system.

 

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Boutros Boutros-Ghali vient de disparaître. Secrétaire général de l’Organisation des Nations unies, il était intervenu à l’Ifri le 21 mars 1996. Le texte de son intervention, « Le Secrétaire général des Nations unies : entre l’urgence et la durée », avait été publié dans Politique étrangère (n°2/1996). Nous vous proposons de le relire.

© Nations Unies, 2016

« La Charte de San Francisco a créé, pour le Secrétaire général de l’Organisation des Nations unies, un poste bien singulier. S’il reste trop prudent, les États membres commencent à murmurer et s’interrogent entre eux sur le bien-fondé de leur choix. À l’inverse, s’il mène une diplomatie trop active, ils ont tôt fait de lui rappeler qu’il n’est que l’humble serviteur d’une organisation composée d’États souverains. Les États le veulent donc tout à la fois effacé et entreprenant, soumis et dynamique, discipliné et imaginatif. Il y a là un beau défi pour celui qui accepte de vivre, en permanence, de telles contradictions. Cela est d’autant plus net que s’y ajoutent les contradictions mêmes du monde actuel et celles de l’organisation mondiale.

Le monde est, en effet, secoué aujourd’hui par un double mouvement de globalisation et de fragmentation. Il est clair, tout d’abord, que nous sommes entrés dans l’ère de la société globale. Qu’il s’agisse de la circulation des marchandises ou des capitaux, de la diffusion de l’information, de la protection de l’environnement, de la maîtrise de l’avenir démographique, de la répression du crime transnational ou de la lutte contre le terrorisme, il est désormais évident que ces questions se posent à l’échelle planétaire et ne peuvent que très partiellement être appréhendées à l’échelle de l’État-nation. Mais, dans le même temps, le monde est déchiré par de nouveaux conflits qui se déroulent non pas tant entre les États qu’à l’intérieur même des nations. Chaque jour, l’ONU doit faire face à des guerres civiles, des sécessions, des partitions, des affrontements ethniques, des luttes tribales. »

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Réduire sans tarder les émissions de gaz à effet de serre et les ramener à néant en deux ou trois générations : officiellement, tous les Etats partagent cet impératif. Pourtant, depuis le Sommet de la Terre de Rio, en 1992, la situation n'a cessé de s'aggraver. / Capitalisme, Développement, Écologie, (...) / Capitalisme, Développement, Écologie, Multinationales, Pétrole, Politique, Climat, Environnement, Pollution - 2015/11