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i 18 June, 2011 Article 1. The Daily Star In Jordan, real change or illusion? Rami G. Khouri Article 2. The Financial Times Person in the News: Recep Tayyip Erdogan Delphine Strauss Article 3. Project Syndicate Reset Turkey/EU Relations Javier Solana Article 4. Foreign Policy Get over it: Salam Fayyad Was No Savior Nathan J. Brown Article 5. The Washington Post Why Europe no longer matters Richard N. Haass Article 6. NYT Who Needs NATO? We All Do Ivo H. Daalder Article 7. The Washington Post Where will Zawahiri take al-Qaeda? Peter Bergen EFTA01074866  , The Daily Star In Jordan, real change or illusion? Rami G. Khouri As we mark the six-month point of the Arab citizen revolt that has swept half this region, here is the question I pose for all who wonder what, if anything, has changed: Is it a sign of the success or illusion of the Arab revolt that Jordan's King Abdullah II announced at the start of this week that he has agreed to protesters' demands that future prime ministers be appointed and dismissed according to the will of a parliamentary majority, rather than by the king? Two days later King Abdullah qualified that, saying it would take two or three years to take such a measure; time was needed for Jordan to have the requisite three mature parties representing the left, center and right of the political spectrum. In other words, the king will open up the political system only when he feels that reliable parties are in place that would not create problems for him or for the country. It was six months ago in that mid-December day that Mohammad Bouazizi set himself on fire in the provincial Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. This ignited a cascade of spontaneous protests across Tunisia that ultimately overthrew the president, and sparked similar protests in other Arab countries demanding the overthrow of regimes. Mostly orderly weekly Jordanian protests have not called for regime change, but for three other things that capture the core spirit of this historic regional rebellion: constitutional reforms to give citizens greater rights and protections; political reforms that make all Jordanians equal before the law and the governance system; and other measures that would help fight against corruption more seriously and EFTA01074867  3 reduce the interference of the security services in media, civil society and education, smothering any possibility of serious political, cultural and national development. Jordan in many ways is a good litmus test of whether real political reform can happen peacefully. It is significant that King Abdullah announced his agreement to the demand that Parliament be the reference for prime ministers and Cabinets, rather than the king's discerning eye or the occasional royal whim. It suggests that he hears his people's reasonable calls for change, and is willing to move toward meeting them, as quality monarchs should do. Yet if this outlook a real breakthrough in a gradual transition toward a constitutional monarchy, it is also jeopardized by the subsequent revival of this old Jordanian royal call for crafting a pre-defined political system that will see national politics conducted with decorum and responsibility as envisaged by the king himself. Here is the big problem. There is an unbridgeable and deadly contradiction between King Abdullah's promise to promote democratic freedoms (to make governments accountable to Parliament) and his insistence on maintaining control of this entire process (waiting for three broad political parties to run Parliament). This need to control political life from above shatters the central operative principle of the Arab citizen revolt: that governance happens with the consent of the governed, and ultimate authority rests with the will of the people — expressed through the legitimate constitutional institutions of the rule of law. The royal call for three mainstream political parties to oversee or manage national governance represents a return to the failed old ways of Arab governments that decide what is best for their people, and dole out episodic benefits and changes through state-managed "reform" processes. Such "reforms" will go down in history as colossal failures that never achieved any credibility or traction with EFTA01074868  4 their citizens — because citizens were never serious participants in the process, but rather passive recipients of top-down benevolence, docile targets of dependency rather than of democratic reforms. All Arab leaders still need to understand that credible political change cannot seriously be defined, promulgated and micro-managed from above. Only superficial, fake political change happens that way. Credible and lasting democratic and constitutional change must respond to and be directed by the collective will of the citizenry, to whom the government system reports through constitutional means. Free and orderly democratic societies do not naturally move toward a neat configuration comprising three political parties in the center, left and right of the ideological spectrum. Democracy, pluralism and constitutionalism generate a more diverse, complex, imbalanced and ever-changing political landscape — but also a secure and decent one, because it is defined by and held accountable to the citizens. King Abdullah is one of the handful of Arab leaders who has real legitimacy at home. He is one of the few who can initiate serious reform processes, should he show the way and decide to trust his people and give them the political space they deserve. But this must come as a right of their citizenship, not as a royal gift or a state bonus. EFTA01074869  5 The Financial Times Person in the News: Recep Tayyip Erdogan Delphine Strauss June 17 2011 -- On Sunday night, Recep Tayyip Erdogan strode on to the balcony of his Justice & Development party's Ankara headquarters, waving thanks to a sea of rapturous supporters. "Turkey is proud of you," the crowds chanted under a red and white haze of Turkish and AK party flags, as he stood with his wife to hail victory in a third successive national election. The "balcony speech" has become something of a ritual for Turkey's domineering premier. As a young man in the 1970s he used the deck of an empty ship moored by the Golden Horn to try out — with his face to the sea — the rhetorical flourishes he would use in speeches to the youth wing of a hardline Islamist party. Now he is acclaimed as the first leader of the modern Turkish republic to win a third term with increased support. He peppered his "balcony speech" with the appropriate promises of humility, reconciliation, and consensual work to draft a new constitution. But his note of self-belief — even grandiosity — was striking. "Today is a victory for the wronged and oppressed on a global scale," he said, going on to claim his victory was for Bosnia, Damascus and the West Bank as much as Istanbul, Ankara and Turkey. With such a bid to protect suffering Muslims across the world, it is no wonder his domestic critics accuse him of taking on the airs of an Ottoman sultan — and Israel frets over the trajectory of a man who has staked out an outspoken position on the suffering of the Palestinians. EFTA01074870  6 Mr Erdogan's confidence mirrors the rising self-esteem of a nation that has been transformed since the AKP took office in 2002. A decade ago, Turkey was plagued with economic crises, weak coalition governments and a reputation for human rights abuses. He remains a divisive figure: his opponents view him as an autocratic demagogue unravelling Ataturk's legacy of westernisation. Yet he has brought political stability, and with it Turkey has become a rising economic force, and an emerging regional power. He too has come a long way. Now wealthy, as a child he earned money selling stale bread rings reheated by his mother. A slim moustache has replaced the beard he wore on the football team of Istanbul's transport authority — he opted to resign rather than shave when a new manager, installed after the 1980 military coup, banned such signs of religiosity. His political views have also been transformed: the AKP describes itself as socially conservative, rather than Islamist; it welcomes foreign capital and — despite growing friction — remains closely aligned with Washington in foreign policy. But perhaps most important, Mr Erdogan is no longer an outsider fighting Turkey's established elites. Imprisoned briefly in 1999 during his tenure as mayor of Istanbul for "anti-secularism" after reciting Islamist verse, he spent much of his first two terms battling a president, military and judiciary intent on forcing him from office, fearing he would insidiously undermine the secular foundations of the state. He still claims to speak for society's underdogs — a small model of the scales of justice is the only ornament on his desk at his party's HQ. But he now represents a new elite: a rising middle class from the Anatolian heartland that sees no contradiction between Muslim values and western-style capitalism. Tall and broad-shouldered, he is very much the people's hero. With his commanding physique he fits a Turkish liking for strong leaders EFTA01074871  7 who make their country's weight felt in global affairs. Well-dressed and seemingly at ease with his own material success, he speaks to voters' aspirations for prosperity — pledging new roads, hospitals and home ownership, and delivering on many of his promises. His religion, too, of course plays a part in his appeal. "The majority of society is serious about Islam and wants to see it respected. Erdogan not only represents that wish, but also uses a political language drawing inferences from religion," says Mustafa Akyol, a columnist. In his political longevity and influence he now vies with Turgut Ozal, the economic liberaliser who opened an isolated Turkey to the world in the 1980s. He can never enter the same league as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who earns Turks' absolute devotion as the man who forged their nation from the fragments of the Ottoman empire. But he does take his place as one of the three leaders to have shaped Turkey, says Henri Barkey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A growing concern, though, is that Mr Erdogan is becoming too thin- skinned and intolerant of criticism, even within his own party; and too powerful. Under AKP rules, he cannot stand for a fourth term as prime minister. But he can seek election to the presidency in 2012 or 2014 — perhaps for two consecutive terms. The prospect of Mr Erdogan running the country for another 14 years is alarming for the 50 per cent of voters who did not endorse him. Backed by the popular vote, the prime minister is frequently dismissive of institutions — whether the media, which he has castigated and pursued with a spate of prosecutions, or diplomats, whom he likes to mock. He sometimes strays into conspiracy theory: accusing The Economist of fronting a foreign plot when it endorsed the opposition before this year's elections. Although he claims to embrace all lifestyles, he cannot always hide his contempt for those who do not share his conservative values. When a female protester EFTA01074872  8 was injured in clashes with police on the campaign, he cast aspersions on her virginity, describing her as "a girl or a woman". Turkey has been too inclined in the past to look for the next strong leader to rescue it from crises. Mr Erdogan's dominance of politics has brought Turkey stability and rising regional influence. His best legacy would be a constitution that allowed Turkey's success to continue without a dominant leader. But to do that he will have to rein in his more domineering tendencies. Can he? t EFTA01074873  9 AniCIC 3. Project Syndicate Reset Turkey/EU Relations Javier Solana 2011-06-13 — Just five months ago, Osama bin Laden was alive, Hosni Mubarak was firmly in control in Egypt, and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali ruled Tunisia with an iron hand. Today, popular rebellion and political change have spread throughout the region. We have witnessed brutal repression of protests in Syria and Yemen, Saudi troops crossing into Bahrain, and an ongoing battle for Libya. For Europe, the "Arab Spring" should refocus attention on an issue largely ignored in recent months: the benefits of Turkey's full membership in the European Union. Given the tremendous opportunities present in the current circumstances, the advantages for Europe of Turkey's accession should be obvious. With Recep Tayyip Erdogan now elected to another term as Turkey's prime minister, and with Poland, a country well acquainted with the importance of Europe's strategic position in the world, assuming the EU presidency at the end of the month, now is a time for the Union and Turkey to "reset" their negotiations over Turkish membership. The good that Turkey can bring to Europe was visible even before the "Arab Spring." Europe is, by definition, culturally diverse, so diversity is the EU's destiny. And, if Europe is to become an active global player, rather than a museum, it needs the fresh perspective and energy of the people of Turkey. Europe today is both larger and different compared to the Europe of 1999, when Turkey was invited to begin the accession process. It is also experiencing a profound economic crisis, which erupted around the same time that the Lisbon Treaty — aimed at accommodating EU enlargement — was finally approved. Had the treaty been approved in 2005 as intended, it would EFTA01074874  10 have been in place for six years, and the strain placed by the crisis on EU economic governance — so visible in the eurozone's recent problems — would have been much more manageable. But the EU always faces problems, resolves them, and moves on. Today, we don't have a treasury, but we are about to have something similar. Similarly, the European Central Bank has capacities today that no one imagined in, say, 1997. A major challenge that Europe must still face is migration, which will only become a bigger problem over time. Between now and 2050, Europe's workforce will decrease by 70 million. Maintaining our economy requires migration and open EU borders — and facing down the populist movements in Europe that would shun "outsiders." Today's Turkey has also changed dramatically since 1999, both politically and economically, and this has much to do with the EU accession process. Indeed, without the attraction of the EU — its "soft" power — such changes would not have occurred. Economically, Turkey is now in the G-20 — and playing an effective role there. And, politically, Turkey has emerged as a regional leader, a role that it takes extremely seriously. With just- concluded parliamentary elections, and a new constitution to be approved, Turkey is approaching an epochal moment. I was a member of the Spanish Constitutional Commission that wrote the Spanish constitution in 1975 and 1976, following the death of Franco, so I know what it is to move from dictatorship to democracy — and how important it is that a constitution be framed by consensus. The EU-Turkey relationship began with an association agreement signed in 1963. Now the accession negotiations have started, and 35 "chapters" — covering everything from agriculture to energy, competition, environment, employment, social policy, and beyond — must be opened. We have already opened 19 chapters - fewer than we would like. But the real problem is that we have closed only one, and, worse, the pace of negotiations has slowed. In fact, in the second EFTA01074875  11 half of 2010, nothing happened. I hope that meaningful progress comes in 2011. Turkey and the EU need each other. The EU now accounts for 75% of foreign investment in Turkey and roughly half its exports and inward tourism. Likewise, Europe's energy security depends on cooperation with Turkey on transit of oil and natural gas from Central Asia and the Middle East. We need each other politically as well. Turkey's neighborhood is our neighborhood; its problems are our problems. The security benefits and strategic advantages for the EU with Turkey as a member would be many, starting with the relationship between the EU and NATO, of which Turkey has long been a member. Likewise, the EU's involvement in today's problems in the Mediterranean region would be much easier in concert with Turkey. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, EU-Turkey cooperation is fundamental to achieving a durable solution. In 1999, Turkey did not want to become an accession candidate, because its leaders thought that the conditions would be too tough. I was there; I talked to Prime Minister Biilent Ecevit at midnight, then to President Silleyman Demirel. And, two days later, Ecevit was in Helsinki to declare formally Turkey's wish to become an EU member. And we said: Turkey will be an EU member. I supported the signature of that document; I would do the same today. In these times, difficult and unpredictable but full of hope, the world needs Turkey and the EU to work together. That does not mean meeting every now and then to decide how to handle a certain problem. It means something much deeper and well defined. It means Turkey's admission to the EU. That is my dream, and I will continue to fight to make it a reality. Javier Solana was the European Union's High Representativefor Foreign and Security Policy, and a former Secretary General of NATO. EFTA01074876  12 Foreign Policy Get over it: Salam Fayyad Was No Savior Nathan J. Brown JUNE 17, 2011 -- If Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's political career came to an end today, he could still proudly claim to be Palestine's most accomplished prime minister ever. The problem is that all of his predecessors -- Ahmad Hilmi, Mahmud Abbas, Ahmad Qurei, and Ismail Haniyya -- were impotent, transitory, or frustrated occupants of the post, and collectively set a very low bar. But judged by the enormous expectations and hoopla his Western cheerleaders burdened him with, Fayyad will leave only disappointment behind him. The prime minister's departure from the Palestinian political scene appears likely but not inevitable. With Fatah and Hamas striving to form a unity government, Fayyad may very well be sacrificed on the altar of Palestinian unity. Neither the sunny nor the cynical view of Fayyad is fair. His optimistic smile obscured an impossible situation: Fayyad's main achievement has not been to build the structures of a Palestinian state, but to stave off the collapse of those structures that did exist. An equally important achievement was his ability to persuade Western observers that he was doing much more. In the process, however, he raised expectations far beyond his ability to deliver. What Fayyad Did Not Do: In enumerating Fayyad's accomplishments, it is necessary -- if churlish -- to begin by explaining what Fayyad did not accomplish. First, he did not build any institutions. The state-like political structures now in the West Bank and Gaza were either built during the heyday of the Oslo Process in the 1990s or in the more distant days of Jordanian and British rule. EFTA01074877  13 Second, he did not bring Palestinians to the brink of statehood. The Palestinian Authority, for all its problems, was actually far more ready for statehood on the eve of the Second Intifada in 1999 than it is on the possible eve of the third in 2011. A dozen years ago, Palestine had full security control of its cities, a set of institutions that united the West Bank and Gaza, a flourishing civil society, and a set of legitimate structures for writing authoritative laws and implementing them. Those accomplishments were in retreat long before Fayyad took office, and he was hardly able to restore them. Third, Fayyad did not strengthen the rule of law. He could not have done so, since the only legitimate law-making body the Palestinians have, the Legislative Council, has not met since he came to power. Fourth, Fayyad did not prove to Palestinians that they should rely on themselves. Just the opposite. He showed Palestinians that if they relied on him, foreigners would show them the money. At the heady days at the beginning of Oslo, the United States pledged half a billion dollars for the entire five-year process during which the parties were supposed to negotiate a permanent agreement. They have given Fayyad more than that almost every year that he has been in office. The Europeans have opened the purse strings for him too. It is utterly baffling that a figure so completely dependent on Western diplomatic and financial support would be seen by outsiders as an icon of Palestinian self-help. Finally, he did not bring economic development to the West Bank. What he made possible was a real but unsustainable recovery based on aid and relaxation of travel restrictions. Year-to-year economic indicators in both the West Bank and Gaza are dependent on foreign assistance, and even more on the political and security situation. Fayyad can thus take some credit for the upturn, but Hamas can make a similar claim for the mild improvements in Gaza since Israel relaxed some of the closure last year. Neither has laid the EFTA01074878  14 groundwork for real development or attraction of foreign investment. Nor could they in the stultifying and uncertain political environment. None of these failings was personal. Fayyad could not have accomplished any of these goals even had he wanted to. He led half of a dysfunctional Palestinian Authority, governed scattered bits of territory in the West Bank, and was forced to rattle the cup constantly in order to pay the bills. What Fayyad Did Do: However, if Fayyad could not walk on water, he did an almost miraculous job of not drowning. This is not to damn Fayyad with faint praise; the prime minister assumed control of a Palestinian Authority that was unable to pay all of its salaries, deeply mistrusted by Israel, and treated as irrelevant by many Palestinians. His first and most impressive accomplishment was to gain the trust of Western governments. The unrealistic hopes placed in his premiership were partly a testimony to the esteem in which he was held in some international circles. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken of her pride in his efforts and informed Palestinian youth that Fayyad has given them hope. No diplomatic statement from Western governments is complete without a kind word for his accomplishments. Fayyad was even able to earn a grudging Israeli trust through renewed security cooperation and efforts to rebuild the Palestinian security services. These accomplishments allowed him to pay government salaries, redeploy police, and attract enormous amounts of aid. And Fayyad was able to win some modest victories in Palestinian governance. The security services became less partisan, public finances became more transparent (even without any domestic oversight), corruption likely decreased, pockets of the civil service were rebuilt on a more professional basis, and basic order in Palestinian cities was improved. When it comes to progress in these areas -- sharply limited but still significant -- Fayyad can even claim EFTA01074879  15 to have gone beyond maintenance to improving the Palestinian situation beyond where it stood in 1999. The Poverty of Politics: All along, however, this was a difficult juggling act. Enthusiastic international support would continue only so long as it was possible to pretend that Fayyad was making dramatic gains; domestic acceptance of Fayyad was dependent on his continuing to pay salaries and provide for basic order. Pulling aside the curtain and revealing that Palestinians were not building a state thus risked undermining Western support for him, which would in turn remove the raison of his premiership in Palestinian eyes. Thus Fayyadism was a political house of cards. There was no domestic foundation for Fayyad's efforts; for Palestinians, he was simply an unsolicited gift from the United States and Europe -- a welcome one for some, but not for others. And to his international backers, Fayyad was completely frank about his limitations: His efforts, he said, would only pay off in the context of a meaningful diplomatic process that reinforced the drive toward statehood. This was an ingredient that has been missing for many years, and Fayyad was powerless to procure it. Earlier this year, there were signs that Fayyad himself had begun to look for ways to escape Fayyadism. It was Fayyad, rather than Fatah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who reached out to Hamas in February. The reconciliation file was quickly snatched out of his hands, however, and his hold on the premiership is now on the bargaining table. What is remarkable, however, is how Fayyadism soldiered on in some Western eyes even after Fayyad himself had begun to distance himself from it. American pundits continued to trumpet his successes without missing a beat right up until the April reconciliation agreement. In March, Thomas Friedman was still writing about Fayyad's gaining momentum and even upped the ante by claiming EFTA01074880  16 that his program posed the "biggest threat to Iran's strategy." Meanwhile top policymakers continued to be mesmerized by Fayyad's poll numbers, which were less bad than those of most other leaders, and simply ignored the hollowness at the core of their own policies. Nor did the polls translate into any kind of political party or movement that could have run in, much less won, an election -- if one were ever held. The Perils of Positive Thinking: For years, Fayyad's soft talk and cheery dedication enabled policymakers throughout the world to ignore the brewing crisis. And this may be where Fayyad, despite his impressive management skills, did Palestinians a disservice. In 2009, the incoming Obama administration was quickly lured into a set of approaches (many inherited from the Bush years) that proved their complete bankruptcy this year -- ignoring Gaza and allowing its population to be squeezed hard, pretending that there was a meaningful Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process at hand, assuming that Hamas could be dealt with after the peace process and Fayyad had worked their magic, and making the paradoxical and erroneous assumption that the best way to build Palestinian institutions was to rely on a specific, virtuous individual. Fayyad cannot be held primarily responsible for this collective self- delusion; at most, he facilitated it. And in the process he provided all actors with a breathing space that is now disappearing. Ultimately, the ones who convinced themselves he was capable of completely transforming Palestine are most responsible for squandering the brief respite his premiership offered. Nathan J. Brown is a professor ofpolitical science and international affairs at George Washington University and nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. EFTA01074881  17 The Washington Post Why Europe no longer matters Richard N. Haass June 18 -- When Defense Secretary Robert Gates devoted his final policy speech this month to berating NATO and our European allies, he was engaging in a time-honored tradition: Americans have worried about Europeans shirking their share of global burdens since the start of the 60-year-old alliance. Gates sounded a pessimistic note, warning of "the real possibility for a dim if not dismal future for the transatlantic alliance." Yet, the outgoing Pentagon chief may not have been pessimistic enough. The U.S.-European partnership that proved so central to managing and winning the Cold War will inevitably play a far diminished role in the years to come. To some extent, we're already there: If NATO didn't exist today, would anyone feel compelled to create it? The honest, if awkward, answer is no. In the coming decades, Europe's influence on affairs beyond its borders will be sharply limited, and it is in other regions, not Europe, that the 21st century will be most clearly forged and defined. Certainly, one reason for NATO's increasing marginalization stems from the behavior of its European members. The problem is not the number of European troops (there are 2 million) nor what Europeans collectively spend on defense ($300 billion a year), but rather how those troops are organized and how that money is spent. With NATO, the whole is far less than the sum of its parts. Critical decisions are still made nationally; much of the talk about a common defense policy remains just that — talk. There is little specialization or coordination. Missing as well are many of the logistical and intelligence assets needed to project military force on distant EFTA01074882  18 battlefields. The alliance's effort in Libya — the poorly conceived intervention, the widespread refusal or inability to participate in actual strike missions, the obvious difficulties in sustaining intense operations — is a daily reminder of what the world's most powerful military organization cannot accomplish. With the Cold War and the Soviet threat a distant memory, there is little political willingness, on a country-by-country basis, to provide adequate public funds to the military. (Britain and France, which each spend more than 2 percent of their gross domestic products on defense, are two of the exceptions here.) Even where a willingness to intervene with military force exists, such as in Afghanistan, where upward of 35,000 European troops are deployed, there are severe constraints. Some governments, such as Germany, have historically limited their participation in combat operations, while the cultural acceptance of casualties is fading in many European nations. But it would be wrong, not to mention fruitless, to blame the Europeans and their choices alone. There are larger historical forces contributing to the continent's increasing irrelevance to world affairs. Ironically, Europe's own notable successes are an important reason that transatlantic ties will matter less in the future. The current euro zone financial crisis should not obscure the historic accomplishment that was the building of an integrated Europe over the past half- century. The continent is largely whole and free and stable. Europe, the principal arena of much 20th-century geopolitical competition, will be spared such a role in the new century — and this is a good thing. The contrast with Asia could hardly be more dramatic. Asia is increasingly the center of gravity of the world economy; the historic question is whether this dynamism can be managed peacefully. The major powers of Europe — Germany, France and Great Britain — have reconciled, and the regional arrangements there are broad and EFTA01074883  19 deep. In Asia, however, China, Japan, India, Vietnam, the two Koreas, Indonesia and others eye one another warily. Regional pacts and arrangements, especially in the political and security realms, are thin. Political and economic competition is unavoidable; military conflict cannot be ruled out. Europeans will play a modest role, at best, in influencing these developments. If Asia, with its dynamism and power struggles, in some ways resembles the Europe of 100 years ago, the Middle East is more reminiscent of the Europe of several centuries before: a patchwork of top-heavy monarchies, internal turbulence, unresolved conflicts, and nationalities that cross and contest boundaries. Europe's ability to influence the course of this region, too, will be sharply limited. Political and demographic changes within Europe, as well as the United States, also ensure that the transatlantic alliance will lose prominence. In Europe, the E.U. project still consumes the attention of many, but for others, especially those in southern Europe facing unsustainable fiscal shortfalls, domestic economic turmoil takes precedence. No doubt, Europe's security challenges are geographically, politically and psychologically less immediate to the population than its economic ones. Mounting financial problems and the imperative to cut deficits are sure to limit what Europeans can do militarily beyond their continent. Moreover, intimate ties across the Atlantic were forged at a time when American political and economic power was largely in the hands of Northeastern elites, many of whom traced their ancestry to Europe and who were most interested in developments there. Today's United States — featuring the rise of the South and the West, along with an increasing percentage of Americans who trace their roots to Africa, Latin America or Asia — could hardly be more different. American and European preferences will increasingly diverge as a result. EFTA01074884  20 Finally, the very nature of international relations has also undergone a transformation. Alliances, whether NATO during the Cold War or the U.S.-South Korean partnership now, do best in settings that are highly inflexible and predictable, where foes and friends are easily identified, potential battlefields are obvious, and contingencies can be anticipated. Almost none of this is true in our current historical moment. Threats are many and diffuse. Relationships seem situational, increasingly dependent on evolving and unpredictable circumstances. Countries can be friends, foes or both, depending on the day of the week — just look at the United States and Pakistan. Alliances tend to require shared assessments and explicit obligations; they are much more difficult to operate when worldviews diverge and commitments are discretionary. But as the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya all demonstrate, this is precisely the world we inhabit. For the United States, the conclusions are simple. First, no amount of harping on what European governments are failing to do will push them toward what some in Washington want them to do. They have changed. We have changed. The world has changed. Second, NATO as a whole will count for much less. Instead, the United States will need to maintain or build bilateral relations with those few countries in Europe willing and able to act in the world, including with military force. Third, other allies are likely to become more relevant partners in the regions that present the greatest potential challenges. In Asia, this might mean Australia, India, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam, especially if U.S.-China relations were to deteriorate; in the greater Middle East, it could again be India in addition to Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and others. None of this justifies a call for NATO's abolition. The alliance still includes members whose forces help police parts of Europe and who EFTA01074885  21 could contribute to stability in the Middle East. But it is no less true that the era in which Europe and transatlantic relations dominated U.S. foreign policy is over. The answer for Americans is not to browbeat Europeans for this, but to accept it and adjust to it. Richard N. Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations. The director ofpolicy and planning at the State Departmentfrom 2001 to 2003, he is the author of "War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars." EFTA01074886 AniCIC 6. NYT Who Needs NATO? We All Do No H. Daalder June 17, 2011 — Has the Atlantic alliance outlived its usefulness? The British journalist and historian Geoffrey Wheatcroft raised that question in an opinion article on Thursday, commenting on the speech by Robert Gates in Brussels last week in which the outgoing U.S. defense secretary accused other members of the Atlantic alliance of not pulling their financial and political weight. No H. Daalder, the U.S. permanent representative to NATO, joins the debate. "Who needs NATO?" asks Geoffrey Wheatcroft. A good question, with a simple answer: We all do. NATO is, as President Obama has said, "the most successful alliance in human history." During its first 40 years, it won the Cold War. In the next 20, it secured an enduring European peace — not least by welcoming 12 new members through the enlargement process Mr. Wheatcroft so derides. And today, as its 28 leaders declared in Lisbon, "the alliance remains an essential source of stability in an unpredictable world." Today, more than 150,000 troops participate in six NATO operations on three continents. In Afghanistan, a NATO-led force made up of troops from 48 nations is helping to build security so that none of us will ever again be threatened by terrorists trained in secure safe havens in that war-torn country. In Libya, 17 allies and partner nations have taken on the new responsibility of helping the Libyan people determine their own destiny in an operation that prevents illicit flows of arms by air and EFTA01074887  23 sea, polices a no-fly zone, and protects civilians in Libya against attack by Muammar el-Qaddafi's brutal regime. At the same time, NATO is countering the scourge of piracy off the coast of Africa, and conducting counterterrorism activities in the Mediterranean. NATO is also training Iraq's security forces. And it continues its long-standing commitment to stabilize the Balkans. Today's NATO is an alliance that is busier than ever, an alliance that works with more partners than ever, and an alliance that is more needed by more people than ever. The reasons are clear. We live in a world of complex and unpredictable challenges and threats to security. In this world, the local has gone global. Cyberattacks transit time zones in nanoseconds — disrupting bank operations, government activities and even teenage gaming. Weapons of mass destruction and the means to make and deliver them are proliferating wide and far. Instability in distant countries enables transnational terrorist groups to find safe havens and launch attacks close to home. In such a world, we need strong alliances and partnerships — and none is stronger and more needed than today's NATO. That is why it is so important that all of the alliance's members invest in and possess the defense capabilities necessary to meet our collective responsibilities. As Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during his visit to Brussels last week, this should include serious efforts to protect defense budgets, coordinate procurement decisions, and follow through on our commitments to NATO and each other. Which brings us back to Mr. Wheatcroft's question. Although the Cold War is definitely over, we all still need NATO. Just ask the citizens of Libya and Afghanistan, and the peoples of Europe and North America, who are among the hundreds of millions relying on NATO to secure a peaceful present — and a better future. EFTA01074888  24 The Washington Post Where will Zawahiri take al-Qaeda? Peter Bergen June 18 -- There's nothing like finally getting the top job after a decade of faithfully playing second fiddle to a high-profile boss. But for al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri, the dour Egyptian surgeon and longtime deputy to Osama bin Laden, succeeding his old leader comes with an unexpected challenge: His predecessor, it turns out, has gifted him a bit of a lemon. In recent years, al-Qaeda has become the Blockbuster Video of global jihad. The organization and brand are in deep trouble, and Zawahiri is quite unlikely to become the leader who can turn things around. Al-Qaeda is peddling an ideology that has lost much of its purchase in the Muslim world, and it hasn't mounted a successful terrorist attack in the West since the July 7, 2005, transportation bombings in London. The terrorist network's plots, for instance, to blow up seven American, British and Canadian planes over the Atlantic in 2006, to set off bombs in Manhattan in 2009, and to mount Mumbai-style attacks in Europe a year later all came to nothing. Most notably, it hasn't carried out a successful attack in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. This significant record of failure predates the momentous events of the Arab Spring — events in which al-Qaeda's leaders, foot soldiers and ideas played no role. Meanwhile, U.S. drone strikes have decimated the bench of al- Qaeda's commanders since the summer of 2008, when President George W. Bush authorized a ramped-up program of attacks in Pakistan's tribal regions. And in the two most populous Muslim nations — Indonesia and Pakistan — favorable views of bin Laden EFTA01074889  25 and support for suicide bombings dropped by at least half between 2003 and 2010. The key force behind this decline has been the deaths of Muslim civilians at the hands of jihadist terrorists. The trail of dead civilians from Baghdad to Jakarta and from Amman to Islamabad over the past decade has largely been the work of al-Qaeda and its allies. Though jihadist groups position themselves as the defenders of the Islamic faith, it has become clear that their actions are quite damaging to Muslims themselves. Conscious of this problem, in December 2007 Zawahiri and his handlers took the unprecedented step of soliciting questions from anyone over the Internet; the al-Qaeda leader answered them four months later. It did not go well. Someone identifying himself as a geography teacher asked: "Excuse me, Mr. Zawahiri, but who is it who is killing with Your Excellency's blessing the innocents in Baghdad, Morocco and Algeria? Do you consider the killing of women and children to be jihad?" Zawahiri responded that he could justify al-Qaeda's killings of Muslim civilians, and he did so defensively in dense, recondite passages that referred to other dense, recondite things he had already said about the matter. This exchange only confirmed Zawahiri's shortcomings, especially compared with his predecessor. Far from being the inspiring orator that bin Laden was, Zawahiri is much more like the pedantic and long-winded uncle who insists on regaling the family at Thanksgiving dinner with accounts of his arcane disputes with obscure enemies no one else cares about. Not only is Zawahiri a black hole of charisma, he is an ineffective leader who is not well-regarded or well-liked even by the various jihadist groups from his native Egypt. And his half-dozen public disquisitions over the past several weeks about the events of the Arab EFTA01074890  26 Spring have been greeted by a well-deserved collective yawn in the Middle East. Zawahiri's persona makes a real difference to the future of al-Qaeda, whose members have sworn a personal religious oath of obedience to bin Laden. It's far from clear how many of them will automatically transfer that oath to Zawahiri. Moreover, al-Qaeda's regional affiliates —al-Qaeda in Iraq, the North African al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia's al-Shabab— all pledged allegiance to bin Laden when they became part of the network. And while al- Qaeda in Iraq swore loyalty to Zawahiri in a May 9 statement, the others may not agree to shift their fealty to him. When bin Laden's followers have described their feelings for him, it has been with love. Abu Jandal, a Yemeni who became one of his bodyguards, described his first meeting with bin Laden in 1997 as "beautiful" and said he came to look on him "as a father." Shadi Abdalla, a Jordanian who was also one of bin Laden's bodyguards, explained his boss's attraction: "A very charismatic person who could persuade people simply by his way of talking. One could say that he `seduced' many young men." There is no evidence to suggest that Zawahiri inspires similar feelings. More often he comes off as a classic middle manager, as when he complained in a pre-9/11 memo, later discovered in Afghanistan, that al-Qaeda members in Yemen had spent too much money on a fax machine. One sign of his potential flaws as al-Qaeda's new leader is that, despite the fact that Zawahiri had been bin Laden's deputy since 2001, it took more than six weeks for the group to announce his ascension to the top spot — a delay that does not indicate a large pool of goodwill toward him within the terrorist organization. EFTA01074891  27 Despite all of Zawahiri's drawbacks and the serious institutional problems he inherits, there are some opportunities for him to help resuscitate al-Qaeda. As the Arab Spring turns into a long, hot and violent summer, Zawahiri will try to exploit the regional chaos to achieve his central goal: establishing a new haven for al-Qaeda. The one place he might be able to pull this off is Yemen. Many of al- Qaeda's members, like bin Laden himself, have roots in Yemen, and U.S. counterterrorism officials have identified the al-Qaeda affiliate there as the most dangerous of the group's regional branches. And the civil war now engulfing the country has already provided an opportunity for jihadist militants to seize the southern town of Zinjibar. Surely al-Qaeda will want to build on this feat in a country that is the nearest analogue today to pre-9/11 Afghanistan: a largely tribal, heavily armed, dirt-poor nation scarred by years of war. After the attacks of Sept. 11, Zawahiri wrote in his autobiography that al-Qaeda's most important goal was to seize control of significant territory somewhere in the Muslim world. He explained that "without achieving this goal our actions will mean nothing more than mere and repeated disturbances." He may have a chance to achieve it, but given his personal shortcomings, questionable leadership skills and deteriorating institutional brand, there is little reason to suppose that Zawahiri will be able to do so — even in the failing Yemeni state. Peter Bergen is the director of national security studies at the New America Foundation and the author of "The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and al-Qaeda." EFTA01074892