New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy | Podcasts

Lebanon: The Regime and Its Future After the Beirut Blast

Kamran Bokhari and Faysal Itani discuss Lebanon’s multiple crises and the Beirut port explosion that served as a culmination of the problems the country is facing.
Itani says the port explosion was the result of decades of corruption that led the Lebanese government and public services to failure. After the civil war, Lebanon functioned under an arrangement that was supposed to help the country transform to a liberal democracy, but that transformation never took place. Now, amid an unprecedented economic crisis, Itani says Lebanon is far from the path to recovery and is on the verge of becoming a “robber baron state” in which the elite divide the spoils of the economy and the population is left behind.
There is a chance that the Lebanese elite could change and work more to benefit the people, Itani says – either out of a sense of enlightened self-interest, or out of fear of the pressure rising from the streets in the form of growing opposition. Itani also says that while the government may be lost, the regime – the overall structure that keeps business as usual operating in Lebanon – is very robust.
Bokhari and Itani also discuss Hezbollah’s rise, its current role in both Lebanon and Syria, and how relations between Lebanon and Syria have morphed over the years.

The World When the United States is in Turmoil

Kamran Bokhari of the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy and Jacob Shapiro of Perch Perspectives touch on an array of topics, including how COVID has set the course for U.S.-China competition, the geopolitics of Black Lives Matter, and the shift toward a multipolar world. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated a handful of political forces that existed before the virus spread, Shapiro says, and locked the United States and China into a contentious relationship. Elsewhere in the world, the pandemic has created opportunities for some countries to strengthen their positions and in some cases form blocs with other nations as the world moves away from globalization and away from a situation in which the United States is the global superpower. The United States has abdicated its role as global leader, Shapiro says, and needs to look at internal issues like race relations in order to maintain a certain credibility on the world stage because the United States’ greatest strength is in leading by example rather than leading by coercion.

COVID-19 and Afghan Refugees: No Good Options

Millions of refugees were already in fragile situations before the pandemic began. Now with COVID-19 complicating access to healthcare and slowing the refugee and asylee pipelines to a trickle, displaced people face even more difficulties. Refugees and asylees understand the advent of COVID-19 increases their risk dramatically, both on the health front and related to their chances of accessing a secure living environment. Further, they are aware that common public health guidelines like social distancing and hand washing are not possible in crowded camps with limited facilities. Given the stark realities of being amongst the forced displaced during COVID-19, what options do refugees have, if any, and how can governments support them? Dina Dajani, Deputy Director of the Newlines Institute's Displacement and Migration Program, speaks with Devon Cone, Senior Advocate for Women and Girls at Refugees International, about these issues as they relate to refugees from Afghanistan.
Cone points out that Afghan refugees are the second largest refugee population in the world and one of the largest protracted refugee populations – refugees that have been displaced for a very long time. Afghan refugees have landed in many countries, with the majority in Iran and Pakistan. Iran and Pakistan are experiencing ongoing challenges containing the spread. Similar to refugee camps the world over, the camps in Iran and Pakistan have shortages of resources and space, leaving vulnerable Afghan refugees with limited access to health services. Facing ever increasing vulnerabilities in these camps, many Afghan refugees are choosing to leave camps to return to Afghanistan. However, this doesn’t count as repatriation, Cone says, which means people returning voluntarily and to a safe environment where they will not be persecuted. That is not the case in Afghanistan, which is one of the most dangerous countries in the world, she says.
Alternatively, the refugee camps on the Greek Islands are in relatively good shape in that there have not been any reported cases of COVID-19 in the camps yet, Cone says. However, there are still 40,000 people in overcrowded camps that lack sewage and running water and have inadequate healthcare. And because of restrictions created by the response to the pandemic, asylum seekers’ cases are not moving at all, so they are waiting in conditions that are ripe for an outbreak of COVID-19.
Cone says that to improve the situation for Afghan refugees, the United States could ensure that the assistance it gives other countries includes refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented refugees. She points out that there is a special visa program that focuses on Afghans who worked with the United States in support of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, and because of those actions it is no longer safe for them to be in their home country. She also says that while resettlement is likely to resume once COVID-19 travel restrictions ease up, the United States should allow more Afghan refugees into the country under its annual presidential determination.

The State of Negotiations for Peace in Afghanistan

The Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy is proud to release this Special Edition of its podcast series, The Lodestar, which is a joint production with the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies (NESA) at the National Defense University (NDU). Newlines Institute's Kamran Bokhari sat down with Hassan Abbas, NESA distinguished professor and Newlines Institute's Senior Fellow to discuss the state of negotiations for peace in Afghanistan. Abbas, who recently wrote a Special Analysis for Newlines on the subject, argues that all the regional players and outside stakeholders – including the United States, Russia, and China – need to have a seat at the table to negotiate with the Taliban.
Pakistan, India, Iran, China, Russia, and the United States are all involved in Afghanistan in some form, but all these players except the U.S. feel they have been left out of negotiations, Abbas says. Each one of these powers has developed its own ties to Afghanistan, whether in terms of alliances or investments. These ties have allowed them to try to push their own agendas within Afghanistan. Even Qatar has become involved, supporting the Taliban by providing them a base.
In the meantime, the Taliban have become a multitude, with various branches, Abbas says. There is more than one Taliban, and that will complicate matters for any parties trying to reach a peace deal in Afghanistan. Although Pakistan has supported the Afghan Taliban, they are not in control of the various segments of the Taliban.
India will play an important role in controlling Iran’s involvement in any Afghan peace talks in order to bridge the gap between Tehran and Washington. And of course, Russia and China’s involvement in peace negotiations would be very important from the U.S. security perspective.
Abbas says that the constant flux in Afghanistan shows that if all the stakeholders are not on the same page in working toward peace in the country, instability, chaos, and violence will continue.

A Strategic Net Assessment of Northwestern Syria

Kamran Bokhari sits down with Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, executive director of People Demand Change about developments in Syria, particularly the Idlib Province. Bokhari describes Idlib as a “multi-player battlespace,” where numerous different forces such as jihadists, Syrian rebels, Russians, and Syrian regime forces are at work.
Ghosh-Siminoff notes that it is important for people to grasp the complexities of Idlib, which has been under opposition control for about eight and a half years. Not only are numerous forces present in the area, but the opposition-controlled space known as Idlib actually contains bits and pieces of other provinces, and the space has expanded and retracted repeatedly. Ghosh-Siminoff points out that 3 million people are living in “Greater Idlib,” and between 60 and 80 percent of them are women and children. After the regime regained some territory, the area where these 3 million internally displaced persons are living is half what it once was.
Idlib has become something of a depository for defeated rebel fighters and others who remain unreconciled with the Syrian regime. The only choice they were given, Ghosh-Siminoff says, was to go to Idlib – an area that has been bombed repeatedly by Syrian and Russian forces. The years of bombing campaigns have wrecked the infrastructure in Idlib so that there is no healthcare system or educational system to speak of. Moreover, the makeup of the population of Idlib – mostly women and children – shows that the rationale for the continued bombings – that they are targeting terrorists – is spurious, Ghosh-Siminoff says: “This is about emptying a piece of geographic space of people who oppose the Assad regime.”
Turkey is in a difficult position; it has already taken in 3 million Syrian refugees, and economic and political factors make taking in another 3 million untenable. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in such a position that he cannot appear weak and cannot let these refugees into his country.
Russia’s long game in Syria likely involves using the ongoing conflict as a wedge to separate Turkey and the United States – if not to pry Turkey away from NATO entirely. The United States’ inaction, despite Turkey’s requests for guidance and a proactive solution to the Syria crisis, is a sore point for the Turkish government, as is Europe’s displeasure with taking in 800,000 refugees when Turkey has taken in millions, Ghosh-Siminoff says.
He also says that U.S. government officials argue that if the Assad regime falls without an organized opposition to take over or a plan for Syria’s future, the situation in Syria will be worse than it is now. However, Ghosh-Siminoff says, the inaction in Syria has created a crisis that has affected the entire Middle East and created unintended consequences for Europe’s political situation. Moreover, a lack of a solution in Syria has left an opening for Salafist-jihadist ideology to take over. As Syrians assess their situation and wonder why no one has helped them, why they were “trapped in this death camp that Syria has become,” Ghosh-Siminoff says, that ideology offers answers. He concludes by saying that leaving millions of young people at the mercy of that ideology will create a long-term security crisis.

Good Governance and the Problem of Islamism

Newlines Institute's Kamran Bokhari talks with Dr. Muqtedar Khan, Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware and a Newlines Institute Senior Fellow (2019-20), about his new book, Islam & Good Governance: A Political Philosophy of Ihsan.
Professor Khan says he was prompted to write the book by two factors. The first was a realization that bad governance is the reason why Muslim countries are in such bad shape -- something he says is reflected in millions of Muslims’ “voting by their feet” and leaving the Muslim world to live elsewhere. The second factor, Khan says, is that the desire to bring Islam into the public sphere has led to some “unfortunate experiments” like al Qaeda and the Islamic State, which have harmed not only Muslim societies but the broader world. The book articulates ways in which to bring Islam into the public sphere as a force for love and compassion rather than tension, Khan says.
Ihsan, Khan explains, is a concept that has been translated as meaning charity, compassion, generosity, and doing beautiful things; he takes it to mean “to worship Allah as if you see Him, and if you cannot see Him, recognize that He is seeing you.” Khan proposes in his book to take that concept and apply it to governance. Ihsan comes into play, he explains, when Muslims act out of love for God, not out of fear for God, as those who think of Allah as a “big brother waiting for you to do something wrong so He can send you to Hell.” Ihsan is a way to manifest God’s love and goodness in the world.
Dr. Khan discusses the Islamic resurgence -- the movement to “Make Islam Great Again,” which he compares to the “Make America Great Again” slogan in the United States. Rather than looking for a path to a better future, Islamists are turning to an imagined past glory of the Muslim world. As an example, Khan notes that Islamic universities are not marketed as being great research centers or places where problems like poverty can be solved; they are marketed as places where women will wear the hijab and men will learn Arabic and recite the Qu’ran. The focus is on external identity markers, Khan says, rather than on actions and solutions.
Khan says that he advocates for a secular state, where freedom is provided to everyone and where religious groups are free to make policy recommendations that would be welcome as long as they benefit everyone and are democratically agreed upon. He also notes that Islamists want to force their idea of Islam on others because they know it is not appealing. Democracy appeals to Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Jews, Khan says; a political philosophy that states a ruler has to come from a particular tribe is not appealing and is not a universal ideal.
Using Prophet Muhammad’s 10 years of rule in the city of Madinah as a model; Khan says the Prophet governed with consent, had a constitution and consulted the people. None of that fits with Islamists’ ideals. Khan says there is a fear of freedom in the Muslim culture, and that he wants people to live free from that fear and to exist in a state of ihsan -- “as if you have made eye contact with God.”