The ten Nile riparian states once again failed to ratify the Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement, which would establish a permanent body to oversee water development and allocation along the African river.  Representatives held several contentious meetings in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria this week. Negotiations that stretched for more than a decade over the terms of the new agreement have stalled because of Egypt’s refusal to give up its power over how much water is used by countries further upstream. Under a 1929 agreement between Great Britain—acting on behalf of its East African colonies—and Egypt, Cairo gets to veto projects that would affect its water share of 55.5 billion cubic meters a year, the bulk of the river’s 84 billion cubic meters annual flow. Earlier meetings held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May failed when Egypt objected to the proposed framework. And it doesn’t seem that Egypt is giving in. Recently, Egyptian water minister Mohamed Nasreddin Allam told reporters “it doesn’t matter if they [other Nile basin countries] are convinced. It matters that we are convinced.” Egyptian leaders have occasionally threatened to use military force against any nation that would threaten its water security. This is causing a lot of resentment among upstream nations, which fear missing critical development goals should a more equitable water rights protocol that allows for investments in massive new irrigation projects not be signed. The World Bank, UNDP, and a number of other international development agencies have intervened on numerous occasions to facilitate the negotiations process, but success ultimately hinges on Egypt’s willingness to compromise. Despite its near monopoly over the Nile river, Egypt already lies below the per capita water poverty line and is expected to suffer from water shortage in less than a decade. In the end, one thing is clear, the failure to conclude a new protocol which would allow for a more sustainable and equitable use of the Nile’s resources could undermine the water interests of all the countries concerned. Already, declining rainfall and increased use due to population growth and industrial development are causing severe declines in the water levels of Lake Victoria and Lake Tana, the two main sources of water for the Nile.

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In recent months, a number of journalists and analysts have turned the much discussed instability in Yemen into a warning against the possibility of the rise of an Afghanistan-type conflict in the Arabian Peninsula. Accurately pointing out that all was not well on the southern borders of the world’s leading petroleum producer—Saudi Arabia, these warnings hit a major nerve. U.S. aid to Yemen is projected to reach record heights. The Pentagon is allocating $66 million in military aid and Congress’ Foreign Operation Appropriation bill includes an additional $15 million in military aid and $40 million in development and economic aid. The primary source of worry is the apparent resurgence of al-Qaeda militants in the country. Following the 2006 prison break of 23 al-Qaeda militants– among them Jamal Ahmad Badawi and Jaber al-Banna who are on the U.S. most wanted, radical Islamist groups have been consolidating their efforts under the leadership of Nasir al-Wahayshi, a former secretary of Osama bin Laden. Reportedly, al-Qaeda in Yemen has merged with the Saudi Arabian branch and formed al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Earlier this year, al-Qaeda suicide bombers targeted South Korean tourists. The group has also attempted to carry out attacks on oil and gas facilities in Marib and Hadhramaut. There is also a serious concern that the growing inability of the Yemeni government to effectively control the country’s remote tribal areas might turn them into safe havens for militants operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But the real problems in Yemen have little to do with al-Qaeda. According to Yemen expert Greg Johnsen, for Yemen, al-Qaeda’s threat “is nowhere near as pressing as the uprising in the North or as threats of secession from the South.” Indeed, the Yemeni government’s real war is with Northern Shiite rebels and Southern secessionists. The four year old Sa’ada War in the North has been particularly brutal and has forced nearly 200,000 people to flee their homes. Government forces have used collective punishment methods including economic sanctions to pressure villagers to turn over rebel fighters. In the south, popular unrest and political instability have been brewing for close to two years. The tension has been escalating in the last month, around 18 protestors were killed on July 23rd alone. Rather than pouring money into the Yemeni government’s coffers, Washington would do well to persuade its leadership to begin addressing the grievances that are fueling popular discontent in its Northern and Southern provinces, and are threatening to tear the country apart.

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http://www.newsweek.com/id/208125

Every once in a while, a kidnapping or a firefight reminds the world that the two parties governing the Palestinians really don’t get along. Hamas won the parliamentary election in 2006 and seized control of Gaza in 2007. But Fatah, the party of Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, still controls the West Bank. Their squabbles—over control of fiefdoms like patronage networks and the police—have made headlines about the so-called crisis in Palestinian leadership in the past.

But that fracas is obscuring the truly epic fight brewing among Palestinians. It’s not between Hamas and Fatah, it’s between Fatah and Fatah. The original liberation group—and the only Palestinian party that Israel (and the United States) will work with—is breaking apart, and it could set back Middle East peace by decades.

A power struggle inside Fatah has been brewing for years. Arafat’s death in 2004 left a power vacuum that Abbas has been struggling to fill. His failure to maintain Palestinian unity has sapped his support and respect inside his own movement. Seeing the president’s weakness, certain Fatah leaders based abroad—those critical of the 1993 Oslo accords that created the Palestinian Authority and returned PLO officials to the West Bank and Gaza—are trying to wrest power from him. But while the PLO’s political decisions (including foreign policy) are technically supposed to be cleared with some Fatah leaders abroad, Abbas in reality has cut them out of the loop. Resentment has been festering.

Things came to a head last week when Farouk Qaddumi, the secretary general of Fatah’s central committee—and the head of the PLO’s political department—accused Abbas and his former national security adviser, Mohammed Dahlan, of conspiring with Israel to assassinate Arafat. Qaddumi, the most senior Fatah leader still in exile, is the only surviving member of the five-man team that founded the group in Kuwait in 1959. At his press conference last Tuesday, he produced a transcript he claims to have obtained from Arafat before his death in 2004. It says that, in an undated meeting between Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the men discussed the possibility of killing Arafat and some senior Hamas officials.

Abbas, Dahlan, and other Qaddumi rivals say Qaddumi fabricated the document. They issued a statement calling it the “hysterical” product of a “sick mind”; they also announced an emergency meeting to discuss disciplinary action against him. They even suspended Al-Jazeera’s operations in the West Bank because of its coverage of the topic. But the alleged transcript has worried Palestinians about the stability of their leadership, and with good reason: next month is Fatah’s sixth-ever General Congress, a summit to clarify principles and assign leadership roles. For Palestinian Authority officials, everything is at stake.

Qaddumi had hoped to use the conclave—the first in 20 years—to reify and remind Abbas of his power. But in a sly preemptive move, Abbas scheduled the meeting inside the West Bank, where Qaddumi has refused to set foot in protest of Oslo. (He claims holding Fatah’s convention in the “arms” of the occupation will undermine its legitimacy and compromise its outcome.) That means Qaddumi—and his supporters still in exile—can’t compete for seats on the 21-member central committee or the 100-member revolutionary council. If the Diaspora holdouts have trouble influencing Palestinian politics now, they’ll be out of business when Abbas controls both the government and the political body.

If the Fatah rivalry looks like one between insiders (who run the Palestinian Authority) and outsiders, another important divide has risen up in recent years: between those who support Abbas’s unbending position on Hamas and those who want unity. The Qaddumi episode was indicative of the first struggle. But the second one bubbles up from time to time. In 2007, for example, top presidential aide Hani al-Hasan was dismissed when he told Al-Jazeera that the government was conspiring with Americans and Israelis to destroy Hamas.

Although al-Hasan was dismissed from his post, he represents an increasingly popular position inside of Fatah, as its members realize that the conflict with Hamas undermines the Palestinian cause. Even if Qaddumi can’t win back any power, he can make the locals second-guess their leader—and his uncompromising position on Hamas. By putting the credibility and legitimacy of the Palestinian presidency in doubt, unresolved rivalries within Fatah could empower Hamas and steer it toward a position of dominance in Palestinian politics. If that happens, no amount of exhortation from world powers—even Israel’s closest friends—will persuade Israel to deal with the Palestinians. What looks like petty internecine politics could be the nail in the coffin of Palestinian statehood.

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Qatari and Sudani officials have announced that peace talks between the government in Khartum and rebel groups in the Darfur province are expected to resume in Doha in the near future. Earlier this year, Qatar sponsored a “good will” agreement between the Sudani government and a number of major rebel groups led by the Justice and Equality Movement. The Qatari government has also been mediating talks between Sudan and Chad to ease tensions and facilitate the normalization of relations.

For the past few years, Qatar has been carving out a greater diplomatic role in the Middle East and beyond by initiating and engaging in a number of mediation efforts between rival factions in Lebanon and Palestine, and between the central government and rebel groups in Sudan and Yemen. Although there has been little progress on the Palestinian front, Qatar’s diplomatic efforts received a fair reward when Lebanese leaders from the ruling coalition and the Hizbollah-led opposition signed the Doha Agreement of May 2008, ending an 18-month political stalemate in Lebanon. Qatar has also become an important actor in international efforts to bring an end to the Houthi rebellion in northern Yemen. In summer of 2007, Qatar brokered a cease fire agreement between the government and the rebels. Although the agreement did not stem out violence, it established Qatar as the one international player most capable of persuading both sides to offer important concessions.

Qatar’s diplomatic success owes to its friendly relations with both the regional US-allied bloc–which includes Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, and its regional rivals Syria and Iran. It also helps that no one suspects Qatar of having a vested interest in changing the regional power structure, which makes the country a trusted mediator capable of reaching out to all parties including non-state actors like Hizbollah and Hamas. Finally, being one of the world’s largest natural gas exporters, Qatar has the financial leverage necessary to make all sides take its ideas seriously.

In international affairs, diplomatic influence and potential is commonly correlated with military and economic power. In the case of Qatar one is seeing a small state that is fully dependent on U.S. military protection, that has a GDP level tenth that of Iran’s and fifth that of Saudi Arabia’s, and that historically showed little interest in or capacity to intervene in regional affairs play an active and effective role in influencing and shaping regional conflicts. Indeed, U.S. officials would do well to include Doha on their regular Middle East visits, and to enlist Qatar’s help in their efforts to resolve some of the Middle East’s most troubling matters, including the continuing sectarian tensions in Iraq, and the nuclear power predicament in Iran.

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Before I relocated to Durham about six weeks ago, the mention of North Carolina was more likely to evoke images of sweet tea, tobacco plantations, and bluegrass music than ones of ozone emission regulations, deep-fried scorpions, and the Great Wall of China. Turns out I have found plenty of all those things through my fellowship at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and I can’t believe how quickly the time has passed.  I knew I was in for an interesting summer when I received word in April that I had been awarded a fellowship from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to research U.S.-China collaborative environmental protection efforts. A few weeks later I learned that I was also selected to participate in the Center for Global Partnership’s “Japan Travel Program for U.S. Future Leaders” in mid-August, which will bring together graduate students from a dozen U.S. international affairs schools for a tour of Japan and a series of meetings with Japanese officials, academics, and business leaders. More on that to come, but first, a recap of my first few weeks at the EPA.

Jiming Temple, Nanjing

Many people wonder why the EPA has a national research center in North Carolina. To make a long story short, JFK promised to bring some federal jobs to the state if they voted for him in the 1960s. Being located so far from Washington causes some occasional problems when business might be expedited by going to the Hill, but from a quality of life standpoint, almost everyone seems to agree that this is a really nice area. I live just south of Duke University, a beautiful campus in it’s own right, and we are surrounded by miles of lush green forests and plenty of lakes perfect for cooling off on the abundant hot southern summer days. The 30th Annual Festival on the Eno River brought some quality bluegrass and folk musicians to the area for a three day outdoor concert and crafts fair, and the Great Smoky Mountains just a few hours West represent one of the most botanically diverse regions in the world. It’s a perfect setting for an office focused on preserving the environment.

My first few weeks at work left me feeling like I had once again been suddenly immersed in a foreign language. As my NNEMS mentor at HEID-CIMG-OAQPS briefed me on NAAQS, RAQM, MOUs with the PRC’s MEP (formerly SEPA), and OTAG’s NOxBTP and SIP-Call, I wondered if perhaps I should have taken an internship in China where I was slightly more fluent in the local language. By now I can translate most of that alphabet soup: I work within the Climate, International and Multimedia Group (CIMG) in the Health and Environmental Impacts Division (HEID) of the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS). I am working on a report designed to explain to US and Chinese policy makers how environmental assessments are conducted and later used to craft policy in both countries. Focusing on transboundary air pollution issues, I wanted to present a case study of a regional air quality management assessment effort in each country and analyze the characteristics of each that led to tangible results. In the US, I am discussing the assessment program of the mid 1990s which led to an emissions trading system to combat ozone (a main component of smog) in 37 states east of the Mississippi. In China, I hoped to look at the clean air campaign enacted before and during the 2008 Olympic Games, but information on this program is still scant, for a variety of reasons… Necessarily, for a project of this scope I need some help.

Dinner with China's MEP

In late June, I joined a small delegation from the EPA on a trip to Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai. It was a whirlwind tour, with hardly any down time (though I did manage to sneak off to the Wangfujing Night Market once to sample those deep-fried scorpions). My primary reason for going was to meet with a graduate student at Peking University who had agreed to collaborate on the report and write the Chinese case study. We sat down together for two days and formulated an outline for the paper, learning a tremendous amount about comparative environmental policy in the process. I was also extremely fortunate to sit at the table for our delegation’s official visits. We met with officials from China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection and several regional Environmental Protection Bureaus to discuss current and proposed US-China joint projects, such as a pilot deployment at the 2010 Shanghai Expo of AIRNow-International, an air quality monitoring system modeled after the one currently in use in the US. We spoke with the European Commission’s delegation to China about multilateral environmental cooperation and the upcoming meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, and we were very grateful to get an “on the ground” perspective on the future direction of Chinese environmental policy in the next five year plan from a contact at the World Resources Institute. At all of our official visits, our Chinese hosts treated us to lavish banquets and genial conversation late into the night. It turned out that this is where much of our actual business transpired, over copious glasses of the local wine and carefully prepared delicacies, illustrating to me the importance of camaraderie in Chinese diplomacy. I could get used to this.

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When it comes to the possibility of an Israeli preemptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Washington seems to be a little confused. Vice President Joe Biden recently implied that the Obama administration would not try to stop Israel if it decided to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. “If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice,” said Biden. This was in line with remarks made by President Obama last May, in which he said that “they’re [Israelis] right there in range and I don’t think it’s my place to determine for the Israelis what their security needs are.” However, when asked this week whether his administration had given Israel a green light for such an attack, President Obama answered: “Absolutely not.” Considering that Israel has both the capacity and willingness to carry out a military attack against Iran, U.S. ambiguity should be a real cause for concern.
Many skeptics dismiss the possibility of a preemptive Israeli attack against Tehran based on the operational difficulties and risks involved. Nevertheless, the evidence shows that Israel is fully capable of carrying out a military mission of this nature. Over the past few years, Israel has purchased a considerable number of modified F-15s and F-16s fitted with special fuel tanks to carry out long-range air strikes. Israel’s Air Force has been conducting long-range training missions in the United States, Canada, and other countries. Only last year, Israel’s Air Force carried out a major military exercise over the eastern Mediterranean. The exercise included hundreds of combat aircrafts, helicopters, and refueling tankers that flew around 900 miles, the approximate distance between Israel and Iran’s enrichment plant at Natanz.
Israel’s ability to conduct long-range air strikes has been tested on several actual combat occasions during the past few years. Earlier this year, the Israeli Air Force carried out an air raid in a remote desert area in northern Sudan against a convoy of arms smugglers allegedly heading towards the Gaza strip. In September of 2007, Israeli jet fighters destroyed a suspected nuclear site in northern Syria, near the Turkish border. Indeed, for Israel’s military strategists, the long-range precision air strike is not a new or experimental tactic. Attacks of this nature provided an option that the country often deployed in dealing with adversaries, with examples including the bombing of the PLO headquarters in Tunis in 1985, the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, and the runways used by the Egyptian Air Force in 1967.
More importantly perhaps, Israel has shown that it is prepared to deal with the violent consequences of a possible military action against Iran. Last month, Israel carried out the largest and most comprehensive civil defense drill since its inception, which consisted of 5 days of simulated war with Hizbollah, Hamas, Syria, and Iran. This was preceded by an air force exercise, to practice deploying combat and transport aircraft for a major war on its southern and northern fronts.
Not only does the Israeli government have the technical and logistical capacity and combat experience to carry out a preemptive attack against Iran and the level of preparation necessary to deal with its consequences, but also the political conditions that make such an endeavor affordable. Over half (51%) of the Israeli public backs an immediate attack on the nuclear facilities of Iran according to a recent poll published by Tel Aviv University. According to an earlier survey commissioned by Bar-Ilan University, a vast majority (66%) of Israelis would support military action if international efforts failed.
Remarkably, despite its stated interest in a diplomatic solution with Tehran, the United States has refrained from asking Israel to abandon the idea of a preemptive military action. In fact, following his visit to Washington, Prime Minister Netanyahu was quick to declare that the United States and Israel see eye to eye when it comes to Iran. He has indicated on various occasions after his return that Israel will not hesitate to take actions into its own hands if international efforts fail to resolve this issue by the year’s end.
Unless the United States puts an end to the ambiguity of its position on Israel’s preemptive military plans, and unless Israel is persuaded to pull its finger off the trigger, another war in the Middle East may soon become unpreventable.

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It’s a humid Peloponnesian night. Warm and wet enough that at 11:00 pm the night’s air has overpowered our bus’s A/C system and left the passengers sweaty and exhausted. I’m on my way to Olympia right now, alongside an interesting cross section of masters and PhD students. We’re all in Greece to attend the Olympia Summer Seminar. Run by the Yale Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence and the University of Macedonia, the seminar brings together graduate students to study issues of identity and conflict. For all those interested here is the link to the seminar website: Olympia Summer Seminar 2009.

I spent the last few days in Athens, trying and failing to get over my jetlag. Its surprisingly difficult to adjust yourself to a new time zone when the night life stretches till dawn. I stayed with a Foreign Ministry friend of mine who proved to be a perfect tour guide to the city of Athens. We walked through the Acropolis and had a long conversation on the development of plasticity in ancient Greek sculpture, the importance of history education, the layout of Byzantine churches, and the beauty of the view. The long walkthrough the city gave a tantalizing impression of the vibrancy of the city. I look forward to getting back and exploring more.

Its been a while since I blogged so I’ll catch up on a few recent happenings. The M-Banking Conference went extremely well, with close to 300 attendees showing up. Not bad for a conference originally envisioned as a small meeting between Kenyan and American students. The students still came, but so did the Vice President of Kenya, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Central bank Governor, representatives from all the main Kenyan financial institutions and telecoms, and some key thought leaders in mobile and branchless banking. There is a Fletcher Feature here on the mobile banking conference.

I ended up getting an op-ed published while there, on mobile banking and money laundering. This links in with some ongoing research I’m doing on the use of m-banking systems by criminals. I’m getting some great cooperation from some key government officials and NGOs, and I look forward to sharing more on the research soon.

After the conference the Fletcher group got a chance to look at savings cooperatives in the Kibera district of Nairobi. Kibera is the second largest, and the oldest, slum in Africa. It was also the epicenter of Kenya’s post election violence. We met with several savings cooperatives members and got a chance to see how they worked. I’m not good on sitting in on long meetings, so I ended up wandering a bit, photographing and talking to the people I met. The majority of the guys I ended up talking to were security guards, who worked in downtown Nairobi. Many had migrated from the same village in the Rift Valley. I was fascinated to find out that they rented their houses, paying Ksh 700 per month. All of them also used the M-Pesa system to send money home, and they were emphatic about how much better M-Pesa was when compared to the old money transfer systems. In an interesting quirk of fate I ended up running into one of the guys a few days later, at his job as a security guard in an affluent market of Nairobi. We had a great chat before he had to get back to his 12 hour shift, patrolling the complex. More photos from the Kibera walk visit are here.

Anyways, I’ll leave it there for now. I’ll let you know in a few days how Olympia is, and where the rest of the summer is going to take me.

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