February 3, 2016
The Middle East: The Road Ahead
Deborah Amos
Visiting Professor of Journalism at Princeton University
and International Correspondent, NPR
The Middle East: The Road Ahead
Deborah Amos
Visiting Professor of Journalism at Princeton University
and International Correspondent, NPR
Deborah Amos, Speaker
Minutes of the 18th Meeting of the 74th Year
The 18th meeting of the 74th year of The Old Guard of Princeton was called to order by President Owen Leach at 10:15 a.m. on Feb. 3, 2016. Roland Miller led the invocation, and minutes of the Jan. 27 meeting were read by Larry Parsons. There were 121 attendees.
Five members introduced guests: David Mulford introduced David Youmans; John Burton, Janet Burton; Jerry Berkelhammer, Sheila Berkelhammer; Dick Scribner, David Long; and John Kelsey, Philip Haimm.
Landon Jones introduced the speaker, Deborah Amos, who is a Visiting Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton. Amos has had a distinguished career primarily with NPR, where she reports on the Middle East. She is the author of two books and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her awards include the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, the George Foster Peabody Award and the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013 she was honored by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for her coverage of the Syrian uprising.
It was noted that this is Amos’s second appearance before The Old Guard and complimented her on how predictive she was in her April 2012 talk. In that presentation, she stated that Syria would break apart, the refugee crisis was inevitable, that ISIS would spur widespread crisis, and that Turkey would emerge as one of the major powers in the region.
Amos began her speech today by saying that she didn’t recall being so predictive but at that time she did have a more optimistic viewpoint about the region. There was still what she called heat in the Arab Spring, a movement that was led by educated people seeking fairness. Those initial demonstrators were not interested in radicalism; rather they wanted to be connected to the world.
Four years later, she said, the state of the Middle East is much darker, the result of the cumulative consequences of multiple failures. The state system formed after World War I is unraveling. Countries like Iraq and Syria appeared to be functioning entities when she last spoke and are now hollow shells. Those states, she reminded us, were formed by the English and the French through secret agreements that furthered their respective interests. Today those European constructions are being reorganized into sectarian enclaves.
Repressive regimes, particularly those in Iraq and Syria, have spawned radicalism. Furthermore, the collapsing governmental authority throughout the region has created an anarchy that empowers Islamists. The movement behind the Arab Spring no longer exists and ISIS has emerged in its place. It is remarkably resilient, as strong today as when it entered Mosul in 2014.
While the borders of a century ago ostensibly remain in place, the citizens in those countries have not. This, Amos feels, is the story that defines our time, not the militancy of ISIS.
There is, she emphasized, an unprecedented movement of people spilling over borders from the epicenters of the deadly chaos in Syria, Libya and Iraq. More than 4.5 million Syrians are believed to have fled the country, a fifth of the prewar population. Another eight million are internally displaced and, it is assumed, desperately seeking ways to leave.
The exodus cannot be stopped because the refugees understand something that has not gotten through either to European or American policymakers. Even if the Syrian war ended tomorrow, it will be decades – maybe even generations – before Syria will be a functioning country. Seventy percent of the housing stock has been destroyed and the bombing continues. As Amos put it, “There is no point in hanging around.”
The countries that have hosted the refugees, primarily Turkey and Jordan, are out of patience with an international system that has left them to provide for a crisis not of their making. The United Nations is trying to raise $7 billion to ease the situation. Meanwhile, Oxfam has constructed a suggested contribution list based on each country’s economy. Surprisingly, Kuwait is at the top of the list of current donors, Norway is second and the United States is fourteenth, with Russia at the bottom.
While the Russians have not contributed money, they have supplied warplanes delivering overwhelming strikes that are destroying villages and towns. This new ingredient enriches a recipe for endless war – with no possible diplomatic solution.
On that note, Amos concluded her talk and devoted the remaining 40 minutes of the meeting to questions and answers. A summary of the discussions follows.
As she did in the early part of her presentation, Amos emphasized that the national borders drawn up after World War I to create spheres of influence for Great Britain and France in the Middle East did not then and to this day do not reflect the reality on the ground. But any attempt to change those borders today will open up the proverbial can of worms. Fiddle with one border, she said, and all borders come into question.
According to Amos, the spark that started the current conflagration was the American invasion of Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, many in Syria hoped that the Assad dictatorship would be the next to go. Assad, however, did not act alone but was part of what Amos termed Assad Inc., a group with common interests. Their motto is: Hit them hard; if that doesn’t work, hit harder. When the rebellion began, more in the guise of a peace movement, Assad released jihadists from his jails and set them loose. They turned on a population that was the most educated and sophisticated in the Middle East.
Amos emphasized that while borders won’t move, people will. The millions of Syrians fleeing their country will have a profound effect on countries throughout the Middle East as well as on members of the European Union. In the Middle East, the Syrians in Jordan are already balancing the Palestinian presence. There are close to two million Syrians in Turkey now, and the road for their citizenship is being eased because it is assumed they will vote for the AKP Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The European Union, on its part, has no collective policy in place to deal with the hordes that are swarming through each country’s borders. Europe, Amos feels, will be changed by this influx. The Union is going to have to find ways to assimilate the newcomers and there will be terrible bumps along the way. She believes the United States is a role model in assimilating Muslim populations.
With the great majority of current Syrian refugees from the educated upper and middle classes, their talents and backgrounds are filling vital roles in European economies. Germany, in particular, has been welcoming the skills and training of Syrian engineers. Until the current turmoil, Syrian trained doctors were a major export to other countries. One doctor told Amos that they were known as the Harvards of the medical profession. Amos noted that he obviously made a mistake and meant to say the Princetonians.
Amos said that this is basically a conflict between the two major Middle East powers: Iran, center of the Shiite people, and Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni nation. The conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen are but proxy battles in the power struggle between the two. Nothing will be solved until Iran and Saudi Arabia work something out.
When asked about Putin’s involvement, Amos replied that we attach great brilliance to someone we can’t figure out.
So what can the United States do? Basically, not much aside from providing money and accepting refugees. Our air campaign is no more than a holding pattern. Amos disparaged the advocacy by one candidate for the American presidency for carpet bombing the area under ISIS control. The Russians, she noted, are engaged in just such a tactic (primarily focusing on rebels to the Assad regime) without any clear results. Wholesale slaughter will not work.
The current feeling among experts in the United States is that if Syria – as epitomized by Assad -- goes, ISIS comes in. And nothing is going to stop the movement of refugees.
Amos titled her talk The Middle East: The Road Ahead. At the close of her comments, it appears the road is completely damaged and road-repair crews are not in sight.
Respectfully submitted,
Patricia A. Taylor
Five members introduced guests: David Mulford introduced David Youmans; John Burton, Janet Burton; Jerry Berkelhammer, Sheila Berkelhammer; Dick Scribner, David Long; and John Kelsey, Philip Haimm.
Landon Jones introduced the speaker, Deborah Amos, who is a Visiting Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton. Amos has had a distinguished career primarily with NPR, where she reports on the Middle East. She is the author of two books and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her awards include the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, the George Foster Peabody Award and the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2013 she was honored by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for her coverage of the Syrian uprising.
It was noted that this is Amos’s second appearance before The Old Guard and complimented her on how predictive she was in her April 2012 talk. In that presentation, she stated that Syria would break apart, the refugee crisis was inevitable, that ISIS would spur widespread crisis, and that Turkey would emerge as one of the major powers in the region.
Amos began her speech today by saying that she didn’t recall being so predictive but at that time she did have a more optimistic viewpoint about the region. There was still what she called heat in the Arab Spring, a movement that was led by educated people seeking fairness. Those initial demonstrators were not interested in radicalism; rather they wanted to be connected to the world.
Four years later, she said, the state of the Middle East is much darker, the result of the cumulative consequences of multiple failures. The state system formed after World War I is unraveling. Countries like Iraq and Syria appeared to be functioning entities when she last spoke and are now hollow shells. Those states, she reminded us, were formed by the English and the French through secret agreements that furthered their respective interests. Today those European constructions are being reorganized into sectarian enclaves.
Repressive regimes, particularly those in Iraq and Syria, have spawned radicalism. Furthermore, the collapsing governmental authority throughout the region has created an anarchy that empowers Islamists. The movement behind the Arab Spring no longer exists and ISIS has emerged in its place. It is remarkably resilient, as strong today as when it entered Mosul in 2014.
While the borders of a century ago ostensibly remain in place, the citizens in those countries have not. This, Amos feels, is the story that defines our time, not the militancy of ISIS.
There is, she emphasized, an unprecedented movement of people spilling over borders from the epicenters of the deadly chaos in Syria, Libya and Iraq. More than 4.5 million Syrians are believed to have fled the country, a fifth of the prewar population. Another eight million are internally displaced and, it is assumed, desperately seeking ways to leave.
The exodus cannot be stopped because the refugees understand something that has not gotten through either to European or American policymakers. Even if the Syrian war ended tomorrow, it will be decades – maybe even generations – before Syria will be a functioning country. Seventy percent of the housing stock has been destroyed and the bombing continues. As Amos put it, “There is no point in hanging around.”
The countries that have hosted the refugees, primarily Turkey and Jordan, are out of patience with an international system that has left them to provide for a crisis not of their making. The United Nations is trying to raise $7 billion to ease the situation. Meanwhile, Oxfam has constructed a suggested contribution list based on each country’s economy. Surprisingly, Kuwait is at the top of the list of current donors, Norway is second and the United States is fourteenth, with Russia at the bottom.
While the Russians have not contributed money, they have supplied warplanes delivering overwhelming strikes that are destroying villages and towns. This new ingredient enriches a recipe for endless war – with no possible diplomatic solution.
On that note, Amos concluded her talk and devoted the remaining 40 minutes of the meeting to questions and answers. A summary of the discussions follows.
As she did in the early part of her presentation, Amos emphasized that the national borders drawn up after World War I to create spheres of influence for Great Britain and France in the Middle East did not then and to this day do not reflect the reality on the ground. But any attempt to change those borders today will open up the proverbial can of worms. Fiddle with one border, she said, and all borders come into question.
According to Amos, the spark that started the current conflagration was the American invasion of Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, many in Syria hoped that the Assad dictatorship would be the next to go. Assad, however, did not act alone but was part of what Amos termed Assad Inc., a group with common interests. Their motto is: Hit them hard; if that doesn’t work, hit harder. When the rebellion began, more in the guise of a peace movement, Assad released jihadists from his jails and set them loose. They turned on a population that was the most educated and sophisticated in the Middle East.
Amos emphasized that while borders won’t move, people will. The millions of Syrians fleeing their country will have a profound effect on countries throughout the Middle East as well as on members of the European Union. In the Middle East, the Syrians in Jordan are already balancing the Palestinian presence. There are close to two million Syrians in Turkey now, and the road for their citizenship is being eased because it is assumed they will vote for the AKP Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The European Union, on its part, has no collective policy in place to deal with the hordes that are swarming through each country’s borders. Europe, Amos feels, will be changed by this influx. The Union is going to have to find ways to assimilate the newcomers and there will be terrible bumps along the way. She believes the United States is a role model in assimilating Muslim populations.
With the great majority of current Syrian refugees from the educated upper and middle classes, their talents and backgrounds are filling vital roles in European economies. Germany, in particular, has been welcoming the skills and training of Syrian engineers. Until the current turmoil, Syrian trained doctors were a major export to other countries. One doctor told Amos that they were known as the Harvards of the medical profession. Amos noted that he obviously made a mistake and meant to say the Princetonians.
Amos said that this is basically a conflict between the two major Middle East powers: Iran, center of the Shiite people, and Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni nation. The conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen are but proxy battles in the power struggle between the two. Nothing will be solved until Iran and Saudi Arabia work something out.
When asked about Putin’s involvement, Amos replied that we attach great brilliance to someone we can’t figure out.
So what can the United States do? Basically, not much aside from providing money and accepting refugees. Our air campaign is no more than a holding pattern. Amos disparaged the advocacy by one candidate for the American presidency for carpet bombing the area under ISIS control. The Russians, she noted, are engaged in just such a tactic (primarily focusing on rebels to the Assad regime) without any clear results. Wholesale slaughter will not work.
The current feeling among experts in the United States is that if Syria – as epitomized by Assad -- goes, ISIS comes in. And nothing is going to stop the movement of refugees.
Amos titled her talk The Middle East: The Road Ahead. At the close of her comments, it appears the road is completely damaged and road-repair crews are not in sight.
Respectfully submitted,
Patricia A. Taylor