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Maya Yang

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The Key to Defeating ISIS: Ending Sunni Disenfranchisement

Since the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) formed in 2013, the United States has led a frontline fight alongside its allies to degrade and destroy the radical jihadist group. However, ISIS still persists throughout the region, and the US-led coalition’s strategy to defeat the group through primarily military means is flawed, especially where its inability to curb ISIS’s recruitment and outrageous collateral damage is concerned. The US-led coalition’s failures lie primarily in their historical lack of political coordination with the Sunnis. ISIS has thus been able to easily exploit this cleavage and deeply consolidate its roots in disenfranchised Sunni communities. Hence, to improve the effectiveness of the strategy against ISIS, the US-led coalition needs to learn from the past mistakes of Sunni disenfranchisement made by the Bush and Obama administrations, bolster the Sunni voices in Iraq and Syria calling for unity, and ultimately help re-create a strong notion of a unified Sunni community in the region. Only then can the US and its allies gain an upper hand in gradually squeezing out ISIS’s influence and its exploitation of these areas.

Thus far, the approaches taken by US leaders to quell terrorist recruitment have been ineffective because they have all generally lacked Sunni inclusion throughout the region. Since the 2003 Iraq War, both the short-sighted de-Baathification policies of the Bush administration’s state-building efforts and the Obama administration’s lackluster approach towards Syria allowed highly disenfranchised Sunnis in both nations to resort to ISIS for answers, inevitably increasing its influence and strongholds across the region.

After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the Bush administration introduced indiscriminate and ultimately detrimental de-Baathification policies. Over the course of a few years, the Iraqi government and military was swiftly purged of all remaining Sunni Baathists from the former regime. In turn, the US Coalition Provisional Authority installed exclusively Shia militias and officials into the government. Such a move quickly marginalized thousands of Sunnis once under Saddam Hussein. As a result, the then-developing militant Sunni group, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) conveniently capitalized on the widespread Sunni disenfranchisement and gained significant support and influence in the region, later rebranding itself into the Islamic State in 2013. The 2003 US-led Coalition Provisional Authority pursued de-Baathification as an attempt to eliminate all remaining Baathist influences from Saddam’s fallen regime in the country. Simultaneously, the Bush administration invited in some of the largest Shia militias of Iraq, who used the new government to further increase their own power in the country. As a consequence, Sunnis became incredibly frightened of being tied to Saddam Hussein and were soon treated as the enemy by the Shias ruling Iraq. Instigated by the US’s short-sighted rebuilding efforts, this overnight reversal of Iraq’s power dynamics drove victimized Sunnis to seek assistance from AQI, the emerging Iraqi affiliate of Al Qaeda that pledged to reassert Sunni control across the country. As increasing Sunnis regarded AQI as a necessary vehicle of protection, the jihadist group expanded and was eventually able to morph into the Islamic State of today.

The Bush administration’s offensive foreign policy created favorable conditions for the emergence of the Sunni military. However, the Obama administration’s passive attitude towards the Syrian civil war was ultimately responsible for allowing the Islamic State to capitalize on the disenfranchisement of “abandoned Sunnis.” Obama’s swift pullout from Iraq in 2012 was initially lauded as a productive step. Nancy Pelosi, the then House Minority Leader praised the move, stating that it honored “the US-Iraq Security Agreement and the wishes of the American people to bring all our troops home.” However, in hindsight Obama’s unwillingness to get involved in Syria has indisputably contributed to the further disenfranchisement of Syrian Sunnis and fuelled the growth of ISIS. Two years after the 2011 uprising, Sunnis harbored increasing hatred for the violently oppressive Assad regime.

During these early years, the Obama administration should have adopted a proactive approach towards Syria and committed its full support to moderate groups of the opposition in exchange for non-sectarian behavior. However, Obama’s refusal to intervene during those critical years conveniently gave more hardline jihadist groups an upper hand in recruitment. Disenfranchised Sunnis increasingly turned towards groups such as the Islamic State for sectarian solidarity and a means of protection, and the jihadist militancy managed to effectively broaden its influence and establish a de-facto capital in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa. As the Islamic State rapidly expanded, its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, flared the sentiments of Sunni disenfranchisement by proclaiming an alleged international conspiracy, accusing the West of encircling and beleaguering this majority sect of Islam. Thus far, the growing fear and beleaguerment felt by the Sunni community in Syria and other regions have served as nothing but ammunition for ISIS’s expansion. In fact, in July 2013, Syria’s then largest rebel faction, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), publicly expressed its willingness to cooperate with ISIS, stating, “ISIS are our brothers who came to help us in a time when other Islamic and Western countries kept silent about the regime’s crime” Once described as the “cornerstone brand of Syria’s moderate opposition, representing the original moderate vision of the revolution,” the FSA has become largely decentralized and currently faces great dysfunction within its ranks. Had the Obama administration crafted US foreign policy during the war’s early years to display a committed willingness to engage with and assist these and other moderate Sunnis in their fight against the Assad regime, they would likely have resisted the calls of extremist groups like ISIS for desperate solutions.

Hence, the new Trump administration needs to seriously modify the existing methods of the US-led coalition against the group and rally the Sunnis. As the frontrunner of this global fight, the United States should acknowledge the potential and importance of of Sunni Muslims in the region to serve as a vanguard proxy to fight the Islamic State. The US should work to help Iraq revive its notion of a resilient and united society from its weak sense of nationalism. This includes bolstering Sunni voices in the country that are already calling for national unity.

The Trump administration cannot afford to demonize Iraq and other Arab countries, as it did so with its repeated (but failed) travel ban attempts. By implementing these actions, the United States will further distance already frustrated Sunnis in fear of international beleaguerment and essentially sleepwalk into al-Baghdadi’s conspiracy. This will result in increased leverage for ISIS and the guaranteed failure of any future American approaches toward cooperating with the region’s Sunni Muslims.

As we witness rising aggression surrounding the Trump administration’s foreign policy, seen from the most recent slew of missile launches targeting Syrian governmental airbases as a response to the Khan Sheikhoun chemical gas attacks, as well as the largest non-nuclear bombings of ISIS caves in Afghanistan, it is clear that the US is taking a much more resolute stance against the Assad regime and ISIS itself. Nonetheless, exclusively resorting to military approaches will not yield any long-term results. Instead, the US needs to further rally the region’s Sunni Muslims in the fight against brutality and radical extremism. No matter what approach the US-coalition eventually settles on, one thing is certain: a continued American passiveness towards engaging with the Sunni community has already and will continue to embolden ISIS’s view that the West has little regard for these Muslims. As a result, Sunni disenfranchisement will continue to rise as it has done since the Iraq War.

The United States and its allies must shift their current approach. Only by acknowledging the disenfranchisement of Sunnis in the region and extending a genuine helping hand will there be any actual hope in degrading and destroying ISIS. In the meantime, ISIS will continue to exacerbate the region’s societal divisions and use the mass Sunni disenfranchisement as a feeding ground for its expansion.

May 3, 2017 0 comment

Photo: Assad crimes continue. A family is displaced to Qaa in Lebanon from Syria. Lost lives and childhoods. Freedom House via Flickr; goo.gl/08Mgih CC0 1.0

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Escape Into Exploitation: The Stark Reality of Syria’s Child Refugees

written by Maya Yang

Since the outbreak of the Syrian conflict that began over five years ago in 2011, 2.6 million children are no longer in school. Another 2.5 million are either living in squalid conditions as refugees in neighboring countries or are on the continuous run towards Europe, searching for a way to survive in the increasingly xenophobic continent. Unfortunately, recent media coverage has focused mainly on this year’s U.S presidential elections, often times with attention-grabbing headlines on Republican candidate and now President-elect Donald Trump’s most recent controversial statement, or Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s latest exposed scandal. As post-election protests, logistics and details about the presidential transition team take over news media, the loss of media coverage and interest in Syria’s “lost-generation” of child refugees threatens opportunities to support them, all while the U.S moves towards a more isolationist policy with the incoming Trump administration.

Jordan and Lebanon are amongst the top countries in the world for accepting most refugees over the past years. These two countries, along with France, are also are signatories of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Despite the Convention, Syrian child refugees are exploited illegally as child laborers by farmers and human trafficking rings in these countries. One of the major reasons for why such prevalent child refugee exploitation exists across these countries is because of weak and ineffective governmental oversight. In Jordan, the legal working age is sixteen. However, according to Tamkeen, a Jordan-based child development charity, approximately 46% of Syrian boys and 14% of Syrian girls at or below the age of fourteen are working more than 44 hours per week. As these children and their families are crowded into refugee camps across Jordan, they are often found selling vegetables on the streets and picking up litter from the sidewalks for very little to no pay at all. Similarly, in Lebanon, between 60-70% of Syrian refugee children below the age of eighteen are shining shoes, cleaning cars, working in construction industries, and providing “survival sex” in return for food, shelter, and employment. Across France’s refugee camps in Calais and Dunkirk, unaccompanied minors are forced to perform sexual services, often times for the hollow promise of a guaranteed passage to the UK. Others are trafficked into prostitution rings in Europe.

The common thread running through these various examples is vulnerability. These Syrian refugee children are often unaccompanied, do not have their rights as refugees clearly explained to them upon arrival to new countries, lack official guidance or supervision from camp officials, or remain separated from their families due to inefficient family reunion processes. Hence, they become exceptionally vulnerable and are at risk of exploitation. Thus, the international community, including NGOs, governments, and intergovernmental bodies urgently needs to modify current approaches and improve practices to create multi-dimensional mechanisms that ensure the full protection and accommodation of these child refugees.

Countries in Europe should alter policies surrounding the management of refugee influx near their borders. At the moment, as thousands of refugees wait in transit at borders for a few days to sometimes months, they become dangerously exposed to human traffickers who often prowl the borders. These traffickers regard frustrated and vulnerable refugees as prime sources of cheap physical and sexual labor. These refugees, especially unaccompanied children, may naively feel inclined to oblige to their demands and directions, in hopes of swifter solutions for their situations. Should these European countries alter their policies to allow quicker and more efficient processing of refugee statuses and smoother integration into societies, then refugees will no longer remain packed along borders. This will likely reduce their risk of becoming exploited by preying human traffickers. Furthermore, NGOs and local refugee camp officials must enhance their efforts to help refugee children understand the process of seeking asylum by clearly elaborating to them the process of seeking refugee status, the likely timeframes and criteria used throughout the decision-making process, as well as family reunion procedures. All of this information needs to be explained to these children in an understandable manner, preferably within the first few days of their arrival. By receiving a thorough briefing as early as possible, these child refugees will be equipped with all the vital pieces of information regarding their cases from the very beginning and will be less inclined to resort to human traffickers for supposedly swifter solutions.

In addition, countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey should extend their child protection and labor laws to Syrian refugee children as well. For instance, Lebanon’s child employment laws prohibit the employment of children below the age of thirteen, and requires medical documentation indicating the physical capabilities of a child above thirteen years old, prior to his or her hiring process. Furthermore, no child shall work more than six hours a day, and must be given at least one hour of break time should they work more than four hours a day. In countries where the exploitation of child refugees is highly prevalent, refugee children should also benefit from the countries’ rules concerning child protection services, children’s access to education and healthcare, and working regulations. After all, there is a difference between accepting these children by herding them in the nation’s camps, and accepting these children by fully integrating them into society and placing them under equal protection of child laws.

Furthermore, the international community should establish a financial institution, similar to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank, but exclusively for educational purposes. This institution should work with existing international organizations such as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to provide the finances that will focus on these organization’s projects concerning educational services for child refugees. In Lebanon this year, UNICEF has exceeded its goal of enrolling 87,150 child refugees in formal education and has enrolled 155,153. This success came directly from 73% of the $624.3 million appeal UNICEF received in 2014 and 2015. With the establishment of a financial institution that will provide funding specifically for refugee access to education, organizations like UNICEF will be able to receive the full amount of their appeals. After all, such an institution will help cover the remaining appeals that have not been fully met. This would thus enroll even more child refugees into schools and ensure increased access to other learning opportunities and resources. Moreover, such an institution should also provide financial grants to Syria’s neighboring countries to monetarily incentivise them to educate these displaced children in their own schools.

Lastly, governments should allocate inspectors to identify and halt crimes against child refugees occurring in refugee camps, on the streets, in the fields, and across borders. Frequent audits and statistics need to be released to inform the host societies on the progress being made regarding the accommodation of these child refugees in their countries. In addition, labor ministries of host countries should consider implementing harsher penalties on individuals or businesses found exploiting child refugees.

As the conflict in Syria rages on into its sixth year, the least the international community can do is shoulder the responsibility of protecting children fleeing the nation. These refugees may have no choice at the moment, but the rest of the world does. This includes altering repressive or lax policies to prevent these children from becoming more vulnerable and exposed to the risks of exploitation. After all, what is ultimately at stake is the survival of a mass generation of innocents who may soon become a lost one, should the world continue idly standing by.

December 11, 2016 0 comment

"President George W. Bush meets with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, 9/20/2001." Source

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JASTA: A Tragedy of American Hypocrisy, Sovereign Immunity, and International Relations

written by Maya Yang

In a rare show of bipartisanship on September 28 this year, the United States Congress overwhelmingly overrode President Obama’s veto of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). Congress ignored the president’s repeated warning that the bill would set a “dangerous precedent” for individuals and nations across the globe to sue the American government and its employees for overseas actions. US courts will now permit civil claims against foreign nations or officials for acts of terrorism on American soil, consequently dismissing foreign nations’ claims to sovereign immunity. Since fifteen of the nineteen terrorists involved in 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, JASTA allows families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi government for playing an alleged role in the attacks. The claim contains no grounds as the US 9/11 commision found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization.” JASTA reveals the longstanding American hypocrisy concerning sovereign immunity. In addition, it will have grave domestic and worldwide implications, such as potential reciprocal action from other nations, damaging a long-standing US-Saudi relation which has cooled significantly since the Iran Nuclear Deal. Ultimately, JASTA will also likely hinder urgent cooperative efforts against battling ISIS and resolving regional conflicts in the Middle East.

The US has long opposed international courts capable of holding the American military and citizens to a global standard of justice, primarily the International Criminal Court (ICC). In 2002, the Bush Administration passed the American Servicemembers Protection (ASP). This law, commonly labeled as the ‘Hague Invasion Act’ permits the use of military force to liberate American citizens held up by the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands. In addition, ASP threatens the withdrawal of US military forces from any country seeking to ratify the ICC’s treaty, the Roman Statute. The law also prohibits US contribution to UN peacekeeping missions unless the US is granted immunity from any form of prosecution. As other nations seek to “strengthen the rule of law,” the US has long protected itself from international prosecution, strong-arming and sculpting uniform global jurisdictive systems to its own liking. JASTA is just the latest legislation that sheds light on such hypocrisy and the double standard on international criminality the US upholds.

Furthermore, JASTA leaves the US more susceptible to reciprocal action from foreign nations and risks damaging US relations with the world. Repeated use of US drone-strikes in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, and Afghanistan could now result in these nations to consider these American acts of terrorism, subjecting the US to potential liability in foreign courts which often operate under different legal standards. Furthermore, with the enactment of JASTA, the US risks losing billions of dollars in investment from Saudi Arabia, one of its top trading partners. Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir threatened to sell up to $750 billion in Saudi treasury securities and other assets. Taking into account the fact that the US has been involved, be it militarily, economically, or politically in numerous countries, such a move by Saudi Arabia would likely diminish overall cooperation and confidence in the US around the globe. Countries may become wary of furthering ties with the US, as JASTA waives their claims to sovereign immunity. Abdullatif al-Zayani, Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), condemned JASTA, labelling it “contrary to the foundations and principles of relations between states and the principle of sovereign immunity enjoyed by states.” Even Russia and the European Union (EU) strongly condemned the legislation, with the Russian foreign ministry stating, “The United States, where many politicians have come to believe in their own ‘uniqueness,’ insistently continues along the line of extending its jurisdiction to the entire world, disregarding the notions of state sovereignty and common sense.” A spokesperson of the EU said, “We do not believe the approach set out in the JASTA is in the interest of either the EU and US.” JASTA will most likely set off a reciprocal jurisdiction warfare against the US, putting its employees abroad in positions of vulnerability and damaging its foreign ties, as seen from the swift international denunciation of the legislation.

While JASTA may result in mostly domestic repercussions, it will also have implications for its specifically targeted nations, such as Saudi Arabia. Tensions between the United States and Saudi Arabia have remained high since the signing of the Iran Nuclear Deal, which the Saudis see as an American pivot to its longtime regional nemesis. The enactment of JASTA is very ill-timed for Saudi Arabia, which is currently pursuing its Vision 2030 – an economic blueprint for the nation aimed at decreasing its dependency on oil by increasing non-oil revenue. Vision 2030 has already attracted significant American interest from large corporations, economists, and financiers. Talks earlier this year in June between the American government’s economic team and the Saudi Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources addressed the importance of oil and energy, two resources serving as major cornerstones of bilateral economic relations.

Saudi Arabia currently does not need any hiccups in improving bilateral relations with the US, especially while initiating its national transformation plan that depends significantly on foreign investors. Therefore, with the enactment of JASTA and the Saudi threat to sell billions of dollars in assets in the US, the Arab nation is put in a highly complicated situation. Saudi Arabia is now faced with the choice of continuing its pursuit of open ties with the US, a nation that has waived its sovereign immunity rights through JASTA, and consequently risk domestic and international audience costs, or carrying forth with its threat and risk the loss of major American investors in this critical time. Of course, while Saudi Arabia has numerous business partners in Asia and Europe, the United States still remains one of its top major trading partners. Hence, the passage of JASTA significantly complicates the longstanding question on the table — whether the US needs Saudi Arabia more or the contrary.

Yet, beyond these legal and economic repercussions, the more urgent reality that could be gravely damaged by JASTA is the necessity for Saudi cooperation with the US in resolving regional issues. The US needs Saudi Arabia and its counterterrorism intelligence in combatting the Islamic State, resolving the Syrian and Yemen wars, and bringing about some form of “cold peace” to the region with Saudi Arabia’s regional enemy, Iran. Without Saudi Arabia, the US would face greater challenges from countries with highly differing foreign policies, such as Turkey and Russia, when attempting to resolve these issues on international platforms. JASTA may possibly deliver a major blow to the long-standing US-Saudi alliance, however strained it may already be, thus hindering the two major nations’ overall efforts in seeking solutions to the multitude of issues in the Middle East. Furthermore, as JASTA potentially fuels existing anti-American sentiment in the Arab world, the US must take into account that Saudi Arabia still remains the home of the fundamentalist branch of Islam, Wahhabism, which has cultivated numerous extremists the US desperately tries to defeat. Needless to say, it does not take an expert to comprehend the dangers this may result in.

With its exposure of flagrant American hypocrisy surrounding sovereign immunity, the possibility of putting Americans at home and abroad at risk, and the potential disruptions and tensions in the international community it may cause, JASTA is simply just not the best way at all to stand in solidarity with 9/11 families.

October 15, 2016 1 comment