© REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

In the summer of 2014 Iraq was teetering on the brink of the abyss: a few hundred fighters from the so-called Islamic State (IS) launched an attack on Mosul in June, threatening even Baghdad.

Their progress was halted when Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa calling on Iraqis to repel the invasion, but IS’s advance forced Western powers to confront the possibility of a permanent terrorist sanctuary in the Middle East. This raised the question of what could be done in response, with the United States withdrawing from nation-building, the UN reluctant to intervene, and NATO unable to work with the local Arab states.

Between September and December 2014 a loose, US-led coalition of states – including 12 states from the Arab League – came together, united by their determination to confront IS. The US suggested that making post-conflict stabilization a focus of the discussion. Germany was quick to second the idea, and the first meeting of the Working Group on Stabilization took place in the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin on March 18, 2015, under the co-chairmanship of Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

A number of factors prompted Germany to strengthen its international profile in the field of stabilization. One such factor was the Foreign Office’s internal “Review 2004” process, which argued that a more robust crisis management tool set was necessary to tackle multiple international crises. In early 2015, against this backdrop, Iraq quickly developed into the first major test of these nascent crisis management structures.

Ending IS Influence

In September 2014, after months of internal power struggles, Haider al-Abadi finally succeeded his party colleague Nouri al-Maliki as Iraq’s prime minister. His criticism of endemic corruption, his willingness to take greater account of Sunni interests, and his honest analysis of the causes of the collapse of the Iraqi army in the face of the IS attack on Mosul provided important points of departure for co-operation between the coalition and the new Iraqi government. Their shared objective was not only a military victory over IS, but also putting an end to support for the group once and for all. This goal, however, required both that Iraqis take ownership of stabilization efforts and that internally displaced persons (IDPs) – most of whom are Sunni – see the government as just and effective. Fortunately, progress has been made on both fronts.

The creation of the Baghdad Stabilization Task Force in May 2015 proved decisive for bolstering Iraqi ownership of stabilization policies. The task force was led by Mahdi al-Allaq, then the prime minister’s chief of staff, with Germany representing the coalition. The task force brought three essential players together: the prime minister’s office; the governors of the provinces where military operations against IS were taking place, who play a key role in planning and implementing stabilization projects; and the international community, i.e., the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq and the member states of the coalition. The World Bank and the International Red Cross took part as observers.

At the same time, around 900,000 IDPs have returned – an indication that stabilization policies in Iraq are meeting with some success. These policies were first put to the test in Tikrit: Saddam Hussein’s hometown in Saladin Province was liberated from IS in the spring of 2015, and to date more than 100,000 IDPs have returned, around ninety percent of the town’s former population. The two decisive factors were the deployment of Sunni forces in the city center to enforce local security and resolute action by the UNDP. Looking back, Tikrit was a good start, important politically as an initial success for the joint stabilization approach.

Challenges Remain

Meanwhile, a number of challenges remain – in particular the damage already done to Iraqi cities, the dilemma of what to do with the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), and a lack of trust in government.

The widespread destruction of Iraq’s cities and the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) delay the implementation of stabilization measures. This political and practical problem was first thrown into sharp relief in Ramadi in early summer 2016. Over a period of months the UN Mine Action Service, assisted by two private firms, carried out most of the clearance work. During this period more than one hundred Iraqis were killed while attempting to return to their booby-trapped homes.

The PMF play an ambiguous role in Iraq. They are indispensable in the fight against IS because the regular security forces are weak; on the other hand, sectarian militia within the predominantly Shiite PMF are responsible for numerous serious human rights violations, especially against Sunni civilians. The government victory in Fallujah provides one example. Shortly before the offensive began, Prime Minister al-Abadi had personally appealed to his commanders to make protection of the civilian population their highest priority. This was supported by a plan of action that restricted the PMF to the outskirts of the city. In spite of these precautions, serious human rights violations took place in the course of the operation on July 1, 2016, near the village of Saqlawiyah outside Fallujah. At least fifty – and probably more – civilians were killed at the hands of the Hezbollah Brigades militia. The fact that members of the government investigation commission now fear for their lives speaks volumes about weak government authority.

To be successful, stabilization requires all segments of society have a modicum of interest in reconciliation. Attempts by the government and civil institutions to encourage reconciliation “from the top down” have so far met with failure. Acts of vengeance in liberated areas still pose a serious problem, also with regard to the battle for Mosul that was still raging at the time of writing, and might even nip hopes of stabilization in the bud.

The international community has been careful not to supplant the Iraqis, accepting limits to their role as an essential element of long-term progress. However, today’s judicious restraint will no doubt be met with accusations of lack of resolve should efforts fail.

At the Warsaw Summit, NATO contemplated how to project stability. Germany’s new white paper on security policy attaches great importance to terrorism and fragile states as potential threats, and states far and wide are looking for ways to confront the challenge that crisis regions pose to the international order.

Germany’s New Role

The twin crises unfolding in Syria and Iraq and political pressure from refugee migration in 2015 as well as the growing fear of terrorism in Europe made Germany a player in the field of international stabilization policy. The position of co-chair within the anti-IS coalition and the country’s sustained commitment to the stabilization of liberated territories in Iraq are visible evidence of Germany’s new role.

In order to build on these promising beginnings, however, some important factors must be kept in mind.

First, carefully thought-out stabilization policy has to take systemic restrictions and limited resources into account. The Iraqi experience demonstrates that Germany can make a successful contribution even with minimal staff on the ground. This requires close co-operation with the host country and the major players – in Iraq, the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) and the US – as well as sustained support from the wider international community.

Second, as the concept of stabilization policy begins to crystallize, close collaboration between all relevant areas of expertise – from civil-military co-ordination and collaboration on policing and the rule of law to humanitarian aid and development – is crucial. The protagonists must now learn to work together even more efficiently, both in the national and international arena.

Third, effective implementation is the decisive measure of success. It is also the yardstick by which the German contribution to stabilization will be judged. The implementation agencies must adapt to changing international challenges and become more capable of action in a crisis. In this context, a clear lesson can be drawn from Iraq: German stabilization policy still relies almost exclusively on the local implementation capabilities of the UN.

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The Bundeswehr operation is being undertaken in the framework of an alliance against terror, an alliance that is meant to fight and diminish the so-called Islamic State (IS), but not really to end the civil war. Combatting IS, however, should be only one element – albeit an important one – of a comprehensive strategy to end the war and to establish a post-war order in Syria. And the latter must be approached in steps: it is important that Bashar al-Assad will no longer be the head of a future Syrian government. When that is accomplished, a strategy for the reconstruction and stabilization of Syria must be implemented – otherwise any anti-terror strategy will only be tilting at windmills, as Islamic fundamentalism will continue to feed off ongoing conflicts in the region’s several failed states.

The current military activity is not entirely without logic; but unless this anti-terror operation is paired with a regional peace and rehabilitation strategy, it will not pacify the region or contain terror in the medium- or long-term.

That said, rebuilding Syria will cost a great deal of money. Syria is a devastated country. But we don’t have the luxury to decide if we want to take on another nation-building project post-Afghanistan; there is simply no alternative here. Along with the problems created by Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the war in Syria is yet another fundamental, perhaps even historic threat to the European Unionʼs cohesion and existence.

In the first EU security strategy paper released in 2003, it was stressed that the EU should strive to establish a “ring of well-governed states” to the East and to the South. We have such a ring – but only as long as we are talking about current or near-future EU member states. Even there, we have not yet exactly achieved our goal.

The reality is that the vision of the European Union established 12 years ago – a union that would be surrounded by a cordon of stability, growing prosperity, and cooperation, both with the Mediterranean countries in the South and South East and the post-Soviet countries in the East – has broken down completely. Thus the question of Syria must be tied into a broader review of European security planning. It is time to revise the previous strategy, and to ask what went wrong and why.

If the EU wants to claim and show that it has a common foreign policy, it must do more than provide a selective response to a terrorist attack in Paris. This will be the great task of the EU over the coming years – developing a long-term strategy, for which a great deal of resources and engagement will be required aside from funds needed for military engagements.

Because of the relative withdrawal of the United States, there is a certain vacuum in the MENA region that is being filled by Russia and Iran, whose position have grown even stronger. That may lead to new rivalries in the region, rather than greater stability. Since other actors are not in a position to play the role of regional stabilizers, the EU should help establish a security architecture for the Middle East. We are now dealing with problems that touch on our own security interests rendering a comprehensive European strategy – one that encompasses European financial and development resources, along with military cooperation – absolutely necessary. The EU will also have to be able to act (with others) in certain areas to establish a deterrent capacity, and through it to establish stability.

Which elements might such an approach entail? One, though perhaps not the most decisive, is greater concentration of national security competencies at the EU level.

The December 2013 European Council focused on EU security and defense policy; the resulting paper was titled “Defense Matters”. One does not need to read the rest; it contained very few real commitments to undergird this proclamation. The EU has thus far not considered it necessary to actually pursue its objectives in this area, including the development and completion of a common foreign policy. The Lisbon Treaty, which in theory laid the groundwork for this, can serve as the basis for further integration steps – and for strengthening the role and visibility of the pertinent European institutions. This refers to, in particular, the role of the Council President and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

What we have experienced – and not just in the financial and Euro crises, but also in foreign policy disputes with Russia and the various crises in the MENA region – is not a common policy, but intergovernmental approaches. And one only rarely sees any inclination to transfer these jobs to EU bodies.

If Berlin is to take on a leading role – a desire expressed both within and outside Germany – it cannot and should not simply provide a direction for the rest of Europe to follow. There are better ways for Germany to play the role of a leader: the Federal Republic could put its foreign policy weight behind strengthening the visibility, credibility, and capability of the European Union as a whole. It is regrettable that, despite four years of failure in the Middle East and several hundred thousand casualties, it required a decision by the United States and Russia to convene the peace conference in Vienna – why were the EU Council President and the President of the Commission not empowered months ago to invite the concerned parties themselves, in the name of 500 million Europeans?

After all, the population of the entire Russian Federation is not even a third that of the European Union – Russia only remains a great power due to its military capacities in certain limited areas.

Germany should therefore throw its weight and its credibility as a non-nuclear weapons power and its credibility of not being a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council behind an effort to achieve an EU foreign policy that is more than intergovernmental. This could be Germanyʼs great potential contribution to the future of Europe – and German citizens should also recognize that this is one area in which “more Europe” will not simply mean greater budgetary contribution. Quite the opposite: through a more unified European foreign policy, crises can be managed more effectively, even saving money, as the member states could avoid duplicating expenditures in areas like defense and equipment, among many others.

This does not yet mean taking the leap and forming a European army; it makes more sense to keep more feasible steps in mind, such as more comprehensive pooling and sharing and the avoidance of doubling capacities. The budgetary contributions of the 28 EU members amount to almost half of US defense expenditures – but the EU produces only about 10 percent of the United States’ combat power. What a waste of resources, year after year!

Coming back to Syria, the approach adopted by the Vienna Conference is sound: but the EU should play the leading role in this process, instead of a supporting one.

For the EU, regional stability needs to be one of its key goals – including a balancing arrangement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Russia obviously has its own interests in the process. Regarding this last point, criticism should not be aimed at Russia for defining and defending its own interests, but rather at the means it uses to achieve them. The fact that Russia wants to be directly involved in establishing a post-war order in Syria, rather than being locked out like in the cases of Iraq or Libya, is not unacceptable.

This Vienna Process offers a chance to not just lay the groundwork for peace in Syria specifically, but to go further and develop a shared understanding of how the various actors in the region should deal with one another in the future.

In the long term, this region needs something like a Helsinki Process. The Helsinki principles were controversial in Europe, yet it was possible to codify them in 1975. There is of course no guarantee that such rules will always be observed. In Europe, they were openly violated in the recent Ukrainian crisis. Yet rules of conduct are useful, even if they are occasionally bent or broken.

The development of a rule book in the MENA region should be one of our strategic long-term goals. In light of the continuing wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and other countries, that may seem like a pipe dream at the moment; yet this vision should not be ignored or forgotten as the Vienna process is driven forward.

Read more articles in the Berlin Policy Journal App – January/February 2016 issue.

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