ABSTRACT

The overall economic efficiency of a quantity-based approach to greenhouse gas mitigation depends strongly on the extent to which such a program provides opportunities for compliance flexibility, particularly with regard to the timing of emissions abatement. Here I consider a program in which annual targets are determined by choosing the optimal time path of reductions consistent with an exogenously prescribed cumulative reduction target and fixed technology set. I then show that if the availability of low-carbon technology is initially more constrained than anticipated, the optimal reduction path shifts abatement toward later compliance periods. For this reason, a rigid policy in which fixed annual targets are strictly enforced in every year yields a cumulative environmental outcome identical to the optimal policy but an economic outcome worse than the optimal policy. On the other hand, a policy that aligns actual prices (or equivalently, costs) with expected prices by simply imposing an explicit price ceiling (often referred to as a "safety valve") yields the opposite result. Comparison among these multiple scenarios implies that there are significant gains to realizing the optimal path but that further refinement of the actual regulatory instrument will be necessary to achieve that goal in a real cap-and-trade system.

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INTRODUCTION

As a mechanism for controlling climate change, the Kyoto Protocol has not been a success. Over the decade from its signing in 1997 to the beginning of its first commitment period in 2008, greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial countries subject to targets under the protocol did not fall as the protocol intended. Instead, emissions in many countries rose rapidly. It is now abundantly clear that as a group, the countries bound by the protocol have little chance of achieving their Kyoto targets by the end of the first commitment period in 2012. Moreover, emissions have increased substantially as well in countries such as China, which were not bound by the protocol but which will eventually have to be part of any serious climate change regime.

Although the protocol has not been effective at reducing emissions, it has been very effective at demonstrating a few important lessons about the form future international climate agreements should take. As negotiations begin in earnest on a successor agreement to take effect in 2012, it is important to learn from experience with the Kyoto Protocol in order to avoid making the same mistakes over again and to design a more durable post-2012 international agreement.

The first lesson is that a rigid system of targets and timetables for emissions reductions is difficult to negotiate because it pushes participants into a zero sum game. To reach a given target for global greenhouse gas concentrations, for example, countries must negotiate over shares of a fixed budget of future global emissions. A looser target for one country would have to be matched by a tighter target for another. It is clear that this has been an important obstacle for much of the history of negotiations conducted under the auspices of the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change, not just the Kyoto Protocol. From the beginning, developing countries have refused to participate in dividing up a fixed emissions budget. Not only that, but many observers have argued that if such a budget were ever to be divided, it should be done on the basis of population rather than the historical emissions which were the basis of the Kyoto Protocol.

A second lesson is that it is difficult for countries to commit themselves to achieving specified emissions targets when the costs of doing so are large and uncertain. At its core, the targets and timetables approach requires each participant to achieve its national emissions target regardless of the cost of doing so. Countries facing potentially high costs either refused to ratify the protocol, such as the United States, or simply failed to achieve their targets. Countries on track to meet their obligations were able to do so because of historical events largely unrelated to climate policy, such as German reunification, the Thatcher government’s reform of coal mining in Britain, or the collapse of the Russian economy in the early 1990’s.

The third lesson is perhaps the most important of all: even countries earnestly engaged in a targets and timetables process may be unable to meet their targets due to unforeseen events. Two excellent examples are New Zealand and Canada. No one anticipated during the 1997 negotiations that a decade later New Zealand would be facing a dramatic rise in Asian demand for beef and diary products. The impact on increasing methane emissions in New Zealand has been so large that it has completely offset the reductions New Zealand was able to achieve in the earlier 1990’s via reduced methane from declining numbers of sheep and improved sinks of carbon due to growth in forestry. Similarly, no one expected that Canada would find its tar sand deposits so valuable that extraction would be viable at oil prices reached two years ago let alone at current world oil prices.

One reason there has been so much interest in a targets and timetables strategy has been a widespread misunderstanding about the precision of scientific knowledge regarding the climate. It is widely agreed among atmospheric scientists that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are rising rapidly, and that emissions should be reduced.1 However, there is little agreement about how much emissions should be cut in any given year, and there is no guarantee that stabilizing at any particular concentration will eliminate the risk of dangerous climate change. Yet it is often implied that climate science translates directly into a specific emissions target and a fixed emissions budget.2 On the contrary, however, the uncertainties still remaining in the science are important and should be a core consideration in the design of climate policy.

All of the lessons above illustrate problems inherent in the targets and timetables approach. First, it forces countries into confrontations during negotiations over shares of a fixed global emissions budget. Second, committing to achieve a rigid emissions target is difficult for countries facing uncertain and potentially very high costs. Third, unexpected events can force even well-intentioned participants into non-compliance. In the face of these problems, some observers have argued that the solution is more of the same: a broader protocol with tighter targets and deeper cuts. However, there is little reason to expect the outcome to be any different, and in the mean time emissions will continue to rise. A better approach would be to recognize that focusing on targets and timetables has undermined the ultimate goal of actual emissions reductions, and that it is critical to move negotiations in a new direction. The Hokkaido Summit to be held in Japan this year is an important opportunity to make that shift, and to move the focus of climate change negotiations in a more realistic direction.

In this paper, we discuss an alternative framework for international climate policy, the McKibbin-Wilcoxen Hybrid3—an approach that focuses on coordinated actions rather than mandated, inflexible outcomes. Rather than committing to achieve specified emissions targets, participating countries would agree to adopt coordinated actions that are clear, measurable and enforceable within national borders. Because it does not start from a fixed emissions target (although an emissions budget does guide the design of the actions we propose), the Hybrid avoids all three of the problems discussed above. Shifting to an approach based on agreed actions, rather than specific emissions outcomes, will be a critical step in the evolution of climate negotiations. It will also make national policy actions more feasible than fixed targets, since a target would be little more than a hopeful pledge given how little is known for certain about the costs of reducing emissions.

Moreover, a framework based on common actions rather than common targets is particularly useful for accommodating the needs of developing countries. Developing countries face even greater uncertainty about their future economic growth prospects and future emissions paths than developed countries, and certainly do not want to undermine their development prospects by committing to an excessively stringent emissions target.

To illustrate the differences between the targets and timetables approach and one based on the Hybrid, we present a number of numerical simulations of the world economy using the G-Cubed global economic model. We focus particular attention on two of the problems with targets and timetables: the high stakes involved in negotiating over emissions budgets, and the risks stemming from uncertainty about costs. We first show that the outcome of a Kyoto-style targets and timetables policy with global emissions trading depends significantly on the allocation scheme for the emissions targets. We present one set of results using an allocation based on historical emissions and another set of results based on an equal per capita allocation. The results show how different the national costs of the policy will be depending on how emissions rights are allocated. We then examine the performance of the Kyoto-style allocation under one source of uncertainty: the rate of growth in developing countries, particularly China and India.

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Abstract

Background: One controversial issue in the larger cap-and-trade debate is the proper use and certification of carbon offsets related to changes in land management. Advocates of an expanded offset supply claim that inclusion of such activities would expand the scope of the program and lower overall compliance costs, while opponents claim that it would weaken the environmental integrity of the program by crediting activities that yield either nonexistent or merely temporary carbon sequestration benefits. Our study starts from the premise that offsets are neither perfect mitigation instruments nor useless "hot air."

Results: We show that offsets provide a useful cost containment function, even when there is some threat of reversal, by injecting additional "when-flexibility" into the system. This allows market participants to shift their reduction requirements to periods of lower cost, thereby facilitating attainment of the least-cost time path without jeopardizing the cumulative environmental integrity of the system. By accounting for market conditions in conjunction with reversal risk, we develop a simple offset valuation methodology, taking into account the two most important factors that typically lead offsets to be overvalued or undervalued.

Conclusions: The result of this paper is a quantitative "model rule" that could be included in future legislation or used as a basis for active management by a future "carbon fed" or other regulatory authority with jurisdiction over the US carbon market to actively manage allowance prices.

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In recent decades, India has taken on a growing global presence, one that has been seen as increasing even more since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office nearly two years ago. In a new book, “India at the Global High Table: The Quest for Regional Primacy and Strategic Autonomy” (Brookings Institution Press, 2016), former U.S. ambassadors Teresita Schaffer and Howard Schaffer explore how India is managing its evolving international role, assessing the country’s strategic vision and foreign policy, and the negotiating behavior that links the two.

On April 20, The India Project at Brookings hosted a panel discussion to discuss the book and, particularly, four elements highlighted in it: India’s exceptionalism; its nonalignment and drive for “strategic autonomy;” its determination to maintain regional primacy; and, more recently, its surging economy.

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Executive Summary

In the concluding chapter of Red and Blue Nation? Consequences and Correction of America’s Polarized Politics (Brookings Press, 2007), Pietro S. Nivola and William A. Galston lay out a series of changes aimed at “depolarizing” the politics of the United States. One of their recommendations calls on the states to introduce fundamental changes to the process of redistricting congressional electoral districts. A handful of states have already established redistricting commissions, so the first steps have been taken in reforming one of the most important pillars of the electoral process.

This paper explores the possibility that the United States could build on those initial moves. Additionally, would it be possible to “import” the Canadian model of independent electoral boundary redistricting commissions? For the first 100 years of Canadian history redistricting seats in the federal House of Commons followed a pattern familiar to Americans. It was a process firmly under the control of the politicians, and the results reflected that. Wide disparities in population size were a tell-tale sign of the extent to which Canada’s parliamentary districts were gerrymandered.

Starting at the provincial level in the 1950s, partisan redistricting eventually gave way in all jurisdictions to nonpartisan commissions. How that change came about and why the Canadian commission-directed redistricting commends itself to Americans concerned about the highly politicized state of redistricting in the United States are the subjects of this study.

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With the 2010 Census a little over a year away, the nation is at a critical juncture in its planning and preparation for the next decennial enumeration.

There is much at stake. Without a full count of the U.S. population, Congress and the administration will lack the accurate data necessary for reapportionment and redistricting, to make critical decisions about community services, and to distribute $300 billion in federal funds to state and local governments every year.

On March 18, the Brookings Institution and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) hosted a discussion on urgent and emerging issues affecting the coming census. Brookings Vice President and Director of Governance Studies Darrell West set the context on new political realities and how this weighs on the 2010 Census. The panelists, moderated by NPR’s Ron Elving, considered the capacity of the Census Bureau to effectively carry out the enumeration, including an examination of the funds provided in the economic stimulus plan and the Obama administration's budget for the 2010 Census.

The forum also explored the issues facing the Census Bureau as it prepares to implement its communications and outreach plan–a key element in meeting the challenge of reaching Latinos and other hard-to-count populations–with an emphasis on the impact of the nation's changing demographics and political climate. Brookings Fellow Andrew Reamer provided introductory and closing remarks.

After the program, panelists took questions from the audience. 

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Now that the 2010 Census is concluded, states will begin the process of reapportionment—re-drawing voting district lines to account for population shifts. Nonresident Senior Fellow Michael McDonald says redistricting has been fraught with controversy and corruption since the nation’s early days, when the first “gerrymandered” district was drawn. Two states—Arizona and California—have instituted redistricting commissions intended to insulate the process from political shenanigans, but politicians everywhere will continue to work the system to gain electoral advantage and the best chance of re-election for themselves and their parties.

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Following each decennial Census, states re-draw the boundaries of their voting districts, often to the benefit of one party over another. Some states which have lost population lose seats in the House of Representatives and some growing states gain. This highly-charged political process is taking place against a backdrop of fierce partisanship at the national and local levels at a time when sophisticated redistricting technology is widely available and when the decisions made by state governments will reverberate in the coming elections.

On April 20, Thomas Mann answered your questions on the status of the redistricting process, and efforts for reform around the nation, in a live web chat moderated by David Mark, senior editor at POLITICO.

The transcript of this chat follows:

12:31 David Mark: Welcome to the chat. I'll open the discussion by asking about Texas, which will get four new House seats through reapportionment. Will Republicans realistically be able to add four new seats or will gains be limited by Voting Rights Act regulations?

12:33 Tom Mann: This is a case in which complete partisan control of the redistricting process is no guarantee that the majority party will reap the benefits of additional seats in the state delegation. Over a majority of the population gains in Texas have come from Hispanics and many of them are concentrated in urban areas. They will almost certainly garner at least two of the four new seats and the odds are that Democrats will win those seats.

12:36 David Mark: California for the first time will draw districts based on recommendations by a non-partisan citizens panel. Will this put incumbents in danger and how else might it affect the redistricting process?

12:40 Tom Mann: California has specialized in eliminating competitive House districts through the redistricting process. No other state comes close to them. The new commission is almost certain to put some incumbents in both parties in more competitive districts. However, it is not clear that one party will gain. The current lineup of seats by party pretty much reflects their statewide strength.

12:40 [Comment From Dan: ] Who’s got the edge in the redistricting process across the country – Democrats or Republicans, and why?

12:45 Tom Mann: Republicans have a clear advantage because of their success in the 2010 midterm elections, in which they took control of many governorships and state legislatures. They control the process in 17 states with roughly 200 seats while the Democrats are in charge in only 7 states with 49 seats. But there are other factors limiting Republican gains, including the fact that they now have many seats in districts won by Obama in 2008 (60). Republicans will likely put a higher priority on shoring up some of their vulnerable incumbents than in drawing new Republican districts.

12:45 [Comment From Sally: ] Is it all 50 states that will see new congressional district boundaries? I have heard only about Texas and Ohio. Is that where the big fights are?

12:46 [Comment From Stephanie: ] We’ve limited the House to 435 members for many years now, but there was a time when the size of the House changed with the Census. What’s the history on that? Why did they decide to cap it, and should it stay capped?

12:47 Tom Mann: States with only a single House district have no congressional boundaries to redraw. All of the others have to redistrict to account for seat gains/losses and/or population shifts within states. Major battles are shaping up in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia and North Carolina as well.

12:48 [Comment From John: ] It looks like the south and the west will gain seats, while the industrial northeast and the farm heartland will lose. Who makes the ultimate decision on which states will win or lose a seat? Is that process complete?

12:50 Tom Mann: That Apportionment process is complete. It is determined by a congressionally-approved formula applied to new census data. Ten states, mostly in the industrial north/midwest, will lose 12 seats. Eight states, including 4 in Texas and 2 in Florida, will gain a total of 12 seats.

12:50 [Comment From Rebecca: ] You’ve written about how political this process is, and some call redistricting the “incumbent protection” process. Is that good or bad?

12:56 Tom Mann: Redistricting in most states in done through the normal legislative process. (A few states use a bipartisan or independent redistricting commission.) Political self-interest -- protecting the interests of incumbents and/or the dominant party -- drives the process and is constrained only by requirements for equal population, protection of minority interests, and some other criteria specified by individual states. I believe this self-interest should not automatically prevail over broader public interest in competitive elections, accountable elected officials, and communties of interest.

12:56 [Comment From Don: ] How can we best reform the redistricting process and remove the partisanship that seems to dominate it?

1:02 Tom Mann: There are a variety of approaches. One is to alter the basic electoral system by moving from single-members districts to some form of proportional representation. Another is to lodge redistricting authority with independent, nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions. Arizona and now California are two examples of this. Yet another is to build into state (or federal) law requirements for competitive elections and partisan fairness. Finally, a new effort underway this cycle is to rely on transparency and public participation to create alternative maps and use them to bring pressure to bear on those with formal redistricting authority. I've been involved in a collaborative effort to develop open-source mapping software to do just that. It is being picked up by individuals and groups around the country. You can get information at publicmapping.org.

1:02 [Comment From Joe: ] How can ordinary citizens get involved? The whole redistricting system seems rigged to me.

1:02 Tom Mann: My last answer is directly responsive to your question.
Wednesday April 20, 2011 1:02 Tom Mann

1:03 [Comment From Tom: ] I saw Rep. Dennis Kuchinich on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and he said his district was going to disappear entirely. Does that really happen?

1:05 Tom Mann: Ohio will lose two seats. That means two current incumbents will be out of a job in Ohio, 12 nationally, just because of reapportionment. Kuchinich may well survive this process but it will be driven by Republicans, since they control the process.

1:05 David Mark: Thanks for joining us today.

       

Every decade since 1790, a census of the entire U.S. population is used by state governments to apportion representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives. But the redrawing of congressional districts that follows the census is an exercise in pure politics, says expert Thomas Mann. With the power to redistrict in the hands of incumbents in state legislatures, coupled with powerful mapping technologies, a state’s representation in Congress often bears little relation to the actual partisan makeup of its population, he says.

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The special election in California and the beginning of the recall process in Wisconsin are only the start of what promises to a be a hyper-partisan election. On July 13, Thomas Mann answered your questions on the new forces at work in the political landscape, in a live web chat moderated by POLITICO Senior Editor David Mark.

The transcript of this chat follows.

David Mark: Welcome to the chat, let's get started.

12:30 Comment From Brooke: Were you surprised by the results of California's special election?

12:32 Tom Mann: No, Hahn's 10 point victory was expected. This was less than the natural Democratic strength of the district and reflected the generously self-funded opposition campaign.

12:32 Comment From Travis: What's the significance of that CA seat remaining Democrat?

12:34 Tom Mann: Not much in the way of national significance. If anything, it's a step back for the Democrats, who in the last, NY special in a Republican district, pulled off a genuine upset, running substantially ahead of Obama and the party registration. But the Democrats avoided an upset in California, which would have been discouraging and distracting to them.

12:34 Comment From Yan: Can you explain what's going on in Wisconsin?

12:39 Tom Mann: No!! It's been a crazy year in my home state. Yesterday's six elections were not for real. They had fake Democratic candidates challenging the slated Democrats solely to delay the actual recall elections by a month. All of the "real" Democrats won and three or four of them have a good chance to defeat the incumbent Republican state senators on August. Next week on July 19 three Democratic incumbents will be on the ballot -- two facing fake candidates but one facing a Republican challenger. The latter is important, as are the August 16 elections featuring the other two Democratic incumbents. Bottom line-- Democrats need a net gain of three seats to take control of the State Senate and slow Governor Walker's agenda. Turnout was relatively high yesterday and control of the State Senate is genuinely up for grabs.

12:39 David Mark: Realizing that the lines aren't final, what's your sense about how effective the independent California redistricting commission has been in drawing districts that are potentially more competitive?

12:42 Tom Mann: It appears they have been successful in increasing the number of competitive districts. At the same time, they have boosted Democratic prospects for a seat gain and disappointed Hispanics who feel that their population growth in the state has not been reflected in the Commission's maps. I suspect some significant revision in the plans that are finally released by the Commission and if necessary, an appeal to the courts.

12:42 Comment From Henry: What do you expect from the next election cycle?

12:47 Tom Mann: I believe the presidency and control of both House and Senate are up for grabs. It will be a very high stakes election with huge warchests. (Obama and the DNC together raised $86 million in the second quarter, which dwarfs what the Republican candidates combined have raised.) But both parties will be well-funded in the presidential and congressional races. At this point, I'd say Obama probably has the best prospect of winning; same is true of Republicans taking the Senate and holding the House. But it is early; the economic climate remains volatile; and events could overwhelm the present situation.

12:47 Comment From Danny (MD): What kind of a role do you see Super PACs playing in the next round of elections?

12:50 Tom Mann: The SuperPacs and their affiliated 501c organizations will be major players in the 2012 elections. Disclosure of donors will continue to diminish and large corporate and individual contributions will support extensive independent spending campaigns. Democrats have decided to follow the Republicans rather than fight them on campaign finance reform.

12:50 Comment From Danny (MD):What do you think about Stephen Colbert's Super PAC?

12:52 Tom Mann: Colbert is being Colbert. With his trusted legal advisor Trevor Potter, he is creating the PAC and testing the rules to educate the public about the inadequacy of campaign finance law and regulation. Political satire may be one of the more effective means of pushing political reform.

12:52 Comment From Bill in Va.: Beyond the immediate results of elections in California and Wisconsin, there are new laws in a lot of swing states that will seem to make it harder for certain people to cast their vote. Will these laws stand, or be challenged, and can they have an impact in the 2012 outcome?

12:56 Tom Mann: Election law in the States has sadly become yet another tool of partisan war. New voter ID laws have been passed in states controlled by Republicans but not in the others. I expect Democrats will gear up at the grassroots level to try to contest any efforts to deny access to the ballot of any of their legitimate voters. It all makes one yearn for the Australian compulsory voting system. Giving parties the incentive to depress turnout is downright depressing.

12:57 Comment From Ron: Just to step back from the specifics for a moment, how do you explain the very nasty tone of our politics these days...and what will it take to return some civility to the process?

1:00 Tom Mann: I'm not looking for civility any time soon. The ideological polarization of the parties and the partisan team play that now characterizes our politics and governance is deeply rooted in American society and reinforced by the new media. The populist Tea Party, with its certainty and righteous indignation, has been embraced by the Republicans in Washington and makes it almost impossible for politicians on opposite sides of the aisle to treat one another respectfully and work toward compromise.

1:00 David Mark: Thanks for the chat, everybody.

 

       

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The drawing of legislative district boundaries is arguably among the most self-interested and least transparent systems in American democracy. Every ten years redistricting authorities, usually state legislatures, redraw congressional and legislative lines in accordance with Census reapportionment and population shifts within states. Most state redistricting authorities are in the midst of their redistricting process, while others have already finished redrawing their state and congressional boundaries. A number of initiatives—from public mapping competitions to independent shadow commissions—have been launched to open up the process to the public during this round of redrawing district lines.

On July 18, Brookings hosted a panel of experts to review the results coming in from the states and discuss how the rest of the process is likely to unfold. Panelists focused on evidence of partisan or bipartisan gerrymandering, the outcome of transparency and public mapping initiatives, and minority redistricting.

After the panel discussion, participants took audience questions.

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Editor's Note: For full disclosure, Tom Mann (joined by Norm Ornstein) filed an amicus curiae brief in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.

James Madison would be pleased. The 5-4 decision announced today by the Supreme Court upholding Arizona’s use of the initiative to establish an independent redistricting commission is a model of constitutional reasoning and statutory interpretation. It underscores the essential connection between republican government and popular sovereignty, in which the people have the ultimate authority over who shall represent them in public office. The majority opinion quotes Madison to powerful effect: “The genius of republican liberty seems to demand . . . not only that all power should be derived from the people, but those entrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people.”

Madison worried about the dangers of the manipulation of electoral rules to serve the immediate interests of political actors. He was himself the target of a gerrymander designed (unsuccessfully) to deny him a seat in the first Congress. The Elections Clause of the Constitution, by granting Congress the power to override state actions setting the time, place and manner of elections, was designed partly as a safety valve to contain the abuse of power by those in a position to determine which voters will hold them accountable.

Today’s intensely polarized politics drive major partisan campaigns to seize control of the redistricting authority in the states and to wield that power to boost prospects for majority standing in the House. Partisan gerrymandering is not the major source of our dysfunctional politics but it surely reinforces and exacerbates the tribal wars between the parties. A number of states have used the initiative device provided in their constitutions to establish independent commissions to replace or supplement the regular state legislative process in redrawing congressional and/or state legislative district boundaries. Such commissions are no panacea for partisan gerrymandering. Their composition and rules vary in ways that can shape the outcome. But the evidence suggests they can mitigate the conflicts of interest that are a part of the regular process and produce more timely plans less subject to judicial preemption.

The Court has upheld the right of those states to legislate electoral rules through a popular vote. Had the minority position prevailed, state laws governing many aspects of the electoral process would have been subject to constitutional challenge. And an important safety value available to the people of the states for responding to abuses of power by those in public office has been preserved.

This should not be read more broadly as a triumph of direct democracy over representative government. Many scholars who provided expert opinion supporting the majority opinion retain serious concerns about the overuse and misuse of initiatives and referendums. Instead, the decision strengthens the legitimacy of representative democracy by reinforcing the essential link between republican government and popular sovereignty.

       

INTRODUCTION

Elections that follow dramatic downfalls of authoritarian regimes present policymakers with difficult choices. They are an opportunity to establish a sound basis for democratization, putting in place institutions and strengthening actors that help guarantee free and fair elections. Yet such elections are part of a high-stakes conflict over the future that takes place in a context of enormous uncertainty, as new actors emerge, old elites remake themselves, and the public engages in politics in new and unpredictable ways.

Assisting elections in the Arab world today is made more challenging by two factors that have thus far distinguished the region from others. First, transitions are made more difficult by extraordinarily strong demands to uproot the old regime. Fears that former regime elements will undermine ongoing revolutions along with demands for justice after decades of wrongdoing invariably create pressures to exclude former elites. In other regions, reformers within autocratic regimes, like Boris Yeltsin and South Africa’s F.W. DeKlerk, split from hardliners to spearhead reforms, muting demands for excluding old regime allies writ large. In the Middle East, however, old regime elites have been unable to credibly commit to reforms, partly given decades-long histories of empty promises and oppositions that remain largely determined to accept nothing less than Ben Ali-like departures. Room for compromise is difficult to find.

Second, for an international community hoping to support Arab transitions, widespread distrust of outside forces compounds these problems. Such distrust is inevitable in all post-colonial states; however, skepticism is particularly high in the Arab world, especially toward the United States. Cynicism about American intentions has been fed by U.S. support for Israel, its continued backing of Arab autocrats for nearly two decades after the Cold War, and, more recently, its unwillingness to take stronger stands against Mubarak, Asad, and others early on in the uprisings. Even if transitioning elites believe international expertise can help smooth the election process and enhance faith in the outcomes, they find it difficult to embrace in the context of heightened nationalism and a strong desire to assert sovereignty.

In light of these challenges, this paper explores how the international community can best engage in “founding” elections in the Arab world. Examining Egypt and Tunisia, the first two Arab states to hold elections, it focuses on challenges in leveling the playing field, managing electoral processes, and creating just and sustainable outcomes. These cases are undoubtedly unique in many ways and – as in any transition – remain in flux. Nevertheless, examining their early experience yields insights into how international actors can best approach those cases that may follow (e.g., Libya, Syria, and Yemen).

Most notably, these cases suggest that the democracy promotion community should approach first elections differently than it does subsequent ones. It should prioritize different goals and activities, in some cases even leaving off the agenda well-intentioned and generally constructive programs in order to focus on more urgent activities critical to strengthening electoral processes. Recognizing the enormous fear and uncertainty with which democrats approach first elections, international actors should resist the understandable urge to seek immediate, permanent democratic arrangements and “favorable” electoral outcomes. They should also encourage revolutionary forces to resist understandable, but counterproductive, urges to exclude allies of the former regime from new democratic processes. Rather, democracy promoters should suggest interim measures, encourage tolerance toward “unfavorable” results, and, in so doing, support democrats as they make their way through a long, imperfect process.

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After decades of abuse under the old regime, how can the civilian government of President Mohamed Morsi turn Egypt’s security apparatus into one befitting a new democracy? What are the necessary steps in overcoming institutional barriers to reform and creating an Egyptian police force in the service of its citizens?

In a new "Project on Arab Transitions" paper from the Brookings Doha Center and Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), From Good Cop to Bad Cop: The Challenge of Security Sector Reform in Egypt, nonresident fellow Omar Ashour discusses the political dynamics of transforming Egypt’s security establishment.

Based on months of interviews with current and former officers and generals in the police, army, and intelligence services, Ashour lays out the workings of the Mubarak regime’s repressive security apparatus and assesses current reform initiatives, drawing on lessons from other transitions in the Arab world and beyond. He offers a set of policy proposals for establishing an accountable, civilian-led security sector, ranging from a presidential commission on reform to new oversight mechanisms. Ashour cites the brutality and abuse of Egypt’s police as a key catalyst of the January 25 Revolution; the success of that revolution, he says, will hinge on effective security sector reform.

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Nearly three years after the fall of the Qaddafi regime, Libya’s revolution has stalled. Militias continue to run rampant as the government struggles to perform basic functions. Theoretically to protect the revolution, Libya passed its Political Isolation Law (PIL) in May 2013, effectively banning anyone involved in Qaddafi’s regime from the new government. The law has raised serious questions: Does it contribute to effective governance and reconciliation? Does it respect human rights and further transitional justice? Will it undermine Libya’s prospects for a successful democratic transition?

In this Brookings Doha Center-Stanford "Project on Arab Transitions" Paper, Roman David and Houda Mzioudet examine the controversy over Libya’s PIL and the law’s likely effects. Drawing on interviews with key Libyan actors, the authors find that the PIL has been manipulated for political purposes and that its application is actually weakening, not protecting, Libya. They caution that the PIL threatens to deprive Libya of competent leaders, undermine badly needed reconciliation, and perpetuate human rights violations.

David and Mzioudet go on to compare the PIL to the personnel reform approaches of Eastern European states and South Africa. Ultimately, they argue that Libyans would be better served if the PIL were replaced with a law based on inclusion rather than exclusion and on reconciliation rather than revenge. They maintain that Libya’s democratic transition would benefit from an approach that gives exonerated former regime personnel a conditional second chance instead of blindly excluding potentially valuable contributors.

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The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) adopted by Iran and the P5+1 partners in July 2015 was an effort not only to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons but also to avert a nuclear arms competition in the Middle East. But uncertainties surrounding the future of the Iran nuclear deal, including the question of what Iran will do when key JCPOA restrictions on its nuclear program expire after 15 years, could provide incentives for some of its neighbors to keep their nuclear options open.

In their Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Series monograph, “The Iran Nuclear Deal: Prelude to Proliferation in the Middle East?,” Robert Einhorn and Richard Nephew assess the current status of the JCPOA and explore the likelihood that, in the wake of the agreement, regional countries will pursue their own nuclear weapons programs or at least latent nuclear weapons capabilities. Drawing on interviews with senior government officials and non-government experts from the region, they focus in depth on the possible motivations and capabilities of Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates for pursuing nuclear weapons. The monograph also offers recommendations for policies to reinforce the JCPOA and reduce the likelihood that countries of the region will seek nuclear weapons.

On May 31, the Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative hosted a panel to discuss the impact of the JCPOA on prospects for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Brookings Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Foreign Policy Suzanne Maloney served as moderator. Panelists included H.E. Yousef Al Otaiba, ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the United States; Derek Chollet, counselor and senior advisor for security and defense policy at the German Marshall Fund; Brookings Senior Fellow Robert Einhorn; and Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Richard Nephew.

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In last summer’s congressional debate over the Iran nuclear deal—the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—one of the more hotly debated issues was whether the deal would decrease or increase the likelihood that countries in the Middle East would pursue nuclear weapons.

Supporters of the JCPOA argued that, by removing the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran, it will reduce incentives for countries of the region to acquire nuclear arms. Opponents of the deal—not just in the United States but also abroad, especially Israel—claimed that the JCPOA would increase those incentives because it would legitimize enrichment in Iran, allow Iran to ramp up its nuclear capacity when key restrictions expire after 10 and 15 years, and boost the Iranian economy and the resources Iran could devote to a weapons program.

I strongly believe the JCPOA will significantly reduce prospects for proliferation in the Middle East (and as my colleague Richard Nephew explains in another post out today, there are things the United States and other powers can do to help reduce that prospect further). But uncertainties about the future of the JCPOA and the region will persist for quite some time—and these uncertainties could motivate regional countries to keep their nuclear options open. They may ask themselves a variety of questions in the years ahead: Will the JCPOA be sustainable over time? Will it unravel over concerns about compliance? Will it withstand challenges by opponents in Tehran and Washington? Will it survive leadership transitions in the United States and Iran? Will Iran ramp up its fissile material production capacities when key restrictions expire? Will it then break out of the JCPOA and seek to build nuclear weapons? Will Iran continue to threaten the security of its neighbors in the years ahead? And will the United States maintain a strong regional military presence and be seen by its partners as a reliable guarantor of their security?

I strongly believe the JCPOA will significantly reduce prospects for proliferation in the Middle East.

Richard and I studied how these and other questions might affect nuclear decision-making in the Middle East. In particular, we evaluated the likelihood that key states will pursue nuclear weapons, or at least enrichment or reprocessing programs that could give them a latent nuclear weapons capability. We focused on four states often regarded as potential candidates to join the nuclear club: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Turkey.

Saudi Arabia

Of the four, Saudi Arabia is the most highly motivated to pursue nuclear weapons. It sees Iran as an implacable foe that is intent on destabilizing its neighbors, achieving regional hegemony, and upending the Kingdom’s internal order. At the same time, the Saudis have lost much confidence in the U.S. commitment to the security of its regional partners. In part as a result, the new Saudi leadership has taken a more assertive, independent role in regional conflicts, especially in Yemen. But despite their reservations about the United States, the Saudis know they have no choice but to rely heavily on Washington for their security—and they know they would place that vital relationship in jeopardy if they pursued nuclear weapons.

The Saudis clearly have sufficient financial resources to make a run at nuclear weapons. But acquiring the necessary human and physical infrastructure to pursue an indigenous nuclear program would take many years.

Given the Kingdom’s difficulty in developing an indigenous nuclear weapons capability, speculation has turned to the possibility that it would receive support from a foreign power, usually Pakistan, which received generous financial support from Saudi Arabia in acquiring its own nuclear arsenal. But while rumors abound about a Pakistani commitment to help Saudi Arabia acquire nuclear weapons, the truth is hard to pin down. If such a Saudi-Pakistani agreement was ever reached, it was probably a vague, unwritten assurance long ago between a Pakistani leader and Saudi king, without operational details or the circumstances in which it would be activated. In any event, the Saudis would find it hard to rely on such an assurance today, when Pakistanis are trying to put the legacy of A.Q. Khan behind them and join the international nonproliferation mainstream. 

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Like Saudi Arabia, the UAE believes Iran poses a severe threat to regional security and has become more aggressive since the completion of the JCPOA. And like the Saudis, the Emiratis have lost considerable confidence in the reliability of the United States as a security guarantor. But also like the Saudis, the Emiratis are reluctant to put their vital security ties to the United States in jeopardy.

[L]ike the Saudis, the Emiratis have lost considerable confidence in the reliability of the United States as a security guarantor.

Moreover, the Emiratis are heavily invested in their ambitious nuclear energy program—with efforts currently underway, with the help of a South Korean-led consortium, to construct four nuclear power reactors—and they know this project would be dead in the water if they opted for nuclear weapons.

The Emiratis have also been a leading regional supporter of nonproliferation. In their bilateral agreement for civil nuclear cooperation with the United States, they formally renounced the acquisition of enrichment or reprocessing capabilities (the so-called “gold standard”), effectively precluding the pursuit of nuclear weapons. After the JCPOA permitted Iran to retain its enrichment program, the UAE, faced with criticism domestically and from some Arab governments for having given up its nuclear “rights,” said it may reconsider its formal renunciation of enrichment. But subsequently, Emirati officials have made clear that their nuclear energy plans have not changed and that they have no intention to pursue enrichment or reprocessing.

Egypt

Egypt is on everyone’s short list of potential nuclear aspirants—in part because of its former role as leader of the Arab world and its flirtation with nuclear weapons in the Gamal Abdel Nasser years. But while Egypt and Iran have often been regional rivals, Egypt does not view Iran as a direct military threat. Instead, Egypt’s main concerns include extremist activities in the Sinai, the fragmentation of Iraq and Syria, disarray in Libya—and the adverse impact of these developments on Egypt’s internal security. The Egyptians recognize that none of these threats can be addressed by the possession of nuclear weapons.

Although Russia is committed to work with Egypt on its first nuclear power reactor, Cairo’s nuclear energy plans have experienced many false starts before, and there is little reason to believe the outcome will be different this time around, especially given the severe economic challenges the Egyptian government currently faces. Moreover, although Egypt trained a substantial number of nuclear scientists in the 1950s and 1960s, its human nuclear infrastructure atrophied when ambitious nuclear energy plans never materialized.

Turkey

Because of its emergence in the last decade as a rising power, its large and growing scientific and industrial basis, and its ambition to be an influential regional player, Turkey is also on everyone’s short list of potential nuclear-armed states. But Turkey has maintained reasonably good relations with Tehran, even during the height of the sanctions campaign against Iran. Although the two countries have taken opposing sides in the Syria civil war, Turkey, like Egypt, does not regard Iran as a direct military threat. Indeed, Ankara sees instability and terrorism emanating from the Syrian conflict as its main security concerns—and nuclear weapons are not viewed as relevant to dealing with those concerns.

Current tensions with Russia over Turkey’s November 2015 shoot-down of a Russian fighter jet are another source of concern in Ankara. But the best means of addressing that concern is to rely on the security guarantee Turkey enjoys as a member of NATO. While Turkish confidence in NATO has waxed and waned in recent decades, most Turks, especially in the military, believe they can count on NATO in a crisis, and they would be reluctant to put their relationship with NATO at risk by pursuing nuclear weapons.

Former nuclear aspirants

For the sake of completeness, our study also looked at regional countries that once actively pursued nuclear weapons but were forced to abandon their programs: Iraq, Libya, and Syria. But we concluded that, given the civil strife tearing those countries apart, none of them was in a position to pursue a sustained, disciplined nuclear weapons effort.

Bottom line

Our study found that the Iran nuclear deal has significantly reduced incentives for countries of the Middle East to reconsider their nuclear options. At least for the foreseeable future, none of them is likely to pursue nuclear weapons or even latent nuclear weapons capabilities—or to succeed if they do. 

Editors’ Note: Bob Einhorn and Richard Nephew spoke about their new report at a recent Brookings event. You can see the video from the event here.

      

Was the Iran nuclear deal, signed last summer, a prelude to proliferation across the Middle East? This is a question that Brookings Senior Fellow Robert Einhorn and Non-resident Senior Fellow Richard Nephew explore in a new report. At an event to discuss their findings—moderated by Brookings Deputy Director of Foreign Policy and Senior Fellow Suzanne Maloney and with panelists Derek Chollet and H.E. Yousef Al Otaiba—Einhorn and Nephew argued that none of the Middle East’s “likely suspects” appears both inclined and able to acquire indigenous nuclear weapons capability in the foreseeable future. They also outlined policy options for the United States and other members of the P5+1.

Einhorn described the incentives and capabilities of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates for acquiring nuclear weapons. He argued that, while both Saudi Arabia and the UAE a) consider Iran a direct military threat, b) have concerns about the U.S. commitment to the security of the region, and c) have sufficient financial resources, they recognize that they have no choice but to rely on the United States for their security and are unwilling to jeopardize that relationship by seeking nuclear weapons. Einhorn also said that both Egypt and Turkey do not view Iran as a direct military threat and are more preoccupied with instability on their borders and internal security, concerns that cannot be addressed by possession of a nuclear weapons capability.

Nephew outlined policy recommendations, including measures to ensure strict implementation of the JCPOA, greater intelligence sharing and security cooperation with Middle East allies, and means of fostering IAEA-supervised regional arrangements that would encourage peaceful nuclear energy development and limit potentially destabilizing nuclear activities. Nephew also asserted that some elements of the JCPOA, such as online monitoring of nuclear facilities, could be applied to other nuclear energy programs in the region to enhance transparency. 

Derek Chollet of the German Marshall Fund argued the United States must deter Iran and reassure U.S. allies by maintaining a robust military presence in the region, planning a range of U.S. responses to destabilizing Iranian activities, and ensuring that U.S. forces have the weapons systems and personnel required for scenarios involving Iran. He suggested that the United States and its Middle East allies continue regular summit meetings on security and broader partnership issues, and possibly formalize security cooperation by establishing a dedicated regional security framework. 

Emirati Ambassador to the United States Yousef Al Otaiba emphasized that, to many of the countries in the region, Iran poses a threat wider than just its nuclear activities. He suggested that the JCPOA will be judged on the degree to which the United States and its allies address Iran’s destabilizing behavior outside of the nuclear file, such as Tehran’s support for Hezbollah and the Houthis, as well as its ballistic missile activities. Al Otaiba said that, though he has seen some efforts by the Obama administration to push Iran on its regional behavior, it has sent a mixed message overall, with senior U.S. officials also encouraging European banks to invest in Iran. The ambassador asserted that rigorous enforcement of the JCPOA will be critical to convincing Iran not to eventually proceed to build nuclear weapons.

On Saudi Arabia, Einhorn noted that although the Obama administration supported the Saudi military campaign in Yemen, there was a risk that the Kingdom would overreact to its regional security challenges. He suggested that the United States pursue a dual-track approach: counter provocative Iranian behavior and defend the security interests of its regional partners, while at the same time seeking a resolution of regional disputes and encouraging Saudi Arabia and Iran to find ways of reducing tensions between them.

On the possibility that Iran would rapidly scale up its enrichment program, Einhorn acknowledged that while Tehran can legally do so under the JCPOA in 10 to 15 years, it will not have a strong civil nuclear rationale since it will be able to acquire nuclear fuel from Russia and other suppliers. Furthermore, Iran’s progress in centrifuge research and development may not be as rapid as Iran currently anticipates. Moreover, even if Iran elects to ramp up its enrichment program down the line, the JCPOA and Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will bar it from pursuing nuclear weapons, and monitoring arrangements still in place will provide warning and enable the United States to intervene and prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.

On reaching a regional accommodation that includes Iran, Al Otaiba indicated that the UAE would have much to gain, especially economically, from a better relationship with Tehran. He said the UAE and others in the region would like to try to engage with Iran to reduce tensions—but Iran, for its part, seems unwilling.

On prospects for a U.S.-Saudi civil nuclear cooperation agreement, Einhorn said that progress on such an agreement has stalled due to Saudi reluctance to formally renounce enrichment, something the United States has so far insisted on. He suggested that Washington should be prepared to relax the so-called “gold standard” (i.e., a formal renunciation of on enrichment and reprocessing) and instead accept an approach that would still discourage Saudi fuel cycle programs, such as giving Riyadh the right to pursue enrichment but allowing the United States to cease its nuclear cooperation if the Kingdom exercised that right. On the UAE’s civil nuclear program, Al Otaiba affirmed that the Emiratis continue to value the “gold standard” barring enrichment which is enshrined in the U.S.-UAE civil nuclear agreement, and have no plans to change their position on enrichment.

       

One year after its conclusion, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remains controversial in Tehran and Washington, with opponents unreconciled to the deal and determined to derail it. Republican attacks against the deal will keep the controversy alive for most of this election year.

But opponents have had to scale back their criticism, in large part because the JCPOA, at least so far, has delivered on its principal goal—blocking Iran’s path to nuclear weapons for an extended period of time. No one can dispute that Tehran has sharply reduced its capacity to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons and would need at least a year to rebuild enough capacity to produce a single bomb.

Iran’s positive compliance record has not given opponents much ammunition. The IAEA found Iran in compliance in its two quarterly reports issued in 2016. True, Iran temporarily exceeded the agreed ceiling on heavy water but quickly rectified the infraction, which most observers attributed to the practical difficulty of ensuring that production overages are exported in a timely way rather than to an intention to circumvent the limit. Critics have also pounced on a German report that Iran’s illicit attempts to procure nuclear and missile items continued in 2015. But Tehran’s requirement to import all nuclear items for its permitted civil nuclear program through the JCPOA’s procurement channel—and stop procuring items outside the channel—did not kick in until January 2016, and neither Washington nor Berlin has information that illicit efforts continued after that time.

Murky missile issue

Iran’s ballistic missile tests present a more complicated compliance issue. Due to a compromise reached in the negotiations, missile activities are not covered in the JCPOA and Security Council resolution 2231 simply ”calls upon” but does not legally require Iran to cease those activities (as did the U.N. Security Council resolutions replaced by 2231). As a result, Iranians argue they are not legally bound to cease missile testing, and Russia and China essentially support their argument. 

The administration and Congress are right to oppose Iran’s provocative and destabilizing missile activities. But they are not on strong legal or political grounds to treat the issue as a compliance violation. Rather than invoking the Iran nuclear deal, Washington and its partners will need to counter Iran’s missile programs with other policy tools, including interdictions of procurement attempts, Missile Technology Control Regime restrictions, U.S. diplomatic efforts with suppliers, missile defenses, and sanctions.

An uncertain path ahead

So, from the standpoint of Iran implementing and complying with its nuclear commitments, the JCPOA has operated well for its first year. But challenges to the smooth operation and even the longevity of the deal are already apparent.

A real threat to the JCPOA is that Iran will blame the slow recovery of its economy on U.S. failure to conscientiously fulfill its sanctions relief commitments and, using that as a pretext, will curtail or even end its own implementation of the deal. Iranians are understandably frustrated that the benefits of sanctions relief have not materialized as quickly as expected. But international banks and businesses have been reluctant to engage Iran not because they have been discouraged by the United States but because they have their own business-related reasons to be cautious, including the inadequate regulatory standards of Iran’s financial system, low oil prices in an oil-dependent economy, and fear of running afoul of remaining U.S. sanctions. In an effort to ensure that Iran will reap the economic rewards it deserves, the Obama administration has bent over backwards to inform foreign governments, banks, and businesses of what sanctions relief measures entitle them to do, but Iranian officials continue to complain that it is not doing enough.

[W]e can say the nuclear deal is off to a promising start...[s]till, it is already clear that the path ahead will not always be smooth.

Legislation proposed in Congress could also threaten the nuclear deal. Many proponents of new sanctions legislation genuinely seek to reinforce the deal—for example, by renewing the Iran Sanctions Act without attaching poison pills. But for some other members of Congress, the bills are designed to undercut the JCPOA. In a July 11 statement of policy, the administration threatened to veto three House bills, stating that they “would undermine the ability of the United States to meet our JCPOA commitments by reimposing certain secondary economic and financial sanctions lifted on ‘Implementation Day’ of the JCPOA.” For now, the administration is in a position to block new legislation that it believes would scuttle the nuclear deal.

But developments outside the JCPOA, especially Iran’s regional behavior and its crackdown on dissent at home, could weaken support for the JCPOA within the United States and give proponents of deal-killing legislation a boost. So far, however, there are no clear indications that the JCPOA has contributed either to more moderate or more provocative behavior. Indeed, consistent with statements by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, there have been few changes in Iran’s behavior toward its neighbors in the last year.

A potential wildcard for the future of the JCPOA is upcoming governing transitions in both Washington and Tehran. There will be more continuity in policy toward Iran and the JCPOA if Hillary Clinton becomes president, although she is likely to take a harder line than her predecessor. Donald Trump now says he will re-negotiate rather than scrap the deal, but in practice that could produce the same result because a better deal will not prove negotiable. With President Hassan Rouhani up for re-election next year and the health of the Supreme Leader questionable, Iran’s future policy toward the JCPOA cannot be confidently predicted.

A final verdict on the JCPOA is many years away, not just because of the challenges mentioned above but also because of the crucial uncertainly regarding what Iran will do when key restrictions on its ability to produce weapons-grade nuclear materials expire after 15 years. However, we can say the nuclear deal is off to a promising start, as even some of its early critics now concede. Still, it is already clear that the path ahead will not always be smooth, the longevity of the deal cannot be taken for granted, and keeping it on track will require constant focus in Washington and other interested capitals. 

       

One unintended but very important consequence of the Iran nuclear deal has been to aggravate and intensify Saudi Arabia's concerns about Iran's regional goals and intentions. This fueling of Saudi fears has in turn fanned sectarian tensions in the region to unprecedented levels.

Of course stoking Saudi angst and perhaps even paranoia was not the intention of the deal’s negotiators. They sought to reduce tensions and prevent a nuclear arms race. A combination of circumstances outside their control exacerbated the problem of Saudi-Iranian rivalry that dates back before the Iranian revolution. But the results are likely to haunt the region for years to come.

An array of worries

Riyadh's concerns about Iran have never been primarily focused on the nuclear danger. The Saudis have long calculated the risk of Iranian use of nuclear weapons as low. They also believe the American nuclear umbrella protects them. The key Saudi concern is their belief that Iran seeks regional hegemony and uses terrorism and subversion to achieve it.

The deal deliberately does not deal with this issue. In Saudi eyes it actually makes the situation worse, because lifting sanctions removed Iran's isolation as a rogue state and gives it more income. Iran's ambition to be the region's hegemon is fueled not reduced by the deal.

The debate over the deal that ended a year ago coincided with two key developments in the Kingdom in early 2015. First was the succession of King Salman Abd al Aziz. His predecessor and half-brother Abdullah was a hardliner on Iran, but he was also risk-averse and cautious by nature. He had experimented with detente with Iran in the 1980s, even sending a Saudi Shiite as ambassador to Tehran. He wanted American soldiers to deal with Iran, not Saudis, a posture that greatly irritated Americans like former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates who likened it to using his soldiers as mercenaries. King Abdullah sought to avoid confrontation not embrace it.

The second coincidence was the takeover of the Yemeni capital Sanaa by the alliance of Zaydi Shiite Houthi rebels and former President Ali Abdullah Saleh early last year. The rebels opened direct air links to Tehran and proposed other concessions to Iran. They marched on the southern port of Aden, Sunni territory. Iran hailed their victories. The Saudis and other Gulf states saw an Iranian foothold emerging in the Achilles heel of the Arabian Peninsula.

The new king and his young Defense Minister Prince Muhammad bin Salman reacted angrily and firmly. An Arab coalition was created rapidly to intervene and fight the rebels. The result, Operation Decisive Storm, was distinctly unlike anything in recent Saudi history. Bold and aggressive in design, it stopped the rebels’ advance and prevented any Iranian intrusion into Yemen—but it also created a humanitarian disaster and a bloody stalemate. The United States and United Kingdom, eager to quiet Saudi objections to the nuclear deal, provided crucial support to the Saudi war. Pakistan, a longtime ally with a large Shiite minority, voted unanimously in parliament to stay out because it was worried about intensified sectarianism. 

A year ago Saudi intelligence renditioned Ahmed Mughassil after he debarked from a flight from Tehran to Beirut. The Saudi Shiite Mughassil was the mastermind of the Khobar attack twenty years ago in Saudi Arabia that killed nineteen American airmen. He was also involved in the assassination of several Saudi diplomats in the 1980s. He is the epitome of Iranian support and direction of terror. No doubt his interrogation has underscored Saudi concern about Iran's clandestine actions in the Gulf.

In January this year, the Saudis executed a prominent Shite dissident for allegedly supporting terrorism. An Iranian mob attacked the Saudi embassy—probably encouraged by regime hardliners—and then the Saudis broke diplomatic relations. Since then, Riyadh has encouraged its allies to follow suit. Iranian pilgrims will not attend this year's Hajj.

Saudi concern about Iranian conspiracies is reaching new heights. At least one prominent Saudi commentator has argued the terrorist attack on the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina on July 4th was a false flag operation controlled by Iranian intelligence to discredit the king's standing as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. His column is getting wide attention.

Former intelligence chief and Ambassador to the United States Prince Turki al Faysal last weekend attended a large demonstration in France sponsored by the Mujahideen e Khalq group and called for the regime to be overthrown. Turki's backing for the MeK and his open call for regime change escalates the rivalry even further.

Entrenched position?

The combination of a new leadership in Riyadh that is more prepared to take firm action and the crisis in Yemen have added to Saudi disagreement over the Iran deal. As the Pakistanis feared, it has polarized an already deeply divided Muslim world. The Islamic State and al-Qaida benefit from the Muslim Cold War and the escalating sectarian violence.

Washington has tried hard to reassure the Saudis that they are not alone in their legitimate concerns about Iran's terrorist activities and destabilizing subversion. President Obama has wisely sought to build confidence with the king and his young son. The Iran deal is a good one, and I've supported it from its inception.

But it has had consequences that are dangerous and alarming. In the end, Riyadh and Tehran are the only players who can deescalate the situation. The Saudis show no sign of interest in that road. 

       

How has the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—signed between the P5+1 and Iran one year ago—played out in practice? Several Brookings scholars, many of whom participated prominently in debates last year surrounding official congressional review, offered their views.

Strobe Talbott, President, Brookings Institution: At the one-year mark, it’s clear that the nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers has substantially restricted Tehran’s ability to produce the fissile material necessary to build a bomb. That’s a net positive—for the United States and the broader region.

Robert Einhorn, Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Senior Fellow, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Foreign Policy program: One year after its conclusion, the JCPOA remains controversial in Tehran and Washington (as I describe in more detail here), with opponents unreconciled to the deal and determined to derail it. But opponents have had to scale back their criticism, in large part because the JCPOA, at least so far, has delivered on its principal goal—blocking Iran’s path to nuclear weapons for an extended period of time. Moreover, Iran’s positive compliance record has not given opponents much ammunition. The IAEA found Iran in compliance in its two quarterly reports issued in 2016. But challenges to the smooth operation and even the longevity of the deal are already apparent. A real threat to the JCPOA is that Iran will blame the slow recovery of its economy on U.S. failure to conscientiously fulfill its sanctions relief commitments and, using that as a pretext, will curtail or even end its own implementation of the deal. But international banks and businesses have been reluctant to engage Iran not because they have been discouraged by the United States but because they have their own business-related reasons to be cautious. Legislation proposed in Congress could also threaten the nuclear deal.  For now, the administration is in a position to block new legislation that it believes would scuttle the deal. But developments outside the JCPOA, especially Iran’s regional behavior and its crackdown on dissent at home, could weaken support for the JCPOA within the United States and give proponents of deal-killing legislation a boost.  A potential wildcard for the future of the JCPOA is coming governing transitions in both Washington and Tehran. Hillary Clinton would maintain the deal but perhaps a harder line than her predecessor. Donald Trump now says he will re-negotiate rather than scrap the deal, but a better deal will not prove negotiable. With President Hassan Rouhani up for re-election next year and the health of the Supreme Leader questionable, Iran’s future policy toward the JCPOA cannot be confidently predicted. A final verdict on the JCPOA is many years away. But it is off to a promising start, as even some of its early critics now concede. Still, it is already clear that the path ahead will not always be smooth, the longevity of the deal cannot be taken for granted, and keeping it on track will require constant focus in Washington and other interested capitals.

Suzanne Maloney, Deputy Director, Foreign Policy program and Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action has fulfilled neither the worst fears of its detractors nor the most soaring ambitions of its proponents. All of the concerns that have shaped U.S. policy toward Tehran for more than a generation—terrorism, human rights abuses, weapons of mass destruction, regional destabilization—remain as relevant, and as alarming, as they have ever been. Notably, much the same is true on the Iranian side; the manifold grievances that Tehran has harbored toward Washington since the 1979 revolution continue to smolder. An important truth about the JCPOA, which has been wielded by both its defenders and its detractors in varying contexts, is that it was transactional, not transformational. As President Barack Obama repeatedly insisted, the accord addressed one specific problem, and in those narrow terms, it can be judged a relative success. The value of that relative success should not be underestimated; a nuclear-armed Iran would magnify risks in a turbulent region in a terrible way.  But in the United States, in Iran, and across the Middle East, the agreement has always been viewed through a much broader lens—as a waystation toward Iranian-American rapprochement, as an instrument for addressing the vicious cycle of sectarian violence that threatens to consume the region, as a boost to the greater cause of moderation and democratization in Iran. And so the failure of the deal to catalyze greater cooperation from Iran on a range of other priorities—Syria, Yemen, Iraq, to name a few—or to jumpstart improvements in Iran’s domestic dynamics cannot be disregarded simply because it was not its original intent.  For the “new normal” of regularized diplomatic contact between Washington and Tehran to yield dividends, the United States will need a serious strategy toward Tehran that transcends the JCPOA, building on the efficacy of the hard-won multilateral collaboration on the nuclear issue. Iranians, too, must begin to pivot the focus of their efforts away from endless litigation of the nuclear deal and toward a more constructive approach to addressing the deep challenges facing their country today.

Bruce Riedel, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy and Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence and Director, Intelligence Project, Foreign Policy program: As I explain more fully here, one unintended but very important consequence of the Iran nuclear deal has been to aggravate and intensify Saudi Arabia's concerns about Iran's regional goals and intentions. This fueling of Saudi fears has in turn fanned sectarian tensions in the region to unprecedented levels, and the results are likely to haunt the region for years to come. Riyadh's concerns about Iran have never been primarily focused on the nuclear danger. Rather, the key Saudi concern is that Iran seeks regional hegemony and uses terrorism and subversion to achieve it. The deal deliberately does not deal with this issue. In Saudi eyes, it actually makes the situation worse because lifting sanctions removed Iran's isolation as a rogue state and gives it more income.  Washington has tried hard to reassure the Saudis, and President Obama has wisely sought to build confidence with King Salman and his young son. The Iran deal is a good one, and I've supported it from its inception. But it has had consequences that are dangerous and alarming. In the end, Riyadh and Tehran are the only players who can deescalate the situation—the Saudis show no sign of interest in that road.

Norman Eisen, Visiting Fellow, Governance Studies: The biggest disappointment of the post-deal year has been the failure of Congress to pass legislation complementing the JCPOA. There is a great deal that the legislative branch could do to support the pact. Above all, it could establish criteria putting teeth into U.S. enforcement of Preamble Section III, Iran's pledge never to seek nuclear weapons. Congress could and should make clear what the ramp to seeking nuclear weapons would look like, what the triggers would be for U.S. action, and what kinds of U.S. action would be on the table. If Iran knows that, it will modulate its behavior accordingly. If it does not, it will start to act out, and we have just kicked the can down the road. That delay is of course immensely valuable—but why not extend the road indefinitely? Congress can do that, and much more (e.g. by increasing funding for JCPOA oversight by the administration and the IAEA), with appropriate legislation.

Richard Nephew, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Foreign Policy program: Over the past year, much effort has gone into ensuring that the Iran deal is fully implemented. To date, the P5+1 has—not surprisingly—gotten the better end of the bargain, with significant security benefits accruing to them and their partners in the Middle East once the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verified the required changes to Iran's nuclear program. Iran, for its part, has experienced a natural lag in its economic resurgence, held back by the collapse in oil prices in 2014, residual American and European sanctions, and reluctance among banks and businesses to re-engage. But, Iran's economy has stabilized and—if the deal holds for its full measure—the security benefits that the P5+1 and their partners have won may fall away while Iran's economy continues to grow. The most important challenge related to the deal for the next U.S. administration (and, presumably, the Rouhani administration in its second term) is therefore: how can it be taken forward, beyond the 10- to 15-year transition period? Iran will face internal pressure to expand its nuclear program, but it also will face pressure to refrain both externally and internally, should other countries in the region seek to create their own matching nuclear capabilities.  The best next step for all sides is to negotiate a region-wide arrangement to manage nuclear programs –one that constrains all sides, though perhaps not equally. It must ensure—at a minimum—that nuclear developments in the region are predictable, understandable, and credibly civilian (something Bob Einhorn and I addressed in a recent report). The next White House will need to do the hard work of convincing countries in the region—and beyond—not to rest on the victory of the JCPOA. Rather, they must take it for what it is: another step towards a more stable and manageable region.

Tamara Wittes, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:  This week, Washington is awash in events and policy papers taking stock of how the Iran nuclear deal has changed the Middle East in the past year. The narratives presented this week largely track the positions that the authors, speakers, or organizations articulated on the nuclear deal when it was first concluded last summer. Those who opposed the deal have marshaled evidence of how the deal has "emboldened" Iran's destabilizing behavior, while those who supported the deal cite evidence of "moderated" politics in the Islamic Republic. That polarized views on the deal last year produce polarized assessments of the deal's impact this year should surprise no one. In fact, no matter which side of the nuclear agreement’s worth it presents, much of the analysis out this week ascribes to the nuclear deal Iranian behavior and attitudes in the region that existed before the deal's conclusion and implementation. Iran has been a revisionist state, and a state sponsor of terrorism, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Saudi-Iranian rivalry predates the revolution; Iran's backing of Houthi militias against Saudi and its allies in Yemen well predates the nuclear agreement. Most notably, the upheavals in the Arab world since 2011 have given Iran wider opportunities than perhaps ever before to exploit the cracks within Arab societies—and to use cash, militias, and other tools to advance its interests and expand its influence. Iran has exploited those opportunities skillfully in the last five years and, as I wrote last summer, was likely to continue to do so regardless of diplomatic success or failure in Vienna. To argue that the nuclear deal somehow created these problems, or could solve them, is ahistorical.  It is true that Iran's access to global markets might free even more cash for these endeavors, and that is a real issue worth tracking. But since severe sanctions did not prevent Iran from spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support and supply Hezbollah, or marshaling Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and militia fighters to sustain the faltering regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, it's not clear that additional cash will generate a meaningful difference in regional outcomes. Certainly, the nuclear deal's conclusion and implementation did not alter the trajectory of Iranian policy in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon to any noticeable degree—and that means that, no matter what the merits or dangers of the JCPOA, the United States must still confront and work to resolve enduring challenges to regional instability—including Iran's revisionist behavior.

Kenneth M. Pollack, Senior Fellow, Center for Middle East Policy, Foreign Policy program:  When the JCPOA was being debated last year, I felt that the terms of the deal were far less consequential than how the United States responded to Iranian regional behavior after a deal was signed. I see the events of the past 12 months as largely having borne that out. While both sides have accused the other of "cheating," the deal has so far largely held. However, as many of my colleagues have noted, the real frictions have arisen from the U.S. geostrategic response to the deal. I continue to believe that signing the JCPOA was better than any of the realistic alternatives—though I also continue to believe that a better deal was possible, had the administration handled the negotiations differently. However, the administration’s regional approach since then has been problematic—with officials condemning Riyadh and excusing Tehran in circumstances where both were culpable and ignoring some major Iranian transgressions, for instance (and with President Obama gratuitously insulting the Saudis and other U.S. allies in interviews).  America's traditional Sunni Arab allies (and to some extent Turkey and Israel) feared that either the United States would use the JCPOA as an excuse to further disengage from the region or to switch sides and join the Iranian coalition. Their reading of events has been that this is precisely what has happened, and it is causing the GCC states to act more aggressively. I think our traditional allies would enthusiastically welcome a Hillary Clinton presidency. She would likely do all that she could to reassure them that she plans to be more engaged and more willing to commit American resources and energy to Middle Eastern problems. But those allies will eventually look for her to turn words into action. I cannot imagine a Hillary Clinton administration abrogating the JCPOA, imposing significant new economic sanctions on Iran, or otherwise acting in ways that it would fear could provoke Tehran to break the deal. Our allies may see that as Washington trying to remain on the fence, which will infuriate them.  So there are some important strategic differences between the United States and its regional allies. The second anniversary of the JCPOA could therefore prove even more fraught for America and the Middle East than the first.

       

At the time that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran was being debated here in Washington, I felt that the terms of the deal were far less consequential than how the United States responded to Iranian regional behavior after a deal was signed. I see the events of the past 12 months as largely having borne out that analysis. While both sides have accused the other of "cheating" on the deal in both letter and spirit, it has so far largely held and neither Tehran nor Washington (nor any of the other signatories) have shown a determination to abrogate the deal or flagrantly circumvent its terms. However, as many of my colleagues have noted, the real frictions have arisen from the U.S. geostrategic response to the deal.

I continue to believe that the Obama administration was ultimately correct that signing the JCPOA was better than any of the realistic alternatives—even if I also continue to believe that a better deal was possible, had the administration handled the negotiations differently. However, its regional approach since then has left a fair amount to be desired:

• The president gratuitously insulted the Saudis and other U.S. allies in his various interviews with Jeff Goldberg of The Atlantic. 
• After several alarming Iranian-Saudi dust-ups, administration officials have none-too-privately condemned Riyadh and excused Tehran in circumstances where both were culpable. 
• Washington has continued to just about ignore all manner of Iranian transgressions from human rights abuses to missile tests, and senior administration officials have turned themselves into metaphorical pretzels to insist that the United States is doing everything it can to assist the Iranian economy. 
• And the overt component of the administration's Syria policy remains stubbornly focused on ISIS, not the Bashar Assad regime or its Iranian allies, while the covert side focused on the regime remains very limited—far smaller than America's traditional Middle Eastern allies have sought. 

To be fair, the administration has been quite supportive of the Gulf Cooperation Council war effort in Yemen—far more so than most Americans realize—but even there, still much less than the Saudis, Emiratis, and other Sunni states would like. 

To be blunt, the perspective of America's traditional Sunni Arab allies (and to some extent, Turkey and Israel) is that they are waging an all-out war against Iran and its (Shiite) allies across the region. They have wanted the United States, their traditional protector, to lead that fight. And they feared that the JCPOA would result in one of two different opposite approaches: either that the United States would use the JCPOA as an excuse to further disengage from the geopolitical competition in the region, or even worse, that Washington would use it to switch sides and join the Iranian coalition. Unfortunately, their reading of events has been that this is precisely what has happened, although they continue to debate whether the United States is merely withdrawing or actively changing sides. And as both Bruce Reidel and I have both stressed, this perception is causing the GCC states to act more aggressively, provoking more crises and worsening proxy warfare with Iran that will inevitably aggravate an already dangerously-unstable Middle East and raises the risk of escalation to something even worse.

U.S. President Barack Obama walks with Saudi King Salman at Erga Palace upon his arrival for a summit meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia April 20, 2016. Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque.

Looking to year two

All that said, I wanted to use the first anniversary of the JCPOA to think about where we may be on its second anniversary. By then, we will have a new president. Donald Trump has not laid out anything close to a coherent approach to the Middle East, nor does he have any prior experience with the region, so I do not believe we can say anything reasonable about how he might handle the region if he somehow became president. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has had considerable experience with the region—as first lady, senator, and secretary of state—and she and her senior aides have discussed the region to a much greater extent, making it possible to speculate on at least the broad contours of her initial Middle East policy. 

In particular, Clinton has been at pains to emphasize a willingness to commit more resources to deal with the problems of the Middle East and a fervent desire to rebuild the strained ties with America's traditional Middle Eastern allies. From my perspective, that is all to the good because an important (but hardly the only) factor in the chaos consuming the Middle East has been the Obama administration's determination to disengage from the geopolitical events of the region and distance itself from America's traditional allies. The problem here is not that the United States always does the right thing or that our allies are saints. Hardly. It is that the region desperately needs the United States to help it solve the massive problems of state failure and civil war that are simply beyond the capacity of regional actors to handle on their own. The only way to stop our allies from acting aggressively and provocatively is for the United States to lead them in a different, more constructive direction. In the Middle East in particular, you can't beat something with nothing, and while the United States cannot be the only answer to the region's problems, there is no answer to the region's problems without the United States.

My best guess is that our traditional allies will enthusiastically welcome a Hillary Clinton presidency, and the new president will do all that she can to reassure them that she plans to be more engaged, more of a leader, more willing to commit American resources to Middle Eastern problems, more willing to help the region address its problems (and not just the problems that affect the United States directly, like ISIS). I think all of that rhetorical good will and a sense (on both sides) of putting the bad days of Obama behind them will produce a honeymoon period. 

[T]he second anniversary of the JCPOA could prove even more fraught for America and the Middle East than the first.

But I suspect that that honeymoon will come to an end after 6 to 18 months, perhaps beginning with the second anniversary of the JCPOA and occasioned by it. I suspect that at that point, America's traditional allies—the Sunni Arab States, Israel, and Turkey—will begin to look for President Clinton to turn her words into action, and from their perspective, that is probably going to mean doing much more than President Obama. I suspect that they will still want the United States to join and/or lead them in a region-wide war against Iran and its allies. And while I think that a President Clinton will want to do more than President Obama, I see no sign that she is interested in doing that much more. 

Syria is one example. The GCC wants the United States to commit to a strategy that will destroy the Assad regime (and secondarily, eliminate ISIS and the Nusra Front). Clinton has said she was in favor of a beefed-up covert campaign against the Assad regime and that she is in favor of imposing a no-fly zone over the country. If, as president, she enacts both, this would be a much more aggressive policy than Obama's, but as I have written elsewhere, neither is likely to eliminate the Assad regime, let alone stabilize Syria and end the civil war—the two real threats to both the United States and our regional allies (and our European allies). 

Even more to the point, I cannot imagine a Hillary Clinton administration abrogating the JCPOA, imposing significant new economic sanctions on Iran, or otherwise acting in ways that it would fear could provoke Tehran to break the deal, overtly or covertly. That may look to our traditional allies like Washington is trying to remain on the fence, which will infuriate them. After Obama, and after Clinton's rhetoric, they expect the United States to stand openly and resolutely with them. At the very least, such American restraint will place further limits on the willingness of a Clinton administration to adopt the kind of confrontational policy toward Tehran that our regional allies want, and that her rhetoric has led them to expect. 

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (C) speaks with Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh (L) and United Arab Emirates Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash as they participate in the Libya Contact Group family photo at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi June 9, 2011. Photo credit: Reuters/Susan Walsh.

Reconcile, or agree to disagree?

Let me be clear, I am not suggesting that the United States should adopt the GCC analysis of what is going on in the region wholeheartedly. I think that it overstates Iran's role as the source of the region's problems and so distracts from what I see as the region's real problems—state failure and civil wars—even if the Iranians have played a role in exacerbating both. 

Instead, my intent is simply to highlight that there are some important strategic differences between the United States and its regional allies, differences that are not all Barack Obama's fault but reflect important differences that have emerged between the two sides. If this analysis is correct, then the second anniversary of the JCPOA could prove even more fraught for America and the Middle East than the first. The honeymoon will be over, and both sides may recognize that goodwill and rousing words alone cannot cover fundamental divergences in both our diagnosis of what ails the region and our proposed treatment of those maladies. If that is the case, then both may need to make much bigger adjustments than they currently contemplate. Otherwise, the United States may find that its traditional allies are no longer as willing to follow our lead, and our allies may discover that the United States is no longer interested in leading them on the path they want to follow.

       

       

       

       

       

       

The GOP presidential candidate said he would ban immigrants from sending money home to Mexico.

Donald Trump’s proposal to force Mexico to pay for a Wall guarding against the flux of immigrants into the U.S. made news this week, and rightfully so. Trump’s idea would be to curtail the ability of banks, credit unions, and wire transmission companies to send money abroad — a sharp departure from policy and law whose bipartisan aim has been to bring remittances to all countries into the financial mainstream and out from the shadowy illegal word of people moving cash in suitcases.

Encouraging remittances to go through the financial system benefits everyone: it enhances the ability to combat terrorist finance and money-laundering, it reduces crime in both the U.S. and abroad, it increases economic growth in the U.S. and overseas, and it provides for greater competition and market incentives to allow people to keep more of their hard-earned money to use as they see fit. Moving in the opposite direction would be a major mistake.

This is a big issue that affects a lot more people than one might think – more than just sending money to Mexico. In America today, more than 40 million people were born in other countries, a record number. This translates into just more than 1 in 8 Americans, a sharp increase from 1970 when fewer than 1 in 25 Americans were foreign born. Thus, it is not surprising that many people perceive America to have more foreign-born people than any time in their lifetime. However, that is not the case for the lifetime of America. Between the Civil War and the 1920s, America had as high — or higher — share of foreign born as we do today.

Remittances are not a new phenomenon. Most American families likely sent remittances at some point whenever their family first immigrated. My great-grand father sent money back to what is today the Czech Republic so that his wife and their children (including my grandmother) could come and join him and escape what became the Second World War. Today, remittance flows go toward the new generation of American immigrants and the children of those immigrants. More than $120 billion was sent abroad in 2012 according to the Pew Center and while it is true that Mexico received the largest amount at just under $23 billion, the rest of the top 5 countries may surprise you: China ($13 billion), India ($12 billion), Philippines ($10.5 billion), and Nigeria ($6 billion). And old habits remain as Germany ($2.5 billion) and France ($2 billion) are still among the top 15 countries that receive remittances from the United States.

This money comes in lots of small chunks, which can make sending it expensive. The typical new migrant worker sends money home around 14 times a year, which corresponds to once a month plus Mother’s Day and Christmas. These are usually small sums (less than $300) and represent an extraordinary level of savings given the worker’s income. The money goes through both the formal banking system including banks, credit unions, and wire transmitters who eventually use banks like Western Union and MoneyGram. Some goes through informal means, including “viajeros” who are people that literally carry cash in suitcases on planes that are often breaking the law and outside of the standard anti-money laundering and terrorist finance enforcement system. Why would anyone want to encourage that?

The idea of using this flow of funds to try to implement other policy objectives, such as border control, would be a sharp departure from current practice. The Patriot Act and subsequent federal law governing remittances in financial laws like the Dodd-Frank Act were never intended to be used to threaten to cut off the flow of migrant worker remittances. These laws were intended to track and crack down on the flow of money laundering or support for illegal and terrorist organizations while at the same time providing consumer protections to workers who are sending hard-earned cash back home to their parents, grandparents, and children. In fact, the bipartisan goal of policy concerning remittances has been to encourage the flow of money to come into the official system and to discourage the flow of funds through the underground network.

In 2004, then Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke made clear that, “The Federal Reserve is attempting to support banks’ efforts to better serve immigrant populations, with remittances and other money transfers being a key area of interest.” House Financial Services Chairman Mike Oxley (R-OH) told President Bush’s then-Treasury Secretary John Snow, “Remittances between established and emerging economies foster growth in both types of economies simultaneously. I will be interested in hearing your views on how unnecessary costs can be eliminated in this area.” When Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD) introduced legislation that became the basis for today’s law that covers remittances, he had the simple goal to “increase transparency, competition and efficiency in the remittance market, while helping to bring more Americans into the financial mainstream.”

The longstanding bipartisan support for bringing remittances into the financial mainstream is based on the fact that most immigrants, regardless of whether they are U.S. citizens, legal residents, or undocumented, send remittances. A system that tried to assert proof of citizenship or legal status upon wiring money overseas would be burdensome, costly, and ineffective at best and if effective, it would simply drive more money into illegal transmission schemes while increasing crime here in the U.S. and abroad. Imagine if an entire community knew that someone would be walking through their immigrant neighborhood with a suitcase full of tens of thousands of dollars in cash.

Thought of another way, if I went to the bank to send money to my mother who lives in France part of the year, how would I prove that I’m a citizen? My driver’s license alone is not proof of legal status. Would I need to bring my passport? What if, like the majority of Americans, (62% according to the State Department) I don’t have a valid passport? Would I have to bring my birth certificate to the local Western Union? I guess the one positive thing from such a system is that it would help stop the email scams asking for money from a Nigerian Prince….

Aaron Klein is a fellow at the Brookings Institution and served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury Department from 2009 to 2012. He also serves as an unpaid member of the Clinton campaign’s Infrastructure Finance Working Group; he has not served as an advisor on any banking or finance issues.

Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared on Fortune.

      

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Increasingly, there are concerns about the direction of Turkey’s politics, economy, security, and foreign policy. Debate is growing about the Turkish economy’s vibrancy, and its commitment to democratic norms is being questioned. Moreover, against the backdrop of the chaos in the region, its ability to maintain peace and order is hindered. These difficulties coincide with a larger trend in which the global economy remains fragile, European integration is fracturing, and international governance seems under duress. The spill-over from the conflicts in Syria and Iraq has precipitated a refugee crisis of historic scale, testing the resolve, unity, and values of the West. Will these challenges prove pivotal in reshaping the international system? Will these trials ultimately compel the West to formulate an effective collective response? Will Turkey prove to be an asset or a liability for regional security and order?

On April 14, the Turkey Project of the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings hosted a discussion to assess Turkey’s strategic orientation amid the ever-changing international order. Panelists included Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Bruce Jones, Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan of the University of Maryland, and Francis Riccardone of the Atlantic Council. Cansen Başaran-Symes, president of the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD) made introductory remarks. Turkey Project Director and TÜSİAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci moderated the discussion.

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As the 2016 election draws near, issues related to immigration and broader cultural change continue to dominate the national political dialogue. Now, an extensive new survey sheds light on how Americans view these issues. How do they feel about the proposed policy to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border or a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country? The survey of more than 2,500 Americans explores opinions on these questions and others concerning the current immigration system, immigrants’ contributions to American culture, and the cultural and economic anxieties fueling Donald Trump’s success among core Republican constituencies.

On June 23, Governance Studies at Brookings and the Public Religion Research Institute released the PRRI/Brookings Immigration Survey and hosted a panel of experts to discuss its findings. Additional topics explored in the survey and by the panel included perceptions of discrimination against white Americans and Christians, and the extent to which Americans believe that the uncertain times demand an unconventional leader.

Join the conversation on Twitter at #immsurvey and @BrookingsGov

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On June 23, Brookings hosted the release of the Immigrants, Immigration Reform, and 2016 Election Survey, a joint project with the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). The associated report entitled, How immigration and concern about cultural change are shaping the 2016 election finds an American public anxious and intensely divided on matters of immigration and cultural change at the forefront of the 2016 Election.

Dr. Robert Jones, CEO of PRRI, began the presentation by highlighting Americans’ feelings of anxiety and personal vulnerability. The poll found, no issue is more critical to Americans this election cycle than terrorism, with nearly seven in ten (66 percent) reporting that terrorism is a critical issue to them personally. And yet, Americans are sharply divided on questions of terrorism as it pertains to their personal safety. Six in ten (62 percent) Republicans report that they are at least somewhat worried about being personally affected by terrorism, while just 44 percent of Democrats say the same. 

On matters of cultural change, Jones painted a picture of a sharply divided America. Poll results indicate that a majority (55 percent) of Americans believe that the American way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence, while 44 percent disagree.  Responses illustrate a stark partisan divide:

74 percent of Republicans and 83 percent of Trump supporters believe that foreign influence over the American way of life needs to be curtailed.  Just 41 percent of Democrats agree, while a majority (56 percent) disagrees with this statement. Views among white Americans are sharply divided by social class, the report finds. While 68 percent of the white working class agrees that the American way of life needs to be protected, fewer than half (47 percent) of white college-educated Americans agree.

Jones identified Americans’ views on language and “reverse discrimination” as additional touchstones of cultural change. Americans are nearly evenly divided over how comfortable they feel when they encounter immigrants who do not speak English: 50 percent say this bothers them and 49 percent say it does not. 66 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Trump supporters express discomfort when coming into contact with immigrants who do not speak English; just 35 percent of Democrats say the same.

 

Americans split evenly on the question of whether discrimination against whites, or “reverse discrimination,” is as big of a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities (49 percent agree, 49 percent disagree). Once again, the partisan differences are considerable: 72 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of Trump supporters agree that reverse discrimination is a problem, whereas more than two thirds (68 percent) of Democrats disagree.

On economic matters, survey results indicate that nearly seven in ten (69 percent) Americans support increasing the tax rate on wealthy Americans, defined as those earning over $250,000 a year. This represents a modest increase in the share of Americans who favor increasing the tax rate relative to 2012, but a dramatic increase in the number of Republicans who favor this position.

 

The share of  Republicans favoring increasing the tax rate on wealthy Americans jumped from 36 percent in 2012 to 54 percent in 2016—an 18 point increase. Democrats and Independents views on this position remained relatively constant, increasing from 80 to 84 percent and 61 to 68 percent approval respectively.

Finally, on matters of immigration, Americans are divided over whether immigrants are changing their communities for the better (50 percent) or for the worse (49 percent). Across party lines, however, Americans are more likely to think immigrants are changing American society as a whole than they are to think immigrants are changing the local community. This, Jones suggested, indicates that Americans’ views on immigration are motivated by partisan ideology more than by lived experience. 

At the conclusion of Dr. Jones’s presentation, Brookings senior fellow in Governance Studies, Dr. William Galston moderated a panel discussion of the poll’s findings. Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow and research coordinator at the American Enterprise Institute, observed that cultural anxiety has long characterized Americans’ views on immigration. Never, Bowman remarked, has the share of Americans that favor immigrants outpaced the share of those who oppose immigrants. Turning to the results of the PRRI survey, Bowman highlighted the partisan divide influencing responses to the proposition that the United States place a temporary ban on Muslims. The strong level of Republican support for the proposal--64 percent support among Republicans--compared to just 23 percent support among Democrats has more to do with fear of terrorism than anxiety about immigration, she argued.

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, remarked that many Americans feel that government should do more to ensure protection, prosperity, and security -- as evidenced by the large proportion of voters who feel that their way of life is under threat from terrorism (51%), crime (63%), or unemployment (65%).  In examining fractures within the Republican Party, Olsen considered the ways in which Trump voters differ from non-Trump voters, regardless of party affiliation. On questions of leadership, he suggested, the fact that 57% of all Republicans agree that we need a leader “willing to break some rules” is skewed by the high proportion of Trump supporters (72%) who agree with that statement. Indeed, just 49% of Republicans who did not vote for Trump agreed that the country needs a leader willing to break rules to set things right.

Joy Reid, National Correspondent at MSNBC, cited the survey’s findings that Americans are bitterly divided over whether American culture and way of life has changed for the better (49 percent) or the worse (50 percent) since the 1950s. More than two-thirds of Republicans (68 percent) and Donald Trump supporters (68 percent) believe the American way of life has changed for the worse since the 1950s. Connecting this nostalgia to survey results indicating anxiety about immigration and cultural change, Reid argued that culture—not economics—is the primary concern animating many Trump supporters.

       

Economist Albert Hirschman’s marvelously perceptive little book with big ideas written in 1970 titled “Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States” provides a cornucopia of insights into understanding Brexit and the current state of global governance.  When it emerged American economist Kenneth Arrow marveled at its extraordinary richness, and political scientist Karl Deutsch, in his presidential address to the American Political Science Association, called it an “outstanding contribution to political theory.”

Economists assume exit to mean dissatisfaction with an organization’s product or the service leading to decline in demand for it. The value of exit lies in the certainty it provides in terms of the relationship between the customer or member and the firm. Political scientists think of how a firm handles its response to customer dissatisfaction as the exercise of voice by stakeholders. The value of voice is that it can lead to reform that ultimately determines the firm’s revival, an idea also advanced by scholar Clayton Christiansen in his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma.” An understanding of the conditions under which exit and voice are exercised requires the incorporation of the concept of loyalty. Loyalty makes voice more probable and exit less likely. But loyalty does not by itself make the exercise of voice more effective. That depends on the extent to which customers or members are willing to trade off the certainty of exit against the uncertainties of improvement in the deteriorating product, and their ability to influence the organization.  

Applying these ideas to Brexit suggests that the option of a U.K. exit was made more likely because of the limited voice of the U.K. in achieving reforms, coupled with the fact that Britain’s loyalty to the European Union was mixed at best. Its self-perception as “special people” was accompanied by long-standing skepticism about foreigners, including other Europeans.

Some have attributed Brexit to misjudgment by Prime Minister David Cameron about holding a referendum, poor management of migration policy by the EU including procrastination and downright misjudgment on migration, and they have termed the historic vote as nothing short of the beginning of the end of the post-World War II institutional frameworks, including the Bretton Woods institutions. They fear that the longest and most prosperous period of sustained peace in modern human history, enabled by post-war global architecture, may have come to an end.

The Economist is one proponent of this view, describing Brexit as multiple calamities. The British economy and polity are wildly off the rails, the newspaper notes. The prime minister has resigned with no obvious successor. The leader of the opposition is struggling to survive a coup. The pound hit a 31-year low against the dollar and banks lost a third of their value before stabilizing. Meanwhile there is talk in Scotland and Northern Ireland of secession.

But my own English friends, some of whom favored Brexit, talk about the high tax payments to the EU, oppressive overreach of the EU bureaucracy, and the fear of open borders leading to uncontrollable immigration from Eastern Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East. In short they see EU membership as all pain and no gain. On the surface Brexit has all the flavors ranging from nostalgia of self-rule to xenophobia.

Lessons for global governance?

There are already signs that exit is becoming the preferred option in various global governance organizations. Global loyalties are split, not just among great powers, but also between developed and developing countries. Voice and reform have not been effective.

Hirschman mentions leadership and timely action in sharing power with the next generation as a behavioral trait (often found in the animal kingdom) favoring voice. He contrasts that with exit, which he describes as a human behavior which assumes markets, including political markets, will solve problems.

Hirschman’s chapter “Exit and Voice in American Ideology and Practice” helps us to better understand the U.S. role in global governance. He notes that exit has been accorded “an extraordinarily privileged position in the American tradition” founded in its very creation as a land of immigrants, who, he reminds us, were opting for exit.  Indeed, like in Britain, “the neatness of exit over the messiness and heartbreak of voice” has persisted throughout U.S. history. In his last chapter, “Elusive Optimal Mix of Exit and Voice,” he does not come up with a recipe for some optimum mix of the two, nor does he recommend each institution has its own optimum mix, instead arguing conditions are seldom ripe for their optimum and stable mix—although it is possible to say there is deficiency of one or the other at a given point in time.

Today, it seems that the dominant mode of the post-World War II era, namely voice, is plainly revealing its inadequacy, so the other mode, exit, will eventually be injected once again.

Having had a leading role in founding the global architecture of the United Nation, Food and Agriculture Organization, and Bretton Woods institutions, the U.S. has had a strong voice in and loyalty to the Bretton Woods institutions as well as leadership roles commensurate with its historic roles. U.S. loyalty to the U.N. outside of the Security Council has varied among administrations, since voice in U.N. organizations is distributed more equally. The U.S. has opted for exit from specific U.N. organizations from time to time when it has disliked the dissenting views of other members. 

Others are also choosing to exit. China’s slightly increased shares in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank after the financial crisis are nowhere near its weight in the global economy, thanks to European reluctance to accept a reduced voice. China and other emerging countries have exercised a partial exit option by establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank to meet the investment needs of developing countries.The U.S. considered the establishment of the two as a threat to its leadership and to the Bretton Woods institutions, viewing the acts as verging on disloyalty, whereas most U.S. allies have embraced membership in both. And yet the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is following on the footsteps of the Bretton Woods institutions as regards norms and rules.

To strengthen global governance requires strengthening “voice” and weakening incentives for “exit” from the U.N. and Bretton Woods institutions and other forums of global governance. The U.S. needs to also lead the effort to increase the rewards and reduce the cost of exercising voice. This would be a timely reminder, when politics seems to thrive on divisions, that leadership means forging inclusive institutions that serve all members. 

       

For months, Europe has been dealing with the hectic, day-to-day struggles of managing a massive migrant crisis. While those challenges dominate in the short term, European leaders must also start thinking about medium- to long-term reforms to the European Union’s asylum and migration policies.

European governments have made clear that they want to reform the Common European Asylum System. The European Commission has proposed reforms of its own, which to become laws would need to be approved by both the Council and the European Parliament. But while these proposals are certainly steps in the right direction, they don’t go far enough in addressing structural weaknesses in Europe’s migration and asylum policies.

Positive momentum in a number of key areas

There are several areas where the Commission has already proposed good reforms:

1. The Commission is proposing to recast a directive aimed at standardizing the processing of asylum procedures across Europe into a fully-fledged regulation. This is good news. The persistent variation in the implementation of asylum procedures across the EU highlights this necessity. Unlike directives, which need to be transposed into national legislation, regulations are immediately and simultaneously enforceable across all member states. 
2. A directive specifying the grounds for granting international protection is to be replaced by a more stringent regulation, which is also a good thing. It’s problematic that asylum seekers from the same country of origin enjoy dramatically different acceptance rates across EU member states. Combined, these changes should force member states to comply with international standards on asylum procedures and increase opportunities for migrants to get asylum (particularly in countries that have applied more restrictive criteria).
3. The Eurodac system, which establishes a pan-European fingerprinting database, is now likely to be expanded as well. It would store data on third-country nationals who are not applicants for international protection. But implementation is again a challenge, since Croatia, Greece, Italy, and Malta already struggle to fingerprint new arrivals (something over which infringement proceedings are still ongoing). 
4. To attract highly skilled professionals, the Commission is working to make the EU Blue Card scheme more appealing. While member states will retain the right to set their own annual migrants quota, Blue Card procedures and rights will be harmonized across the EU. The minimum length of an initial contract offer will be lowered to six months, salary thresholds will be reduced, and the Blue Card will be offered to migrants granted asylum. Other measures—including a directive aimed at students and researchers and another facilitating intra-corporate transfers—are also steps in the right direction. 
5. Finally, the Commission has proposed making permanent a pan-European resettlement scheme that was launched during last summer’s migrant crisis. That’s also a good thing. The framework would harmonize resettlement procedures and financially incentivizes member states to favor the European framework over national ones. At the same time, it would allow asylum seekers to move to Europe without risking their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean. However, given that member states will still determine how many people to resettle annually, the long-term impact of the scheme remains to be seen. 

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere watches as a migrant from Babel in Iraq has his fingerprints taken, during a visit to Patrick-Henry Village refugee centerin Heidelberg, Germany. Photo credit: Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach.

Far more needed but little appetite among national capitals

There are several policy areas where far more should be done: 

1. There is at least one area where the EU is still planning reforms but of a far more limited nature, and that’s on the current directive on basic standards for housing, healthcare, and employment. In private conversations, EU officials stress that the sheer numbers of migrants make it hard for even the best-performing countries to implement this directive. Put simply, member states do not have the political will to do more than what they are already doing. The EU is therefore, understandably, proposing a more moderate reform: it aims to improve reception conditions throughout the EU without dictating to member states how to do so.
2. Less privileged migrants must be provided with safe avenues to contribute to Europe’s economy. Legislation allowing seasonal workers into the Union for a maximum of between five and nine months within any twelve-month period already goes in this direction. Forums connecting local industry associations and countries of origin to better match labor demand and supply would also be welcome. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cape Verde, Georgia, Morocco, Moldova, and Tunisia—which enjoy mobility partnerships with the EU—would benefit from such an approach. More can be done if the political will amongst European capitals is there.
3. Finally, Europeans must ensure that migrants feel welcome to stay. The EU is aware of the need to adequately integrate third-country nationals, but European capitals are in the driver’s seat when it comes to integration. Directives aimed at facilitating family reunifications, integrating long-term residents, and streamlining administrative processes do what they can in this respect. However, the paths to integration and to welcoming foreigners chosen by European countries are exceedingly different, and for the time being likely to remain so. Because of this and until policymakers put integration at the top of their national agendas, foreign nationals will likely continue to struggle. 

Dublin: Still the elephant in the room

The Dublin regulation, which outlines which member state should be responsible for handling asylum applications, still must be radically revised. This is the elephant in the room and the core of the current asylum refugee framework. Member states should consider the Commission’s proposals for a corrective mechanism in case of migrant surges, a new system for allocating applications across the EU based on a distribution key or, ideally, the centralization of competences to the European Asylum Support Office. 

Informal conversations with top national and European officials suggest that the corrective mechanism is the most likely proposal to be accepted by the member states and therefore adopted. Under such an agreement, Dublin would be maintained, but automatic relocations would start in case of exceptional migrant surges—with hefty fines imposed by the Commission on those member states refusing to play their part. Unfortunately, this is not good enough. Such an approach does not address the underlying structural unfairness and unsustainability of a system that leaves the burden of processing arrivals overwhelmingly on frontline states. 

The current situation exemplifies a significant failure of governance that harms the interests of migrants and member states alike. At present, the Dublin Convention largely ignores the needs of migrants in terms of family reunification, language skills, and cultural integration. Unfortunately, the corrective mechanism for the Dublin Convention does nothing more than provide some relief in case of acute emergencies. Meanwhile, it leaves frontline states to continue facing on their own a crisis that only Europe as a whole could solve. “European leaders” still think and act through national perspectives.

Moving along despite European governments

The European Commission faces both legal and political constraints that limit its scope of action. Whenever it can, it is pushing for a significant overhaul of European asylum and migration policies. However, once more, its initiatives are hampered by the so-called “interests” of the member states. For the time being, we are likely to see some degree of integration in the fields of asylum and migration policies. But because of national vetoes, progress is slow and proposals are often watered down.