Author Ellie Geranmayeh: Iran hedges its bets in Syria/Timur Göksel: Yazidis wary of going back to liberated Sinjar/Ahmed Fouad: Can women and Copts make it to parliament without the quota

Iran hedges its bets in Syria
Author Ellie Geranmayeh/Al-Monitor/November 21/15

The countries party to the statement of the International Syria Support Group, which was agreed to Nov. 14 in Vienna, seek to implement a road map to end the Syrian conflict under conditions most favorable to their own strategic interests. In the short term, the world and regional powers involved in this process are likely to maintain maximalist positions, in a bid to preserve their bargaining leverage, while fighting continues on the ground in Syria. Over time, however, this process could be crucial to ascertaining the red lines of four critical stakeholders: Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Iran. A compromise among them is paramount to any lasting political settlement in Syria. The conclusion of the July 14 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between Iran and six world powers coupled with Moscow’s insistence that Tehran be involved in the Vienna talks mark a shift for the West. Rather than containing Iran on regional dossiers, there is now more openness to engagement. Iranian participation for the second time in the Vienna talks also indicates that its leadership does not want to be perceived as the spoiler on this new political platform. Iran’s endgame in Syria is detailed, complex and has dimensions that could change depending on how the conflict evolves. Yet two fundamental interests will drive Tehran’s negotiating position at the talks.
The first is preserving access to Lebanon and sustaining Hezbollah’s strategic depth against Israel and the US military presence in the region. The second is ensuring that, at a minimum, any future government in Damascus is not hostile to its regional interests. While these core interests are likely to be non-negotiable for Iran, the means of preserving them could be flexible. In an optimal scenario for Tehran, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would retain control of the central government and, with Russian air support, regain more of the core Syrian territory lost to the opposition. An acceptable alternative would be a post-Assad leadership able to assert control over Syria’s security apparatus while safeguarding Iran’s core interests. Both of these scenarios are nonstarters for Syrian opposition groups and Saudi Arabia, albeit for different reasons. The opposition groups are demanding that Assad and his inner political circle step aside and be barred from running in future elections. By contrast, Tehran has so far insisted that Assad be allowed to stand in elections. At the Vienna talks, Iran pledged its support for UN-supervised elections and has for some time argued that if Assad has truly lost legitimacy, Syrians can express this through the ballot box. The bigger problem for the Syrian opposition groups is not so much that Assad might be allowed to run, but not being able to trust that the oversight mechanism, including one overseen by the United Nations, will be immune from tampering.
The Saudis’ goal in Syria is less connected to Assad per se and more focused on upending Iranian ties to Syrian security organs. Saudi Arabia, alongside Qatar and Turkey, has supported both nationalist and Islamist opposition forces to counter Damascus and Tehran. In response, Iran is pursuing two parallel tactics to shield its interests: It continues assisting Assad and the Syrian army to fight opposition forces, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is widely thought to be stepping up support to pro-regime paramilitary groups, notably the Syrian National Defense Forces (NDF), as a separate and long-term path to securing Tehran’s core interests.
The NDF rose to dominance in early 2013 as an umbrella organization merging pro-Assad armed militia groups and popular committees. The group consists of fighters from an array of Syrian ethnic and religious communities. It is in theory overseen, armed and trained by Damascus, but in practice — with the weakening of the Syrian regime — the IRGC is believed to be commanding and training it. Hezbollah remains Iran’s most reliable partner actively fighting in Syria, but eventually this force will need to return to its home base of Lebanon. When that happens, Iran will need alternative organizations, like the NDF, to protect its access to the Syrian highway to Hezbollah. Although Shiite forces are not the majority within the NDF, its structure and anti-insurgency operations are similar to those of other militia groups that Iran has backed, such as Hezbollah and various Iraqi Shiite militias. These have proven effective at protecting Iran’s strategic objectives in the region. It would thus be natural for Iran to hedge its bets in Syria with the NDF as a fallback in lieu of a strong and pro-Tehran future Syrian government. Forces like the NDF could also be Iran’s best means of protecting its interests if Syria is forced into partition, a scenario that all the stakeholders hope to avoid.
Given the aftermath of the Western military interventions in Libya and Iraq, both Washington and Moscow want to avoid a situation in Syria where nonstate actors and regional proxies dominate on the ground. Such a scenario risks imposing a state of paralysis on any future Syrian government. The West is concerned about the implications of the IRGC’s influence over NDF forces, believed to number 60,000 at the least, and its ability to undermine a post-Assad security establishment. Iran, however, seems more driven by the greater need to strengthen militias in Syria in the absence of meaningful external guarantees for how extremist opposition groups like Jabhat al-Nusra will be dealt with. Iran is unlikely to cut its ties to Syrian militia groups until factions like al-Nusra and the Army of Conquest are marginalized. The is no guarantee that Iran’s continued mobilization of militia groups in Syria will be compatible with Moscow’s longer-term vision for a Middle East ruled by centralized state structures. Russia and Iran share the common objectives in Syria of maintaining the so-called axis of resistance (Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah) against the West, strengthening Assad’s position in negotiations and preventing the collapse of Syria’s security apparatus. For now, Moscow and Tehran appear focused on cooperating to achieve these immediate goals using Iranian boots and Russian planes. The extent to which Iran continues to back Assad and deepens its ties to militia groups in Syria will be directly linked to the reliability of guarantees, if any, that might be given to secure its core interests as part of a final Syria settlement. The surge in IRGC fatalities over the past month may force Iran to reconsider its means of retaining influence in a future Syria. The IRGC’s top brass, however, having fought a brutal conflict for eight years against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, is far from the threshold of making extensive concessions on Iranian red lines. Iran, like other countries at the Vienna talks, will therefore continue to negotiate under fire until one or both sides reach the necessary threshold for a meaningful compromise to emerge.

Yazidis wary of going back to liberated Sinjar
Timur Göksel/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — The Shengal Camp along the Diyarbakir-Mardin highway has been animated in recent days. A crowd of people — including Selo Karo, his wife and four children, who have been living in this refugee camp — were waiting at the camp entrance with their bags.They were waiting for their bus. That bus, however, will be taking them to Istanbul and not to Sinjar. Most of the Yazidis who have escaped to Turkey over mountain trails don’t have passports. They will first apply for passports at the Iraqi consulate in Istanbul. Then what will they do? “Sinjar has been liberated, but there are Arab tribes around it. We can’t go back. They can keep Sinjar. We are going to Europe. We will cross the sea. Either we will eat fish or fish will eat us,” Karo told Al-Monitor. “We had enough of this life. Sinjar was a proper town; they razed it,” Karo added. “We lived in our own houses, now in tents. Nobody has been asking us what happened to [us] for more than a year.” Karo boarded the bus with his family to start a trip for a new hope.People staying behind wave farewell. Havaf Hidir, 30, sent off his brother. He can’t decide whether to go. He is afraid. Nearly all Yazidis are afraid. It is not only the Islamic State (IS) attacks. Iraq has the biggest concentration of Yazidis in the world. Their holiest site, Lalish temple, is in the Iraqi Kurdish region. Yazidis had always been oppressed because of their religious beliefs. Muslims around them accused them of worshipping idols and harassed them.
Yazidis will tell you they have suffered 72 massacres in their history, and the 2014 IS attack was the 73rd massacre. Sinjar may have been liberated, but their fear remains. Navaf Hidir is also afraid. He told Al-Monitor that they are afraid of Arab tribes around Sinjar.
“We can’t go back now. We are afraid of Arab tribes and [IS]. We will go back only if we are allowed to rule our region and we are provided security. Otherwise, we stay here. If they take us, we will go to Europe,” he said. The popular belief is that the Arab tribes that Karo and Hidir mentioned are supporting IS. They quote eyewitnesses who say Arab tribes had joined IS in its attack against Sinjar. The biggest camp for Yazidis who escaped to Turkey after the IS attack is at Diyarbakir, where approximately 3,000 people live. Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality pays the camp’s expenses.
Yazidis appear to have adjusted to camp life. With social facilities, an infirmary and schools, it resembles a small town. They may not be very comfortable, but at least they are not afraid of getting slaughtered. Although they were happy when the Kurdish forces liberated Sinjar, they were not really excited.
Zarif Halef, who reached Turkey after days of walking over mountains, was talking to neighbors in front of her tent. It is all about Sinjar. They are debating whether they should go back. According to Halef, Sinjar is not yet fully liberated. “We are afraid to go back. We are afraid of [IS]. If Sinjar is really liberated, where are our women and daughters? They razed our houses; we had to run away. We don’t know what will happen if we go back. Sinjar may be free today, but where are our women and girls?” she told Al-Monitor.
“As long as they stay in [IS’] hands, how come we talk of liberation? Sinjar is finished for us.”
Yazidis in the camp are angry with the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq after they had the peshmerga forces retreat when IS first attacked instead of having them stay and fight. This created a deep sense of distrust. Feleknas Uca, a Yazidi of Turkey who was elected to parliament on the Peoples’ Democratic Party ticket, emphasized the need to understand the psychology of the Yazidis. “They have lived through 73 massacres. Their neighbors have stabbed them in the back. People they trusted harmed them. Thousands of people died. They can never be free from their problems wherever they go,” she told Al-Monitor.“They now want to go to Europe to be free from their fears, but they won’t be. Those who attacked in Sinjar yesterday, today attacked in Paris. So many people got killed trying to get to Europe that doesn’t want them. This is not the solution. Yazidis have to understand this. Going to Europe is not their salvation.” For Uca, the solution is at Sinjar. “The center of Sinjar has been liberated, but not its attached villages. When they are liberated, they will have to be rebuilt. Yazidis and their friends can do this. Their homes must be reconstructed, and they should defend them. They should not allow anybody else to enter Sinjar,” she added. IS did not only kill thousands of Yazidis, but IS took their women prisoners. IS is estimated to be holding more than 5,000 Yazidi women. There were photographs circulating of these women being sold as slaves in Syria. After the Kurdish forces liberated Sinjar, about 15 mass graves were found around it. In one, there were bodies of 76 Yazidi women. Those hoping to reach Europe were not deterred when a group of Yazidis were turned from the Bulgarian border at Edirne and returned back to their camp. They said they have no choice but to try again.

Can women and Copts make it to parliament without the quota?
Ahmed Fouad/Al-Monitor/November 21/15
The current elections in Egypt are shedding light on segments of the population that are unable to compete for a large number of seats in parliament. A new electoral law is providing these groups with special representation in one-third of the parliament that is elected based on electoral lists. Among these categories are Coptic Christians, women, the disabled and youth. Perhaps the term “marginalized groups” does not apply to women and Copts on economic and social levels, but it has been engrained for decades in the political arena. Despite that view, there had been no political moves to improve their integration into the Egyptian parliament except through a percentage set by the president in the quota system. The 2015 parliamentary election law dedicated 24 seats for Copts and 56 seats for women. However, the real test is what was achieved outside the framework of these seats. By looking at the participation of Egypt’s Copts in the first parliamentary elections in 1924, it appears they started strong without the need for a quota, as they gained 16 seats out of 214 (7.48%). This representation faced slight ups and downs in the successive parliaments of 1925, 1926 and 1936, and then it reached its peak in the parliament of 1942, when Copts won 27 seats of 264 (10.23%). The successes can be explained by the fact that many of the Copts — like Wissa Wassef and Makram Ebeid, who were famous Christian politicians under the Kingdom of Egypt — belonged to the Wafd Party, which was the most popular among Egyptians and won the majority in most elections in which it participated from 1924 to 1952.
The Copts’ party affiliation could also explain their declining representation in the two elections the Wafd Party boycotted: in 1931, when Copts got four seats out of 150 (2.67%), and 1945, when they got 12 seats of 264 (4.55%). Party affiliation also explains the elections in which the results were forged and manipulated by the king, the government of Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha and competing parties to keep the Wafd Party from winning the majority. One example of such election-rigging, according to a 1940 study by historians Ibrahim white and Tawfik Habib, is the race of 1938, when Copts got only six out of 264 seats (2.27%). Strong political parties and organizations such as Wafd have been absent since former President Gamal Abdel Nasser disbanded them in 1953. They have not regained their strength since former President Anwar Sadat once again allowed the formation of parties in 1977.
Bahaa al-Maghawiri, a political science teacher at Cairo University, agrees that those factors are probably behind the weak representation of Copts. He told Al-Monitor, “Perhaps minorities and marginalized groups need a strong party to support them.”
Maybe the political administrations during the days of Nasser, Sadat and former President Hosni Mubarak did not care about integrating Copts in the electoral process and that is why they were only appointed to 10 parliamentary seats that the president specified. There were no elected Coptic members of parliament in 1957 (the first parliamentary elections in Nasser’s days), in 1976 (the second parliamentary elections in Sadat’s days) and in 1995 (the fourth elections in Mubarak’s days). The highest representation they achieved under the eras of those three presidents was 1.34%, in the 1987 parliament.
The political administration’s disregard toward the Copts’ accession to parliament applies, to some degree, to women. However, the administration did try to improve women’s chances in some elections. In 1979, the first parliament stipulated the quota system for women and made it possible for them to have at least 30 seats. In 1984, the parliament was elected through the proportionality list.
In 1987, the Supreme Constitutional Court announced it was eliminating a quota for women, dismissing it as sexist. Nevertheless, the election of the majority of parliament members through the proportional electoral system supported women’s presence in parliament and they occupied 14 seats in the 1987 election without the quota. With the elimination of the lists system in 1990, women suffered marginalization once again, only to re-emerge strongly in the 2010 parliament thanks to the quota, which reached 64 seats. But their representation declined again in the 2012 parliament. The highest representation for women in the Egyptian parliament without the use of quotas and electoral lists was 2.29% in both 1964 and 1971 and 2% in 2012, but two thirds of this parliament was elected by electoral list.
Political experts and observers see the 2015 elections as a golden opportunity for women and Copts, with the absence of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and the Sunni Islamist’s Gamaa Islamiya, and with the weakness of the Nour Party and the remaining Islamist currents.
The electoral law encourages most alliances and parties to push Copts and women to the quota seats. Independently, the Copts only won four seats (1.45% of seats outside the quota) and women only got five seats (1.92% of seats outside the quota) in the first round of this year’s elections. This is not a victory compared with the 2012 parliamentary elections, when Copts only got 1.41%, also without the quota. It can’t be considered a return to their glory days in the parliaments of 1924-1950, when elections were independent without the quota. Similarly, women’s representation outside the quota isn’t a victory compared with what they achieved in 2012 without the quota (2%, 10 seats). Perhaps this means that the two categories are unable to compete for representation outside the quota system.
The weak competition of the two categories for independent seats until 2015 must be explained, especially in terms of Copts who registered a high score in the parliamentary elections from 1924 to 1950. Maghawiri said, “The political Islam currents, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood, managed since the late 1940s to gain wide popularity after participating in the 1948 war against Israel. Their popularity surged when they claimed that they were persecuted by the authorities who succeeded them when [Egyptian Prime Minister] Mahmoud Fahmi an-Nukrashi disbanded the Brotherhood in 1948 and when Abdel Nasser arrested their leaders in 1954. This allowed their popular thought to take root, including their ideas that reject women’s and Copts’ participation in political action. The Brotherhood only allowed women and Copts to participate in their lists in the 2012 elections out of fear of being accused of sectarianism or misogyny.”Based on the above, it seems women and Copts are unlikely to get high representation without quotas in the second round of the current parliamentary elections. But women’s and Copts’ accession to the parliament through the quota system could help them make political gains that would push citizens to support them in the next parliament, without quotas.