Category Archives: Politics

Britain, France, Government, Middle East, Politics, Russia, Syria, United Nations, United States

The U.S. holds fire by giving a Russian-backed proposal a chance over Syria…

SYRIA

The diplomatic momentum over Syria in the last 24 hours has surpassed all expectations and has been quite breath-taking. Events may have unfolded through an inopportune comment made by the U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, during his visit to London at the beginning of this week.

A week in politics is a long time, or so it’s said. No more is this evident than in America where, one minute, President Obama was preparing to tour the US talk shows to appeal for Congressional and public support for air strikes; the next, he was actually on those talk shows, airing qualified support for a Russian proposal to place Syria’s chemical weapons stocks under international control and supervision. The Congressional vote, which was widely seen as a make-or-break for Mr Obama, has been shelved, and France has been working hard in delivering a draft UN Security Council resolution that aims to put the Russian proposal into effect.

Startling, because, in just 24 hours, we have gone from the tense threshold of unilateral U.S. military action and a Cold War-style US-Russia rift to a proposal on which almost everyone can agree – the exception being possibly Syria’s anti-Assad opposition.

The French draft resolution is said to provide not only for the weapons stocks to be controlled, but destroyed, and for any breach to be met with ‘extremely serious consequences’.

If those consequences are assumed to include military action, if non-compliance was forthcoming, there is a risk that the resolution will attract a new Russian veto. The West should be wary of Moscow’s proposal that may have been conjured up to head-off U.S. air strikes, by merely serving as a delaying tactic. An apt tactic some may say, presaging months of Iraq-style disputes about access and monitoring.

But from another perspective it hardly matters why the international appetite for a military response is so small – however limited in intent and however heinous the crime that inspired it.  That could be put down to the ‘war weariness’ of campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, much of which still colours the political debate. But it may also be due to the difficult geopolitics surrounding Syria, a conflict recognised as being far too complex for punitive resolution.

If democratically leaders cannot convince their electorate on something as grave as peace and war, it will be time for them to pause and consider whether another answer might be found.

Any solution that deters outside military intervention, while removing the insidious threat of chemical weapons, would surely benefit everyone, no more so than the escalating numbers of Syrian civilians who find themselves in the middle of a war zone.

Any UN-sponsored agreement along the lines of a credible Russian proposal could help to open the way for wider talks. While this may be premature by jumping ahead to soon, the priority must be to ensure that the diplomatic process is not written off at a whim before it has been given a real chance to start.

The off-the-cuff remark by John Kerry in London does appear to have opened the door to a diplomatic resolution of the stand-off over Syria’s deployment of chemical weapons. In what was deemed a half-hearted suggestion by Mr Kerry that Bashar al-Assad’s arsenal be placed under international control and destroyed, the response was so swift that it is inconceivable not to see some choreography at work (or else just sheer relief).

Vladimir Putin picked up on the idea, and immediately pressed the Assad regime to agree. Washington said that if Syria did comply it would put on hold plans for a military strike in retaliation to the atrocity in Damascus last month. The United States, Britain and France have now tabled a resolution in the UN Security Council.

Nonetheless, sceptics are entitled to be suspicious. Why, for example, has Mr Putin, for so long the barrier to any action against Assad, turned peacemaker? Is this a delaying tactic to protect his Syrian ally, or one that is aimed in further undermining the already weak public support in the West for military strikes?

And, how will it be possible to logistically verify the destruction of the chemical weapons while civil war rages on in Syria? Will Assad call a ceasefire to allow inspectors to do their work, and if so will the rebels agree to one? The highly complex process of confirming whether Syria has complied would be fraught with difficulty, and could take several years to complete.

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Foreign Affairs, Government, Middle East, Politics, Syria, United Nations, United States

Comparing Syria today with Iraq in 2003…

ANALYSIS

Many commentators use Iraq as a benchmark when judging American foreign policy in the Middle East. Whilst no one will want ‘another Iraq’, and placing rhetoric aside, how does Syria today actually compare to Iraq in 2003?

Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s President, and Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi despot, were both Ba’athist dictators presiding over countries that are an unstable balance of varying sectarian, political and ethnic groups. Long before any suggestion of U.S. military involvement, both regimes committed grave atrocities against their civilian populations. In 1988 Saddam Hussein dropped chemical bombs on citizens in the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing around 5,000 and injuring thousands more. Prior to that, and in 1982, Hafez al-Assad, Syria’s former leader, crushed an uprising in the Syrian city of Hama, killing more than 20,000 people.

Iraq was plagued with sectarian violence (which continues today) following the political vacuum created by the US-led invasion. The bloody civil war in Syria is already dividing along sectarian lines at a time when these divides are deepening across the entire Middle East region.

Making the case for war is the second comparative. The US-led invasion of Iraq primarily centred on Hussein’s failure to co-operate with U.N. weapons inspections and the since-discredited evidence and intelligence on the country’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. When it comes to Syria, President Obama has signalled that Assad’s use of chemical weapons on unarmed civilians is a ‘red line’ and that the U.S. will want to disrupt and degrade the regime’s military capabilities against civilians.

The United Nations have said that around 100,000 have been killed in Syria so far. If the U.S. doesn’t intervene, we know that many more will perish before a political solution is found. We won’t know, however, how many will be killed if the U.S. carries out military strikes, irrespective of how accurate the missiles are deemed to be. As many as 125,380 civilians were killed following the U.S. invasion of Iraq; it’s difficult to argue that this many would have died if Iraq had not been invaded in 2003.

The cost of intervention must also be considered. An estimate of the overall cost of the Iraq war is said to run as high as $2 trillion. Whilst Washington has said that military action in Syria will be far more limited, and there will be ‘no boots on the ground’, the Cato institute suggests that the cost of a Syrian intervention would need to include $500 million for training rebels, a further $500 million for establishing an initial Syrian no-fly zone, and then as much as a billion dollars a month in military operational costs. Expect costs to inflate beyond official figures, as they invariably do.

The issue of outside involvement is also important to note. Unlike Iraq pre-2003, there is already a high level of external involvement on the ground in Syria. The Gulf States, along with Turkey, as well as the U.S. and Europe, are offering varying degrees of financial and military support to a broad range of anti-Assad factions. Assad himself can still count on backing from Iran and Russia. The Arab Spring has meant that politics across the region is now far more volatile and unpredictable than it was ten years ago; there can be no doubt that Syria’s interventions will have far-reaching ramifications across the Middle East and post-Arab Spring.

Appetite for war is the final consideration. America’s experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan have dampened public appetite for war. A ‘war weary’ nation will have reduced expectations that any U.S. military involvement in another Middle Eastern country will be neat or quick. If Mr Obama does win support in Congress, the U.S. will have a clear mandate to go to war in Syria with France as its chief European partner. The U.S. can also expect support from the Arab League, too. In an unusual intervention it has urged the international community to ‘take the deterrent and necessary measures against the culprits of this crime that the Syrian regime bears responsibility for’. Just as in Iraq, the U.S. cannot hope for UN backing for its actions because of veto wielding Russia and China. Arguably, though, this was seen as more important in 2003 because today we have lower expectations of the UN’s divided and indifferent Security Council.

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Britain, Foreign Affairs, Government, Politics, Syria, United States

Britain’s global standing could be diminished…

NOT THE VOTE THE GOVERNMENT SOUGHT SAYS THE BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY

The British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has warned that Britain’s standing in the world could be ‘diminished’ following Parliament’s rejection of military action against Syria.

Mr Hague said he and the prime minister were working to ensure that Britain does not ‘matter less’ in the wake of the unprecedented vote, which effectively ruled out British involvement in any attack on the Syrian regime.

The Foreign Secretary said that it wasn’t the outcome the Government had sought and added: ‘We have to make sure that Britain isn’t diminished’. Mr Hague, who today held talks with U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, in London, insisted ministers were not ‘gung ho’ about military action.

But he said he remained convinced that the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons should be met with a military response – and it would be ‘alarming’ if the U.S. Congress also voted against retaliatory strikes.

Warning that the violent fallout from the Arab Spring could last for years, the Foreign Secretary said that if it is decided in the various parliaments of the world that no-one will stand up to the use of chemical weapons and take any action about that, that would amount to a very alarming moment in the affairs of the world.

Mr Hague said:

… The real fear is of these processes going on a long time, of revolutions that take decades – throwing up a lot of turbulence, civil wars along the way, sometimes bringing intervention.

But he added:

… We mustn’t be put off by that from keeping faith with millions of people in the Arab world who want the dignity and freedom that we have in our own country. We have to keep faith with them and not think that they’re all evil or they’re all fanatics because actually, yes, sometimes these countries have those people … but the great majority of people are not like that.

Mr Hague acknowledged that atrocities carried out by the Syrian opposition had made it harder for the public and MPs to support intervention. But he said Britain had a duty to ensure more moderate elements in the opposition were not ‘eliminated’.

Mr Hague insisted that the Government had no plans for a second Commons Vote on Syria, but added: ‘If circumstances change dramatically, then of course everybody would be looking at things in a different light.’

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