Tag Archives: Barack Obama

Government, Politics, Russia, Syria, United States

The West should pursue punitive strikes in Syria…

‘RED LINE’ POLICY

Following Russia’s proposal on Syria aimed at monitoring and destroying Bashar al-Assad’s stockpile of chemical weapons, President Obama suspended a congressional vote to authorise the use of force against the Syrian regime.

But that proposal looks overly optimistic and unrealistic. Not only do the U.S. and Russia disagree over enforcement mechanisms if the Syrian regime fails to comply – the United States and her allies want a resolution provisioning the use of force in the event of non-compliance, the Russians do not – but the operational and technical challenges associated with destroying these weapons in a risky and volatile conflict zone should not be interpreted as something that will happen with unqualified ease.

Western military intervention has not, therefore, been averted and still remains a probable scenario. That has to remain an option that can still make an important contribution to the Syrian conflict, as well as beyond it.

Those desperate despots and tyrants around the world must be sent a message, namely that the use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated or permitted. Where this horrific form of weaponry is used the international community must insist it has the right to act. America’s ‘red line’ policy is once again being called into question.

Critics point out it is the numbers killed, rather than the means through which they are killed, that should constitute the ‘red line’ for the international community and those who are in support of humanitarian intervention. That, however, misses the logic, purpose and the devastating impact of chemical weapons use.

Recently on this site an article was posted concerning how history is littered with examples of chemical weapons being used during warfare (see article). Chemical weapon attacks in modern times can be traced to World War I. More recently they were used in 1988 in the Iraqi Kurdistan town of Halabja. These lethal and macabre attacks not only kill quickly and with an immediate impact on the local population, but they also inflict terror and have long-term consequences. They have the capacity to dramatically reduce enemy morale and fix a permanent physical and psychological scar on the local population. Chemical weapons inflict long-term injuries to its victims and can affect future generations in the form of birth defects and other disabilities. In Halabja, Hussein’s forces killed at least 5,000 men, women and children almost instantly. Thousands more continue to suffer today.

Chemical weapon attacks are not simply about destruction but about inflicting long-term, immeasurable and sustained pain and horror on a population. By their very nature, the use’ of chemical weapons are indiscriminate with their targets and their reach goes beyond the boundaries of the battlefield.

On the battlefield, they have the capacity to alter the balance of a conflict and offer a strategic advantage, especially in localised conflicts. Whilst it is certainly questionable that the limited use of chemical weapons will change the direction of the conflict, there effectiveness in urbanised and local areas should not be underestimated. Syria is engaged in a localised conflict where battles are taking place between disparate rebel forces and regime loyalists in an array of towns and cities.

Yet, if chemical weapons were used in a more consistent and sustained fashion and throughout the towns and cities embroiled in the conflict, then the entire balance of power could be altered to favour the regime.

Hesitation over military action is also based on the premise that the West would be supporting and fighting alongside radical al-Qaeda factions that dominate and comprise the Syrian opposition. That, though, misses two important aspects: firstly, that it would be against Western interests to have a rebel victory at a point when the West has very limited influence on the ground and, secondly, victory would put these radically inspired al-Qaeda elements in a position where they would come to dominate the Syrian state. That would be catastrophic for regional and global security and for the interests of both the West and the broader international community.

It has been made clear by President Obama (along with a British declaration) that any military strikes will not be aimed at removing the Assad regime (which otherwise would amount to ‘regime change’) or afford the rebels any meaningful victory. Instead, they say, strikes would be ‘punitive’ in their nature, giving in-effect Assad a bloody nose. Hence, Western action that aims to deter further chemical weapons use would not be instigated to bolster or afford rebel forces any meaningful victory.

The use of punitive and symbolic military strikes does not have to mean that diplomatic efforts should be put aside. The form of military intervention proposed by the US/UK, despite both powers having temporarily drawn back, can realistically be combined with diplomacy. The U.S. and Britain have repeatedly stated that the only outcome to this conflict can and must be a negotiated political settlement.

Military strikes, it is argued, will induce Assad into negotiating. But this has to be coupled with an effort to force rebel forces to also sit down at the negotiating table. That seems unlikely to happen at this stage, given that Assad has immense regional support as well as important proxy support from Russia. Rebel forces themselves are divided on the issue and do not operate under one unified banner.

But military strikes will show a willingness by the West to act that goes beyond the current conflict in Syria. The West is not currently in a position to topple Assad through extensive use of its military capacity (such as deploying ground troops), but it can and should still send a message to the Assad regime that it will act in the face of chemical weapons usage. That message would also resonate to other existing and future despots of the world.

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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, Russia, Syria, United Nations, United States

G20 and America’s defining moment…

WATERSHED MOMENT

The G20 summit that ended in St Petersburg yesterday failed to produce any kind of agreement on the Syrian crisis. The chasm and bridge separating the United States and Russia on Syria is as wide as it has ever been. Yet, few such gatherings in recent years have offered a truer picture of how and where the real balance of global power lies. A genuine watershed in international affairs may at last have arrived; replacing a vestige of what has been referred to of late as the ‘Arab Spring’ – a term synonymous with upheaval and chaos spreading through many Islamic states.

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The two-day gathering in St Petersburg have confirmed many things. It underscored, for example, just how determined Vladimir Putin is in reasserting Russia on the world stage. It displayed quite clearly, too, that a mercantilist China will do nothing to unsettle its economic interests, and in the process laid bare Europe’s total inability to act on its own.

A senior Kremlin official was reported to have said that no one pays any attention to Britain, a ‘small island’. But could the same not be said of the rest of the EU? Germany, for instance, Europe’s economic powerhouse, is notable only for its deafening silence. France, eager to push a military agenda in punishing the Assad regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons, is unwilling to do so without America’s lead. Other G20 participants wring their hands in aghast and disbelief at what is happening in Syria, but most are keen to shriek away from any involvement. At a moment of high international drama, it leads us back – as it invariably does – to the United States and its role in the world.

It shouldn’t have required a Kremlin official to point out Britain’s diminished influence in the world; the empire ended more than half-a-century ago. But, like it or not, with the United Nations no more than a fractious and divided talking shop, the U.S. is the closest thing we have to a global policeman. No country, it has been argued, has the right to behave as such, and America’s actual ability to change history, for all its military might and superpower status, is sometimes exaggerated – not least by itself. We need to look no further than the sorry state of Iraq, a decade after George W Bush’s invasion, to provide clarity to the argument. In any major crisis, however, all eyes turn to Washington, as they are now in Syria as the regime is accused of violating a ban on the use of chemical weapons. Syria is a signatory against the banned use of such weapons, and yet here we have a paralysed UN Security Council that is powerless to enforce an international binding treaty.

With a vote in Congress on the use of U.S. military force in Syria to be held on the 9th September, the next few days will be decisive. Britain’s role on the world stage has been diminished given the veto in the House of Commons last week, but for President Obama the stakes are vastly higher. On Syria, Mr Obama’s approach has been feckless. First, he declared that Assad must go without saying how, and then laid down his ‘red lines’ over the use of chemical weapons. Later, he announced his decision to use force, and more recently has passed the buck to Congress on Capitol Hill. Deep down, many will suspect that he would prefer to stay well out of Syria given what has happened in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. Syria is ablaze and arguably much more contentious than anything the United States has dealt with in the past 30-years. Mr Obama’s uncertainty in how to proceed in Syria is resonating in all corners of the world.

If present indications are anything to go on, the House of Representatives could well follow the House of Commons in opposing military action. If so, a definitive moment will have arrived. Unlike David Cameron, Obama will either defy his legislature and go ahead with strikes, or he will acquiesce, and there will be no military response. If military action is taken off the table, not only would Barack Obama’s presidency be gravely weakened at home, but in the eyes of the world so too would the credibility of America as a global policeman. Either way, a watershed is at hand.

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