China and Russia allowed the UN to authorize force to protect civilians in Libya, but they are now using that operation as a pretext to oppose any UN action regarding Syria. Meanwhile, having found themselves in a stalemate in Libya, NATO forces are not even contemplating taking military action to protect civilians in Syria. Turkey has announced that they’re creating a second tent-city to deal with the flood of refugees.
All the West can muster in defense of Syria’s people is a weak proposal to condemn Assad’s actions and notify him that he “may” be committing war crimes. I suppose it’s nice to go on the record about such things, and it’s possible that Russia and China may even agree to sign-off on this mere slap on the wrist. But I don’t think Assad wants to be put on trial for his life at home like former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He has more to fear from that precedent than a trial in The Hague. That’s why I earlier recommended that Egypt show some restraint in dealing with Mubarak…not because he deserves it, but because it makes it harder to dislodge Gaddafi and Assad.
I don’t have any answers for how the international community should handle Syria differently, although I note that Russia and China are not very helpful. I don’t recommend military action, and confiscating the leaderships’ wealth abroad presents little more than an inconvenience. Assad should be a complete pariah in the region, not only for what he has been doing over the last couple of months, but for his long-time alliance with Iran, his meddling in Lebanon, and his harboring of Hamas’ leadership. Yet, he has good friends in Moscow, Beijing, Tel Aviv, Washington, and even Riyadh. Those friendships should end.
Who’s side are we on in Yemen? You know, besides our own? Is there oil there?
Assuming that you’re asking serious questions, and not just demonstrating that you’re an awesome antiwar protest person:
There is a little oil in Yemen, but its reserves are quickly being depleted.
Our biggest interest there is the al Qaeda organization that is operating out of the northern areas, which are mainly out of the government’s control.
We used to treat Saleh, that’s the president, as an ally, but have been trying to use political and diplomatic pressure to grease the skids for his exit in response to the protests, sort of like we did with our erstwhile allies in Egypt and Tunisia, and were doing in Libya before the government chose to wage war on the protesters.
Dragging out your old “No blood for oil!” banners and assuming our foreign policy in the region is the same as it was two years ago, in the face of our handling of our longtime allies in Egypt and Tunisia, and our cooperative oil partner in Libya, looks a bit silly.
The situation in Libya is not a stalemate. Gadaffi’s forces are being steadily eroded (down to well under half of their capacity at the beginning of the war), the rebels’ are steadily growing, his government and military leadership continues to defect, the southwest region is now lost to him, he was pushed out of Misurata, and the forces in the Brega/Sirte area are largely cut off from resupply and reinforcement from Tripoli, owing to the air forces’ ability to restrict movement.
It’s only a matter of time for Gadaffi, and probably not all that much time. Just looking at the position of the east/west front isn’t a very good way of understanding the military situation of a war along the Libyan coast.
The lack of interest within NATO for a Syrian operation isn’t the result of a phantom stalemate, but because they don’t want to stretch themselves further, and because the military situation in Syria is different from that in LIbya – no front lines, no organized anti-government forces to side with/protect, the two sides mixed in among one another in urban areas – that makes air and naval strikes ineffective and likely to produce widespread collateral damage. Well, that, and an unwillingness to undertake this sort of action absent a UN authorization, which as you point out, isn’t in the cards.
Is “Tel Aviv” supposed to refer to the Palestinian Authority?
No.
So…your theory is that Assad’s friends include Israel?
Yes. Israel is great friends with Assad, as was Gaddafi. The only real country in the region that is not friends with Israel is Iran, and the section of government in Lebanon that was controlled by Hezbollah until January of this year; it’s why they constantly beat the drum to go to war with Iran.
Let’s start from some basics. Russian and Chinese leaders are very afraid of a “Jasmine Revolution” in their countries. And they are very jealous (just like the US is) of interference in the “internal affairs of their country”. I don’t know how Russia and China got played on the UN Security Council votes, but likely it had to do with the massive use of large-caliber weapons by Gaddafi against peaceful protesters and the extreme war rhetoric, whether hyperbole or not. But having voted for the first resolution, it was difficult for them to do anything but abstain on the second.
The Syrian government has neither committed as egregious acts as Gaddafi against protesters; it has allowed protests to continue, massive protests up to a point. There seems to be division in Syria’s security apparatus about what to do. In Libya there was no ambiguity. Any protest of any size would be brutally attacked. Syria, having learned what outrages even the Russians and Chinese, have calibrated their actions not to cross some line of acceptability. And Bashir al Assad, like Saleh in Yemen, has not engaged in hyperbolic rhetoric threatening complete destruction of their opposition. In both cases the public statement is that they would like dialogue.
Turkey is preventing the media from interviewing Syrian refugees in its country. There is absolute blackout on media coverage within Syria, and unlike Libya, there are no liberated areas from which journalists can gain information. Turkey seems to be cultivating its ability to reason with the Syrian government through its action. It is in Turkey’s interest to have a stable Syria, regardless of the form of government.
International relationships are not matters of friendships but of common interests. And for a given country, those can conflict all over the place. Why for example is the US shielding Bahrain for behavior essentially like that of Assad? Or continuing military operations in Yemen at a time in which the pro-democracy forces do not need a distraction?
When Americans say “not being helpful”, often they are talking about not being helpful to US interests. And under the illusion that US policy springs from some moral principle (it rarely has in 222 years).
Iran at the moment is a sideshow; the conflict between Khamanei and Ahmedinejad went public a month ago and Ahmedinejad surrendered to Khamenei’s authority, but the tensions remain. And there is a pro-democracy movement (in Iranian terms) simmering under Ahmedinejad’s police state. Ah, the fruits of George W. Bush including Iran in his Axis of Evil.
Heads of state generally don’t become pariahs until they (1) have lost all domestic legitimacy, which is not yet the case in Syria but is the case in Libya or (2) have fallen from power.
The UN resolution on Syria seeks essentially one thing–the authorization of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to begin an investigation of the Syrian government’s behavior. That is essentially what Russia and China are blocking. They see this as a dangerous precedent (for them) that could cause them to be under similar investigation – for they have in limited areas of their countries done exactly what Bashir al Assad has done.
So what to do? Getting Red Crescent access to Syria for investigation would be a modest first step.
Sanctions on overseas wealth have bite only to the extent that a large percentage of a head of state’s wealth is sequestered outside the country. It would surprise me that Assad would have much outside Syria because the possibility of having to leave the country would not necessarily be critical in his analysis.
Libya’s assets were extensive outside the country. But the majority of assets were the gold bullion stored in the Libyan Central Bank. There is a problem with gold bullion in a war zone. It is difficult to transport and thus difficult to bring to the global market. So the reserves that undergirded the Gaddafi regime are now useless to him in acquiring additional weapons and mercenaries. And his “good faith and credit” is mightily strained.
Your statement about trial in the Hague being less to fear than trial at home is one reason why surrendering to the Hague is not a dead-end option for heads of state. The accommodations are not draconian. The process moves very slowly. And you have the possibility of dying in not adverse surroundings or there not being enough evidence to convict. At home, once you are out of power, both of the probability for both of those is zip, zilch, nada. You will be lucky if you are treated like Mubarak instead of like Osama bin Laden.
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"The Syrian government has neither committed as egregious acts as Gaddafi against protesters; it has allowed protests to continue, massive protests up to a point. There seems to be division in Syria's security apparatus about what to do. In Libya there was no ambiguity. Any protest of any size would be brutally attacked. Syria, having learned what outrages even the Russians and Chinese, have calibrated their actions not to cross some line of acceptability."Don’t agree with this statement.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Which among the points do you not agree with?
Syria committing egregious acts?
Allowing protests to continue?
Division in security apparatus?
Calibrating their actions to play the international community?
Jisr al Shughour might turn out to be the point at which Syria equals the brutality of Gaddafi.
In the early days, the response of the security establishment was sever repression one day, tolerance of demonstrations the next; that seemed to me to be a political conflict among the several security institutions as to how to proceed. Now there is minor evidence that those security institutions that draw recruits from the general public are experiencing the beginnings of refusal to attack civilians. And that such incidents are being dealt with brutally.
I think that like Libya, the idea that either the government or the protesters divide along ethnic or sectarian lines is mistaken. But the possibility of politicians using sectarian or ethnic divisions to either support Assad or undermine him (and possibly descend into real ethnic or religious civil war) is not out of the question. And like Saleh, Assad might use those divisions in an “either me or chaos” gambit to hold on to power.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."It might be that some part of the non-Western consensus is beginning to see Assad’s actions as having crossed the line at Jir-Shuhgour.
The Russian and Chinese public position is that UN intervention would destabilize the region. I would like to see some discussion of exactly how they think such destabilization would unfold. The complexity of the situation is such that there is a risk of general instability in neighboring countries. How UN intervention would affect that depends on what the Russians and Chinese understand that intervention to entail. It surely will not be like Libya.
From what I know the Syrian dissidents have no desire to receive assistance from the west other than something like a foreign asset freeze.