Tag: Russia
What’s the point?
The diplomatic action yesterday and today on Syria is focused on getting the Asad regime to allow the UN inspection team, already in Damascus, to visit the nearby site of Tuesday’s horrific early morning massacre to ascertain whether chemical weapons were used. Why so much effort when the regime is likely to deny access or allow it only after it has been able to clean up the site?
Let’s assume for the moment chemical weapons were in fact used, since the Syrian government would have allowed an immediate inspection had they not been.
It will seem to many that we are grasping at straws, that is insubstantial steps that really don’t have any potential for altering a situation that is going from really bad to much worse. But that’s not how I see it. Establishing some common ground between the United States and Russia is vital to ending the war in Syria. If they manage to agree that chemical weapons were used–either because the regime denies the inspectors access or because the inspectors find evidence to that effect–that would help push ahead the search for a diplomatic resolution.
If allowed to visit the site, might the inspectors actually find something? Yes, is the short answer. Cleanup is difficult and the means of chemical detection are highly sensitive. Autopsies might also produce relevant results. If anything even approaching one thousand people were killed, there will be lots of bodies available and a lot of eye witnesses to their deaths.
Even if the inspectors find evidence, how can we be certain that the regime, not the rebels, were responsible? First, there is eye-witness testimony that the rockets came from regime-controlled areas. Second, the rebels are hardly in a position to load and launch rockets with chemical weapons payloads, especially in the immediate environs of Damascus. Third, we can hope that communications intercepts will demonstrate who was responsible. The National Security Agency really does have an important role to play in cases like this one.
Most likely, the regime will stall and delay inspection of the site of the attack and the bodies until evidence has decayed beyond detection. This represents the diplomatic equivalent of pleading nolo contendere, which would be reason enough for the international community to act. The Americans have made no secret of preparations for military action. But they will prefer a diplomatic course in cooperation with Moscow, so long as it includes deposing Bashar al Asad, since his presence in power is inconsistent with ending the violence.
President Obama, who yesterday was worrying about the cost to Americans of going to college, won’t welcome interruption of his focus on domestic issues. But Syria needs decisions that only he can make. Will the United States start down what General Dempsey sees as the slippery slope of more engagement by acting militarily to punish Bashar al Asad for crossing Obama’s red line? Will it act even without UN Security Council authorization? Or will Washington succeed in convincing Moscow to cooperate in a serious diplomatic effort to end Bashar al Asad’s rule?
It is difficult to predict the decisions of a single person, whether he be Barack Obama or Bashar al Asad. Obama’s reluctance to do anything militar is palpable. Bashar al Asad’s inclination to do everything in his power to kill his enemies is likewise palpable.
The priority American interest is in ending the war in Syria as soon as possible, to diminish the likelihood of its infecting the region and further empowering extremists both inside Syria and in the neighborhood. Military action will need to be forceful if it is to compel Bashar to give up. Diplomatic action will need to be much quicker than its pace so far if it is to produce the needed result. The combination might be better than either alone.
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Peace Picks July 22-26
1. Rouhani: Challenges at Home, Challenges Abroad, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Monday, July 22 / 9:00am – 11:30am
Venue: Woodrow Wilson Center
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
Speakers: Bijan Khajehpour, Shervin Malekzadeh, Suzanne Maloney, Roberto Toscano, Ali Vaez, Shaul Bakhash
Six Iran experts discuss President-elect Rouhani’s domestic and foreign policy challenges.
Register for the event here:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/rouhani-challenges-home-challenges-abroad
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The cat is out of the bag
President Obama yesterday announced in Berlin his intention to negotiate with Moscow a reduction of up to one-third in strategic nuclear weapons and an unspecified reduction in tactical nukes deployed in Europe. This ranks as bold, and good. It will certainly be welcomed in Germany and the rest of the European Union, where nuclear weapons have never been popular. The Russians will be reluctant, as they have come to view tactical nuclear weapons as part of their defense against superior Western forces (the opposite was true during the Cold War). As my SAIS colleague Eric Edelman notes, they are also concerned about Chinese, French and British nuclear forces, which could be increased even as Washington and Moscow draw down.
There is also the question of whether we can maintain the credibility of our nuclear deterrent if we draw down to 1000 strategic nukes. My sense is that this is more than adequate for the purpose, but Eric doubts that. He worries about the credibility of our “extended” nuclear umbrella, which covers selected allies. I’d certainly be prepared to hear their complaints, if they have any. My guess is that most of our allies would like to see a further drawdown of nuclear forces.
Former Defense Secretary Bill Perry in a powerful piece about his own personal journey to advocating elimination of nuclear weapons makes a crucial point: Read more
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You break it, you buy it
I spent a frustrating half hour on Warren Olney’s fine show “To the Point” yesterday. Frustrating largely because my phone connection was bad, which meant I had to switch lines, limiting the time I had to intervene. But the show was a good one, with Danielle Pletka, Steve Simon and Amr al Azam.
The main point I wanted to make is that the Administration’s decision on arming the revolutionaries is part of an effort to gain a political settlement. Obama not only wants Asad out but also Sunni extremists blocked from taking over. The Americans also want to limit their engagement to the minimum necessary. Continuing escalation will not serve the purpose of a political settlement or allow them to get off cheaply. Read more
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At last
In a statement this evening, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said:
Following a deliberative review, our intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year. Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information. The intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date; however, casualty data is likely incomplete. While the lethality of these attacks make up only a small portion of the catastrophic loss of life in Syria, which now stands at more than 90,000 deaths, the use of chemical weapons violates international norms and crosses clear red lines that have existed within the international community for decades. We believe that the Assad regime maintains control of these weapons. We have no reliable, corroborated reporting to indicate that the opposition in Syria has acquired or used chemical weapons.
The consequences that follow from this are, however, not yet clear. Ben said this much:
Put simply, the Assad regime should know that its actions have led us to increase the scope and scale of assistance that we provide to the opposition, including direct support to the [opposition] Supreme Military Council. These efforts will increase going forward.
The rest is left vague:
The United States and the international community have a number of other legal, financial, diplomatic, and military responses available. We are prepared for all contingencies, and we will make decisions on our own timeline. Any future action we take will be consistent with our national interest, and must advance our objectives, which include achieving a negotiated political settlement to establish an authority that can provide basic stability and administer state institutions; protecting the rights of all Syrians; securing unconventional and advanced conventional weapons; and countering terrorist activity.
That last bit in governmentese is the “end-state” we seek. It is important, as courses of action are designed with the end-state as their target.
Rumint (or maybe I should call it pressint, but I’m not providing a link because I despise the Wall Street Journal pay wall) has it that Washington is contemplating both arming the opposition and establishing a no-fly zone in northern Syria, along the Turkish border. These are the two options least likely to provoke the Russians and Chinese. Certainly maintaining their participation in the P5+1 talks with Iran is an unstated part of the end-state Obama seeks.
I’m not sure what to make of this statement being put out by Ben, who is close to the President but a couple of steps down in the White House pecking order. I imagine someone higher up didn’t want the privilege, since the steps to be taken are still not fully defined. Certainly the president could not have put out a statement of this sort without being ridiculed for indecisiveness, lack of resolve and being behind the curve. It may well be that Ben pushed for something to be said and ended up with the not entirely edifying responsibility.
The reluctance to act is palpable. But we are on what some think of as a slippery slope. The question is how far we will go. Only time will tell.
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Power, Power and Rice
While some are predicting (or hoping for) big changes in American foreign policy in the liberal interventionist/human rights first direction with the appointments of Susan Rice as national security adviser and Samantha Power as UN ambassador, I doubt it.
Both have already left marks on US foreign policy, Samantha through the Atrocities Prevention Board and Susan in the Libya intervention and many other efforts at the UN, including the successful use of its Human Rights Commission to report on atrocities in Syria. I wouldn’t suggest these are enormous departures from the past, but they certainly reflect the view that saving foreigners from mass atrocity has its place in US p0licy and needs to be given due consideration along with more traditional national interests of the military, political and economic varieties.
The main “to intervene or not” issue today is Syria. Susan and Samantha have both already been involved in internal debates on Syria, where President Obama ignored the advice of Hillary Clinton, David Petraeus and Leon Panetta. They all advised a more interventionist stance. It is the president, not the advisers, who is choosing not to try to stop the Syrian civil war, largely because of issues unrelated to Syria: Russian support on the withdrawal from Afghanistan and in the nuclear negotiations with Iran, not to mention the American public’s war weariness and the parlous budget situation. No doubt someone at the Pentagon is also telling him that allowing extremist Sunnis and Shia to continue killing each other in Syria is in the US interest. Read more
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