Tag: United Nations
Annan needs to keep at it
With the toll from Friday’s attack on the Syrian village of Houla mounting well over 100 (including dozens of children), it is tempting to denounce the UN’s Annan peace plan as a dead letter. The European edition of the Wall Street Journal this morning headlines, “Syria Massacre Upends Fragile Hopes for Peace.” Others are even more explicit that Annan has failed, and have been saying so for months.
That is a mistake. The UN observers Annan directs did their job at Houla, verifying the incident and assigning blame to the regime. That is precisely what they are there to do. Unarmed, they have no capacity to intervene with force. The Security Council yesterday issued a statement, approved by Russia and China, condemning the Syrian government for the massacre. Minimal as it is, that counts as progress on the diplomatic front. Weaning the Russians from their client, Syrian President Bashar al Assad, is an important diplomatic objective.
The clarity of the UN observers may push the diplomacy further in the right direction. Moscow and Washington are apparently discussing a plan similar to the Yemen transition process, which involved a resignation of the president and a transition guided by the vice president. I have my doubts this particular scheme is viable in Syria, but there may be variants worth discussing that would provide reassurance to the Alawites while initiating a political process that will move the country definitively past the Assad regime.
That is the essential point. It is hard to picture the violence ending and politics beginning without dealing somehow with Alawite fears that they will end up massacred if Bashar al Assad leaves power. That would be a tragedy not only for the Alawites but for the Middle East in general. Let there be no doubt: past experience suggests that those who indulge in abusive violence often become the victims of it when their antagonists get up off the ropes and gain the upper hand.
It would be far better for most Alawites, the relatively small religious sect whose adherents are mainstays of the Assad regime, if a peaceful bridge can be built to post-Assad Syria. They will not of course trust those who have been mistreated not to mistreat them in turn. This is where the diplomats earn their stripes: coming up with a scheme that protects Alawites as a group from instant retaliation while preserving the option of eventually holding individuals judicially accountable for the Assad regime abuses. It is hard to picture a case more difficult than Syria, where the regime has managed to keep most Alawites loyal and used some of them as paramilitary murderers.
There really is no Plan B. The Americans cannot act unilaterally on Syria without losing Russian support in dealing with Iran on its nuclear program. President Obama’s top priority is stopping that program from advancing further toward nuclear weapons. While some think the American elections are a factor restraining the president on Syria, I don’t think he is likely to change his mind even if he wins. Only if he decides that the effort to stop a nuclear Iran has failed will he be tempted to cut the chord with the Russians and lead a military response to Bashar al Assad’s homicidal behavior, thus ending Syria’s alignment with a potentially nuclear Iran and shoring up the Sunni Arab counterweight. But he would only do that in the narrow window before Tehran acquires nuclear weapons, not afterwards.
The observers are supposed to be laying the groundwork for a political solution. Their mandate expires in July. That is the next big decision point. Annan needs to keep at it for now, hoping that the Russians and Americans come to terms and open a window for a political solution that ends the Assad regime.
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Do the right thing
I wrote last October:
There has to be strict accountability for crimes against Serbs if Kosovo is to gain high ground in its international tug of war with Belgrade. The murders in recent weeks have to be made the object of serious investigations leading to arrests and prosecutions. And those who perpetrate these crimes, or who intimidate witnesses, should be viewed as what they are: enemies of a Kosovo state seeking to gain international recognition as a willing and capable defender of the rights of all its citizens.
I confess I do not know if there have been arrests and prosecutions for the murders I was referring to 7 months ago. I’ll be grateful if someone who knows leaves a comment on this post. But in any event what I wrote bears repeating, because it is happening again: threats against Serbs south of the Ibar and an attack on a police checkpoint in the majority Albanian portion of southern Serbia.
I don’t believe in collective guilt or punishment, but I do believe in collective responsibility. People who know better need to restrain the people who commit such crimes and speak out when the restraint fails. There is nothing that can hurt Kosovo’s campaign for international recognition and its effort to be accepted in international organizations more than crimes against Serbs. The perpetrators need to be discouraged, apprehended, tried and convicted. That is what the international community expects of a country that wants to be treated as independent and sovereign.
I met last week with Kosovo’s new crop of ambassadors going abroad. They are a well-educated, talented group, several of whom I’ve known for a long time. But the resources they command are minimal. Kosovo’s moral standing is vital to them. They cannot do their jobs if people in Kosovo are doing things that disgrace the homeland.
Ah, some will say, but you forget the crimes against Albanians! No, I don’t. I remember well hearing Nekibe Kelmendi talk about the murder of her husband and sons. How could anyone forget? And there are thousands of other cases, still unsolved, unprosecuted, unpunished. I don’t excuse Serbia’s failure to pursue these cases, but I have to admit that their failure to do so will have less impact, because Serbia is already a member of the United Nations. Kosovo isn’t.
That’s not fair. Life is not fair. You still have to try to do the right thing.
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Syria: what now?
This is a piece of mine Reuters published this afternoon under the headline “Here’s how to handle Syria”:
Bashar al-Assad continues his war on the Syrian opposition, despite the presence of United Nations observers. His efforts have generated extremist reactions, including major bombings. The Syrian opposition continues to fragment, even as protesters manage to mount peaceful demonstrations in many parts of the country. The conflict is increasingly sectarian in character and has overflowed to Lebanon’s Tripoli.
There is no alternative in sight to the existing Security Council resolutions. Syria is not on the NATO summit agenda this weekend in Chicago. The Americans continue to need the Russians “on side” for nuclear talks with Iran that resume next week in Baghdad. Unilateral American action on Syria is not in the cards. Europe is preoccupied with its own financial crisis and is unable to act without American help. Qatari and Saudi weapons entering Syria are likely to increase violence and worsen sectarian tensions.
So what is to be done? Here are some ideas for the Obama administration:
- Lend wholehearted support to the Annan plan, which the United States has been badmouthing ever since the Security Council passed Resolution 2043 on Apr. 21.
- Talk with Moscow about ensuring that Russian vital interests in Syria, port access and arms sales, are protected once Bashar al-Assad is gone. The United States no longer needs to block Moscow’s access to a Mediterranean port, as it did during the Cold War. Russian arms sales to Syria are a small price to pay to bring down a regime that links Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
- Deploy civilian observers – including Americans – to Syria. The Security Council has already authorized a civilian component to the U.N. Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMIS). It would be too much to expect Syria to accept U.S. military observers, and the U.S. does not send its soldiers and Marines into harm’s way unarmed, as the UNSMIS observers are. But we have had good results with unarmed civilian observers in the Kosovo Verification Mission before the NATO-Yugoslavia war, when the lead observer spoke truth to power about a civilian massacre.
- Stop talk about arming the opposition. It isn’t what we should be doing or encouraging because of the likelihood it will prolong sectarian conflict; we can’t control where the weapons end up; and there is no hope that an insurgency will defeat Assad anytime soon.
- Redouble encouragement for peaceful demonstrations, which are occurring every day in Syria, and try to ensure that the U.N. observers are present for them.
- Increase the flow of non-weapons aid to the opposition inside Syria, which claims to have received precious little so far, and provide intelligence on threatening movements of Syrian security forces.
- Present overhead video of heavy weapons in use against Syrian cities at the Security Council, along with other hard evidence of Annan plan violations. Anne-Marie Slaughter has proposed a U.N. website that would post video and photographs uploaded by Syrians.
- Tighten the application of sanctions, including implementing the draconian financial sanctions already adopted for Iran against Syria as well.
When the Security Council approved the Annan plan, the United States called for “swift and meaningful consequences … should the regime continue to flout its obligations.” The best way of getting those consequences approved in the Security Council is to support full implementation of the Annan plan. Then the United States can go to the Council in mid-July, when the observer mission has to be renewed, arguing that despite its sincere efforts, Bashar al-Assad has defied the international community and needs to be taught a lesson.
PHOTO: Anti-government protesters attend the funeral of Mahmoud Al Moustafa, whom protesters said was killed by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, in Deir Al Zour, May 15, 2012. REUTERS/Handout
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Ineffective solutions to the wrong problem
John Kerry’s renewed advocacy of safe zones and possible arming of the Syrian opposition provokes me to repeat what I’ve said before: these are ineffective solutions to the wrong problem. If you want to protect civilians, the worst thing you can do for them is to concentrate them in one place where Bashar al Assad can be sure he will be killing his opposition. And if you want to bring Bashar down, an armed opposition is one of the slowest and least effective ways to do it.
First, safe areas, corridors, or whatever you want to call them. They will not be safe because the UN Security Council declares them safe. Remember the safe areas in Bosnia and the UN protected areas in Croatia. They were target-rich environments, because that is where the enemies are. To make areas safe, you have to destroy the Syrian army’s capability to attack them, in particular with aircraft (including helicopters), missiles, artillery and armor.
In order to do that, you have to take down the air defenses. Think Libya times five or maybe ten, because Syrian capabilities are significantly greater. Libya was impossible without the jump start the U.S. gave the operation. And there is someone out there who thinks Jordan and Turkey will do Syria on their own? The EU and the U.S. are simply not going to engage in this effort–they have too much else on their minds, and the Americans want to keep the Russians on side for the nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Second, arming the opposition. This is already happening to some extent–small arms circulate widely in the Middle East. But small arms aren’t going to stop armor, artillery and aircraft, or even mass arrests and torture. An assassin could of course get lucky, but armed rebellion has little prospect for overthrowing Bashar, whose army and other security services have remained cohesive. We can of course feed an insurgency in Syria, but that is no quick solution. Insurgencies typically take decades to succeed, and they more often don’t.
These propositions are not only ineffective. They would take things in the wrong direction. Safe areas would attract mainly Sunni Syrians, thus increasing the sectarian segregation that the civil war has already begun. Arming the opposition would also drive away from its ranks the relatively few Alawites, Christians, Druze and others who have joined its ranks.
Sectarian warfare comparable to what happened in Iraq in 2006-7 is just about the worst outcome imaginable in Syria from the American perspective. Odds are it would overflow to Lebanon, Iraq and maybe even Turkey and Jordan.
If you want to intervene militarily in Syria, the United States should lead the effort and target the command and control of the Syrian armed forces, including Bashar al Assad himself. Talking about half measures that won’t work but instead make things worse is not helpful.
The consequences of a serious military strike on the regime are unpredictable. Would Bashar be killed? Who would take over? Would it intensify the civil war? How will Iran react? This too is a solution that could make things worse.
The Annan plan, even not 100% effective, starts looking like a reasonable proposition when you take a good look at the alternatives. We should stop talking smack about it and do our best to support it.
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War on war
The newly established North America office of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute directed by Chantal de Jonge Oudraat yesterday hosted discussion of the statistical decline of armed conflict and whether it will continue. Moderated by Sissela Bok, presenters were Peter Wallensteen of Uppsala University and Joshua Goldstein of American University, author of the recently published Winning the War on War. The presenters and audience took as undisputed the uneven statistical decline of war since 1945, with a further dip after 1989.
Wallensteen attributed this mainly to better management of conflict, especially through the UN Security Council after 1989, and increased attention to rights, minorities and human dignity. There is no increase in ethnic or one-sided conflicts that would muddy the statistical picture. With war declining, other security concerns have emerged: terrorism, state fragility and state failure. Wallensteen thought the future looks promising if major powers continue to cooperate, security concerns remain limited, welfare economics has priority and human dignity is central to international concerns. It is possible to envision zero conflicts in the future.
While not so sure about the zero conflict vision, Goldstein mostly agreed. He debunked three causes for the decline in war:
- nuclear weapons, because their number is decreasing sharply, without triggering an increase in war,
- U.S. hegemony, because it too is declining without triggering an increase, and
- democracy, because China has been peaceful but not democratic.
He supported three other causes:
- normative disapproval of war and growth of the idea that peace is good, a view also advocated by Steven Pinker;
- increases in prosperity, trade and global interdependence, which is what keeps the Chinese leadership out of war, since it derives its legitimacy from prosperity;
- UN and other conflict management capacity, including increased use of peacekeeping.
Americans, Goldstein noted, on average pay $700 per month for U.S. defense and veterans benefits but only $2 per month for the UN. Eighty per cent of Americans support the UN. Doubling its budget would clearly bring real benefits. When will politicians realize this?
The presenters were too polite to mention it, but there is a great irony for Americans in the decline of war: our armed forces have been active in conflict zones every year since 1989. While much of the rest of the world has enjoyed relative peace, we have been expending trillions of dollars on less than fully successful military enterprises in Iraq and Afghanistan. This, too, is something for our politicians to ponder.
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This week’s peace picks
1. His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations: Building and Sustaining Peace: The UN Role in Post-Conflict Situations, CSIS, 11-noon May 7
The Center for Strategic and International Studies Program on Crisis, Conflict, and Cooperation (C3) invites you to a Statesmen’s Forum with
His Excellency Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
On
Building and Sustaining Peace: The UN Role in Post-Conflict Situations
Welcoming Remarks and Moderated by
Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski
Counselor and Trustee
CSIS
Monday, May 7, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
B1 Conference Room
1800 K Street, NW, Washington DC 20006
This event will be webcast live and viewable on this webpage.
For questions or concerns, please contact statesmensforum@csis.org.
Ban Ki-moon is the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. His priorities have been to mobilize world leaders around a set of new global challenges, from climate change and economic upheaval to pandemics and increasing pressures involving food, energy, and water. He has sought to be a bridge builder, to give voice to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people, and to strengthen the organization itself. Mr. Ban took office on January 1, 2007. On June 21, 2011, he was unanimously reelected by the General Assembly and will continue to serve until December 31, 2016.
2. Decline of Armed Conflict: Will It Continue? Stimonson, 12:30-2 pm May 7
SIPRI North America, 1111 19th St. NW, 12th floor, Washington DC 20036
RSVP: Please click here.
There is a prevalent public perception that the world has become a more violent place. However, many leading experts agree that there has been a decline of violence and war since 1989. To expand upon these findings and explore their future implications, SIPRI North America will convene a roundtable discussion with two leading experts in the peace and conflict field.
The following key questions will be discussed by a panel of experts:
- What are the reasons behind the decline of armed conflict? And will the decline of armed conflict continue?
- What do we know about the nature and patterns of armed conflict?
- Should the definitions of armed conflict be adjusted?
- How does the Arab Spring fit into the paradigm of declining conflict?
- What role did and should the international community play in mitigating armed conflict?
Welcome: Dr. Chantal de Jonge Oudraat, Executive Director, SIPRI North America
Speakers:
- Dr. Sissela Bok, Board Member, SIPRI North America and Senior Visiting Fellow, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (Moderator)
- Dr. Joshua S. Goldstein, Professor at the School of International Service, American University
- Dr. Peter Wallensteen, Dag Hammarskjöld Professor of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala Universit
*Light lunch and refreshments will be provided
If you have any questions, please contact Masha Keller at sipri-na@sipri.org
3. Thinking the Unthinkable: Potential Implications of Oil Disruption in Saudi Arabia, Heritage Foundation, noon-1:30 pm May 8
If an “Arab Spring” uprising completely disrupted Saudi oil production, the U.S. and the global economy would face a massive economic and strategic crisis. Russia and Iran as oil-producing states would likely exploit the crisis to increase their power around the world while undermining U.S. influence, especially in the Middle East. A crisis in Saudi Arabia would have drastic implications for the United States, its economy, and the whole world.
The U.S. must plan ahead and develop pro-active, multi-layered preventive and responsive strategies to deal with political threats to the security of oil supply. These would combine intelligence, military, and diplomatic tools as well as outline domestic steps the United States should take in such a crisis. Please join our distinguished panel of experts as they discuss strategic threats to oil supply; policy options available to the United States and to the oil consuming and producing states; and examine lessons learned from other Heritage Foundation energy crisis simulation exercises.
More About the Speakers
Ariel Cohen , Ph.D.
Senior Research Fellow, The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, The Heritage Foundation
Bruce Everett, Ph.D.
Adjunct Associate Professor of International Business, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Simon Henderson
Baker Fellow and Director, Gulf and Energy Policy Program, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Hosted By
4. The Consequences of Syria for Minorities in the Levant, Middle East Institute, noon-1 pm May 9
The Middle East Institute is proud to host journalist and author Jonathan C. Randal for a discussion about the impact of the conflict in Syria on neighboring Lebanon and its complicated religious and ethnic make-up. A tired joke among Lebanese asks why their much-battered country has been spared most of the turmoil that has attended the Arab Spring and its often violent ramifications elsewhere in the Middle East. The jest’s cynical answer: because Lebanon is automatically seeded for the finals. Such gallows humor reflects fears Lebanon will end up footing the bill whether the Alawite regime prevails in Damascus or succumbs to the largely Sunni Syrian opposition. Once again, the region’s minorities feel threatened by outsiders’ geostrategic considerations pitting Iran and its Syrian and Hezbollah allies against the United States. Europe, and the Gulf monarchies. Will the Syria conflict, like so many earlier Middle East conflicts, end up undermining, the role and status of the Levant’s Christian and other minority communities? Randal will draw from his many decades covering Lebanon for the Washington Post and from his book about Lebanon’s civil war, Going All the Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers and the War in Lebanon (1983, Viking Press) which has been reissued by Just World Books with an all-new preface as The Tragedy of Lebanon: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers and American Bunglers.
Speaker: Toby Dodge, Consulting Senior Fellow for the Middle East, IISS
Venue: IISS-US, 2121 K Street NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20037
Dr Dodge will discuss the future of Iraqi politics.
Dr Toby Dodge is Consulting Senior Fellow for the Middle East at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is also a Reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr Dodge has carried out extensive research in Iraq both before and after regime change, and has advised senior government officials on Iraq. He holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
This meeting will be moderated by Andrew Parasiliti, Executive Director, IISS-US and Corresponding Director, IISS-Middle East.
IISS-US events are for IISS members and direct invitees only. For more information, please contact events-washington@iiss.org or (202) 659-1490.
6. Will Democratic Governance Take Hold in the Middle East? IRI, 3-5 pm May 10
Agenda
9:00 am | Identifying the Hallmarks of 21st Century Conflict and How to Manage Conflict in Complex, Chaotic, and Fragile Environments
- Ambassador Rick Barton, Keynote Address
Assistant Secretary of State for Conflict and Stabilization Operations - Robert Ricigliano, Introduction
Board Chair, Alliance for Peacebuilding - Richard Solomon
President, U.S. Institute of Peace - Melanie Greenberg
President and CEO, Alliance for Peacebuilding - Pamela Aall
Provost, Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding, U.S. Institute of Peace
10:00 am | Results of the USIP-funded Peacebuilding Mapping Project
- Elena McCollim
Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego - Necla Tschirgi
Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego - Jeffrey Helsing, Discussant
Dean of Curriculum, Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding, U.S. Institute of Peace
11:20 am | How Other Fields Manage Complexity — And What Peacebuilding Can Learn From Them
- Bernard Amadei
Founder, Engineers without Borders - Simon Twigger
Department of Physiology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee - Daniel Chiu
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Office of the Secretary of Defense - Timothy Ehlinger
Department of Biology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee - Sheldon Himelfarb, Moderator
Director, Center of Innovation: Science, Technology and Peacebuilding,
U.S. Institute of Peace
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