TO INVADE, OR NOT TO INVADE: IS THAT THE QUESTION?

By: Ivan E. Mercado (guest writer to the blog)

Since August 21 2013, when chemical weapons were purportedly used in Syria on the civilian population in the rebel-controlled Ghouta area on the outskirts of Damascus, the world has been witness to an international joust between old Cold War enemies. Alost immediately after the first reports of the use of chemical weapons, President Barack Obama called it a “big event of grave concern” that would significantly alter the US calculation with regards to the conflict. By August 24, President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron jointly stated that the attack, which they were placing at the feet of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, merited a “serious response.” And the drum beat for military action continued to grow with each passing day.

On August 29, Mr. Cameron took his case for military intervention in Syria to the British Parliament and in a stunning reversal his motion for authorization to use force was defeated. Mr. Obama, however, seemed unfazed and thereafter turned to another Cold War ally, France. President Françoise Holland manifested France’s willingness to take affirmative action to make sure such attacks did not occur again.

The White House made public a U.S. Government Assessment on the use of chemical weapons in Syria which stated that it had “high confidence” that the Syrian government was responsible for the use of chemical weapons. Secretary of State John Kerry, in an address that coincided with the release of the report, also said that the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons “multiple times” during the course of the past year. Kerry went on to repeat that planning for military action was underway.

However, on August 31, 2013, President Obama told the American people in a televised address that he would seek Congressional approval for a limited but significant military strike against the Syria government. Obama said that the attacks would be limited to deterring additional chemical weapons strikes and that ground forces would not be used. Obama would ultimately agree not to seek a vote in Congress, apparently fearing a defeat similarly to David Cameron’s in Great Britain.

Sensing an opportunity to help its ally Syria in the shifting sands of public and international opinion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced a Russian proposition whereby Syria would agree to place its chemical weapons under international control and dismantle them, and the United States would agree not to conduct a military strike on the country. Prior to the Russian announcement, Secretary of State Kerry, speaking in the United Kingdom, suggested that if the Assad regime turned over all of its chemical weapons to the international community “without delay,” a military strike could be averted. Speaking to media outlets after Secretary Kerry, President Barack Obama said that the United States would consider the plan.

September 10, 2013: Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said that the Assad regime welcomed discussion on Russia’s plan to give up Syria’s chemical weapons and join the Chemical Weapons Convention. President Barack Obama, French President François Hollande, and British Prime Minister David Cameron discussed how to implement the plan through the UN Security Council, with France beginning to draft a resolution based on the Russian proposal, but with stipulations that force be authorized under Chapter VII  of the UN Charter if Assad fails to implement the provisions of the resolution.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared to reach an agreement on a comprehensive plan for the accounting, inspection, control, and elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons. The plan requires Syria to provide a full declaration of its stockpile “within a week” and provide the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN access to all chemical weapons sites in Syria. The plan calls for the OPCW inspectors to complete their initial inspections by November and calls for the destruction of the stockpile of chemical weapons and chemical agents by the first half of 2014.

As of today, the main sticking point is the instance by the US and France to add language that the UN Security Council should impose measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter for noncompliance with the agreement by Syria. The concern specifically relates to Article 42 which allows for “tak[ing] such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.” This Russians and the Syrians see it as an end-run toward UN authorization for military action, which presumably could not be obtained in the Security Council given the current situation. And here we sit, waiting to see how events continue to develop.

One question now is who has won this game of Cold War brinksmanship? Syria, Russia, the US, France, the Insurgents? In looking at this one must consider what prompted this month long saga—a heinous attack using the most barbaric of weapons nerve gas, Sarin Nerve Gas. As with the Cold War itself we may not know the losers and winners for many years to come and the people of Syria will likely not get justice for the war crimes committed in Ghouta and elsewhere by both sides. In any event, it does not seem like Assad’s political position has worsen after the attack.

Next, should the US and its allies have invoked Chapter VII without a UN resolution and simply attacked Syria immediately after 21 August 2013? I ask this in the context of how the world should respond in reaction to the most atrocious international crimes, e.g. genocide, mass killings, forced internments, etc. Are the negotiations a sign that the international community is headed in the right direction?  or are there any parallels to the appeasement of the Nazis or the inaction in Rwanda?

Nuclear Testing, International Law and North Korea

A nuclear test can be defined as a nuclear explosion detonated for either military or peaceful purposes. The history of nuclear testing began on 16 July 1945 at a desert test site in New Mexico, when the United States exploded its first atomic bomb. This initial test was the culmination of years of scientific research under the banner of the so-called the “Manhattan Project”.

A few months later, on 6 August 1945 a US B-29 bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing around 80,000 people. Three days later, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, causing the deaths of 40,000 more. In the months following the attack, roughly 100,000 more people died slow, horrendous deaths as a result of radiation poisoning. The dropping of the bombs remains the only nuclear attack in history.

Efforts to Control Nuclear Power

Around the mid-1950s, in the midst of the arms race of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union started conducting high-yield thermonuclear weapon testing in the atmosphere. In 1959, radioactive deposits were found in wheat and milk in the northern United States. As scientists and the public gradually became aware of the dangers of radioactive fallout, they began to raise their voices against nuclear testing, leading to the Partial Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (PTBT) signed in 1963. Representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain signed the PTBT, which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater, or in the atmosphere.

In 1968 the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was adopted. The NPT is a worldwide treaty that bans all members except the United Kingdom, China, France, Russia, and the United States from having nuclear weapons and commits those five states to eventually eliminating their atomic arsenals. The 187 states that subscribe to the NPT include every significant nation state with the exception of India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea.

The latest international law development in efforts to ban nuclear testing took place in 1996 with the opening for signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). The CTBT established a de-facto international norm on nuclear testing, banning all nuclear explosions in all environments, for military or civilian purposes. To date 159 states have signed and ratified the CTBT, including the three nuclear weapon states, France, the United Kingdom and Russia. Another 24 states have signed but not ratified it, including the United States.

The CTBT treaty shall enter into force 180 days after the 44 states listed in Annex 2 of the treaty have ratified it. These “Annex 2 states” are states that participated in the CTBT’s negotiations between 1994 and 1996 and possessed nuclear power reactors or research reactors at that time. As of March 2013, eight Annex 2 states have not ratified the treaty. China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the United States have signed but not ratified the treaty; and India, North Korea and Pakistan have not signed it. In 1998 India said it would only sign the treaty if the United States presented a schedule for eliminating its nuclear stockpile, a condition the United States rejected.

Threats to Non-Proliferation

In the last few years, uranium enrichment, plutonium separation, and other possible nuclear weapons-related activities have been discovered in Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. Moreover, it appears that North Korea and Iran both obtained enrichment technology from Pakistan, which suggests dangers to the NPT regime from nonparties that are not bound by the treaty’s prohibition against assisting non-nuclear-weapon states in acquiring nuclear weapons.

At the same time, the United States has not complied with some of its own NPT-created obligations. The United States Senate has consistently rejected ratification of the CTBT, which reflects its tendency to downgrade treaties and regimes and to upgrade unilateral efforts, such as the pre-emptive use of force against Iraq, to enforce compliance with nonproliferation. Furthermore, the US has undertaken efforts to create new types of nuclear weapons that might well require new testing. Thus, while pushing other countries to reject the acquisition of nuclear weapons for their defense, the United States seems to be relying ever more heavily on nuclear weapons for its own defense.

North Korea

In the last few weeks, Security Council resolutions have condemned North Korea’s December rocket launch and have tightened the existing punitive sanctions against that country.  North Korea’s first nuclear test took place in October 2006 and a second test took place in May 2009. North Korea has threatened nuclear strikes on the US, formally declared war on the South, and pledged to reopen a nuclear reactor in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. The latest warning from North Korea was directed to foreign embassies in Pyongyang stating that it cannot guarantee their safety from the threat of conflict after 10 April, and has advised them to consider pulling their staff out of the capital.

Most experts opine that North Korea does not have the capability to launch a nuclear attack. Officials in Washington have dismissed North Korea’s most serious threat of a nuclear strike against the US, as bluster by its leader, Kim Jong-un. The Pentagon assessment is that North Korea has not yet mastered the technology needed to accurately fire a nuclear-armed missile. However, even if the actual risk of a nuclear attack from North Korea is inexistent, the situation at hand poses certain important questions regarding nuclear proliferation:

-Is the US justified in expecting Pakistan, North Korea and India to abide by the Non Proliferation regime while ignoring Israel and China’s continued nuclear capabilities?

-Given that the United States has conducted 1,030 nuclear tests — more than all other nations combined — and continues refusing to destroy its nuclear stockpile,  is it fair to prohibit testing in other countries? Does this double standard perceived by other nations constitute a threat to the NPT regime?

-Is it fair to permit many of North Korea’s neighbors and the United States to test and possess missiles and develop other advanced military hardware but to prohibit North Korea from doing the same?

-Is the international community effective in preventing nuclear proliferation?

 

The Syrian Conflict and the International Community: To Do Something or to Do Nothing, that is the Question

Violence in Syria has escalated into what has been labeled a civil war. According to the UN more than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime began in March 2011. The government of Bashar al-Assad, which is increasingly losing territory to rebel fighters, blames “terrorists” and “armed gangs” for the unrest, while the opposition and other nations have accused Assad’s forces of crimes against humanity.

To provide some background on the conflict it is important to know that Syria is a country of 21 million people with a Sunni Muslim majority (74%) and significant minorities of Alawites – the Shia heterodox sect to which Mr Assad belongs – and Christians. Mr. Assad has concentrated power in the hands of his family and other Alawites. The family of President Assad has been in power since his father, Hafez, took over in a coup in 1970.  Under Mr. Assad’s rule, critics have been imprisoned, domestic media has been tightly controlled, and economic policies have often benefited the elite. The country’s human rights record is among the worst in the world.

Pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 after the arrest and torture of a group of teenagers who had painted revolutionary slogans on their school’s walls in the southern city of Deraa. Security forces opened fire during a march against the arrests, killing four. The next day, the authorities shot at mourners at the victims’ funerals, killing another person. People thereafter began publicly demanding the overthrow of Mr. Assad in a way that had not previously occurred.

The Assad regime first reacted with a combination of minor concessions. It ended the 48-year-long state of emergency and introduced a new constitution. However, the authorities continued to use violence, besieging opposition strongholds. The UN became involved and instituted a ceasefire, which soon was violated by both sides. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan, have demanded an end to violence and have called for stronger international action, but China and Russia oppose sanctions and military intervention.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. -Arab League special envoy for Syria, told the Security Council this week that Syria had plunged into “unprecedented levels of horror.” He told the UN Security Council it had to act now to halt the carnage epitomized by the killing of at least 78 young men, who were found shot with a single bullet and dumped in a river in the battlefront city of Aleppo. Syria “is breaking up before everyone’s eyes,” Brahimi told the council’s 15 ambassadors. “Only the international community can help, and first and foremost the Security Council.”

The United States and European council members blame Russia, a staunch ally and key arms supplier for Assad’s government, and China for the Council’s inaction on the conflict. Moscow and Beijing have vetoed three resolutions condemning Assad and reject the idea of sanctioning his government. Iran’s support to the Assad regime has mapped Syria even further into the international context. The question of international engagement must be considered.

The international community, via the UN Security Council could pass a resolution to set up a transitional government to attempt an end to the bloodshed. International Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said last week he could not move forward with a peace plan unless it was backed by a U.N. Security Council resolution and he warned that a ceasefire would only hold if it was overseen by a peacekeeping mission.

While Russia, China, and the rest of the world make up their mind about what to do about the Syrian conflict, Assad’s regime continues to commit crimes against humanity. On the other hand, given the experience in Egypt some say that perhaps it is better to let the Syrians to figure out their fate without arming the insurgents.

I suggest the following questions for reflection; do we do nothing when we know innocent people continue to die? Can the world afford another unstable “democracy” in the Middle East? Is this a precursor of a new cold war with Russia and China on one side and western allies on the other?