Hans Blix: The US Is Not the World Police

Hans Blix: Whether Obama in Syria or Bush in Iraq, The US Is Not the World Police

Posted: 26/08/2013 23:16

Hans Blix was the chief UN arms inspector for Iraq from 2000-2003. He was also the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1981 to 1997 and Swedish minister of foreign affairs (1978-79). He spoke with Global Viewpoint Network editor Nathan Gardels on Monday, August 26.


Nathan Gardels: Based on your experience, and what you've seen in recent days, do you believe the verdict of the Western intelligence agencies that Assad used chemical weapons is credible and reliable?

Hans Blix: The indications are certainly in the direction of the use of chemical weapons. Also, the circumstantial evidence points to the Assad regime carrying out the use of such weapons.

However, since the Western powers have asked for United Nations inspections -- and Syria has accepted and inspectors have been put in the field -- we all should wait to see the report of the inspectors before action is taken.

As we've seen before, the political dynamics are running ahead of due process.

Gardels: An echo of Iraq under President Bush?

Blix: In a way, yes. Then, too, the Americans and their allies asked for inspections for mass destruction weapons. Then, too, they said, "forget it, we have enough evidence on our own to act. We are the world police. Our publics are demanding immediate action!"

I do not go along with the statement by the U.S. that "it is too late" for Syria now to cooperate. That is a poor excuse for taking military action.

Only last March, the West was satisfied with inspections concerning the use of chemical weapons. Why can't they wait again now? In one month when you have accurate tissue samples we will know for sure exactly which kind of chemical weapons have been used and who possesses such weapons.

Gardels: But now it is President Barack Obama, not George Bush, taking on the role of world policeman?

Blix: Yes. He was the only one, some time ago now, who talked about international legality. I was heartened by that. But now I'm afraid the politics of the moment are pushing him in a direction we've seen before in the United States.

British Prime Minister David Cameron also doesn't seem to care much about international legality. And this time, neither do the French.

As far as they are all concerned, a criminal act has been committed so now they must engage in what they call "retaliation." I don't see what they are retaliating about. The weapons weren't used against them. It should be the rebels who want retaliation.

If the aim is to stop the breach of international law and to keep the lid on others with chemical weapons, military action without first waiting for the UN inspector report is not the way to go about it.

This is about world police, not world law.

Gardels: Do the Western intelligence agencies know where the chemical weapons are? Are they vulnerable? Can an air attack be effective?

Blix: Well, the Israelis know where they are. But attacking stockpiles with cruise missiles, as I understand it, has the disadvantage that is might spread chemical weapons in the vicinity of any attack.

Gardels: What are the implications of the U.S. and its Western allies once again taking action without the United Nations? There was Kosovo, then Iraq, then Libya. Now, it appears, Syria will join the list.

Blix: In Kosovo the intervention was based upon NATO approval. This was not enough. I do not think NATO approval is satisfactory in terms of international law. You need to have Security Council approval.

In the Iraq case, the Bush administration did not care at all about the UN. They just went ahead with the British and a few others. They were totally contemptuous of the UN.

I remember that John Kerry, now U.S. secretary of state and who was a senator then, was ridiculed at that time for saying the U.S. should wait for UN inspections and approval of action.

In the wake of the Iraq war, Obama, in his Nobel lecture, also argued that military action should not be taken against other states without UN Security Council approval. That was then, I guess. Now is now.

In Libya, there was a Security Council resolution, but it was very liberally interpreted after the fact, strained from its intent to protect civilians under impending attack to the overthrow of Kaddafi.

Gardels: But the Russians and Chinese will never agree to take military action against Syria, so why even try the UN route?

Blix: The Russians and Chinese have said they want "fair and professional inspections" in Syria. The Iranians have also agreed. In this matter they have a serious interest; the Iranians have suffered most in the world from the use of chemical weapons in their war with Iraq during Saddam's time.

They are not condoning the use of chemical weapons by their friends in Damascus.

In my view, it is certainly a possibility that you can achieve world condemnation of Syria in the Security Council -- including from Russia, China and Iran -- if inspections prove the suspicions.

Gardels: But they will never go along with military action?

Blix: China and Russia will not accept military action. That is true. But let us ask:
"What kind of military action is really possible, and what will it really do?" A cruise missile attack on suspected weapons depots in Syria will mean little, and perhaps nothing.

Remember President Clinton's punitive cruise missile attacks in 1998 on reputed terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a supposed nerve agent factory in Khartoum in Sudan. The pinpricks in Afghanistan did nothing to stop Al Qaeda. Khartoum turned out to be a total error. It was a pharmaceutical plant.

If military action is all about "punishing" Assad to satisfy public and media opinion without even hearing the UN inspectors report, it will be a sad day for international legality.

Russia’s Tactical Triumph Does Not Signify a New Cold War

Russia’s Tactical Triumph Does Not Signify a New Cold War
Author: Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
September 12, 2013
Financial Times

These are happy days in the Kremlin; one can only assume the vodka and caviar are being consumed with gusto. And it is not hard to see why. After decades of humiliation — including the cold war's conclusion on terms sought by the west; the demise of the Soviet Union; and Germany's unification within Nato followed by the alliance's enlargement in eastern Europe — Russia is back.

Indeed, President Vladimir Putin ran something of a victory lap on the opinion pages of The New York Times on Thursday. His column reads in part as a summary of the Russian case against external (ie American) armed intervention in Syria. Mr Putin argues, without a shred of evidence, that it was the Syrian opposition and not the government that used chemical weapons. More seriously, he maintains that those fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are dominated by anti-democracy extremists, who are the real threat; and that any military strike against the Syrian government would contravene international law.

Mr Putin does not leave it there, though. It is not just that his criticism of the use of military force around the world conveniently omits Georgia. He cannot resist patronising US President Barack Obama and lecturing Americans on what he sees as their attachment to the undeserved notion of American exceptionalism. What comes through is his resentment of both American primacy and Russia's relegation to the periphery of global politics. Clearly, he is relishing both the image and the reality of the Obama administration coming to him to salvage what remains of its Syrian policy.

All this, of course, is taking place against the backdrop of US-Russian diplomatic exchanges to flesh out the proposal to use diplomacy to rid Syria of its chemical weapons.

The question naturally arises: is it possible that Russia could be a partner, even rescuing Mr Obama from the predicament he created for himself by first declaring and then backtracking from his own "red line"?

The bottom line is that US-Russian partnership on Syria is possible – but it is at most a long shot. The two governments are still working at cross purposes, with Russian arms bolstering the Assad regime and US-supplied arms finally reaching elements of the opposition. And implementation of any plan to destroy Syria's chemical weapons inventory promises to be extraordinarily difficult, given that there is no accessible accounting of what exists; the reportedly large number of munitions and amount of chemical agents; and, more than anything else, the reality that any disarmament programme would have to be carried out amid an intense civil war.

Making things even less likely to succeed is the fact that Russia will refuse to agree to support any use of military force against Syria if it refuses to comply fully and expeditiously with any arms control undertaking. Mr Obama would have been wiser to ask Congress to give him the authority to determine whether Syria was complying fully; and, if he determined not, to carry out limited strikes. The problem is not just that Congress would likely have refused to grant Mr Obama such powers at this point, but also that Syria (with Russian prodding) might do just enough in the way of compliance to keep alive the hope diplomacy will work, thereby undermining what support existed for even limited military action.

Does all this mean that we are back to a new cold war? The answer is no. The two countries have some common interests, including opposition to terrorism. But co-operation there and on other matters will be uneven and intermittent, as Mr Putin depends in large part on anti-Americanism for his political base. In addition, he has little incentive to reduce Russia's nuclear weapons inventory, one of the country's last claims to major power status. The likely future is one in which Russia will often be a spoiler from the US perspective, selling arms to Syria and Iran or blocking the US in the UN Security Council.

But Mr Putin will not want the competition to get out of hand, as Russia is not a great power capable of competing with the US on a global scale. It has a mostly one-dimensional economy, heavily reliant on oil and gas. Little in the way of a broad, modern economy exists. The population is only 143m and until recently was in decline. The military cannot compete on a modern battlefield. The politics, like the economics, are top heavy; Mr Putin is vulnerable to unrest at home and offers no vision abroad.

All of which to say is that, while Mr Putin can fairly claim to have won this round of diplomacy, through his own cleverness and Mr Obama's multiple missteps, he cannot assume it is the harbinger of a trend, much less an era of global politics. Tactical triumphs cannot obscure or do away with the larger strategic reality of Russian limitations and weaknesses, and America's underlying power and reach. Ironically, it would take a very different Russia, one incompatible with Mr Putin's authoritarianism, to be a 21st century power to be reckoned with.

This article appears in full on CFR.org by permission of its original publisher. It was originally available here.

What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria : A Plea for Caution From Russia

New York Times

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

A Plea for Caution From Russia
What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria

By VLADIMIR V. PUTIN
Published: September 11, 2013

MOSCOW — RECENT events surrounding Syria have prompted me to speak directly to the American people and their political leaders. It is important to do so at a time of insufficient communication between our societies.

Relations between us have passed through different stages. We stood against each other during the cold war. But we were also allies once, and defeated the Nazis together. The universal international organization — the United Nations — was then established to prevent such devastation from ever happening again.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.

Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.

Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria? After all, after fighting in Libya, extremists moved on to Mali. This threatens us all.

From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law. We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today’s complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. Under current international law, force is permitted only in self-defense or by the decision of the Security Council. Anything else is unacceptable under the United Nations Charter and would constitute an act of aggression.

No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored.

It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States. Is it in America’s long-term interest? I doubt it. Millions around the world increasingly see America not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us.”

But force has proved ineffective and pointless. Afghanistan is reeling, and no one can say what will happen after international forces withdraw. Libya is divided into tribes and clans. In Iraq the civil war continues, with dozens killed each day. In the United States, many draw an analogy between Iraq and Syria, and ask why their government would want to repeat recent mistakes.

No matter how targeted the strikes or how sophisticated the weapons, civilian casualties are inevitable, including the elderly and children, whom the strikes are meant to protect.

The world reacts by asking: if you cannot count on international law, then you must find other ways to ensure your security. Thus a growing number of countries seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This is logical: if you have the bomb, no one will touch you. We are left with talk of the need to strengthen nonproliferation, when in reality this is being eroded.

We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilized diplomatic and political settlement.

A new opportunity to avoid military action has emerged in the past few days. The United States, Russia and all members of the international community must take advantage of the Syrian government’s willingness to place its chemical arsenal under international control for subsequent destruction. Judging by the statements of President Obama, the United States sees this as an alternative to military action.

I welcome the president’s interest in continuing the dialogue with Russia on Syria. We must work together to keep this hope alive, as we agreed to at the Group of 8 meeting in Lough Erne in Northern Ireland in June, and steer the discussion back toward negotiations.

If we can avoid force against Syria, this will improve the atmosphere in international affairs and strengthen mutual trust. It will be our shared success and open the door to cooperation on other critical issues.

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this. I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long
democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

Vladimir V. Putin is the president of Russia.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 12, 2013, on page A31 of the New York edition with the headline: A Plea for Caution From Russia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html?pagewanted=all