Unchecked Barbarism in Syria Continues

"There were no conclusions reached." This is how the outgoing president of the United Nations Security Council described the Security Council's response on September 29th to the latest horrors against civilians being inflicted daily upon innocent civilians, including little children, in eastern Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria. At its September 29^th open meeting preceding closed consultations, the Security Council had heard a grim report from Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O'Brien. After a couple of hours of closed-door deliberations, the members of the Security Council could not even agree to temporary 48 hour humanitarian pauses in the violence that Mr. O'Brien had suggested as a bare minimum step. France is in the process of trying to get consensus around its more ambitious draft resolution text, but Russia will no doubt veto it unless it is so watered down as to be meaningless. The Assad regime and Russia are carrying out intense lethal bombings over the rebel-held eastern Aleppo, where about 250,000 people are effectively trapped under siege by Syrian military forces. They claim they are targeting terrorists, not civilians. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power firmly rejected this attempt to rationalize the massive bombing campaign, telling reporters last Thursday, "Assad and Russia are unleashing a savagery against people they call terrorists. Children are not terrorists. Breadlines--and the individuals within breadlines--are not terrorists. Rescue workers are not terrorists. Hospital workers are not terrorists."

Several Security Council meetings on the worsening situation in Syria during the last couple of weeks, including one at the ministerial level, have resulted only in an escalating war of words among Russia and Western representatives reminiscent of the Cold War era. The ambassadors of the United States, France and Great Britain went so far as to walk out of the chamber in a huff when Syria's UN ambassador spoke at an emergency Sunday meeting on September 25th. While the Council members blathered hours on end, civilians were dying in Syria from bombs, malnutrition, and disease. Lifeless bodies of children were being pulled from the rubble. Mr. O'Brien spared no words in describing what he said has gone "way beyond even the apex of horror of a fortnight ago." He told the Security Council, "The people of Syria--and most immediately, the people of east Aleppo--are being subjected to deprivation, disease and death in increasing numbers and with increasing ferocity." Under-Secretary General O'Brien noted the introduction of "bunker busting bombs" reportedly causing "mass destruction in an area that has already been decimated" and resulting in "bodies of babies, children, women and men stuck unrecovered in the rubble of basements up to 20 metres down where they had taken refuge--and where they had been safe until the use of these recently introduced weapons." He wondered aloud "whether there is any level of disaster and death that can be visited upon the Syrian people that might prompt the parties to this conflict, and by extension the international community, to identify a red line that will not be crossed." Mr. O'Brien pleaded with the parties to the conflict and the members of the Security Council to take real action to stop the carnage long enough for humanitarian workers to be able at least to safely start delivering much needed food and medical supplies to besieged and hard to reach civilians. Continued inaction, he warned, "will leave this Council today on the wrong side of history, on the wrong side of avoidable deaths."

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The UN Security Council continues to be on "the wrong side of history" when it comes to its paralysis in dealing with the Syrian calamity for the same reason the League of Nations was on the wrong side of history in failing to stop the slide towards World War II. Both international bodies are no more than the sum of their respective parts, unable to stop aggression in the face of determined opposition by major countries focused on what they perceive to be important strategic national interests at stake. In the case of Syria, U.S. and Russian strategic interests have collided over whether the Assad regime should stay in power or be replaced. They share a common interest in defeating the Islamic terrorists, particularly ISIS and al Nusra (now known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham). However, Russia accuses the United States of not ensuring the separation of the so-called "moderate" rebels it supports from the terrorists that the Syrian regime says it is fighting. Russia is also helping to create a self-fulling prophesy by putting so much military pressure in support of the Assad regime on the "moderate" rebel hold-outs in besieged rebel-controlled areas such as eastern Aleppo that they either surrender, starve or join the better armed jihadist terrorist forces. It was not always this way. When Russian President Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, he did not display an intent to deploy Russian troops or warplanes in or around Syria immediately to help Assad against the rebel forces trying to overthrow him, although Russia does have naval facilities at Tartus it wanted to protect. Obama had decided against any major military intervention in Syria to help the rebels, but allowed the provision of some covert aid to the so-called "moderate" rebels without any apparent interference by Russia. President Obama did set down one red line in 2012. He warned the Syrian regime that the U.S. would take direct military action if it used chemical weapons against the Syrian people. However, when it appeared a year later that Assad had crossed Obama's red line with the Syrian military force's use of sarin gas that took the lives of nearly 1500 people, Obama drew back from his threat. Obama allowed Putin to bail him out of enforcing the red line with a face-saving agreement stipulating the removal and destruction of the Assad regime's designated stockpiles of chemical weapons. The Obama administration opted to use the UN Security Council to unanimously endorse the agreement worked out, with Assad's consent, between the United States and Russia. The agreement was to be implemented on an accelerated timetable, with monitoring by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

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Secretary of State John Kerry praised the strong, "precedent-setting" Security Council resolution, which he claimed demonstrated that "when we put aside politics for the common good, we are still capable of great things." Kerry added, "We are here because actions have consequences." Removal and destruction of the Assad regime's designated stockpiles of chemical weapons did indeed take place. However, conditions in Syria worsened as the Assad regime stepped up its attacks on civilians with conventional weapons, and jihadist terrorists gained control over swathes of territory. The U.S. lost much of its credibility in the region while Russia gained respect, as a result of Putin's escape hatch that Obama used to get out of enforcing his red line. "Backing away from reacting once the red line was crossed impacted American credibility not just in the Middle East, but I think it was being watching in Moscow and Tehran and Beijing and Pyongyang and elsewhere," former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in an interview with Business Insider this past January. Gates was right. Putin used a variety of tactics, including bait and switch negotiations and the cynical use of the UN to buy time in order to build up Russia's own military forces in the region. President Obama in turn played right into Putin's hands. Obama gave up the military leverage he had in 2013 to immobilize Assad's air power and bases when Assad crossed Obama's red line and Russia was not in a position to run interference for Assad militarily. Russia's strong military build-up since that time has changed the military equation--and, by extension, the balance of diplomatic leverage - to Assad's and Russia's advantage. Assad still has chemical weapons, some of which he has used against civilians since the passage of the UN Security Council chemical weapons resolution. Contrary to Kerry's claims, Assad's actions have had no real consequences from the international community. Thousands of more lives were lost to Assad's barrel bombs dropped from military aircraft that could have been destroyed on the ground if Obama had followed through with his threat. Russia bought the time necessary to become the Syrian regime's full partner in relentless air attacks leading up to the horrors now unfolding daily in eastern Aleppo. The Obama administration never learns. Secretary of State John Kerry's on-again, off-again cessation of hostilities agreements with Russia have come to naught. Backed by Russia's military intervention, Assad unilaterally pulled out of the latest such agreement. Russia followed suit. Kerry was reduced to threatening to cease negotiations with Russia. And the UN is reduced to what Winston Churchill once described as "a frothing of words." Any real diplomatic solution to the five year plus Syrian conflict, which has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions of people, and precipitated a refugee crisis of historic proportions, is further away than ever.