Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect by Noam Chomsky, Reese Erlich Page B
Authors: Noam Chomsky, Reese Erlich
Tags: History, Politics & Social Sciences, Non-Fiction, middle east, Middle Eastern, Politics & Government, Specific Topics, International & World Politics, National & International Security, syria, Relations
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flow to the rebels from the Gulf states and directly training selected rebels in Jordan, but otherwise not intervening extensively. The United States offered lukewarm support for UN negotiator Lakhdar Brahimi's Geneva peace initiative, the one (very thin) reed that might offer some hope of arresting Syria's plunge to catastrophe.
The US failure to bomb Syria after the chemical-weapons incident in August 2013 was highly significant. The Obama administration was unable to obtain virtually any international support. Even Britain wouldn't support it. Congress wasn't going to support the attack either, which would have left Obama completely out on a limb. So the Russian plan to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons was a godsend for Obama. It saved him from what would have been a very serious political defeat.
This would have been a perfect opportunity to ban chemical weapons in the entire Middle East. The Chemical Weapons Convention, contrary to the Obama administration position, does not refer just to use of chemical weapons; it refers to production, storage, or use of chemical weapons. Well, Israel has chemical weapons and has refused even to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The appropriate response would be to call for imposing the Chemical Weapons Convention throughout the Middle East, which would mean that any country that is in violation of that convention, whether it has accepted it or not, would be compelled to eliminate its chemical-weapons stores. Just maintaining those stores, producing chemical weaponsâall of that is in violation of the convention. Of course, that would require that a US ally, Israel, give up its chemical weapons and permit international inspections. This should apply to nuclear weapons, as well.
The United States hasn't given up on possible future military action in Syria. In chapter 11 , Erlich describes the various justifications offered for âhumanitarian intervention.â Advocates argue that the Syrian Civil War is so horrificâwith the possibility of hundreds of thousands of civilian deathsâthat the international community must intervene with bombs and troops, though there is every reason to expect that as in other cases, the intervention would not be in the interest of the Syrians, but of those intervening, and would make the tragedy even worse.
Syria is a terrible atrocity. But there are much worse ones in the world. The worst atrocities in the past decade have been in eastern Congo, where maybe five million people have been killed. And the United States is indirectly involved. The government of Rwanda, which is a US client, is intervening massively, as is Uganda to an extent. It's almost an international war in Africa. How many people know about this? It's barely in the media. No one is calling for US humanitarian intervention to save people in the Congo.
The concept of âhumanitarian interventionâ is very old, and tofind genuine cases is no easy task. In the 1990s, the concept became very fashionable in the West. The jewel in the crown was Kosovo, but the traditional victims were unimpressed. The summit of the Global South, usually ignored or ridiculed in the West, condemned âthe so-called ârightâ of humanitarian interventionâ as another face for imperialism.
The outcomes of these grand enterprises and the reactions led to development of a new concept, âResponsibility to Protect,â or R2P . There are two crucially different versions of this doctrine. One was adopted by the United Nations in 2005. Apart from a shift of focus, it barely goes beyond well-established international law and practices.
A radically different version was produced by the commission headed by Gareth Evans, former Australian prime minister, who has since been hailed in the West as the guardian angel of R2P. The Evans version departs from the UN version in authorizing military action by regional groupings in the area of their jurisdiction, subject to
The US failure to bomb Syria after the chemical-weapons incident in August 2013 was highly significant. The Obama administration was unable to obtain virtually any international support. Even Britain wouldn't support it. Congress wasn't going to support the attack either, which would have left Obama completely out on a limb. So the Russian plan to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons was a godsend for Obama. It saved him from what would have been a very serious political defeat.
This would have been a perfect opportunity to ban chemical weapons in the entire Middle East. The Chemical Weapons Convention, contrary to the Obama administration position, does not refer just to use of chemical weapons; it refers to production, storage, or use of chemical weapons. Well, Israel has chemical weapons and has refused even to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The appropriate response would be to call for imposing the Chemical Weapons Convention throughout the Middle East, which would mean that any country that is in violation of that convention, whether it has accepted it or not, would be compelled to eliminate its chemical-weapons stores. Just maintaining those stores, producing chemical weaponsâall of that is in violation of the convention. Of course, that would require that a US ally, Israel, give up its chemical weapons and permit international inspections. This should apply to nuclear weapons, as well.
The United States hasn't given up on possible future military action in Syria. In chapter 11 , Erlich describes the various justifications offered for âhumanitarian intervention.â Advocates argue that the Syrian Civil War is so horrificâwith the possibility of hundreds of thousands of civilian deathsâthat the international community must intervene with bombs and troops, though there is every reason to expect that as in other cases, the intervention would not be in the interest of the Syrians, but of those intervening, and would make the tragedy even worse.
Syria is a terrible atrocity. But there are much worse ones in the world. The worst atrocities in the past decade have been in eastern Congo, where maybe five million people have been killed. And the United States is indirectly involved. The government of Rwanda, which is a US client, is intervening massively, as is Uganda to an extent. It's almost an international war in Africa. How many people know about this? It's barely in the media. No one is calling for US humanitarian intervention to save people in the Congo.
The concept of âhumanitarian interventionâ is very old, and tofind genuine cases is no easy task. In the 1990s, the concept became very fashionable in the West. The jewel in the crown was Kosovo, but the traditional victims were unimpressed. The summit of the Global South, usually ignored or ridiculed in the West, condemned âthe so-called ârightâ of humanitarian interventionâ as another face for imperialism.
The outcomes of these grand enterprises and the reactions led to development of a new concept, âResponsibility to Protect,â or R2P . There are two crucially different versions of this doctrine. One was adopted by the United Nations in 2005. Apart from a shift of focus, it barely goes beyond well-established international law and practices.
A radically different version was produced by the commission headed by Gareth Evans, former Australian prime minister, who has since been hailed in the West as the guardian angel of R2P. The Evans version departs from the UN version in authorizing military action by regional groupings in the area of their jurisdiction, subject to
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