The US government said in 2008 that the reactor was "not intended for peaceful purposes".
Confronting the Challenge of Preventing Atrocity Crimes in 2013
(By Adama Dieng, UN special advisor on prevention of genocide, January 31, 2013)
As we head into 2013, the crises in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Sudan, and Syria serve as tragic reminders of the challenges that remain in the struggle to protect populations from atrocity crimes, namely genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. We are faced with daily media reports of violence and gross human rights violations, including those against women and children, that remind us that we must do more to protect populations.
With this constant barrage of bad news, it is tempting to overlook the progress made. Despite ongoing crises, the international community has made important advances over the past years. An impressive range of global, regional, and national initiatives have helped to identify and mitigate sources of risk, build, and strengthen local resilience to violence, encourage creative ways to manage diversity peacefully, resolve tensions before they escalate, and tackle factors that inflame hatred.
At the 2005 World Summit, all heads of state and government unanimously committed to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, the most serious of crimes. This responsibility already existed under international law. Yet their plain-worded statement in the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document that “We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it,” provided new impetus, under the umbrella of what has since become known as the “responsibility to protect” (abbreviated as R2P).
The atrocity prevention efforts of the United Nations and its partners play a vital role in helping to reduce the number of crises. They support national and local capacities to stem tensions and resolve conflicts before they become deadly. The United Nations works with regional and sub-regional arrangements, national governments, and civil society, including human rights organisations and women’s groups. This collaborative approach focuses on understanding risks and building capacities to mitigate them, including by supporting communities. It seeks to foster a culture of prevention and respect for human rights. This approach is about building understanding of how eruptions of violence can lead to atrocity crimes. It is about building awareness of the dangers of hate speech and incitement to violence, and addressing them while ensuring respect for human rights.
And, when crises seem imminent, this approach is about getting the analysis right and marshalling the resources of the United Nations and the political will of the broader international community to prevent them from escalating.
Significant advances in atrocity prevention have also been made outside of the United Nations. A number of Member States have created focal points on R2P or internal inter-agency structures for the prevention of atrocity crimes, such as the American Government’s Atrocities Prevention Board. Regionally, 18 states in Latin America have established a network for the prevention of genocide. In Africa, the African Union has taken important steps to institutionalise its commitment to protect civilians from atrocity crimes. The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (of Africa), a sub-regional organisation, has established a Regional Committee for the prevention and punishment of genocide and related crimes. This is the world’s first sub-regional mechanism created specifically to address these issues. In the Middle East, civil society organisations are documenting human rights violations and building peace and tolerance between communities, including through social media. Think tanks and academia from around the world continue to provide intellectual leadership and sound advice.
Over the past few years, collective efforts have achieved results. The crisis in a disputed territory between Sudan and South Sudan, Abyei, as well as the crises in Guinea, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, and Yemen, were resolved through diplomatic means, without protracted fighting and mass bloodshed. While continued international engagement in those countries remains essential, we can affirm that political leadership was fundamental in achieving these modest successes.
The overwhelming task of atrocity prevention requires everyone’s commitment. The political will of Member States remains paramount. The ongoing crises around the world — from Mali to Myanmar — highlight how progress is ultimately contingent on the will of national governments and on their capacity to move in the same direction.
Member States have a crucial and unique role, be it through proactive and preventative action or, when required, through timely and decisive response, within the provisions of the United Nations Charter. When it comes to protecting populations, the United Nations and its partners can only complement their efforts. The Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect is determined to continue working with Member States, and to encourage the assumption of the full responsibility and the strengthening of the political leadership required to deliver on the promise of “never again” and make the responsibility to protect “a living reality”.
Morality fails to spur foreign powers after Aleppo horror
(Alan Philps, The National UAE, February 1, 2013)
The discovery of the handcuffed bodies of more than 100 young men in a canal in Aleppo has ratcheted up calls for outside powers to act to stop the unrelenting violence in Syria. Although the circumstances of the mass murder are unclear, the opposition Syrian National Coalition has denounced the "extreme complacency" of most countries towards "the perpetrators of genocide".
In a globalised world, where outrageous abuses of human rights are everybody's business, the case for outside intervention in Syria ought to be convincing. Yet the history of armed interventions under a humanitarian banner is mixed, to say the least.
Two recent military operations - in Libya, to remove Muammar Qaddafi, and more recently in Mali, to turn back the jihadists who threaten to take over the country - might give the impression that western armed intervention is now the norm.
Yet history shows it is the exception. Even the strongest proponents of humanitarian intervention struggle to see how it might apply in Syria so long as the regime of President Bashar Al Assad has the support of Russia.
Not all interventions require a United Nations mandate. In 1982, a multinational force of US, French, Italian and British troops was stationed in Beirut to protect Palestinians following the massacre by Israeli-allied Falangist militiamen in the Sabra and Shatila camps. In 1991, following the first Gulf War to force Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, western powers stepped in to protect the Kurds, who were fleeing in their thousands from a vengeful Iraqi army.
But there are more cases where the world has turned a blind eye. The Rwandan genocide of 1994 was met with indifference, with the UN Security Council keen only to evacuate foreigners and reduce the presence of UN troops there.
The 1991-2002 Algerian civil war that may have killed 200,000 people was relegated to the news in brief columns of the foreign press. As for Bosnia, the worst conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War, the European media in the early 1990s were filled with graphic horror stories and appeals for intervention. But it took three years and thousands dead before the Nato alliance attacked Serb forces from the air and forced them to lift the siege of Sarajevo.
All these conflicts have some lessons for Syria. In Beirut, it was clear that western powers had been guilty of abandoning the Palestinians. The multinational force had earlier overseen the evacuation of armed Palestinians from Beirut - leaving the camp residents helpless against their enemies - and then withdrew. The moral case that the withdrawal of the force had facilitated the massacre was unanswerable.
The same applied to the Kurds of northern Iraq. After the US-led coalition drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait in 1991, the Kurds rose up against the regime of Saddam Hussein, believing they had the encouragement of Washington, but no US support was forthcoming.
The pictures from the mountains of northern Iraq of women and children fleeing to safety were irresistibly affecting, helping to force the hand of the coalition countries to impose a no-fly zone over northern Iraq. By contrast the Arabs of southern Iraq, who were in the same position as the Kurds, but isolated from the media and lacking the heroic backdrop of the mountains, were left to suffer their fate, although they did gain a no-fly zone a year later.
To justify armed force for a humanitarian end requires powerful media support, which in turn necessitates a simple media narrative of good versus evil. This was in evidence with the Kurds (Saddam Hussein) and in Beirut (Ariel Sharon and the Lebanese Falangists). But even when the press is clamouring for action, as in the Bosnia war of the 1990s (with Slobodan Milosevic as the hated figure), it took Nato three years to launch the air war that eventually forced the Serbs to join peace talks.
It also helps if the military goal is achievable from the air. This was the case in Bosnia and also in Kosovo 1999, when Nato forces launched a bombing campaign to save the Kosovar-Albanian population from genocide, reports of which are now recognised to have been highly exaggerated.
None of these conditions is visible with Syria. The western powers have already shown they cannot be motivated by guilt alone. It was after all the brutality of the Syrian security forces in Deraa which turned peaceful protest into an uprising.
Nor is there any simple narrative of good versus evil. Mr Al Assad cuts a poor figure for a dictator; he looks more like an incompetent lacking the political skills to maintain the regime he inherited. As for the rebels, they are divided and take little care of the civilians in the areas they control. Their claim to moral superiority is tenuous. Once the Assad clan is gone, there will not be peace, but most probably years of war between the victors.
The lessons of previous interventions are not encouraging. Boots on the ground in Beirut in 1982 led to mass attacks on US and French soldiers in 1983. Political careers are made from killing Americans, and that would be the game in Syria. As every seasoned general knows (when he is not defending his budget), war is a business with unpredictable outcomes.
This has become all the more clear with the invasions on Afghanistan and Iraq. As the British forces came to conclude in Basra, their presence in Iraq only made the situation worse.
It is even more apparent after the killing of Qaddafi. The Nato air campaign may have been quick and successful, but it has now help to spread instability throughout the trans-Sahara region.
The Assad regime has taken courage from the West's indecision. He has been given a clear message that the only trigger for western military intervention would be the loss of control of Syria's chemical weapons. His future is far from assured. But short of a chemical-weapons catastrophe, no B-52s are going to appear over Damascus to bomb him out of his presidential palace.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay On Responsibility To Protect
(David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, February 2, 2013)
Defence Minister Peter MacKay arrived in Germany for the 49th Munich Security Conference yesterday. MacKay participated in a discussion panel entitled: “Does Responsibility to Protect Have a Future?” Here is part of his speech:
“At its essence, R2P has become short hand for whether governments sit on their hands and watch atrocities, or take deliberate action to prevent – and, if necessary, intervene.
Second, whatever R2P is or isn’t, it is not a template for action; it does not imply automaticity — Some use this to critique R2P, saying world leaders use this ambiguity as an excuse for inaction.
But I think we have to be realistic – as Kofi Annan said, very rarely will there be international consensus to act.
Because whether we are facing a Darfur, a Rwanda, a Kosovo, Libya, Syria – you name it – each situation is entirely different.
The instruments we use to prevent and mitigate the horrors that some governments inflict on their own people must, necessarily, be diverse. The international community that cares, has to carefully consider the consequences of our actions – and our inaction.
We need to be sure that we do no further harm.”
Dilma’s chance to promote RwP in the UN General Assembly
(by Oliver Stuenkel, Post-WesternWorld.com, September 9, 2012)
In 1965 the UN General Assembly issued a Westphalian-sounding 'Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention into the Domestic Affairs of States':
"No state or group of states has the right to intervene directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the state or against its political, economic and cultural elements are in violation of international law. No state may use or encourage the use of economic, political or any other type of measure to coerce another state in order to obtain from it advantages of any kind. Also, no state shall organize, assist, foment, incite, or tolerate subversive terrorist or armed activities directed towards the violent overthrow of or civil strife in another state."
Less than 35 years later, however, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan famously argued in an article in The Economist that "state sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined—not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are now widely understood to be instruments at the service of their peoples, and not vice versa."
Yet while the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which he was referring to in his article, has turned into a household concept of international politics over the past decade, emerging powers have traditionally rejected it on the grounds that it sought to legitimize interest-driven Western military interventions. Most of the time, therefore, those in favor and those opposed to R2P were not talking to each other, thus reducing R2P's impact on foreign policy.
Those who saw the UNSC Resolution 1973 (which cleared the way to intervene in Libya) as a breakthrough for R2P were proven wrong when Brazil, India and South Africa (IBSA) sharply criticized the way the P3 (France, Great Britain and the United States) handled the intervention, charging that the resolution had been used as an excuse for regime change. In addition, they complained that once the resolution had passed, P3 diplomats arrogantly dismissed IBSA diplomat's enquiries about the details of military action, showing little interest in finding a common strategy.
This negative experience caused Brazil to develop the concept of the Responsibility While Protecting (RWP), which seeks to complement R2P by establishing additional criteria to assure that interventions by force always do the smallest damage possible. The concept note published by the Brazilian government in late 2011 rebukes the way the P3 acted in Libya and calls for greater accountability and consultation with the UN Security Council once the use of force has been authorized.
In late August, the Center for International Relations at Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) convened leading academics and policy makers from around the world to debate RwP and the potential impact it could have on the debate. The discussion not only revolved around technical questions (e.g., "who evaluates the threat?", "could the UNSC be given operational control over a military intervention?"), but participants also discussed ways Brazil and other governments could help promote the concept (it remains little known outside a small group of specialists, as Patrick Quinton-Brown argues here.)
Thomas Wright, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and one of the workshop participants in Rio de Janeiro, expressed skepticism in a recent article in Foreign Policy, pointing out that instead of taking the debate forward, RwP could cause paralysis as the West would most likely see it as a means to make humanitarian intervention impossible.
Yet he also noted that RwP forms a part of the Secretary General’s Report on R2P, which is to be discussed at the UN in September. This shows that the concept cannot be dismissed easily.
Just as important as RwP's content may be its origin. The debate about sovereignty and intervention pits two worlds against each other which seem often unable to communicate properly. Most rich Western nations support R2P, while non-Western poor nations reject it. Analysts from developing countries argue that in practice, R2P does not redefine sovereignty in general, but creates two types of sovereignty: that of the strong and that of the weak, the latter enjoying a much watered-down version of it.
RwP is thus significant because it emerged in the Global South, from a country whose perspective on sovereignty is much more aligned with that of the developing world than with that of NATO. As a consequence, it could help bring the two opposing sides to the table and help create the framework for a constructive debate.
Brazil's major challenge is twofold. First, it needs to explain RwP in a more detailed way. This could be done by launching a second, more comprehensive concept note. Secondly, Brazil needs to do more to promote the idea. Dilma Rousseff's opening speech in the UN General Assembly on September 18 is a golden opportunity to do just that.
The President would almost certainly draw fire from many sides - NATO members would accuse her of obstructing swift interventions, the developing world would accuse her of giving in to a Western interventionist agenda. Yet, RwP may be the world's best hope to avoid returning to the days of UNSC stalemate in which the only two options are inaction in the face of large-scale killings and action outlawed by the U.N. Charter.
Intervene in Syria
(By ROGER COHEN, Opinion Essay, The New York Times, February 4, 2013)
Syria, for Israel, is a conundrum. The ousting of its despotic ruler, Bashar al-Assad, would remove Iran’s sole Arab ally and cut the Iranian conduit to its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah. That is in Israel’s strategic interest. On the other hand Israel does not relish post-Assad chaos in Syria that allows sophisticated weaponry to fall into the hands of Al Qaeda splinter groups that love a vacuum and loathe Jews.
So it was interesting to hear Israel’s outgoing defense minister, Ehud Barak, speak in favor of Assad’s departure at the Munich Security Conference, saying he hoped to see it happen “imminently.” No option on Syria at this stage of its unraveling is without significant risk. But the worst course is the one President Obama and Western leaders have fallen into: Feeble paralysis most foul.
Israel has just bombed a Syrian convoy of antiaircraft weapons in a sortie that also hit a weapons research center — with no response from Assad beyond a belated grumble that this was “destabilizing” (that process seems advanced already). Just how much of a paper tiger Assad has become is one question raised by this attack. Another is whether the Western use of force will inevitably provoke a strong Syrian riposte; it seems not.
Syria, 22 months into its uprising, presents an unconscionable picture. Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special representative for Syria, summed up the disaster in a leaked report to the Security Council on Jan. 29. He spoke of “cities that look like Berlin in 1945.” He decried the 60,000 killed, the massacres, the 700,000 refugees (rising to one million in a few months), the more than two million internally displaced and the tens of thousands of detainees. He warned of neighbors including Jordan and Lebanon collapsing under a further flood of refugees.
“I am sorry if I sound like an old, broken record,” Brahimi told the Security Council. “But I seriously don’t see where else one should start or end except in saying that things are bad and getting worse, the country is breaking up before everyone’s eyes; there is no military solution to this conflict — at least not one that will not destroy Syria completely and destroy also the nation of Syria; Syrians cannot themselves start a peace process, their neighbors are not able to help them; only the international community may help.”
But of course the “international community” — that awful phrase — is divided, with a Libya-burned Russia and an anti-intervention China deep in a blocking game. Brahimi wants a transitional government formed with “full executive powers” (this, he explained, is diplomatic speak for Assad having “no role in the transition”). The government would be the fruit of negotiations outside Syria between opposition representatives and a “strong civilian-military” government delegation. It would then oversee a democratic transition including elections and constitutional reform.
This sounds good but will not fly. I agree with Brahimi that there is no military solution. Syria, with its mosaic of faiths and ethnicities, requires political compromise to survive. That is the endgame. But this does not mean there is no military action that can advance the desired political result by bolstering the armed capacity of the Syrian opposition, leveling the military playing field, and hastening the departure of Assad essential for the birth of a new Syria. Assad the Alawite will not go until the balance of power is decisively against him.
The United States does not want to get dragged into another intractable Middle Eastern conflict. Americans are tired of war. My colleagues Michael Gordon and Mark Landler have revealed how Obama blocked an attempt last summer by Hillary Clinton to train and supply weapons to selected Syrian rebel groups.
Nor does Obama want to find himself in the business of helping Islamist extremists inherit a Syrian vacuum. The opposition coalition is divided and lacks credibility. But the net result of these concerns cannot be feckless drift as Syria burns. Senator John McCain was right to say here that, “We should be ashamed of our collective failure to come to the aid of the Syrian people” and to answer a question about how to break the impasse with two words: “American leadership.”
An inflection point has been reached. Inaction spurs the progressive radicalization of Syria, the further disintegration of the state, the intensification of Assad’s mass killings, and the chances of the conflict spilling out of Syria in sectarian mayhem. It squanders an opportunity to weaken Iran. This is not in the West’s interest. The agreement that Assad has to go is broad; a tacit understanding that it is inevitable exists in Moscow. The Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, spluttered in justified incredulity at the notion the opposition would sit down with a regime that has slaughtered its own.
It is time to alter the Syrian balance of power enough to give political compromise a chance and Assad no option but departure. That means an aggressive program to train and arm the Free Syrian Army. It also means McCain’s call to use U.S. cruise missiles to destroy Assad’s aircraft on the runway is daily more persuasive.
Americans are tired of war.
A responsible debate on Syria
(By Josh Rubin, Opinion Essay, Yale Daily News, February 12, 2013)
Listening to some of the political discourse about whether the United States should “intervene” in Syria, I wonder if neoconservatives have learned from the mistakes of the invasion of Iraq.
While Iraq in 2003 was a fundamentally different foreign policy dilemma than Syria is today, the neoconservative approach to these and other complex challenges seems to be unchanged. Leaders like Sen. John McCain continue to bluster about military intervention overseas without mentioning the associated costs to the American people. They mock coordination with our allies and partners as “leading from behind.” And they pine for fiscal responsibility even as they refuse to entertain any trimming of the defense budget.
These sentiments do a disservice to our national debate on foreign policy and, specifically, on American involvement in humanitarian crises overseas. Today’s debates seem to revolve solely around the question of when we should intervene in crises overseas. But just as important as when we should intervene is how we should intervene.
In Syria, foreign policy hawks consistently promote the false dichotomy between doing nothing and military intervention. In fact, the Obama administration is currently providing humanitarian assistance and communications equipment to select elements of the Syrian opposition, and has been working both unilaterally and within the United Nations to pressure the Assad regime through diplomacy and economic sanctions. (Not to mention covert intelligence-gathering taking place in the region.)
Have these actions achieved their desired effect? Clearly not. The Assad regime is still in power, and the bloodshed continues. Does that mean arming the rebels would achieve the desired result? Not necessarily.
Let’s take two very real contingencies that could result from flooding arms into Syria too hastily, before we have credible information on the various factions within the Syrian opposition. First, U.S.-supplied arms could be intercepted by al-Qaida and used against Americans and our interests in the region. Second, the same surface-to-air missiles intended to shoot down Syrian military jets might instead be used to shoot down Turkish or Israeli airliners.
These are risks that may eventually be outweighed by the potential benefits of arming the rebels, but they are still possibilities that should be publicly considered before, not after, the decision to arm the rebels is made. It is alarming that proponents of this type of intervention seem eager to avoid this public debate.
Moreover, for neoconservatives, the military seems to be the only element of U.S. foreign policy worth considering. But diplomacy and development are also key pillars of American power. We know from history — and certainly from the Iraq War — that American leadership and the success of our efforts overseas stem from the investments we make and the emphasis we place on the intelligence community, State Department, USAID and our international partnerships. Using the military should be our last resort.
As we consider next steps in Syria, we must avoid falling into the same intervene-now-figure-it-out-later mentality that led us into Iraq. Our politicians cannot simply demand more American involvement without explaining why or how this would further U.S. interests. Clamoring for American leadership does not make much sense if it leads us into the middle of a civil war. Calling opponents of arming the rebels in Syria “weak” doesn’t explain why that type of intervention would be effective in the first place.
No one is satisfied with the status quo in Syria, but we must still evaluate whether our policy options would improve or exacerbate the situation.
Instead of devolving into a political debate over who is “strong” and who is “weak” on national security issues, our discourse should instead revolve around whose approach is responsible. It should address whether the benefits outweigh the costs, and whether we have done all we can do to reduce uncertainty and the risk of failure. In the case of Syria, that’s a debate that is still yet to be had. It’s a debate that some would rather avoid.
Early intervention needed to help fragile states says Labour
(BBC News, February 13, 2013)
Labour is to say it backs the principle of early Western intervention in states under threat from extremism but will warn the government is failing to learn the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan.
UK involvement beyond its borders is not ideological but an "essential" response to an interconnected world, Jim Murphy will argue in a speech.
But he will criticise the UK's "rushed" response to the insurgency in Mali.
Preventative action is needed to nip problems in the bud, he will add.
Speaking in London, the shadow defence secretary will set out the party's position on foreign intervention in the most detailed terms since Labour left government in 2010 while addressing the "painful and controversial" legacies of the UK's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The UK can never allow itself to slip into "isolationist reticence", he will argue, insisting the international community will always remained "haunted" by its failure to intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda and to act earlier in Bosnia in the 1990s.
"We cannot hide from the fact that events and threats overseas may necessitate the use of military force," he will say. "A belief that we have responsibility beyond our borders is not, as some would have it, ideological but an essential response to the world in which we live."
While backing the original decision to go into Afghanistan and Iraq, Mr Murphy will say both missions were undermined by a lack of understanding of religious, ethnic and cultural forces, insufficient prioritisation given to army training and "unrepresentative" political strategies from the outset.
And he will suggest the coalition government has failed to learn the lessons of the past decade, describing the conflict in Mali and the growing terrorist threat in north Africa as a "failure in prevention and foresight".
While it was "necessary to act" to tackle Islamist militants once they had taken control of swathes of the country, he says the emergence of a "patchwork of loose alliances" in the region should have been identified earlier and action taken to nullify them.
Labour has warned of the risks of "mission creep" in Mali - where the UK is providing logistical assistance to French forces and 350 British troops were sent earlier this month to train Malian forces.
Mr Murphy will criticise David Cameron's assertion in the wake of the Algerian hostage crisis that the West faces a "generational struggle" against Islamist terrorism, describing his language as over-simplistic and suggestive of a "natural continuation of the 9/11 world".
In the future, he will suggest, the UK and its allies must develop a "new model of preventative intervention" focused on identifying threats before they escalate and require a major military deployment.
This will involve giving wide-ranging assistance, potentially over a long period of time, to fragile states focused on security training and combat prevention.
To make a success of this, British forces must be "adaptable", more "culturally aware" and better equipped to speak local languages, while future intelligence and equipment needs should be geared around these core functions.
"The principle would be to invest early, making substantial intervention less likely and in the event of escalation success more likely as well as improving post-conflict planning," he will argue.
"The core component of preventative intervention would be building at-risk nations' abilities to defend themselves against militancy. Without passing on the capabilities for internal security management, we risk perpetuating the deceptive stability which was blow open in Mali."
Foreign Secretary William Hague has rejected suggestions the international community was slow to act on Mali and said the West must learn the lessons of Somalia in terms of how it balanced its military, political and humanitarian role.
On a visit to North Africa earlier this month, Mr Cameron promised support to Algeria and Libya to boost security and tackle terrorist threats but warned against "looking at this region of the world and thinking that the answer is purely a military one".
Leaders like Sen. John McCain continue to bluster about military intervention overseas without mentioning the associated costs to the American people.
A team of rivals on Syria
(Doyle McManus, Opinion Essay, The Los Angeles Times, February 20, 2013)
Last August, then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and then-CIA Director David H. Petraeus proposed that the United States change its policy and send weapons and other aid to the rebels fighting the Syrian government. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, signed on too, an unusual step for the normally cautious Pentagon.
President Obama's national security advisor, Thomas Donilon, opposed the proposal, and in the end, the president sided with him. As a result, U.S. assistance to Syria's opposition remains limited to "nonlethal" aid to unarmed political groups, plus humanitarian aid to civilian refugees.
Obama critics have charged that the president sat on his hands for narrow political reasons: a presidential election campaign was underway last summer, and the last thing Obama wanted was to entangle the U.S. in another war.
Today, more than three months after the election, the playing field has changed. Syria is still mired in a bloody stalemate, with more civilians killed every day, but Clinton, Petraeus and Panetta are out, and the president is relying on a different set of advisors. The two most important will be his new secretary of State, John F. Kerry, and his soon-to-be-confirmed Defense secretary, Chuck Hagel.
The president is still the most important player, and he sounds like a man who's looking for excuses to stay out of conflicts, not to get into them. "I have to ask, can we make a difference in that situation?" he said in an interview with the New Republic. "How do I weigh the tens of thousands who've been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?"
In Hagel, Obama has an even more determined non-interventionist. Hagel didn't support Obama's escalation in Afghanistan or his decision to use U.S. force in Libya, and those dissents seem to have counted in his favor, rather than against him, when Obama made his choice.
Kerry, a Vietnam veteran like Hagel, is skeptical of military intervention too. But unlike Hagel, he supported Obama's surge in Afghanistan and his decision to use force in Libya.
Kerry says Syria is one of the first problems he intends to tackle, and he has made plans to meet with civilian leaders of the Syrian opposition in Rome next week. He says he wants to give diplomacy another chance to persuade Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down peacefully.
"My goal is to see us change his calculation," Kerry said last week. "My goal is to see us have a negotiated outcome."
But there's no sign from Damascus that Assad will be receptive; his current belief, as Kerry put it, is that he can outlast the rebels, even as war tears his country apart.
If Kerry's mandatory exercise of diplomacy doesn't pay off, we may well see another schism among the president's advisors about the best course of action.
One proposal that should be considered comes from Frederic Hof, who helped run Syria policy for Clinton until he left the State Department last year.
The idea, in a nutshell, is to find out what moderate factions among the rebels need most and get it to them quickly. "It doesn't need to be weapons," Hof told me this week. "We may decide that weapons are not essential. Other kinds of assistance may actually be more important — military equipment, training, sharing intelligence."
What's important, he said, is cementing U.S. ties with the armed men who may end up running Syria — and making sure the moderates in the opposition aren't displaced by better-armed Islamic radicals.
"This is not a slippery slope," he insisted. "Trying to build strong relationships with carefully vetted armed elements of the Syrian opposition is the conservative, low-risk option here."
It's hard to imagine Hagel, who sees every incline as a slippery slope, endorsing any aid to armed rebels. But would Kerry?
In fact, he already has. In a little-noticed interview with Foreign Policy magazine last May, the then-senator from Massachusetts said U.S. aid to the rebels should be increased.
"There could be some [military] training," he said then. "If we can enhance the unity of the opposition, we could consider lethal aid.
"You have to change the current dynamic. That's to me the bottom line," Kerry said.
So here's a prediction for the next few months of Obama administration policymaking on Syria:
Kerry will make his trip. He will appeal to Assad to negotiate with the opposition and entreat Russia to end its aid to Syria. But those efforts will show indifferent results.
Then he'll come back to the White House and say it's time to revive the proposal that Clinton and Petraeus made last August for aid to Syria's armed rebels.
Obama will be caught in the middle again. He will have to make the call. But this time there won't be an election campaign underway, and the problems of Syria, along with the spillover problems for its neighbors, will have escalated.
Obama may find it harder to say no this time. But if he says yes, he'll have to explain why he waited seven months, during which both time and lives were lost.
US and its media-driven foreign policy
(By Marwan Kabalan | Special to Gulf News | February 21, 2013)
Media coverage of the Syrian crisis does not seem to have had any impact on the foreign policy orientations of the Barack Obama administration. The reluctance of the White House to respond in any meaningful way to the atrocities being committed against the Syrian people by their own government, notwithstanding massive media coverage, casts doubts on the media-driven foreign policy thesis.
Most foreign policy experts tend to agree that media coverage has become one important aspect of US foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. No recent study addressing the decision-making process in the US can overlook the vital power of the media, either through its ability to shape public opinion or its influence over policymakers. Throughout the Cold War-era, the influence of media coverage on the making of foreign policy was widely recognised in academic and policy circles. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the media seemed to have gained further influence and, according to some critics, assume key role in the making of foreign policy. The expansion of media power was assessed in the light of two factors: The emergence of a new generation of communication technologies and the collapse of the old international system.
The introduction of new communication technologies, which made extensive and instant coverage of international affairs feasible, put policymakers face to face with actual events and stimulated rapid responses. James F. Hoge, Jr., an expert on media and foreign policy wrote: “Today’s correspondents ... broadcast vivid pictures and commentary from the scenes of tragedy and disorder without transmission delays, political obstructions or military censorship of old.”
The collapse of the old world-order and the emergence of a new one has also created a new environment within which both policymakers and the media have found new opportunities to grasp and fresh risks to confront. For US policymakers, it allowed more room to act internationally without the restrictions of the Cold War, where every move was measured carefully in terms of a delicate global balance of power within a bipolar system. Similarly, the demise of the Cold War-era has provided the media with unprecedented freedom, both at home and abroad. Internally, the anti-communist consensus, which was employed as a mechanism to control the flow of information and widely used to tame US media, has all but vanished. Internationally, the demise of the Iron Curtain has allowed media access to places that were inaccessible before — like Bosnia, Kosovo, the former Soviet Union and other parts of the world.
In an article published in Foreign Policy in 1994, Michael Mandelbaum, another prominent expert on media and foreign policy, argued that with the Cold War over: “For the United States ... what lies behind intervention ... is neither gold, nor glory, nor strategic calculation. It is, rather, sympathy. The televised pictures of atrocities in northern Iraq, Somalia and Bosnia created a political clamour to feed them, which propelled US military into these three distant parts of the world”.
Interventions in northern Iraq, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and particularly in Somalia in 1992, were widely understood at least partly as being triggered by media coverage of countries trapped by ethnic cleansing, mass killing, oppression, military rule, massive human rights violations and people torn by civil war — all urging the international community to come to their rescue. The case of Somalia captured the attention for three major reasons: Firstly, US national interests, whether economic or strategic, were not clear. Secondly, the event captured widespread American attention at the time due to extensive media coverage. Then again, principal US policymakers claimed that media provided their sole motive to intervene, basing their argument on humanitarian ground. The then president, George Bush Sr, claimed that “it was television pictures of starving Somalis that led him to order the use of US troops in Somalia”. General Colin Powell was quoted as saying: “The world had a dozen other running sores that fall, but television hovered over Somalia and wrenched our hearts, night after night, with images of people starving to death before our eyes.” Marlin Fitzwater, White House Press Secretary, supported these claims and stated: “We heard it from every corner that something had to be done. Finally, the pressure was too great ... TV tipped us over the top ... I could not stand to eat my dinner watching TV at night. It made me sick.”
Humanitarian intervention in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999 further consolidated this view, leading to the emergence of the media-driven foreign policy thesis. This thesis seems to have been badly damaged by the Syrian crisis. Over the past two years, TV channels, press and social media have been reporting heinous crimes against Syrians — some fit the definition of crimes against humanity. Yet, all that does not seem to have moved the Obama administration, which continues to behave in a very pathetic way.
Does the lesson from Syria imply it is better to save no one?
(KYLE MATTHEWS, Globe and Mail, Feb. 20, 2013)
When NATO enforced UN Security Council Resolution 1973 by establishing a no-fly zone to halt Moammar Gadhafi’s regime from attacking the city of Benghazi, many critics voiced opposition. Their logic seemed to be that since the international community could not intervene everywhere that mass atrocities were looming, it should not bother trying at all.
Responding to this criticism, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times argued, “But just because we allowed Rwandans or Darfuris to be massacred, does it really follow that to be consistent we should allow Libyans to be massacred as well? Isn’t it better to inconsistently save some lives than to consistently save none?”
Fast-forward a few years. After 12 months of inaction on the part of the international community in the face of atrocities carried out by religious zealots in the northern part of Mali, France intervened militarily and liberated the cities of Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal. That French President François Hollande answered Bamako’s plea for outside assistance, which was fully supported by all countries in West Africa, as well as the African Union, has been perceived by some as ill-intentioned. In a Globe op-ed, Gerald Caplan warned that we should be wary of supporting France. Rather than directing hostility at those non-state actors hacking off the limbs of civilians in Timbuktu, Mr. Caplan focuses on the fact that both Paris and Washington “have been long-time proponents of R2P – the Right to Plunder.”
R2P, which actually stands for the “responsibility to protect,” is a political commitment made by all 192 governments seated at the UN in 2005 to break the cycle of standing idle when mass atrocities (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing) are occurring or about to occur. The African architects of R2P, South Sudanese scholar and diplomat Francis Deng and former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, might disagree with Mr. Caplan’s reading of the situation in Mali and the assertion that R2P is a cover to advance the interests of mining firms in the West.
Western countries have pretty much stood on the sidelines of the Syrian crisis. On one side, we have witnessed Russia and China using their veto power a total of three times within the UN Security Council to protect Assad’s regime, while Iran continues to provide direct military aid to Damascus. On the other side, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey have shipped arms and facilitated the movement of jihadists into Syria with the hopes of toppling the government.
With more than 60,000 civilian deaths and millions displaced so far, it is understandable that so many remain skeptical that anything can actually be done to halt atrocities and protect civilians. It would be a mistake to lose sight of the progress that has been made.
Consider the progress achieved in strengthening the international legal system through the establishment of the International Criminal Court. History was made in 2010 when, for the first time, the court issued an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state (Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir) for the crime of genocide. While Mr. al-Bashir still holds the reign of power, he is isolated in international circles and is limited in where he can travel. This serves as a powerful reminder that those leaders who oversee atrocities within their borders will no longer be allowed to carry on as though it is business as usual.
In the past few years the U.S. administration has made some important changes to ensure the prevention of atrocities. President Barack Obama appointed a senior position of director for war crimes, atrocities, and civilian protection at the National Security Council. An Atrocities Prevention Board was created in 2012, while Mr. Obama is also helping the government of Uganda disarm the notoriously brutal Lord’s Resistance Army and capture its leader, Joseph Kony.
While the “power of witness” has usually resided with journalists and the news media, the digital media revolution and new technologies now enable NGOs and individual citizens to capture evidence and track who is committing atrocities, as well as what individuals or governments are enabling these crimes. Syria demonstrates how evidence of atrocities can be captured, recorded, and shared with the international community via social media. Conspiracies of silence appear to be becoming a thing of the past.
George Clooney’s Satellite Sentinel Project is spearheading outside-the-box thinking in its use of technologies that just a few decades ago were the private domain of a select group of powerful countries. Using the services of DigitalGlobe, a company that sells digital satellite imagery, it monitors the border between Sudan and South Sudan, recording and analyzing images of the movement of military aircraft and troops, burning villages, and mass graves.
The global fight to combat mass-atrocity crimes is marked by more failures than successes, but real progress is being made. While we might never be able to halt all atrocities, in the years ahead it will increasingly become more difficult for governments and non-state actors to literally get away with murder.
R2P, which actually stands for the “responsibility to protect,” is a political commitment made by all 192 governments seated at the UN in 2005 to break the cycle of standing idle when mass atrocities (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing) are occurring or about to occur.
Nicaragua v. United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States
The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America[1] was a 1984 case of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in which the ICJ ruled in favor of Nicaragua and against the United States and awarded reparations to Nicaragua. The ICJ held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua's harbors. The United States refused to participate in the proceedings after the Court rejected its argument that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The U.S. later blocked enforcement of the judgment by the United Nations Security Council and thereby prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any actual compensation.[2]
The Nicaraguan government finally withdrew the complaint from the court in September 1992 (under the later, post-FSLN, government of Violeta Chamorro), following a repeal of the law requiring the country to seek compensation.[3]
The Court found in its verdict that the United States was "in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another State", "not to intervene in its affairs", "not to violate its sovereignty", "not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce", and "in breach of its obligations under Article XIX of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the Parties signed at Managua on 21 January 1956."
...
It is noteworthy that the United States, the defaulting party, was the only Member that put forward arguments against the validity of the judgment of the Court, arguing that it passed a decision that it 'had neither the jurisdiction nor the competence to render'. Members that sided with the United States in opposing Nicaragua's claims did not challenge the Court's jurisdiction, nor its findings, nor the substantive merits of the case.[10]
Here’s Your Plan B
(BY MARC LYNCH | Foreign Policy Magazine | February 22, 2013)
The conflict in Syria has been transformed over the last year -- and American policy has to change, too. Almost exactly one year ago, I recommended a set of measures designed to pressure President Bashar al-Assad's regime to support a negotiated political transition while avoiding limited military intervention. This was motivated by fears of a "hard landing" -- a failed state riven by ethnic and sectarian slaughter, what international envoy Lakhdar al-Brahimi warned in late December could mean the "Somalization" of Syria.
I believe the United States got key policy decisions right over the last year -- not intervening militarily, opposing the arming of the rebels, pushing for a political solution. But critics rightly pushed back on the question of alternatives: If not arming the rebels, then what? Today, I've released a new CNAS Policy Brief, Syria's Hard Landing, that tries to lay out just such a political and humanitarian alternative, because Washington needs to do more, even as it continues to resist military involvement. The perception of American inaction may be unjustified, but it's the sort of perception that can really matter as it hardens into an enduring political fact.
First, I agree with the bipartisan group of senators (and some humanitarian aid organizations) who have recently advocated direct aid to rebel-controlled areas. Washington should push for a new U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the United Nations to deliver aid to north Syria from across the Turkish border, and if that fails it should ramp up such aid anyway. This could not only help a large number of people in extreme need -- it could also change the strategic landscape.
The United States should not shy away from explicitly tying the push for cross-border aid to a political strategy to strengthen the opposition. American humanitarian assistance thus far, while considerable, has achieved remarkably little in terms of advancing its strategic goals or gaining influence within Syria. While traditional humanitarian organizations should play a role, significant parts of the aid should be channeled through the emergent Syrian opposition coalition to strengthen opposition forces against both Assad and against their Islamist rivals. This will provide them with the resources to begin to build the core of a post-Assad transitional government.
Here's where that new Security Council resolution comes in. The narrow focus on humanitarian relief could be more difficult for Russia to block than some of the other more expansive proposals that have foundered in the council, given Moscow's recent admission of the urgency of the humanitarian situation and overtures to the Syrian opposition. The consistent, urgent appeals from within the U.N. documenting the appalling magnitude of Syrian suffering could also help the resolution gain traction. The implicit threat to carry out such relief efforts without the U.N. Nations -- perhaps on the basis that Syria has lost effective sovereign control over these territories -- would be more credible than threats of military action. But this should not be cast as a back-door path to military intervention. A multilateral, legitimate operation would be far preferable both politically and operationally to unilateral actions.
Efforts are well underway to secure additional international support for humanitarian relief, most notably the $1.5 billion pledged at the Jan. 30 Kuwait donors conference. The United States has committed a total of $385 million over the course of the conflict, making it the single largest donor to humanitarian relief efforts. This aid has primarily been coordinated with recognized NGOs and the Syrian government, and only a small portion has reached rebel-controlled areas where the humanitarian situation is particularly dire.
These ideas are very much in the air these days. According to U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, the United Nations has begun working with local organizations on the ground in rebel-controlled territory, but thus far little seems to have materialized and approval from Assad's regime has reportedly not been forthcoming. EU foreign ministers have recently opened the door to such direct aid. The United States should also do more.
The objections to this approach are clear, and should not be lightly dismissed. Such cross-border assistance in the absence of U.N. authorization would take place in an uncomfortable legal grey zone. Many fear it could open the door to military intervention and undermine longstanding international legal norms governing humanitarian neutrality. Humanitarian organizations object to the politicization of relief, which threatens to undermine the imperative to provide aid solely on the basis of need. They worry that the Syrian opposition currently lacks the capacity to handle or effectively deliver the aid, and would do so less efficiently than established organizations.
Meanwhile, groups currently working quietly on the ground fear that a public push for such aid could threaten existing channels. Aid could be captured by local warlords and used as an instrument for intra-opposition political battles. It could make aid workers a military target. And it could rupture existing aid networks and end Syrian government cooperation with humanitarian relief operations.
But unlike with military options, the benefits here outweigh the costs. The sheer magnitude of the humanitarian crisis and the failures of the current system provide overwhelming incentives. The aid currently allowed in by the Syrian government disproportionately helps people in government-controlled territory, leaving the vast numbers of Syrians in rebel-controlled areas in desperate need. This has the pernicious effect of strengthening Assad's control of his territory while undermining the emergent opposition leadership. It is simply not clear that the current system of small-scale, quiet relief efforts is worth preserving.
Direct humanitarian aid to local organizations, channeled through Syrian opposition institutions, would not only alleviate immediate suffering, but would also be a major step toward the development of meaningful and effective alternative governance. The institutional capacity for delivering aid, which is now unfortunately lacking, is the same institutional capacity needed to effectively govern. Pushing the humanitarian assistance through opposition channels is the best way to strengthen them, to show progress toward improving conditions in rebel-controlled areas, and to give the opposition something to demonstrate its relevance on the ground.
What about the war? The best way for the United States to affect the course of the conflict is not to arm the rebels. Instead, it is to more forcefully coordinate the military and civilian aid that Syria is already receiving. Since the conflict has already regrettably been militarized, and there's clearly no going back, a coordinated flow of arms is better than an uncoordinated flow of arms.
Currently, military aid to the rebels flows through Gulf and regional governments and private citizens directly to local commanders and fighting forces, while humanitarian aid is channeled primarily through NGOs operating with the consent of the Syrian government. This generates a distinctive political economy of war that has distinctly pernicious effects -- encouraging the fragmentation of the opposition, deepening geographic and political divides, discouraging a coherent political strategy, and creating rent-seeking incentives for ongoing warfare. The uncoordinated, often competitive, financing of favored proxies by outside players has actively contributed to emergent warlordism, intra-rebellion clashes, and the absence of a coherent political strategy.
American diplomats already urge their allies regularly to coordinate their support to the rebels, but with little success. Critics of American policy argue that it fails because it does not have any "skin in the game" -- that is, it is not providing arms to the rebels and so cannot presume to dictate conditions to others who are.
The "skin in the game" argument, however, underestimates the centrality of politics. The real obstacle to coordination is that players in Syria do not particularly want to be coordinated: They have their own priorities, their own networks, and their own strategic visions. Some countries do not exert centralized control over the aid flowing from their territory -- Saudi Arabia, for example, has long been notorious for the uncoordinated private funds lavished on Islamist groups across the region. Many of the external backers view their putative partners as rivals.
Simply adding American arms to the bazaar without a new strategic vision would just bring one more bidder to the market. Instead, the United States needs to show these players why it's worthwhile for them to change the way they do business. That's going to require a convincing alternative strategy for accelerating a political transition in Syria in ways that would benefit the players involved more than what they are currently doing. At the moment, they have little confidence that the United States has a workable strategy that would justify surrendering any control over the aid flows to their own proxies. But this could change. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have repeatedly signaled that their provision of aid would benefit from Western "political backing, coordination, equipment and advice."
For any of this to matter strategically, all forms of aid need to be channeled through more effective opposition institutions. The United States and others have been working hard for months to encourage new organizations such as the Syrian Opposition Coalition and the Supreme Military Council, organized in December to coordinate rebel groups. But those efforts were inexplicably handicapped by the failure to immediately put significant new resources at their disposal to demonstrate their worth. And by most accounts, they have withered on the vine. Opposition figures complain about unfulfilled promises of financial or military support, while regional players have shown little interest in changing their current approach. For instance, one member of the Supreme Military Council recently complained that "we were promised that if we unified our ranks that we would be given legitimacy as well as salaries and heavy weapons, but from that day we have gotten nothing."
That can't happen again. Plans must be established in advance to distribute meaningful aid through these channels immediately after they are created. The failure to deliver on such promises badly damaged U.S. credibility and made it less likely that others would continue to cooperate. The push to coordinate aid flows must be accompanied by immediate, sizable, and strategically relevant material payoffs to demonstrate that the plan can work and is worth pursuing.
There's also a major role for planning and diplomacy. It is far too late to avoid a hard landing in Syria, but every effort must be made to ensure the rapid establishment of authority and order following Assad's fall. Syria cannot afford the years of drift that have bedeviled almost every other transitional Arab country. The moment of transition will be critical: If Assad falls without measures in place to produce a reasonably smooth transition, then fighting will likely continue for years. Efforts to build a representative and inclusive Syrian Opposition Coalition, with some degree of authority over armed groups and legitimacy on the ground, will pay dividends during a transition. Planning efforts, such as those developed by the U.S. Institute of Peace's "Day After" project, should also be supported politically and materially.
And then there's diplomacy. I've been skeptical about the value of the current U.N. diplomatic efforts since the collapse of Kofi Annan's mission, but I've been persuaded that they are nevertheless worth pursuing. Since a full military victory by either side seems highly unlikely, a diplomatic channel will almost certainly be necessary at some point. The tentative outreach between opposition coalition head Moaz al-Khatib and the Syrian regime are only the most public of the growing signs that parts of the opposition and parts of the Syrian regime are finally reaching the point where they could contemplate a deal. The diplomatic track is a very important element of a more credible political strategy for accelerating and managing the endgame. A combination of private "track two" meetings and ongoing shuttle diplomacy, whether by Brahimi or by other mediators, should conduct escalating and intense consultations toward this end.
Syria's Hard Landing also offers a number of thoughts on post-transition planning, International Criminal Court war crimes indictments, and transitional justice mechanisms. I have no illusions that any of these will quickly or decisively end the conflict. But I don't believe that military options would offer any easy solutions, either. I hope that these proposals at least spark some new thinking about a political strategy going forward.
The United States should not shy away from explicitly tying the push for cross-border aid to a political strategy to strengthen the opposition. American humanitarian assistance thus far, while considerable, has achieved remarkably little in terms of advancing its strategic goals or gaining influence within Syria. While traditional humanitarian organizations should play a role, significant parts of the aid should be channeled through the emergent Syrian opposition coalition to strengthen opposition forces against both Assad and against their Islamist rivals. This will provide them with the resources to begin to build the core of a post-Assad transitional government.
Syria says ready for talks with armed rebels
(By Olga Rotenberg, Agence France-Presse, February 25, 2013)
The Syrian regime is ready for talks with armed rebels and anyone who favours dialogue, President Bashar al-Assad's foreign minister said in Moscow on Monday, in the first such offer by a top Syrian official.
Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem was in Moscow for talks with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, whose country is one of the few big powers to still maintain ties with Assad's regime.
Russia has renewed calls for rebels and regime to engage in direct negotiations to end the two-year conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, warning that pressing for a military victory risked destroying Syria.
"We are ready for dialogue with all who want dialogue, including those who are carrying arms," Muallem said at the talks with Lavrov.
Armed rebels have battled the Assad regime since the start of the opposition's uprising against his rule in March 2011 and now control swathes of Syrian territory.
"We still believe in a peaceful solution to the Syrian problem," said Muallem, pointing to the creation of a government coalition that would negotiate with both the "external and internal opposition."
Lavrov said alongside Muallem that there was no alternative to a political solution to the two-year conflict agreed through talks.
"There is no acceptable alternative to a political solution achieved through agreeing positions of the government and the opposition," said Lavrov.
Lavrov added that the situation in Syria was "at the crossroads", with different factions pressing for conflict and talks. But he expressed optimism that a negotiated solution could be found.
"There are those who have embarked on a course of further bloodshed that risks the collapse of the state and society," he said.
"But there are also sensible forces who are increasingly aware of the necessity to begin the talks as soon as possible to reach a political settlement.
"The number of supporters of such a realistic line is growing," said Lavrov.
He warned that there was no point for the sides trying to fight towards a "victorious end" and warned Assad's regime not to give into what Lavrov termed "provocations".
Lavrov had said last week there were positive signs from both sides of a new willingness to talk but called on the regime of Assad to turn oft-stated words about its readiness for dialogue into deeds.
Russia has also been working on agreeing a trip to Moscow, possibly in early March, by the head of the Syrian opposition National Coalition Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib.
However the rebels have now pulled out of talks with foreign powers in protest at the international community's inability to halt the bloodshed.
While Khatib has offered to talk to regime officials without "blood on their hands", the National Coalition has said Assad and the top military command cannot be part of any solution.
The Muallem-Lavrov talks came a day before Russia?s top diplomat meets new US Secretary of State John Kerry in Berlin for the first time, with the Syria crisis topping the agenda.
"We feel that Russia can play a key role in convincing the (Syrian) regime that there is need for political transition," said a State Department official travelling with Kerry.
The United States meanwhile also urged the Khatib-led Syrian opposition to withdraw its threat to pull out of an international meeting in Rome on Thursday that Kerry will attend.
Khatib said on Saturday it was pulling out of the 11-nation meeting of the Friends of Syria to protest at the "shameful" inaction of the international community in the face of civilian killings.
"We are stressing... that they have an opportunity in Rome, to see the countries that have been their greatest supporters and to present to all of us how they see the situation on the ground in security, humanitarian, political and economic terms," said the US official.
But throughout the conflict, opposition by Russia and its diplomatic ally China has prevented attempts by the West to pass UN Security Council resolutions sanctioning Assad's regime.
UN rights chief Navi Pillay told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the UN Security Council "has so far failed with regard to Syria."
The diplomatic activity came as there appeared to be no let-up in the fighting which according to the United Nations has claimed 70,000 lives since the conflict began in March 2011.
On Sunday alone, according to a toll compiled by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 105 people were killed in violence across the country.
The Britain-based monitoring group also updated its death toll from Friday's missile attack on the northern city of Aleppo, saying it killed at least 58 people, including 36 children.
Is an American life worth more than a Syrian?
(Andrew Eckhous, Opinion Essay, The Michigan Daily, February 25, 2013)
Is an American life worth more than a Syrian life?
More specifically, do we, as Americans, value the lives of people inside our country more than those of people outside it?
And this question isn’t exclusive to our society. Now that we live in a hyper-connected world, it’s an increasingly significant philosophical debate in international relations. Ignorance is no longer an excuse for failure to act, as nearly every violent conflict receives coverage in some way, testing our concern for other people.
Even as the Syrian civil war continues mercilessly claiming lives of fighters and civilians alike — the most recent estimates are at about 70,000 deaths — the international reaction is tepid. Echoing this sentiment, the Syrian National Coalition, a collection of anti-government militias, announced that they would no longer attend diplomatic conferences to end the conflict due to the international community’s toothless reactions.
Though the United States, the European Union and the Arab League have given the Syrian rebels communications and humanitarian aid, Syrians want weapons and training.
"We want the U.S. to help the people on the ground,"said Adib Shishakly, a Syrian National Coalition member.
Are we morally obligated to intervene militarily in Syria? The American national identity revolves around the belief that we’re on the right side. Though that’s been proven false on more occasions than we’d like to admit, Americans are ever steadfast in their conviction that the world is theirs to improve — facts be damned. The United States is John Winthrop’s “city upon a hill.” We are manifest destiny and American exceptionalism, right? Isn’t it an easy decision to sacrifice ourselves so that the Syrian government ends its repressive reign?
Not quite. Our history in the Middle East complicates the decision a bit. We’ve supported oppressive dictators like the Shah and Hosni Mubarak. We armed Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, only to have them harbor Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, making us wary of arming a band of rebels again. And we ‘installed democracy’ in Afghanistan and Iraq, a quixotic dream that has proven incredibly costly and divisive.
But Syria seems different. Whereas arming the Taliban represented the fight against communism, Cold War rhetoric doesn’t inform Bashar al-Assad’s decisions. He only wants to retain power for himself and his followers, and will kill anyone in his way. Intervention seems to be less of a political decision and more of a moral one this time around.
When I hear about killings and destruction in Syria, I know that I don’t want our government to send any Americans into that warzone. It pains me to admit, but I do value an American life more than a Syrian one. My blood runs red like every other human being on this planet, but it seems the man-made construct that labels me American trumps the human bonds that we all share.
It feels callous to voice this sentiment so publicly, but I’m not alone. For as long as countries have existed, good people have failed to act in the face of evil, simply because “it wasn’t their problem,” thus becoming accessories to the crimes.
That is why I struggle so mightily with my own beliefs. As a Jewish person, I’ve spent countless moments of my life lamenting the inaction that allowed the Holocaust to happen, and it’s difficult to reconcile that belief with my thoughts about Syria.
Elie Wiesel famously said, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” I absolutely agree with him. But what about encouraging killing? I oppose direct intervention because I don’t want to see any Americans die, but if I support arming the rebels, and by extension, the killing of more people, is that right?
By the same token, can we call ourselves humane while the international community sits idly by, watching and reporting the massacres? And at what point does an ‘armed conflict’ become genocide? The opposition and forces loyal to the regime are both mowing each other down pretty efficiently — does that mean the rebels don’t need our help?
I don’t have answers to these questions, and I don’t think anybody really does. I support arming the rebels, if only to pick a side, but haven’t the slightest idea of whether that move will come back to haunt us. One thing I am sure of is that the blood of 70,000 Syrians drips from Assad’s fingertips. Adding fuel to the fire and guns to the fight will also add names to the casualty lists — that’s a fact — but if we are to help the victim and not the oppressor, we must eventually make some fatally difficult decisions.
