Russia's Line in the Sand on Syria
Why Moscow Wants To Halt the Arab Spring

Dmitri Trenin
February 5, 2012


Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin addressed the Security Council last week. (Courtesy Reuters)

Syria is often called Russia’s last remaining ally in the Middle East, and Moscow’s continuing refusal to support the United States, the European Union, and the Arab League in condemning the Assad regime certainly appears to support that claim. The reasons cited for Russia’s allegiance to Damascus are many: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are said to have a sort of autocratic solidarity, with Putin afraid that the Arab Spring encourages challenges to his own rule; at the same time, Russia is thought to have major economic interests in Syria, including arms contracts, a Russian-leased naval base, and plans for nuclear energy cooperation.

There are elements of truth in all these assertions -- but they offer only glimpses of the broader picture. Moscow’s position on Syria is shaped even more by the recent experience of Libya, strong doubts concerning the Syrian opposition, and suspicions about the motives of the United States.
Russia is not blameless: It lost too much time watching others and then criticizing them without shaping an active role for itself.

Damascus was Moscow’s ally in the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was engaged in a confrontation with the United States, Israel, and “imperialism” writ large. Under Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, the Soviets equipped and trained the Syrian military. Although the elder Assad was difficult to control and managed to get more from the Kremlin than the other way around, he could be relied upon not to bolt to Washington’s side, as did Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Beginning in 1973, after Egypt’s disastrous defeat in the war against Israel and Sadat’s embrace of U.S. mediation, Syria became the centerpiece of the entire Soviet position in the region, remaining so through the end of the Cold War.

The Russia that emerged from the Soviet collapse had hardly any geopolitical ambitions in the Middle East. In 1972, preparing for his political break with Moscow, Sadat sent home 20,000 Soviet military advisers and their dependents. Four decades later, in February 2011, as Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, was toppled, some 40,000 Russian vacationers were stranded in the Egyptian cities of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh. This, in a nutshell, reveals the difference between the Soviet and Russian involvement in the Middle East: A region where the Soviets once showed off their military muscle and influenced political developments had become a place for ordinary Russians to go for a visa-free budget vacation and a suntan.

Syria somewhat bucked this trend: Its continued relationship with post-Soviet Russia was largely due to the fact that Syria needed arms and Assad did not trust the United States. Today, Russia’s material interests in Syria are real, though limited. Damascus continues to purchase a wide range of Russian arms, from tanks to aircraft and air defenses, but Syria does not represent a big or particularly lucrative market for these exports. In order to sell its armaments, Russia has had to extend credit to Syria and forgive Damascus its multibillion-dollar debt to the Soviet Union. When Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Damascus in 2010, he offered to build a nuclear reactor in Syria, but that work has not even started. And Moscow maintains a naval resupply facility at the Syrian port of Tartus, which it last used a few weeks ago, when the Russian navy’s only aircraft carrier was sailing from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. These bilateral interests are supported by the personal connections between Russian military officers, arms traders, and diplomats and senior members of the Assad regime.

But these shared interests are not the only reasons why Russia has been unwilling to join the West in condemning Assad at the UN Security Council. Moscow has learned its lesson from how events unfolded in Libya last year. It abstained during the crucial UN vote on intervention in Libya, thus allowing the adoption of the resolution calling for a no-fly zone over Libya, which was meant to prevent an impending massacre in Benghazi. The Russian government wanted to help its partners in the United States and Europe, whom Russia needs for its plans for economic modernization. To be sure, Russia did have some material interests in Libya -- contracts for military arms and railroad contracts -- but it certainly did not want to be seen as Muammar al-Qaddafi’s defender.

The NATO no-fly zone soon led to an offshore war against the Qaddafi regime. As Russian officials argued, vicious as the Qaddafi government may have been, the war’s long agony resulted in a number of deaths among civilians, if not so much in Benghazi, as once feared, then in Tripoli and in Qaddafi strongholds such as Sirte. As Moscow sees it, the foreign militaries that intervened bear at least some responsibility for those deaths. And so far, the new Libyan regime has proved far less secular than the one it replaced, with some of its leaders suspected of having links to al Qaeda. It also has been unable to control Qaddafi’s abandoned arsenals, or even preserve unity in its own ranks. What was billed as a revolution seemed to many in Moscow to be a civil war that replaced a dictatorship with chaos.

But Libya has always been peripheral to Middle Eastern geopolitics. Syria, however, is different. A civil war there, which has in effect already begun, could unsettle the entire region, above all in Lebanon but also in Jordan and Iraq. Israel, too, may be affected should Damascus encourage Palestinian militants or Hezbollah fighters to attack Israeli settlements or outposts. Iran, Syria’s ally, is already being drawn into the fray, with the Assad regime’s Alawite core coming under attack from mainly Sunni opposition. Syria is Bahrain in reverse -- a Sunni majority that feels oppressed by a relatively small sect that many believe is closer to the Shiites. Recent events in Syria and Bahrain have caused the regional divide between Sunnis and Shiites to become more pronounced, heralding a possible clash between Saudi Arabia and Iran. As strategists in Moscow see it, the conflict in Syria, the sectarian violence in Iraq, and the aborted revolution in Bahrain are the proxy battlefields where the struggle for regional primacy is being fought.

As a result, where much of the Western world now sees a case for human rights and democracy, and where the Soviets in their day would have spotted national liberation movements or the rise of the masses, most observers in Moscow today see geopolitics. Russian government officials and commentators close to them explain Western behavior in rather cynical terms: Washington let go of a long-time ally, Mubarak, in order to retain influence in Egypt, waged a war in Libya to keep oil contracts, and ignored the Saudi intervention in Bahrain because the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based there. And now, the United States is trying to topple Assad to rob Iran of its sole ally in the Arab world. The Russians themselves have no dogs in these fights, but they do not want to bandwagon on a U.S. regional strategy that they believe is a losing and dangerous proposition.

For all their outward coolness, Russia’s foreign policy strategists continue to be preoccupied with the United States, watching its every move. They were unpleasantly surprised when the United States decided to intervene in Libya and are now suspicious of U.S. plans for Syria. The Kremlin is concerned about a war between the United States and Iran, which is visibly drawing closer. Moreover, with all the problems Moscow faces in the perpetually troubled North Caucasus (and the threat of violent destabilization it may one day face in Central Asia), Russia does not relish the prospect of more conflict in the Muslim world should the United States -- alone or with its allies -- strike again in the Middle East. The forthcoming U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the likely return of the Taliban to Kabul already present enough worries.

Russia is not blameless: It lost too much time watching others and then criticizing them without shaping an active role for itself. Late last month, Moscow invited the Syrian government and the opposition for talks. This move came much too late. The opposition wants to hang Assad, not negotiate with him. Perhaps last year the response might have been different.

Yet Moscow chose not to use even the limited influence it had with its supposed ally in Damascus. Inaction has had its price: Over the last year, Russia has faced the simultaneous opprobrium of the Western public, the Arab street, and the conservative Gulf regimes. And now it has maneuvered itself into a position in which it must bet on Assad’s survival to protect its interests. Moscow needs to learn that saying no is not good enough and that in global politics timing is everything.

Analysis: Syria's complex and bloody crisis

By Jim Muir BBC News, Beirut

Aftermath of clashes between Syrian security forces and armed rebels in Khaldiya district of Homs (6 February 2012) The crackdown is aimed at bringing key centres back under government control


There are few certainties or even probabilities in the complex and bloody crisis in which Syria is now mired.

It is uncharted terrain for all - the regime itself, its population, its fellow Arab states, non-Arab neighbours Turkey and Israel, and the concerned outside world. Huge issues are at stake in the deepening struggle.

The collapse of the regime and a descent into chaos, in a country where sectarian and ethnic fault lines converge, would have huge repercussions in the wider region.

It would redraw its geopolitical map. Iran would stand to lose a vital channel for support to its ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Russia would likely lose its most important Arab ally.

And the possible emergence of a Sunni-led Syria, perhaps dominated by Islamists as seems to be happening in Egypt and elsewhere, would not necessarily be good news for the West and Israel either.

'Crushing the rebels'

One thing that seems relatively safe to predict is that the regime's current drive to crush armed rebels will continue until it has secured control of areas which had slipped out of its grasp in recent months.

Free Syrian Army patrolling in al-Qsair near Homs - 27 January 2012 The Free Syrian Army, patrolling near Homs, is under growing pressure

It formally committed itself to that goal - at least for Homs and its province - in an interior ministry statement on Monday night.

The subsequent visit to Damascus by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has clearly done nothing to curb the onslaught.

In fact, the campaign goes far beyond Homs and its environs.

It was launched a few days after the Arab League's foreign ministers met in Cairo on 22 January and adopted a new peace plan for Syria, which called on President Bashar al-Assad to hand power to his vice-president and make way for the rapid formation of a national unity government including the opposition.

Change of Arab plan

That implicitly scrapped an earlier Arab peace plan, adopted on 2 November, which Syria accepted and which it and Russia still support.

The November scheme called for an end to violence from whatever source, the withdrawal of armed forces, the deployment of Arab observers, the release of detainees, and rapid movement towards national dialogue.

The sudden adoption of a radically different plan, and the move to take the issue to the UN Security Council, apparently convinced Mr Assad that Syria's powerful Arab adversaries - notably the Saudi-led Gulf states and especially Qatar - backed by Western powers, would stop at nothing to overturn his regime.

Damascus had already accused those Arab powers of arming and financing rebel groups, with guns and money pouring into the country across porous borders from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
Key centres

So the crackdown launched by Syrian security forces after the unveiling of the new Arab League plan is aimed at bringing key population centres back under government control, eliminating the armed opposition, and securing borders to stop the flow of weapons and money.

It has seen troops drive armed rebels out of the suburbs of Damascus itself, and put severe pressure on them in other places where they have taken root - Homs, Hama, Idlib, Deraa and elsewhere.



Homs and Hama are strategically important because they control the highway between Damascus and Aleppo, the two big cities which have yet to be fully caught up in the revolt. Homs is also close to the Lebanese border.

Idlib and its province in the north-west are important because they are adjacent to Turkey, where the rebel Free Syrian Army is based.

In recent days security forces have been on the move in towns, villages and country areas near all four borders, attacking any centres of armed resistance they can find.

Lebanese analysts well versed in Syrian affairs believe that, far from disapproving of the crackdown on armed rebels, the Russians may even have encouraged it.

But neither the Russians nor the regime itself can seriously think that crushing or curbing armed groups represents a solution to the entire crisis.
Compromise and agreement

Moscow is said to believe that "armed extremist groups" need to be eliminated because they would sabotage any compromise agreement reached through dialogue between the regime and its opponents.

By that reading, the current escalation would be more about affecting the balance of a future post-crisis Syria than pursuing the illusion that the entire uprising could be defeated by force, and that things would go back to how they were, as though nothing had happened.

As the continued defiance at Homs, Hama, Deraa and elsewhere have shown, it is not that easy.

Although the escalation looks set to continue, it is not a comfortable time for Russia.

After the Russian and Chinese veto of an otherwise unanimous Security Council resolution that would have adopted the second Arab League peace plan, with its call for Mr Assad to step aside, the powers that supported the torpedoed resolution are urgently seeking another way forward.
'Militarising' the conflict

Although there are no obvious answers, that process is bound to intensify and speed up the longer the bloodbath continues and the uglier it gets.

What is the Syrian National Council?

Coalition of seven opposition factions, united against Assad regime
Includes Kurds, tribal leaders, Islamists, democracy activists
Formed last November after months of talks in Turkey
Stated aim is to support the revolution and overthrow Assad


Although external military intervention, as was seen in Libya, is being constantly ruled out, there is mounting pressure for some kind of action to halt the carnage, and ideas such as the creation of protected corridors for humanitarian aid, or safe-havens of some sort, are being increasingly discussed.

The creation of some kind of formal or informal coalition of powers to support the Syrian opposition has been proposed in different forms by a variety of quarters, including the US, UK, and Turkey.

That is far from being a straightforward proposition. Both politically and militarily, the opposition is divided.

The main umbrella group in exile, the Syrian National Council (SNC), has failed to unify with other opposition factions and agree on a shared platform.

While it has generally supported the Free Syrian Army, it came under a blistering attack from the FSA commander, Col Riyad al-Asaad, just as the violence at Homs was reaching a crescendo.

The FSA itself faced a challenge from a new military body, the Supreme Military Council, set up this week under a more senior defecting officer, Gen Mohammed al-Sheikh, who has also installed himself in southern Turkey.

Russian role

But these are wrinkles that could be smoothed out quickly under the pressure of time, events and a strong will from outside powers.

And even if not, if the drive for an international consensus over Syria is abandoned, there is a strong danger from Russia's viewpoint that the existing level of clandestine outside support to opposition rebels will be greatly stepped up, plunging the country into chaos and fragmentation, and clinching Moscow's loss of its most important Arab ally.

Assad and Lavrov in Damascus - 7 February Moscow remains a key player for the regime, its opposition and at the UN

The Russian calculation may be that it is better to use its undoubted influence with Damascus - with which it has a strategic relationship going back decades into Cold War and Soviet times - to play a leading role in brokering a Syrian settlement within an international consensus.

That is presumably why President Dmitry Medvedev, in conversations with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week, continued to propose the Security Council as the proper forum for elaborating an agreed strategy, despite the Russian-Chinese veto.

Even the Syrian National Council, despite fury at the veto, has not ruled out a Russian role.

"Russia remains a potential mediator," the SNC said in its latest statement. "[But it must] first use its influence on the regime in order to stop the killings immediately."

"A negotiated transition can only come afterwards, and will need to encompass the stepping aside of the head of the regime, a demand for which thousands of Syrians have died."

These two key demands are likely to be the focus of intense scrutiny as all sides consider their options under the pressure of events on the ground.

They imply that the regime has been defeated and must step aside - something that it is not ready to concede, apparently supported by Moscow.
Remaining support for Assad

The situation is far more complex than during the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

In contrast to their ousted leaders, it does appear that the Assad regime still enjoys the support of significant sectors of the country's patchwork society, increasingly polarised as the crisis deepens.
Rally supporting Assad - January 2012 Assad is still supported by large numbers of Syrians who fear chaos and Islamist rule

By and large, his own Alawite minority apparently continues to stand with him, some no doubt fearful of the consequences of change.

The same seems generally to be true of other minorities, especially the Christians, with more questionable allegiance from the Kurds and Druze.

Secular-minded and business circles within the middle classes of the majority Sunni community, especially in the two biggest cities, have also shown little enthusiasm for the revolt, which some fear might bring Islamists to the fore, especially now that armed action is increasingly in the picture.

The regime has also apparently been able to continue using the army and security forces in a repressive role without them going to pieces. There have been individual or group defections on the ground, but not by whole units.

What nobody knows - probably not even the regime itself - is how long it can go on using forces in which the rank and file are necessarily largely Sunni, to quell a largely Sunni-based revolt.

That may be one of the key constraints forcing the regime towards an eventual compromise.

If there is to be a chance of a peaceful transition, a Russian role might be vital in persuading the regime to give ground - something Moscow would likely only do if it were convinced that a balanced outcome, rather than a Western-dictated formula removing Syria from its sphere of influence, would result.

Other formulae being explored, such as the idea of an enhanced, joint UN-Arab League observer mission and the appointment of a special envoy, would imply an international consensus and agreement to stabilise the situation.

A UN observer mission could not be mounted without a resolution from the Security Council, which Russia and China would have to approve.

It could also not be deployed without Syrian approval, because observers are not mandated or equipped to fight their way in or impose anything, just to monitor, report, and hope that their presence has a calming and restraining effect.

As the powers consider all these complexities, the killing on the ground goes on, with every drop of blood shed - on either side - making a solution and eventual reconciliation more difficult.

British, Qatari Troops Already Waging Secret War in Syria?

By RT

February 09, 2012 "RT" -- British and Qatari troops are directing rebel ammunition deliveries and tactics in the bloody battle for Homs, according to an Israeli website known for links to intelligence sources.
­Four centers of operation have been established in the city with the troops on the ground paving the way for an undercover Turkish military incursion into Syria.

The debkafile site said the presence of British and Qatari troops in Homs topped the agenda of Tuesday’s talks between Assad’s officials and head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Mikhail Fradkov.

Qatar makes little secret of supporting the Syrian opposition with cash, arms and political support. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani said in mid-January he is ready to send troops to Syria to stop the violence there. Britain insists it is not planning any military action against the Assad regime.

The scenario painted by the report closely resembles Libya’s collapse into anarchy. UN Security Council resolution 1973 forbade any ground troops from intervening in Libya while creating a pretext for NATO to launch a bombing campaign against Muammar Gaddafi’s troops.

However Qatar, Britain and France later confirmed they had sent units to assist the Libyan rebels. Secret French weapons drops were discovered after they fell into the wrong hands. There were also unconfirmed reports that Western special forces directed air strikes from forward frontline positions and directed combat tactics.

The Libya example was cited by Russia and China when they vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution on Syria last Saturday. Britain, France & the US, who backed the resolution lashed out at Moscow and Beijing, accusing them of siding with a regime that had ‘blood on its hands’.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30479.htm

Middle East

FM Sergei Lavrov calls for dialogue and says violence must end before any Arab League peacekeeping mission takes place.

Last Modified: 13 Feb 2012 12:26


Russia's foreign minister says he is examining an Arab League proposal to send a peacekeeping mission to Syria, but that the bloodshed must end before any such mission takes place.

Speaking after a meeting on Monday in the Russian capital, Moscow, with his Emirati counterpart, Sergei Lavrov said there should be further dialogue in order to reach a peaceful solution to the crisis.

"We have joint efforts to support the [Syrian] people and its aspiration and hopes for a better life, democratic development, joint effort for this aspiration to stop this bloodshed," he said.

"For this reason we need wide inter-Syrian dialogue and co-operation to find a solution or decisions which will meet the interest of all Syrians and which will rule out interference from outside."

Bloodshed 'a disgrace'

On Sunday, the Arab League called on the UN Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria and urged Arab states to sever all diplomatic contact with President Bashar al-Assad's government.

Syria immediately rejected the move, spelled out in a resolution adopted by the league's foreign ministers meeting in Cairo.



Arab foreign ministers also decided to halt all diplomatic dealings with representatives of the Syrian government, though they did not demand the expulsion of Syrian ambassadors from member states.

Saud Al-Faisal, Saudi foreign minister, conveyed the 22-nation league's deep frustration with Syria, telling delegates that it was no longer appropriate to stand by and watch the bloodshed.

"Until when will we remain spectators?'' he said. The bloodshed in Syria, "is a disgrace for us as Muslims and Arabs to accept".

The new efforts came a week after Russia and China vetoed a resolution at the UN Security Council that would have supported an earlier Arab League plan for Assad to give up power and begin a transition to a new government.

But Nabil Elaraby, the league's chairman, said he had received a message from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that expressed support for the league's efforts and an expanded "observer" mission. Lavrov earlier defended Russia's veto and subsequently visited Assad in Damascus.


The league suspended an observer mission in Syria last month, and on Sunday Elaraby accepted the resignation of Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, who led the troubled mission. Elaraby recommended appointing former Jordanian foreign minister and UN envoy to Libya Abdel Ilah al-Khatib as Dabi's replacement.

Reaction

Syria responded saying it was determined to "restore security" regardless of the latest Arab League initiatives.

In a report Monday by SANA state news agency an unnamed government official said: "This decision will not prevent the Syrian government from fulfilling its responsibilities in protecting its citizens and restoring security and stability," the unnamed official was quoted as saying.

"Syria rejects decisions that are a flagrant interference in the

The European Union backed the proposal for an Arab-UN peacekeeping mission in Syria and urged the UN Security Council to act in order to stop the violence there.

"We welcome these bold decisions and the strong and clear commitment and leadership that the Arab League is taking to resolve the crisis in Syria," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Asthon.

British foreign secretary, William Hague, also commented on the Arab League proposal, saying peacekeeping troops must come from non-western countries.

"I don't see the way forward in Syria as being Western boots on the ground in any form, including in any peacekeeping form. Ithink they would need to come from other countries, rather than Western nations," he told reporters during a visit to Cape Town.

"Of course, if such a concept can be made viable, we will be supporting it in all the usual ways," he said.

Italy's foreign minister, Guilio Terzi, said on Monday said that it supported the deployment of a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping mission to put an end to the violence in Syria.

"Italy shares the urgency to stop every type of violence in Syria and, to that end, supports the proposal to send a joint United Nations and Arab League peacekeeping mission to check that the cease-fire is carried out," he said.

"We hope for as large a consensus as possible from the international community," Terzi said.

Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Cairo, said the request for a peacekeeping force raised a number of questions, including whether Syria would agree and which Arab countries might contribute troops.

Syria's state news agency said the country rejected the Arab League decisions, which were taken without a Syrian representative present.

Syria's ambassador to the Arab League, Ahmed Youssef, was quoted as saying that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were "living in a state of hysteria after their last failure at the UN Security Council to call for outside interference in Syria's affairs and to impose sanctions on the Syrian people".

The United Nations has historically deployed armed peacekeepers, only with the host country's consent.

Arab foreign ministers have been engaging in "intensive talks" with Russia and China and are hoping they can help encourage Assad to accept a peacekeeping force as an alternative to escalating conflict, Rageh said.

The league also agreed to step up economic sanctions and provide the Syrian opposition with political and financial support, though it again refrained from recognising the Syrian National Council - the most prominent of anti-Assad groups.

"Its a very difficult process to recognise the SNC - the Arab League made it clear to the opposition that the body as a whole cannot do it, but rather the individual countries will need to do that on their own," Rageh said.


Homs shelling continues

Tunisia will host a "Friends of Syria" meeting on February 24 to attempt to build an international consensus on how to end the violence. Tunisia's foreign minister said the meeting would include Arab, regional and international states, and Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister,who is also the country's foreign minister, said he backed the proposal.

Syrian forces continued their bombardment of the city of Homs, and activist groups said 67 people were killed during violence across the country on Saturday, including 14 defectors from the Syrian military.

Opposition neighbourhoods in Homs were hit by tank and rocket bombardments in the government's continuing crackdown on protesters there, with the city's Bab Amr area coming under intense fire.

Security forces have also made house-to-house raids over the last two days in Homs, which has been under siege for the last week, anti-government activists have said.

They say at least 300 people have been killed there since the government's latest assault began on February 4.

In Hama, the Syrian Revolutionary General Commission (SRGC), a rights group that has organised protests against Assad's rule, says that the army is continuing to maintain a heavy presence.

The group said troops raided the city's al-Sharia neighbourhood and that heavy gunfire and mass arrests were reported from there and at least three other districts.

- live updates

• Damascus dismisses call for joint UN-Arab peacekeepers
• Tanks bombard Homs overnight, say activists
• UN General Assembly to meet to discuss ongoing crisis
• Al-Qaida's Zawahiri calls on Muslims to topple Assad

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2012/feb/13/syria-bashar-al-assad

A wounded Syrian rebel in Homs. Photograph: AP
5.01pm: Syrians living in areas hit by conflict are now struggling to find even basic foodstuffs, a Damascus-based spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said today.

"The situation has been increasingly violent and it hasn't been easy for people to do anything. The streets are empty, people can't go anywhere to buy food. There is even a problem getting bread, " the ICRC's Saleh Dabbakeh told Reuters by telephone.

Fighting has also made access to hard-hit areas such as the Baba Amro district of Homs nearly impossible for local Syrian Red Crescent workers, Dabbakeh said.

4.52pm: The Syrian representative, Bashar Jaafari, told the general assembly about recent bomb attacks in Syria which he blamed on al-Qaida. He also said that "armed groups" were assassinating people.

Syria, he said, has suffered thousands of innocent victims as the price of defending its internal security. "The state has exclusive responsibility for defending security in its national territory."

The Arab League's decision to support the opposition amounts to supporting terrorism, he added, also calling on other countries not to give help to the opposition.

4.34pm: UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, addressing the general assembly, said the failure of the security council resolution on Syria "appears to have emboldened the Syrian government".

Crimes against humanity are "likely" to have been committed, she said, and hospitals have been used as detention and torture facilities.

There have been "gross, widespread and systematic human rights violations" and the Syrian government has "manifestly failed to protect its population," she continued.

Pillay added that her office is ready to provide "appropriate assistance" if requested by the Arab League.

if russia can manage to broker peace between the two sides they could demonstrate show how powerful and influential they are on the world stage. of course they essentially are attempting to do the same thing by holding out. historically they have always been suspicious of foreign influence and since the end of ww2 one of their primary concerns has been not allowing the outside world to begin to penetrate theirs. they seem to measure their might by comparing themselves and their clout against ours and that's probably what it comes down to. us giving something and seeming to slide a little before they will slide a little themselves in the direction we want would probably settle things. the question is how much are we willing to give them and how badly do we want their support.

So if I got it straight this is what it boils down to;

Iran once said if they get nuclear capabilities they would attack Israel. And now they seem to have nuclear capabilities.
Israel is trying to counter this by saying it's going to do pre-emptive strikes.
And Russia is trying to mediate?

Iran has no easy solution

Posted By Peter Feaver Tuesday, February 14, 2012 - 4:18 PM Share

It is almost banal to observe that the Iranian nuclear challenge is a hard policy problem. Back in the day, even during some dark periods on Iraq, Bush insiders tended to view the Iranian nuclear file as the more vexing problem. I remember vividly President Bush authorizing a fresh zero-based look at our Iranian policy in late 2005 even while the White House's public posture was focused on the Iraq problem. Bush's term ended with a sense of greater progress on Iraq than on Iran. And, measured differently, I suspect Obama's national security team would likewise believe they have accomplished a greater proportion of their objectives regarding Iraq than Iran. It is just that thorny a problem.

Which is why I do not fully understand the arguments of the vocal and energetic anti-war faction. Perhaps I am reading the critics the wrong way, but it seems like they make the Iranian challenge an easier policy problem than it really is by arguing that all of the relevant considerations point in the the same direction. Thus, the use of force is a bad option, they say, because the costs of attacking Iran are high:

An airstrike would not destroy the targets.

Even if we could destroy the targets, we don't know where they all are.

Even if we did destroy all the targets, the Iranians would rapidly rebuild.

Attacking Iran would convince Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

After we attacked Iran, they would retaliate with unacceptable damage to our interests
Iran is never going to abandon the quest for nuclear capability anyway.

An airstrike would be pointless because Iran hasn't decided to weaponize and only has an enrichment program at the present time.

So far, these are all logically plausible, reinforcing, and perhaps even co-related, points. Experts can debate them, but where I have a problem is the next phase of the argument, where they argue that the costs of not attacking Iran are low:

We needn't worry about Iranian nuclear weapons because it will be easy to contain Iran.
We won't need to sacrifice our interests to manage relations with a nuclear Iran.
We will be better off sacrificing our previously stated interests to manage relations with a nuclear Iran.
A nuclear Iran will not meaningfully alter proliferation incentives in the region.
Even if a few (several) states develop nuclear weapons in response to the Iranian nuclear arsenal it will not substantially complicate crisis dynamics in the region.

Again, it is logically possible for (almost) all of these to also be true at the same time. But it is not as plausible, which may be why it is rarely people with actual responsibility for policy making arguments like this. In the real world familiar to policymakers, the choices often involve unpalatable lose-lose options, especially on issues like the Iran nuclear case that have commanded decades of attention. The further one moves away from actual responsibility for the consequences of decisions, I suppose the easier it is to make the call. (For a persuasive take on a related policymaking conundrum -- the interconnectedness of policy choices -- see Frank Gavin and Jim Steinberg's simultaneous defense of "muddling through" and appeal for more analytical rigor here.)

Put another way, why do people who say military action to destroy the Iranian nuclear program is too hard also insist that it will be easy to contain Iran? Why can't they acknowledge that it would be quite a daunting challenge to contain Iran? This would not preclude them from making the tough call in favor of containment over preventive strikes, though it might undermine the dogmatism of the argument.

Political psychologists would point to that as the reason: The tendency in hard choices for individuals to bolster, seeking and seeing ever more reinforcing arguments for the choice they have adopted. It is something like a confirmation bias and it is very hard to resist. And I do not think it is a problem only affecting one side in the debate. It is not too hard to find examples of advocates of a military option doing much the same thing (air strikes will be easy; Iranian retaliation will be manageable; containing Iran will be impossible; etc.).

The analysts I find most compelling, especially when dealing with hard problems that have bedeviled the policy community for a long time, are those who concede that not all of the logic and evidence stacks up on their side of the argument. The Iran debate needs more analysts like that.

In some cases, the same critics who pride themselves in their capacity to spot such cognitive pathologies when policymakers commit them seem to be the ones the most afflicted now. Perhaps this a function of the Iraq experience. Perhaps this what the Iraq syndrome looks like.

The Unknown Unknowns

If the past half-century of American political history has taught us anything, it's that we can't possibly know the consequences of bombing -- or not bombing -- Iran.


BY FRANCIS J. GAVIN AND JAMES B. STEINBERG | FEBRUARY 14, 2012

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama told the world, "America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal." The decisions the U.S. president must make to attain this end are extraordinarily difficult, and whatever policy he chooses will have a profound and lasting effect on global politics and U.S. foreign policy. For some, the answers lie in history. Yet the best response to the Iranian threat may emerge not by looking to the past but by transforming the way experts and policymakers interact.


The decision on the table is remarkably complex: Should the United States launch a preventive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities or encourage its Israeli allies to do so? To answer this question, one would need to, at a minimum, imagine and make judgments on plausible scenarios that could emerge from each choice. If the United States chose not to bomb Iran, would countries in the region eschew their own nuclear weapons and work with the United States to balance against and contain a nuclear Iran? Or would Iran's nuclear capability drive neighboring states to "bandwagon" and ally with Iran or even seek their own nuclear weapons, undermining U.S. influence while destabilizing the region? And if the United States did successfully strike, what would be the chances that such military action would lead to an overthrow of the regime and its replacement with a government both friendly to the West and willing to forgo nuclear weapons? Or could a military strike provide a lifeline to an unpopular regime, inflame anti-American sentiment throughout the region, and unleash a wider military conflagration? And how would other global powers, such as China and Russia, react to these scenarios?

Based on our experiences -- one of us a former senior policymaker, the other a historian of U.S. foreign policy -- we are convinced that the "right" answer, but the one you will never read on blogs or hear on any cable news network, is that we simply cannot know ahead of time, with any degree of certainty, what the optimal policy will turn out to be. Why? Even if forecasters could provide probabilities about the likelihood of a narrow, specific event, it is simply beyond the capacity of human foresight to make confident predictions about the short- and long-term global consequences of a military strike against Iran.

In fact, as Philip Tetlock demonstrated in Expert Political Judgment, a 20-year study that looked at over 80,000 forecasts about world affairs, self-proclaimed authorities are no better at making accurate predictions than monkeys throwing darts at a dart board, and they are rarely held accountable for their errors. (According to Tetlock's research, knowing a lot about an issue can actually make you a worse political forecaster than knowing very little.) Policymakers and elected officials, on the other hand, not only face public condemnation and the potential loss of their jobs if a decision turns out poorly, but they also carry the often heavy personal burden of responsibility for a failed policy. Understanding the different environments in which the expert and decision-maker operate is critical to understanding why expert ideas have less influence on policymaking than might be ideal.

This gulf is tragic, as there is much each world could learn from the other. We believe that if different types of experts -- the best strategists and historians, for example -- were brought together with statesmen in an environment that encouraged honest debate and collaboration and not point-scoring, where participants were encouraged to acknowledge how little anyone can actually know about the future effects of U.S. actions, the possibility to achieve both greater coherence and greater humility in the U.S. foreign-policymaking process would be greatly enhanced.

In such an environment, both camps might be tempted to explore the past to find examples of policies that can guide their decision-making. Although at first blush this seems wise, it is not fail-safe. And the deliberations over Iran provide a case in point.

Four decades ago, historian Ernest May warned against the tendency of policymakers and analysts to employ simple but misleading historical analogies in justifying difficult policies. Would allowing the aggressive, dangerous regime in Iran to acquire nuclear weapons be akin to another Munich -- the wartime conference at which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain infamously capitulated to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's outrageous demands? Or would a dangerous military action halfway across the world bog America down in another Vietnam -- a quagmire of a war that saps American blood and treasure and is not justified by national interest? In both cases, the simplistic use of lessons from the past distorts more than it reveals. There is no guarantee that using a more recent historical incident -- for example, the erroneous intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that led to an eight-year, trillion-dollar U.S. military intervention -- would be any more helpful in making policy toward Iran.

Even more sophisticated and nuanced uses of history are not without their difficulties. When thinking about the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran, some historians have pointed to how Lyndon B. Johnson's administration responded to China's nuclearization in October 1964. After weighing the potential benefits and costs of a preventive strike, the United States accepted and actually downplayed the significance of China's nuclear capability. Mao's China -- which had been reckless abroad and ruthless at home -- did not become more dangerous as an atomic power. In fact, in less than a decade after its nuclear test, China had become a de facto ally of the United States and a crucial partner in the Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union. It is hard to imagine such an alliance if the United States had decided to strike in 1964.

Does this argue against striking Iran? Not necessarily. The Johnson administration's decision not to strike China can only be understood in a larger and long-since forgotten context: an important shift in U.S. strategy aimed at managing the complex, interconnected issues of global nuclear proliferation, relations with the Soviet Union, the war in Southeast Asia, and the political and military status of Germany.

What is often forgotten in the story is that the same policymakers who eschewed preventive strikes against China in the fall of 1964 made several other related decisions they considered even more momentous. First, they made a bold decision to work with their Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, to aggressively pursue a global nuclear nonproliferation regime. Most controversially, this policy shift included prohibiting some of the United States' closest allies from acquiring atomic weapons. Many experts both within and outside the U.S. government worried this policy shift could be a potentially catastrophic mistake. It was foolish, many argued, to think cooperation with the Soviets was possible, nor was it prudent to try to prevent sovereign states, particularly friends of the United States, from possessing their own deterrent. Denying modern weapons to West Germany, some experts predicted, could lead to a resurgence of nationalism and even militarism, as it had during the interwar period. In the end, U.S. policies to slow the spread of nuclear weapons were quite effective, as there are far few nuclear states in the world today than anyone in 1964 would have predicted. Furthermore, the most alarming forecasts about how countries like West Germany and Japan would react to their non-nuclear status were, fortunately, wildly off the mark.