UNITED NATIONS, New York — Syria and Lebanon have received center-stage attention at the UN Security Council here in New York this week, but the ongoing diplomatic action related to these two countries may well cast its net much further afield in due course. The events we witnessed this week will impact on Syria and Lebanon, but are equally important for four other parties: the United States and its engagement of the world, the credibility and impact of the UN in the Middle East and other regions, the revival of close diplomatic cooperation between the US and its European partners (especially France), and governments and their security agencies throughout the Middle East, who should expect to be held to a higher standard of accountability.
This is my conclusion from discussions this week with knowledgeable diplomats, analysts, and international and American officials here and in Washington, who have been deeply involved in Security Council Resolution 1636 (demanding Syrian compliance with the investigation of the murder of Rafik Hariri) and the UN Secretary-General’s follow-up report on Syrian compliance with Resolution 1559.
Just as interesting as their separate analyses is their striking unanimity on the implications behind the current diplomatic effort to pressure Syria and hold accountable anyone proven to have been involved in the Hariri murder. The main thrust of the ongoing diplomatic effort is to force Syrian compliance with the UN-mandated murder investigation headed by Detlev Mehlis, and to let the facts of the investigation and the subsequent court trials lead where the facts take them.
The historical significance of this was succinctly explained to me by Shashi Tharoor, the UN’s seasoned Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, who has followed such things for years.
“This is an unprecedented act by the UN,” he said, “to appoint an investigator responsible only to the international community, essentially looking into the conduct of governmental agencies or individuals attached to them having committed a capital crime in another state. This is epochal as an event, and also is an important element in the development of the United Nations as an institution that pursues justice around the world.”
While stressing that nobody has been convicted, he explains that, “This is an investigation that raises issues, points out possibilities, certainly raises questions and suspicions. At this point nobody has been convicted of anything and we at the UN are not sitting here pointing fingers at any particular individual, government or regime. What we are saying is that it certainly looks like some people who have an association with the government or government agencies in Syria, and people who have an association with some aspects of the government of Lebanon, may be implicated in the assassination of a former prime minister, and that is serious enough.”
Other international and American sources who prefer not to be named because of their sensitive positions and involvement in the diplomatic effort stressed the significance of the unanimous 15-0 vote on Resolution 1636 last Monday. The resolution demanded that Syria comply with the UN investigation, and only vaguely mentioned “further action” should Syria not cooperate.
This reflects three key dynamics that may be significant in this and other situations in the Middle East. European, especially French, diplomatic advice, combined with the assertive foreign policy management of Condoleezza Rice, is impacting on Washington’s approach to changing the behavior of countries in the Middle East. There is a visible tempering of the previous American attitude, driven by the neo-conservative triumphalists, that “Washington should use diplomatic and military force to clear the decks in the Middle East and let the cards fall where they may,” in the words of one source who has been directly involved in international diplomacy in the Middle East for many years. And, the international community is determined to pursue the Hariri murder investigation in a methodical, step-by-step manner — meaning that the probe will penetrate into those areas in the Syrian governance system that have been identified as leads worth pursuing.
“All the parties seem to have learned the mistakes of Iraq,” one international source said, “and in this case they are sequencing and prioritizing moves one step at a time.”
An American analyst who has followed the case closely mirrors the views of other sources who said that French and international diplomats repeatedly advised the Americans that achieving unanimity is more important than using strong language in UN resolutions, as 1636 seems to confirm. The diplomatic focus consequently has remained on Lebanon and the Hariri murder investigation. The key aim in the short run is to maintain the impact and credibility of the Mehlis investigation, by keeping it Lebanon-specific, especially as this relates to the desire to question Syrian officials and perhaps others.
Though Washington has tempered its tactics, its end game, or final outcome, remains rather unclear to most analysts and participants in this process. Opinions vary on whether the U.S. would like to bring down the Syrian government, or simply pressure it enough to change its policies on Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine-Israel, Hizbullah and related regional matters, such as ties with Iran and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
An American source explains that Washington seems to have reined in its inclination to change the Syrian regime: “The neo-cons in the government who used to say ‘anything is better than Bashar al-Assad’ no longer have the upper hand. The diplomatic pressure will continue, but without a clear strategy on where this will lead, either in terms of sanctions, low-cost regime change, or just a change in regime behavior in Damascus.”
This is partly explained by the fact that U.S. policy that had been largely driven by Pentagon civilian hawks in recent years is now back in the hands of the State Department; it is also influenced by other factors, such as European engagement, the fallout from Iraq, and President Bush’s domestic political troubles.
The shift in American tactics may also betray an intriguing but unproven new angle: that legitimate international diplomatic action against Syrian or other suspects in the Hariri investigation could be an effective route to promoting democratic changes in other parts of the Middle East.
“These UN resolutions suggest to some that Lebanon can be the epicenter of change and democratic transformations in the Middle East,” one international diplomat said. He added that is so “especially because Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and the Lebanese government have risen to the occasion and done their job.”
Where does this leave the Syrian regime? Again, the unanimity among those informed American, European, and international sources I talked to was striking, as they all thought that the government of President Assad faced an existential choice regardless of how it responded to the latest UN resolution. The leadership in Damascus will face trouble if it defies the UN, and it will also have difficulty complying with the demands to allow the Mehlis team to question senior security officials, including members of the Syrian president’s family, privately and outside the country.
The consensus seems to be that the Syrians are cornered due to their own mistakes in not responding more clearly, and earlier, to the demands of the international community. Their only feasible response now is seen to be to comply fully with UN demands, which would ultimately exonerate the innocent and hold accountable any individuals whom fair court trials might reveal to be guilty.
UN officials themselves are careful about gauging the implications of current events, while noting their significance. Tharoor explains that Resolution 1636 and the follow-up to 1559 “are sui generis, cases that stand by themselves, but the UN is an organization where precedents are always noticed. The history of the UN shows that when something has been done once, it obviously echoes throughout the region.”
Could these and other relevant UN actions in the Middle East and abroad be interpreted as implying a renewed level of UN engagement with the problems of the ME?
“I would like to think so,” Tharoor says. “I think the Security Council has shown that it understands the importance of this region and it realizes that the problems that have arisen require sustained and serious attention. Those of us who have been worried about the Security Council’s failure to act more decisively on other issues in the area can take heart from this process, because it suggests that this is something they can build upon. The precedent-setting nature of decisions in the Council suggests a more than interesting constellation of events.”
Indeed, a terror attack and mass murder in Lebanon have triggered an international investigation and a strong diplomatic consensus on an expected political response by the Syrian government. The reverberations of all this may well move to other parts of this region in due course. Keep watching Lebanon with one eye, and the rest of the Middle East with the other.
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright ©2005 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 05 November 2005
Word Count: 1,470
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