November 07, 2013
I was struck a few days ago when I read U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement in Riyadh, after talks with the Saudi
Arabian leadership, that the United States had neither “the legal authority nor
desire” to intervene in Syria. This brief comment seems to have gotten lost
amidst the much more dramatic news about Iran, Egypt or Palestine-Israel
negotiations, but it is worth asking if this is a new American posture on Syria
and other issues in the region that might invite American or other foreign
intervention. On the other hand, it could just be another typical example of a
global power calling on its capacity for hypocrisy to get out of an awkward
situation.
In either case, this is certainly worth examining,
because if Kerry is sincere this attitude to the Syrian issue could have
important implications for other situations. The most fascinating part of the
comment was about the United States not having the “legal authority” to
intervene, which raises many questions. Did he mean that the American president
required the approval of Congress before intervening militarily, or did he mean
that some kind of international mandate was needed to provide legitimacy for
any intervention?
I suspect he probably meant the former, meaning
that Congress should approve any American intervention, but this is slightly
suspect because the United States is already providing Syrian rebels with light
weapons, technical aid and training. Maybe he meant that any expansion of
American assistance to the anti-Assad forces would need a legal mandate from
the Congress; but this is unlikely to happen in view of the great caution that
Congress showed when it seemed to oppose Barack Obama’s threat to attack Syria
a few months ago in retaliation for the Damascus government’s alleged use of
chemical weapons against its own people.
It would be a great step forward for all concerned
if the United States were to be adopting the position that a credible
international legal mandate were needed for it to get involved militarily in a
bigger way in Syria. The sole international body that can confer such a mandate
is the UN Security Council; but it is impossible for Washington to get approval
there for more military action to bring down the Assad government, given
Russia’s veto in the council. So this route for legitimizing any heightened
American militarism in Syria also appears closed.
The second part of Kerry’s statement, about the
United States not having the desire to intervene militarily in Syria, is
equally fascinating, given that the U.S. has intervened militarily in many
places in the region and is already involved in providing the anti-Assad rebels
with military support of various kinds. What kind of “desire” is this that the
United States simultaneously lacks and exercises across the Middle East?
He also said in Riyadh that Washington would
continue to support moderate forces in the opposition, but was worried about
the growing strength and role of Islamist forces in the opposition. So we are
not talking here about the United States totally dropping its support for
Syrian rebels, but rather trying to identify “moderate” groups in the
opposition that it could support without inadvertently strengthening Islamist groups
that would turn around and attack American interests or allies, as happened
decades ago in Afghanistan.
The American position on Syria is peculiar, but not
unusual. Washington has repeatedly taken contradictory positions on issues in
the Middle East that end up leaving it and its allies confused and
directionless. On Arab-Israeli negotiations, for example, the United States
says it wants to broker a two-state solution but in view of its declared
guarantee of the superiority of Israel over any combination of Arab neighbors
it seems unable or unwilling to prod the required change in Israeli
colonization policies that are needed to achieve the two-state solution.
Similarly on the Arab uprisings across the region, Washington declares its
support for Arabs fighting for their freedom, rights and dignity, yet also
maintains strong support for Arab governments that seem to resist providing
those rights to their citizens.
One of the reasons the United States is now in the
process of adjusting its policies and relations with key Middle Eastern
states—notably Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt—is that the
contradictions of the past have simply accumulated to such a large extent that
Washington probably finds it difficult to conduct any kind of coherent foreign
policy at all. The United States has gotten itself into a situation where all
its key allies in the region—Arabs, Iranians, Turks and Israelis—have major
problems and disagreements with it, and are not afraid to spell these out in
public in some cases.
Is Kerry’s statement this week that Washington
lacks both the mandate and the desire to intervene further in Syria a small
first sign that the United States may be coming to grips with the self-imposed
constraints of its own contradictions of recent decades?
Rami
G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares
Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American
University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. On Twitter: @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2013 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by
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