CTLesq
CAGiversary!
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09102004/postopinion/opedcolumnists/28238.htm
FIASCO A LA FRANCAISE
By AMIR TAHERI
September 10, 2004 -- ONE of the charges leveled against President Bush on Iraq is that he circum vented the United Nations, ignored allies and acted unilaterally. The theory is that an OK from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and French President Jacques Chirac is the surest guarantee of success for U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East.
That theory was put to the test earlier this month — and proved to be not only false but counter-productive, at least for the time being.
Here is the story: French diplomats, anxious to offer an alternative to Bushian "regime change," spent a good part of the summer in secret talks with their U.S. counterparts in search of a common policy on Syria, one of the oldest members of the club of "states sponsoring terrorism." By the end of August, the talks had produced agreement on joint action to end Syria's military presence in Lebanon.
On Sept. 2 came something that had not happened in a while: France and the United States jointly sponsored a Security Council resolution calling on Syria to take its army out of Lebanon and allow the disarming of Lebanese militias, including the Iranian-controlled Hezbollah.
The resolution passed 9-0, with six abstentions, indicating unusual U.N. consensus. French diplomats were in seventh heaven: They had proved they could do through diplomacy what the "Cowboy" Bush insists on doing through force.
But what happened next was less idyllic: Far from bowing to the "collective will of the international community," Syria decided to ignore the Bush-Chirac alliance and reacted by, in effect, abolishing the Lebanese state.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad summoned Lebanon's Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri to Damascus, the Syrian capital. Hariri was left to cool his heels for two hours before being admitted into Assad's presence for 15 minutes to receive "instructions," including an order to have the Lebanese Constitution amended to allow the six-year term of President Emil Lahoud, a Syrian appointee, to be extended for three years.
Assad also summoned Nabih Berri, speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, and instructed him to amend the Constitution and extend Lahoud's term in a single session. The Syrian leader insisted that his orders be carried out within 24 hours after the Chirac-Bush "triumph" at the Security Council.
The point that the Lebanese state has effectively ceased to exist was driven home when the so-called parliament in Beirut did as Assad had ordered, by a vote of 96 to 29.
To emphasize his disdain for the United Nations, Assad also ordered a strengthening of Syria's military presence in Lebanon from 28,000 men to almost 40,000 men before year's end.
Syria's various secret services, some of which operate their own courts and prisons in both Syria and Lebanon, have also been ordered to adopt a higher profile in Beirut. And Iran has stepped up its arms shipments to the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah, via Syria.
All this is accompanied by a campaign in the state-owned media in Damascus and the Syrian-controlled newspapers in Beirut against Franco-U.S. "imperialist" intervention "to undermine Arab unity" by driving Assad's army out of Lebanon.
Although Syria has been the de facto power in Lebanon for almost three decades, no one had expected Assad to advertise it so dramatically and in open defiance of the Chirac-Bush alliance. Assad's stance was more surprising because he had failed to persuade such long-time allies as Russia and China to veto the Franco-U.S. resolution.
Why has Assad behaved as he has?
The main reason is that Assad's Ba'athist dictatorship is one of those regimes that respond only to the threat or the actual use of force. Their strategy is based on the assumption that while sticks and stones can break their bones, words shall harm them never!
Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist dictatorship in Baghdad was another such regime. It had learned from the experience of 13 years, in which it ignored 12 mandatory U.N. resolutions, that diplomacy could never threaten the only thing that mattered to Saddam: his hold on power.
If Saddam violated 12 resolutions over 13 years before he faced the threat of war, Assad has 11 resolutions and 12 more years to go. Why pay any attention to the Franco-American huffing and puffing this early in the game?
A despotic regime can't afford to heed U.N. resolutions: It would end up being asked to stop imprisoning, torturing and murdering its opponents, to accept free elections — in short, to commit political suicide. It would also lose part of its aura of invincibility and its capacity to terrorize its population.
Assad is banking on "the great good news" that his media promise: A Bush loss in November. The Syrian media hope that "the Bush storm" will soon blow over and that America will revert to its traditional policy of coddling the despot of Damascus. After all, Bush is the only U.S. president since 1969 who has refused to meet the Syrian ruler. (Bill Clinton met Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, twice and endorsed his occupation of Lebanon.)
Another reason for Assad's defiance: The mullahs of Tehran, who prop up his regime with money, arms and cheap oil, are determined not to allow international diplomacy any meaningful role in the region. The mullahs fear that the Franco-U.S. resolution on Lebanon could set a precedent and lead to a resolution against Iran's nuclear-weapons program. The mullahs are also determined to maintain the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah as their surrogate army in what they see as a war against America and Israel.
The Syrian riposte to the Franco-U.S. move has not been limited to political maneuvers and propaganda. In close cooperation with Tehran, Syria has called on its agents and allies in Iraq to step up their campaign of terror in hopes of weakening Bush's position in the forthcoming U.S. election.
"The fire in Iraq will spread," promises the newspaper Tishrin, an organ of the Syrian Ba'ath. The Iranian media similarly make no secret of their hope that a Bush defeat would lead to a quick U.S. retreat from the region.
Well, here we have a textbook case of multilateral diplomacy as opposed to Bushian "extremism."
Syria has been courted for more than two years by France and other members of the European Union and offered the widest range of goodies that "soft power" can provide. President Assad has been feted half a dozen European capitals and flattered as "a great leader."
We also have a very nice resolution, number 1559, written in the politest possible language. It is not demanding the moon. All it asks is for Syria to take its army out of Lebanon, a U.N. founding member, and let the Lebanese run their own lives, just as the people of East Timor have since the end of the Indonesian occupation. The resolution does not call for any investigation of the numerous alleged crimes committed by the Syrians in Lebanon over the past 30 years, including the murder of two elected presidents and the looting of the Lebanese treasury.
In other words, "soft power" cannot get softer than this. Yet it is a safe bet that Syria will not evacuate Lebanon unless it is either kicked out by force or sees its own regime threatened with destruction as a result of military action.
Almost a year ago, the European Union tried "soft power" to persuade Iran not to build a nuclear arsenal, and failed. The "soft power" move towards Syria is also heading for failure.
Those who still believe that Saddam would have been persuaded to mend his ways through an endless series of U.N. resolutions would do well to ponder the Iranian and Syrian experiments. We have a beautiful resolution; we have Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac in the driving seat; we are doing multilateralism, and yet we are getting nowhere.
Should we not wonder why?
FIASCO A LA FRANCAISE
By AMIR TAHERI
September 10, 2004 -- ONE of the charges leveled against President Bush on Iraq is that he circum vented the United Nations, ignored allies and acted unilaterally. The theory is that an OK from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and French President Jacques Chirac is the surest guarantee of success for U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East.
That theory was put to the test earlier this month — and proved to be not only false but counter-productive, at least for the time being.
Here is the story: French diplomats, anxious to offer an alternative to Bushian "regime change," spent a good part of the summer in secret talks with their U.S. counterparts in search of a common policy on Syria, one of the oldest members of the club of "states sponsoring terrorism." By the end of August, the talks had produced agreement on joint action to end Syria's military presence in Lebanon.
On Sept. 2 came something that had not happened in a while: France and the United States jointly sponsored a Security Council resolution calling on Syria to take its army out of Lebanon and allow the disarming of Lebanese militias, including the Iranian-controlled Hezbollah.
The resolution passed 9-0, with six abstentions, indicating unusual U.N. consensus. French diplomats were in seventh heaven: They had proved they could do through diplomacy what the "Cowboy" Bush insists on doing through force.
But what happened next was less idyllic: Far from bowing to the "collective will of the international community," Syria decided to ignore the Bush-Chirac alliance and reacted by, in effect, abolishing the Lebanese state.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad summoned Lebanon's Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri to Damascus, the Syrian capital. Hariri was left to cool his heels for two hours before being admitted into Assad's presence for 15 minutes to receive "instructions," including an order to have the Lebanese Constitution amended to allow the six-year term of President Emil Lahoud, a Syrian appointee, to be extended for three years.
Assad also summoned Nabih Berri, speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, and instructed him to amend the Constitution and extend Lahoud's term in a single session. The Syrian leader insisted that his orders be carried out within 24 hours after the Chirac-Bush "triumph" at the Security Council.
The point that the Lebanese state has effectively ceased to exist was driven home when the so-called parliament in Beirut did as Assad had ordered, by a vote of 96 to 29.
To emphasize his disdain for the United Nations, Assad also ordered a strengthening of Syria's military presence in Lebanon from 28,000 men to almost 40,000 men before year's end.
Syria's various secret services, some of which operate their own courts and prisons in both Syria and Lebanon, have also been ordered to adopt a higher profile in Beirut. And Iran has stepped up its arms shipments to the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah, via Syria.
All this is accompanied by a campaign in the state-owned media in Damascus and the Syrian-controlled newspapers in Beirut against Franco-U.S. "imperialist" intervention "to undermine Arab unity" by driving Assad's army out of Lebanon.
Although Syria has been the de facto power in Lebanon for almost three decades, no one had expected Assad to advertise it so dramatically and in open defiance of the Chirac-Bush alliance. Assad's stance was more surprising because he had failed to persuade such long-time allies as Russia and China to veto the Franco-U.S. resolution.
Why has Assad behaved as he has?
The main reason is that Assad's Ba'athist dictatorship is one of those regimes that respond only to the threat or the actual use of force. Their strategy is based on the assumption that while sticks and stones can break their bones, words shall harm them never!
Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist dictatorship in Baghdad was another such regime. It had learned from the experience of 13 years, in which it ignored 12 mandatory U.N. resolutions, that diplomacy could never threaten the only thing that mattered to Saddam: his hold on power.
If Saddam violated 12 resolutions over 13 years before he faced the threat of war, Assad has 11 resolutions and 12 more years to go. Why pay any attention to the Franco-American huffing and puffing this early in the game?
A despotic regime can't afford to heed U.N. resolutions: It would end up being asked to stop imprisoning, torturing and murdering its opponents, to accept free elections — in short, to commit political suicide. It would also lose part of its aura of invincibility and its capacity to terrorize its population.
Assad is banking on "the great good news" that his media promise: A Bush loss in November. The Syrian media hope that "the Bush storm" will soon blow over and that America will revert to its traditional policy of coddling the despot of Damascus. After all, Bush is the only U.S. president since 1969 who has refused to meet the Syrian ruler. (Bill Clinton met Hafez al-Assad, Bashar's father, twice and endorsed his occupation of Lebanon.)
Another reason for Assad's defiance: The mullahs of Tehran, who prop up his regime with money, arms and cheap oil, are determined not to allow international diplomacy any meaningful role in the region. The mullahs fear that the Franco-U.S. resolution on Lebanon could set a precedent and lead to a resolution against Iran's nuclear-weapons program. The mullahs are also determined to maintain the Lebanese branch of Hezbollah as their surrogate army in what they see as a war against America and Israel.
The Syrian riposte to the Franco-U.S. move has not been limited to political maneuvers and propaganda. In close cooperation with Tehran, Syria has called on its agents and allies in Iraq to step up their campaign of terror in hopes of weakening Bush's position in the forthcoming U.S. election.
"The fire in Iraq will spread," promises the newspaper Tishrin, an organ of the Syrian Ba'ath. The Iranian media similarly make no secret of their hope that a Bush defeat would lead to a quick U.S. retreat from the region.
Well, here we have a textbook case of multilateral diplomacy as opposed to Bushian "extremism."
Syria has been courted for more than two years by France and other members of the European Union and offered the widest range of goodies that "soft power" can provide. President Assad has been feted half a dozen European capitals and flattered as "a great leader."
We also have a very nice resolution, number 1559, written in the politest possible language. It is not demanding the moon. All it asks is for Syria to take its army out of Lebanon, a U.N. founding member, and let the Lebanese run their own lives, just as the people of East Timor have since the end of the Indonesian occupation. The resolution does not call for any investigation of the numerous alleged crimes committed by the Syrians in Lebanon over the past 30 years, including the murder of two elected presidents and the looting of the Lebanese treasury.
In other words, "soft power" cannot get softer than this. Yet it is a safe bet that Syria will not evacuate Lebanon unless it is either kicked out by force or sees its own regime threatened with destruction as a result of military action.
Almost a year ago, the European Union tried "soft power" to persuade Iran not to build a nuclear arsenal, and failed. The "soft power" move towards Syria is also heading for failure.
Those who still believe that Saddam would have been persuaded to mend his ways through an endless series of U.N. resolutions would do well to ponder the Iranian and Syrian experiments. We have a beautiful resolution; we have Kofi Annan and Jacques Chirac in the driving seat; we are doing multilateralism, and yet we are getting nowhere.
Should we not wonder why?
ing pissed off at his announcement that he would invade in 48 hours.