Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: United Nations

  • Violence Subdues in Syria, But Peace Plan Not in Place

    Four days into the United Nations-mandated ceasefire, the conflict in Syria continues, albeit at a smaller scale.

    The Security Council, with Russian support, hopes to ensure that envoy Kofi Annan’s peace plan is being implemented seriously by all of the parties on the ground. On Saturday, it passed a resolution to send a preliminary team of thirty monitors to observe compliance.

    Yet despite the council’s newfound unity, nothing in Syria is guaranteed. The civilian casualty toll over the past few days was low when compared to last week’s violence but the fact remains that no one knows for sure what President Bashar al-Assad and his military advisors are thinking behind closed doors.

    Both the Syrian government and the Free Syrian Army, the main armed group resisting the regime’s efforts to consolidate control, have all said the right things when asked about Annan’s plan. Syrian ambassador Bashar Jaafari has told the council and news media that the Assad regime is fully committed to the plan’s success. Rebel commanders have uttered similar rhetoric, reiterating their policy of not shooting unless the Syrian government renews its offensive.

    Their words need to be taken with a grain of salt. Bashar al-Assad has a terrible track record of misleading Arab League and United Nations diplomats and sidestepping his promises. The restraint of the militant fighters is anything but assured. Without a command and control system, any defector can break the truce agreement in its entirety by disregarding the Free Syrian Army leadership and taking matters into their own hands.

    The observer team deployed inside Syria to monitor the Annan proposal is a departure from the United Nations’ previous reluctance to send its own people into conflict zones. The monitoring mission is not a strong one however. The observers will be unarmed, have a difficult time traveling the entire country, and that is assuming that the regime allows them to.

    The cessation of major hostilities between the government and the opposition is understandably receiving the most attention. But the Security Council must not forget that the Annan plan is a multidimensional one with the ultimate goal of getting both sides to negotiate. There is no evidence to date that Assad has complied with any other point in the Annan agreement. Syrian troops continue to man checkpoints in major cities while heavy artillery remains positioned either inside neighborhoods or on the fringes of towns in preparation for another offensive.

    The tens of thousands of prisoners taken by the authorities have not been released either, nor has there been a noticeable influx of foreign and Syrian journalists into the most damaged areas.

    As was demonstrated by last Friday’s demonstrations across the country, the Syrian army will still not allow civilians to protest against in large groups. Five demonstrators were killed on Saturday, others were beaten on Friday.

    This is an obvious calculation. The larger the group, the more likely the regime will have to confront a change in momentum toward the demonstrators.

    The violence is undeniably lower and the shelling of neighborhoods that was previously the norm has either lessened or stopped entirely. But the ceasefire, which could break with a single incident, is only part of the package. For the Security Council, there is still work to be done.

  • Preconditions Not a Hopeful Sign for Nuclear Talks

    It has been fourteen long months since the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany set around the table with Iranian negotiators to discuss the suspension of Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.

    Those talks, which happened in January 2011, ended almost as quickly as they began, with both sides sticking to their original positions without any room for maneuver. The P5+1 demanded that Iran suspended its nuclear program as a gesture of goodwill. Iran refused to talk altogether unless economic sanctions were halted.

    The one and done discussion early last year was the clearest microcosm to date of how prolonged and at times hopeless the nuclear negotiations between the two sides have been. Yet even with the disappointment and shortfalls, the diplomatic track is the only option that foreign powers have to dissuade the Iranians from suspending their efforts, short of war.

    European countries and the United States know this all too well, which is why the P5+1 powers are dragging the Iranians back to the negotiating table for another round of direct, and one hopes civil, discussion.

    At first, the Iranians stonewalled the request, delaying their official response to the invitation. When they finally agreed, Tehran haggled for a few days over where the talks were to take place. Both sides have agreed on Turkey as the venue. Even the Iranians, it appears, are acknowledging that dialogue is the best way that they can garner concession from the world.

    With the logistical details now finalized, the P5+1 are set to begin the difficult work of negotiating with the Iranians over the core dispute that has befuddled past attempts at diplomacy — uranium enrichment. The Iranians are likely to remain vigilant in their desire to continue enriching their own nuclear material. How the United States and their allies react to that permanent demand will determine how long the negotiations last.

    Flexibility is a prerequisite. In the past, this is what was lacking. The Bush Administration was adamant about rejecting Tehran’s offer of dialogue unless they suspended their nuclear program altogether. President Barack Obama and his national-security team have been a little more willing to engage the Iranians in a give and take, although last year’s failed diplomatic efforts have hardened the administration’s approach to the entire affair.

    The New York Times reports that the P5+1 will ask Tehran for a number of major concessions during the opening day, including the dismantling of the nuclear facilities north of the city of Qom. The foreign powers also expect Iran to ship its quantity of 20 percent enriched uranium out of the country.

    While these demands make sense from the perspective of the Security Council members, they are a nonstarter for the Iranians. They spent millions building the complex at Fordow over the past few years. It would be nothing short of a miracle if Tehran agreed to simply forgo its most well protected facility when it has just completing it after years of construction.

    Standing ground on an illogical position, as far as the Iranians are concerned, is a perfect excuse to blame the Security Council as an intolerant body not serious about the diplomatic effort.

    Can the Iranians risk surrendering one of their most prized investments? And if they are indeed willing to take this gamble, what will the Iranians receive in return?

    Unfortunately, both of these questions are irrelevant. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will not agree to these positions, particularly when they have the potential of souring his popular standing at home. Unless and until the P5+1 proceed in such a way that will give Iranian negotiators a reason to stay in the talks, the diplomatic track will simply be a short step toward further confrontation.

  • Kofi Annan’s Mission Impossible in Syria

    It is hard enough being an international diplomat, especially when your job was specifically created to pacify one of the most deadly internal conflicts in the world today.

    Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, was tapped by the Security Council to do exactly that — shuttle between the Syrian government and the fractious armed opposition to implement some sort of a peace before thousands more civilians are killed in the line of fire.

    Sensing the gravity of the situation, Annan wasted no time to hash out his own peace accord which has garnered the absolute support of the Security Council in a rare show of unanimity on the issue.

    Despite Annan’s efforts, the longtime diplomat is beginning to experience just how difficult and hopeless his mission may be. While President Bashar al-Assad and his adversaries have all agreed to the accord’s points, hardly a day goes by when government officials, commentators and United Nations personnel express their extreme reservations about whether the agreement will actually do any good.

    Annan’s plan has been buoyed by the support of all five permanent members of the Security Council, in addition to the largest opposition group, the Syrian National Council. But with Syrian army units continuing to arrest protesters and hitting entire cities with mortar attacks, other nations are just about at the end of their rope in terms of supporting a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

    This impatience is doubly so for the Sunni kingdoms in the Persian Gulf, a group of countries which view the downfall of Assad as a strategic opportunity just as much as a moral obligation. What is bad for Iran, so goes the logic, is good for Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

    Annan is thus confronted with three problems simultaneously. Not only is he trying to broker a tentative ceasefire and a Syrian led political rapprochement process that may be dead upon arrival; he is attempting to do this fast enough for the Saudis and the Qataris to hold off on sending weapons to the rebels, yet slow enough to retain the support of Syria’s main backers on the Security Council, China and Russia.

    A resolution of the conflict and a complete cessation of the violence will depend on the Syrians themselves. But for that process to begin (if it ever does), Annan will be forced to reassure a broad coalition of countries that, however different their interests in the conflict may be, Syrians will need time to negotiate an acceptable solution.

  • Palestinian UNESCO Bid Challenges US Engagement

    It has been over a month since Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas stepped on to a podium in front of the General Assembly, held up his pledging document amid an echoing applause and submitted his request for full recognition of statehood to the United Nations.

    Back in September, the statehood campaign was a bombshell. Recognition would not change daily life all that much for millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Israeli soldiers would still control 40 percent of West Bank land and Israeli settlement construction would most likely proceed in villages claimed by Palestinians for a future state. But despite the practicalities, the measure, even if it is doomed to failed, could still be a win for the Palestinian Authority in the world of public opinion.

    Abbas’ statehood document is now stuck in the Security Council. It still has to schedule a vote on the request. But the president’s diplomatic team is not sitting on their hands and waiting for a decision. Instead, Palestine has submitted similar requests to smaller UN associations. And from the looks of one overwhelming vote, it appears that the Palestinian strategy is working for the time being.

    By a lopsided 107-14 tally, delegates of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization voted in favor of admitting Ramallah into its ranks on Monday.

    For the United States and Israel, UNESCO’s decision could be seen from a mile away. Yet the mere fact that the international body approved the Palestinian referendum by such a wide margin must have gotten under their skin.

    From a purely tactical point of view, Palestine’s admission to the UN’s cultural organization hardly affects Washington’s foreign policy goals in any meaningful way. On the contrary, an additional member to the UNESCO ranks only confirms how vital global educational and cultural exchanges between people are — objectives that the United States holds dear.

    The problem, at least from a diplomatic perspective, is that Ramallah’s newfound home will add to the tension that the Obama Administration is already feeling with its partners in the UN on a number of issues, including Syria and the war in Afghanistan. Thanks to a law passed in the early 1990s mandating that the United States cut funding for any UN agency that admits the Palestinian Authority as a member state, President Barack Obama is faced with the uncomfortable decision of making good on that law. $80 million that would have otherwise gone to UNESCO this year has been put on hold, with tens of millions more in jeopardy if the original legislation is not amended.

    The big worry now is that once the Palestinians officially join the UNESCO club, President Abbas will apply the same strategy to other UN agencies. The International Atomic Energy Agency, responsible for monitoring nuclear compliance around the world, could be the next stop for Abbas and his team. Or maybe the World Food Programme, the institution tirelessly trying to ameliorate the famine in the Horn of Africa and churning out food deliveries for millions of hungry families. If they do, the Americans run the risk of being compelled to disengage from these multilateral organization.

    The State Department has already warned that there could be “considerable potential damage if this move is replicated in other UN organizations.” Especially as tension between Iran and Israel is mounting, Congress may not be prepared to change the law however to allow the United States to remain an active contributor to the international community.

  • Rousseff’s Foreign Policy Follows in Lula’s Footsteps

    When President Dilma Rousseff addressed the United Nations General Assembly this month, she confirmed what many analysts of Brazilian foreign policy had expected since she assumed office in January of this year — that she would soldier on in the pragmatic fashion of her predecessor to see to it that Brazil is recognized as a world power.

    Although recent actions on the part of her government, including UN votes regarding Iran and Libya, may suggest that Rousseff is more assertive abroad than Lula da Silva was, in fact, Brazil’s foreign policy is likely to remain the same.

    Like Lula, the extremely popular Workers’ Party president who propelled Rousseff to national prominence, the incumbent Brazilian leader stresses the need for the international community to change the way in which it runs its affairs.

    As the world becomes more globalized the need for international organizations will continue to grow. This is the most effective and secure way for governments to manage their relationships, express their concerns and manifest their interests. Lula recognized this and so does Rousseff. The problem is that the institutional structure does not reflect today’s reality. In the same way as governments have demonstrated to be unable to keep in pace with the developments in the free market, changes in states’ power relations have outpaced the evolution of international institutions. (more…)

  • A Ray of Hope for the Palestinians

    This Friday, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas will submit a formal request at the United Nations for recognition of statehood along the lines of the pre-1967 borders.

    The Palestinians lost faith in direct negotiations with Israel a long time ago. After President Barack Obama’s one year time frame for a peace settlement collapsed this time last year, Abbas appears to have come to the realization that the only way for his people to edge closer to statehood is by drawing the entire international community into the process. Call it a unilateral move or a callous breach of the Oslo Accords — arguments that the Israelis have been peddling for the past couple of months — what the UN drive cannot be called is a strategic mistake. If anything, it will isolate the Israelis and the United States with most of the world endorsing Abbas’ proposal.

    After hinting in press conferences and briefings that the United States would veto a Palestinian request for statehood at the Security Council, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland finally stated unequivocally last week that Washington’s power in the council will be used to block the effort. “It should not come as a shock to anyone that the United States oppose a move in New York by the Palestinians to try to establish a state that can only be achieved through negotiations,” she said. “So, yes, if something comes to a vote in the UN Security Council, the United States will veto.” (more…)

  • Israeli-Turkish Relations Deteriorate Despite UN Study

    At a time when the Israeli government is facing mounting unrest at home over housing prices, turmoil along its border with Egypt, attacks against its embassy in Cairo and an imminent diplomatic crisis as the Palestinians prepare to make a bid for statehood at the United Nations General Assembly this month, a UN report threatens to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s life even harder.

    The story starts back in May 2010. When a Turkish humanitarian aid flotilla was on its way to Gaza, Israeli commandos executed a daring operation to stop its landing. The ships’ immediate aim was to deliver humanitarian supplies to Palestinian civilians in the territory who had been subjected to a comprehensive and strictly enforced Israeli land and naval blockade since January 2009.

    While easing Palestinian suffering was the stated intention of the trip, the flotilla always had a more political goal in mind — breaching the Israeli embargo and pressuring the Israeli government into changing its policies in the strip. (more…)

  • The Future of the UN Trusteeship Council

    Since the United Nations Trusteeship Council fulfilled its original mandate of shepherding territories on their way to independence, debate has been raging about what to do with the institute. In 2005, Secretary General Kofi Annan recommended amending the Charter of the United Nations for the purposes of deleting those chapters and provisions related to the council but there may be a future for it still.

    In an article she wrote for the Columbia Law Review in 2005 while a postgraduate student, Saira Mohamed, now a professor of international law at the University of California at Berkeley, advocated against legislating the council out of existence. In “From Keeping Peace to Building Peace,” Mohamed recommended revising the text of the Charter of the United Nations to modify the purpose and mission of the Trusteeship Council to transform it into a body that assists failing and failed states in sustainable and enduring redevelopment of governmental institutions and structures.

    The development of a council tasked with fostering and encouraging uniform standards of governance must take into account the geography, the socioeconomic and sociopolitical conditions present on the ground. Nonetheless, “failed” states as Afghanistan, Chad, Somalia and Sudan could benefit greatly from the advice and assistance of such a council as would countries in the process of failing like Burma, Laos, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

    The Trusteeship Council was devised for a similar purpose. Tasked with creating a new international system for the postwar era, as early as during the Second World War, diplomats were faced with the question of what to do with those areas operating under the League of Nations mandatory system and the colonies and protectorates of the Axis powers.

    The League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, assumed responsibility for those colonial possessions that the Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman Empires ceded to the allies after the First World War. The organization classified these territories into three classes and established a scheme of governance to administer them. In practice, the Mandatory Commission of the League of Nations divided the mandates into three classes A, B and C.

    Class A mandates were deemed to possess sufficient strength and stability to warrant recognition as provisionally independent and as such, the mandatory power administered the mandate indirectly, utilizing the local law.

    Class B mandates possessed the potential to achieve independence eventually but their successful transition from colony to sovereign nation state would demand a greater degree of involvement in the affairs of the mandate, including direct administration by the mandatory power.

    The Allied powers viewed Class C mandates as having the least potential as viable states and as a result, the mandatory power virtually incorporated the Class C mandates and governed them as overseas departments of the mandatory powers.

    At the time of the surrender of the Japanese government and armed forces to the allies of the United Nations in September 1945, thirteen territories remained under mandate — one Class A mandate and twelve other Class B and Class C mandates. The United Nations divested Italy of its colonies of Eritrea, Italian Somaliland and Libya. The mandates previously administered by the Japanese Empire were reassigned to the United Nations.

    A year after the end of the war, the one remaining Class A mandate achieved partial independence when King Abdullah I announced the formal the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in May 1946. Two years later on May 14, 1948 the majority of the remaining territory within the Palestine mandate became the state of Israel.

    During those years, responsibility for eleven of the twelve remaining Class B and Class C mandates transferred from the Mandate Commission to the Trusteeship Council upon ratification of the trusteeship agreements.

    On October 1, 1994 the final trust territory, Palau, achieved full de jure independence. One month after gaining full independence and six weeks before Palau entered the United Nations, the Trusteeship Council amended its rules of procedure and suspended operations indefinitely. Palau gained admission into the United Nations and ever since, the council has existed on paper only.

    The community of nations stands at a crossroads stretched out before them in two paths. One condemns the citizens of those states with failed and failing governments to a continued existence in which they are beset by a multitude of evils including unending strife and instability. Conversely, the other path possesses the potential to inspire stability and development by endowing the people of these nations with the tools and techniques necessary to engender change. Which path will be chosen?

  • Is the World System Changing?

    While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have drained American resources, the unrest in the Middle East might herald the beginning of a transformative period, one in which semiperipheral nations either replace the existing core states or increase their number by becoming core states themselves.

    History demonstrates that global conflicts often prefigure the evolution of the international system. The failure of the Concert of Europe resulted in the First World War, which in turn culminated in the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. The fundamental flaws within the peace treaty rendered the League of Nations impotent in the face of the rising tide of fascism during the 1930s that inspired the horrors of the Second World War.

    From the devastation of World War II arose the United Nations with the Bretton Woods monetary system. The resistance toward concerted efforts at restructuring both the UN Security Council and the global economic consensus and trade regime as sustained by the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization serves as a concrete representation of the latent conflict between the “global north” and the “global south.” Within the Security Council in particular, the “permanent five” aim to maintain the status quo in order to prolong their ability to assert and implement their interests, possibly at the expense of developing nations.

    The “world system” however, as it was described by sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein (1930), may not be static but dynamic instead to the extent that the classification of various states as core, peripheral or semiperipheral can evolve over time. Modern day examples include Brazil, India and South Africa which are rising to the status of core power. China, it may well be argued, has already achieved that status.

    Venezuelan economist Richardo Hausmann argued that the sustainable development of the peripheral states of the global south is dependent on their ability to overcome the natural barriers imposed by their geography. If Hausmann is correct, the continued growth of developing nations requires the investment and involvement of industrialized nations in the global north.

  • Hamas, Fatah Working Together

    Palestinian politics has long been divided. Issues as diverse as economic development and institution building are rarely tackled by the major parties along the same lines. Palestine’s most significant political groupings, Hamas and Fatah, have contrary strategic interests in “high politics” as well, with the former distrustful of the West and the latter owing its very survival to foreign donors. But the most complicated issue within the Palestinian political sphere is how to go about dealing with Israel, a country that the Fatah party has long tried to negotiate with.

    The impasse between Hamas and Fatah started long before the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections but most Middle East observers consider that contest to be the jump off point for what has essentially become a fragmented Palestinian government. (more…)

  • UN Report: Palestinians Ready for Statehood

    Aside from concerns about Islamic terrorism and the safety of Israeli citizens, the potential weakness and fragmentation of a Palestinian government has been a prime reason for the Israeli military’s reluctance to withdraw from the West Bank. Numerous Israeli prime ministers dating back to the late 1990s voiced worry over Palestinian governance, concluding that an Israeli draw down from the occupied territories would leave a lasting void that the Palestinian Authority could not possibly plug.

    Benjamin Netanyahu, too, argues that the Palestinians are not yet ready for statehood; that without adequate institutions that are able serve the needs of the Palestinian people, militant groups like Hamas will pop up and exploit the West Bank to their advantage.

    Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, of course, disagrees. He has made it his life’s mission to build Palestinian society from the ground up.

    In August of 2009, Fayyad boldly stated that the Palestinians would be ready for statehood by 2011, complete with a strong economic base providing Palestinian youth with full-time jobs and an administration that both responds to the people’s complaints and follows the requirements of international humanitarian law.

    While it would be easy to dismiss Fayyad’s remarks as overly optimistic, his administration has impressed virtually every major stakeholder in the international community, including the United States and the Israelis.

    The West Bank economy grew at an astounding 8 percent in 2010, despite the difficult fiscal environment that still lingers as a result of the 2008 global recession. The Palestinian Security Forces, once a collection of ill trained and anti-Israeli militias, is now under a competent command and control system courtesy of American training. Technocrats fill the economic, infrastructural, health care and foreign policy portfolios of the Palestinian Authority. And while corruption is still visible in Mahmoud Abbas’ government, its level and severity is a far cry from the embarrassing days of Yasser Arafat.

    With all of these changes in mind, have the Palestinians finally built an administrative apparatus conductive to good governance? Are they able to rule themselves without Israeli soldiers patrolling their neighborhoods?

    The answer, according to the United Nations, is yes — the Palestinians, under the leadership of Abbas and Fayyad, have moved in a positive direction that even the Israelis would find difficult to deny.

    The report (PDF) from the UN’s Middle East Peace Process office is yet another testimonial demonstrating the weaknesses and downright faults embedded within the Israeli government’s outdated argument about Palestinian self governance. The fact of the matter is that the Palestinian Authority has proven to the world that the West Bank should no longer be viewed through the narrow prism of international terrorism. The issue now delves into the much more sensitive subjects of sovereignty, freedom and independence from an occupying force.

    For hardliners in the Israeli government who have long supported an extensive Israeli presence in the Palestinian territories, this report will come across as nothing more than a showpiece from the United Nations, which has frequently been branded anti-Israeli. In fairness, some of their concerns have merit.

    While the Palestinians have made extensive strides in the areas of policing and social services, corruption, abuse of power and oppressive security operations by Palestinian forces are still problems that need to be solved. The West Bank economy may have grown by 8 percent last year but a vast portion of this growth has been sustained by state, regional and global donations. Civil society groups have been created but are still curtailed by the government. Being a Hamas supporter or political dissident carries the risk of a long-term prison sentence.

    Some of these problems are not solely the fault of the Palestinians. The Israeli occupation, which still administers approximately 60 percent of the West Bank, continues to exacerbate the challenges of future Palestinian growth and political progress. Checkpoints in Israeli controlled towns inhibit freedom of maneuver for Palestinians traveling to see their families. They also tend to make it more difficult for Palestinian farmers to get their goods to market.

    Israeli restrictions on exports are still in place, which certainly doesn’t help the employment prospects of a rising Palestinian youth population.

    Perhaps most importantly, the occupation is relegating all of the achievements that the Palestinians have made over the past two years to theatrics, without a state to show for it. Without an award of sovereignty or at least a significant easing of economic and security restrictions, it’s difficult to believe that the Palestinians would find it worthwhile to keep up progress. That is, unless the United Nations General Assembly votes in favor of Palestinian statehood this September.

    Hopefully, it won’t have to come to that. The United Nations will debate whether to extend statehood to the West Bank this fall. Its latest report will undoubtedly push some previous skeptics of the measure into the Palestinian camp.

    Israel, however, can beat everyone to the punch by offering the Palestinians a good faith measure, such as another moratorium on settlement construction or extended jurisdiction for the Palestinian security services. Doing so would not only show the world that Israel is serious about the two-state solution but could potentially restart direct talks between the two parties.

  • The Goldstone Report, Two Years Later

    Two years and three months ago, the Israeli army launched a forceful military campaign in the Gaza Strip in order to stop Hamas rocket attacks from the area. Years prior to that operation, crude yet deadly projectiles rained down on southern Israeli communities, killing a few and causing fear among thousands simply strolling to work or school in the morning. In December 2008, Israel had had enough and sent its elite soldiers into Gaza to suppress the fire.

    The attack, code named “Operation Cast Lead” and commonly referred to as the “Gaza War,” was over relatively quickly. After meeting all of its objectives, the Israeli military ceased its offensive in just a few short weeks. But the collateral damage on Gaza’s civilian population and the wholesale destruction of much of the strip far exceeded anyone’s expectations.

    Months after Cast Lead, the United Nations Human Rights Council tapped a famous South African judge, Richard Goldstone, to lead an internationally designated fact finding mission to uncover possible human rights abuses during the conflict. After close to a year in the field, thousands of interviews and on the ground assessment of the damage, Goldstone and his team published their 575 page report, the main conclusion being that Israel purposely targeted Palestinian civilians and used Gaza residents as human shields during patrols.

    The report generated an extreme amount of rhetoric on both sides of the Israeli divide. Critics of Israel cheered Goldstone for his courage in denouncing a state that, according to them, has been given a free pass on war crimes. Supporters of Israel branded Goldstone a “self hating Jew” who compromised the very existence of the Jewish state. Indeed, Goldstone’s name in Israel was often equated as a slur, with Goldstone himself (who happens to be Jewish) banned from traveling to Israel and ostracized from Israeli communities around the world.

    Goldstone is once again in the news, but this time he is trying to set the record straight after years of assault on his character. In an op-ed to The Washington Post earlier this month, he discussed how he arrived at those controversial conclusions and why he now believes that Israel did not intentionally target civilians “as a matter of policy.”

    Or, as Goldstone says in his own words, “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report (PDF) would have been a different document.”

    For Israel, Goldstone’s retraction is a huge sigh of relief. The report, in all its detail, put an enormous stain on Israel’s image around the world, describing the small state as a perpetuator of war crimes and one whose leadership deliberately neglected to investigate those responsible. The inquiry also provided Hamas with a silver platter opportunity for self promotion as a legitimate Palestinian resistance movement, even though charges were also leveled against its combatants in the report.

    The world, however, must be careful not to paper over the entire inquiry with a single redaction, nor discredit the UN study as a politically motivated product filled with inconsistencies and false assumptions. The fact that the most serious charge against Israel has been dismissed is no vindication of the entire operation. All of the other comments and recommendations by Goldstone and his team, including Israel’s use of white phosphorous in populated areas, the bombing of civilian infrastructure and the killing of numerous civilians, are still there in black and white. And while new evidence may pop up and negate those claims, as they have done in this most serious case, Israel’s military establishment should still be expected to prosecute every soldier that broke the laws of war during the Gaza campaign.

    This demand weights even heavier on Hamas, which has yet to investigate any wrongdoing on the part of its fighters. This despite the fact that shooting rockets at Israeli civilians is a clear violation of international law.

    1,400 Palestinians were killed once Cast Lead was officially terminated. Israel lost thirteen. Those numbers are quite different, with the Palestinians taking the brunt of the civilian casualties and all of the economic loss. But both parties are still responsible for upholding the UN’s requests for a thorough and accurate study of what went wrong. Goldstone’s power play should not impede that work from finishing, or in the case of Hamas, starting.

  • Many Uncertainties About Libyan Intervention

    There is hardly an hour that goes by without a new development in the Libyan standoff. Newspapers, television shows and world governments have been boxed into an extremely tough position. The Obama Administration has been scrambling to forge a comprehensive policy to an otherwise evolving situation. Some people still aren’t exactly sure how the Libyan government will respond in the coming days. Every contingent is still open and military force by the international community has now become the official policy of the United Nations, the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

    The Libya story is constantly changing, so it’s obviously difficult to track down exactly where we are at this moment, let alone what action Muammar al-Gaddafi will take to either prolong or end the stalemate in his country. Nevertheless, something significant has indeed happened. With a vote of ten to zero, the United Nations Security Council authorized the use of military force against Gaddafi’s regime in order to protect Libyan civilians. French warplanes and American cruise missiles fired the first shots, taking out some of Libya’s air defense systems along the Mediterranean coast this weekend.

    With the United States voting in favor of the resolution, Washington once again committed itself to an intervention in the Muslim world — all at a time when American military resources are stretched thin and billions of dollars continue to be spent in Afghanistan and Iraq. So with the United States, Europe and the Arab states now intervening, here are some questions that should be considered as the military campaign grinds on.

    Who will lead the operation? The Security Council resolution was passed by a number of countries, including Bosnia, France, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar have pledged to contribute fighter planes and/or other equipment to the effort. But who will actually fly the planes and bomb Gaddafi’s defenses?

    A American-led operation would not sit well with Arabs, most of whom are still scarred by Washington’s stance vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Iraq. Europe may be well suited to enforce the no-fly zone: France, Britain and Italy have far more to lose in Libya than the United States ever will.

    What happens if Gaddafi capitulates? If he blinks and backs down, will the United Nations decide to scrap the no-fly zone? Ironically, this question seems to have already been answered, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not taking Gaddafi’s ceasefire announcement seriously. Yet a ceasefire would indicate that the core component of the UN resolution — the protection of civilians — has been met (at least temporarily). This appears to suggest that the United States and its allies may go a step further, perhaps by arming the opposition or bombing Gaddafi’s compounds.

    Who are we dealing with? The Libyan opposition is a loose collection of untrained fighters from traditional anti-Gaddafi strongholds. There is no coherent or organized leadership passing down orders, nor is there a clear picture about what the opposition wants — besides the removal of their dictator. With the UN resolution now in affect, the international community has publicly endorsed the rebel side. Unfortunately, we have endorsed a bunch of people who may hold different interests for Libya if and when Gaddafi leaves or falls from power.

    Will boots on the ground be necessary? We have to ask ourselves what the next step will be if the no-fly zone and bombing raids fail to persuade Gaddafi to five up fighting. As his history suggests, there is always the possibility that he and his loyalists will dig in and consolidate their authority through unconventional means.

    One scenario is the movement of heavy weaponry and anti-aircraft guns into populated civilian areas, ensuring that any foreign strike will kill innocents in the process. It’s a terrible violation of the Geneva Convention, yet Gaddafi has demonstrated that he will pull out all the stops in order to survive. What happens then? Will the United States, Europe and the Arab world decide to increase the scope of their operation?

    Is Obama’s team on the same page? There is cause for concern that the administration may not be unified on the president’s decision to use force. The National Security Council was divided during the entire deliberation process with Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power and Ambassador Susan Rice arguing for the intervention and defense secretary Robert Gates, Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon opposing involvement. Gates and Biden, two of the most powerful people in the administration, found themselves on the losing side but must now set aside their disagreements and work to support the president’s policy.

  • Washington’s Strange United Nations Veto

    There can be little doubt that the ill-prepared invasion and occupation of Iraq turned many Arabs and Muslims in the region away from the United States. The utter destruction of Iraqi society, allegations of torture from coalition soldiers and the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis who perished in the fighting had a severe effect on Washington’s leverage in the Middle East, kicking America in a corner until General David Petraeus rescued the war effort.

    The American occupation also lent a great deal of support to Al Qaeda and its ilk, all of whom are dependent upon the image of a joint Zionist-Western conspiracy against the world’s Muslims and the religion of Islam.

    Yet as potent as Iraq was to America’s soft power decline in the Islamic world, the one issue that has been far more important, at least in the minds of Arabs, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (more…)

  • India’s New Prominence Among United Nations

    Indian diplomacy can pat itself on the back, at least for the time being. Not only did it become a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) this year; it was elected to chair its Counter-Terrorism Committee as well.

    Besides India, several powerful states that are coveting permanent membership of the Security Council have also been elected nonpermanent members this year — Germany and South Africa. Brazil and Nigeria have both been nonpermanent members for a year now.

    India has astutely used regional forums to supplants its position in the United Nations. It shows that Indian policymakers understand that the world is increasingly multipolar. The country currently occupies important positions in the Russia-India-China triumvirate whose foreign ministers meet twice a year. It is a key member of the BRIC which also includes Brazil. Along with Brazil and South Africa, it is one of the three great powers of the “south” while the BASIC brought together Brazil, South Africa, India and China during the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen last year.

    As countries as Brazil and India continue to rise, it will be difficult for the permanent five members of the Security Council to continue to dominate global security policy making. “Power relations at the UNSC are skewed in favor of the veto-wielding P5 countries, the most exclusive club in the world, and others are reduced to wooing them to ensure that a particularly damaging resolution does not go through,” writes India’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Chinmaya R. Gharekhan in the book The Horseshoe Table: An Inside View of the UN Security Council (2006). This situation is bound to change.

    The American predominance in world affairs is a fairly recent phenomenon as the country chose to be isolated up until World War I. India feels that it is in a fairly similar position.

    After India attained independence in 1947, it pursued its own version of isolationism. Under the banner of the nonalignment movement, it allied with decolonized countries in Africa and Asia and different states in Latin America to avoid becoming part of the Cold War. At United Nations conferences, India become known for its “moralistic” commentary on global politics. During the period of US-Soviet détente, it remained on the sidelines.

    From the 1980s onward, India followed a policy of “defensive realism” and avoided being involved in issues that played beyond its borders. Only when the Cold War ended would India align itself with the United States and, watching China rise, it remains a partner of the West to maintain balance of power in the Asia-Pacific.

    With the West in decline economically however, India is set to assume a greater role. With increased power comes increased responsibility, as mentioned by President Barack Obama in his speech to the Indian parliament last November.

    In the south Sudan for instance, which recently voted to secede from the north after years of violence, Indian soldiers are already serving as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission. India has made substantial investments in Sudan’s energy sector, mainly in the south. India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s Videsh Limited has spent around $2.5 million in acquiring exploration and production assets in Sudan’s oil sector. The company now extracts approximately 2.4 million tons of crude oil from Sudan on a yearly basis. India cannot simply stand by anymore and disguise its interests in slogans of noninterference.

    Meanwhile, the Security Council’s decision to wind up the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) on January 14 was a victory for India’s own version of the Monroe Doctrine which contradicts its commitments to the UN.

    UNMIN was established in January 2007 to monitor the disarmament of Nepali Maoist rebels and the preparations for assembly elections that year. New Delhi was never comfortable with the UNMIN presence in Nepal as it feels that no outside power should have much say in the affairs of its immediate neighborhood. Since the United States have backed India’s position, the latter could have its way with regard to Nepal.

    Down the line, India will face tougher calls including the election of the next United Nations secretary general. In August, India will preside over the Council by alphabetical rotation and may play a key role in the election process. India has had issues with current Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over Burma, Nepal and Sri Lanka and if New Zealand’s former prime minister and current chair of the United Nations Development Group, Helen Clark makes a bid for the secretary generalship, India may very well supporting her candidature. It will be interesting to see whether this issue comes up when current New Zealand Prime Minister John Key visits India this year.