Phew, it seems that the Syrian crisis is over. Well the Syrian
chemical weapons crisis, not the whole thing, but, as school reports used
sometimes to say – a good start.
For a time, it seemed that the clock had been turned back to
the cold war era, with Russia and the USA locked in a stand-off. I started to
put some words down towards the end of August and wrote some criteria for
testing possible solutions, they were these …
“First any action must be credible to the citizens of those
countries taking action, and that can only happen if international law supports
that action. That is a necessary, not a sufficient condition as events in the
aftermath of the 2003 Iraqi invasion showed.
“Next, to be credible to citizens of this region, the Middle
East, in general and Syrians in particular, any action must be aimed at
improving the situation of the victims of the civil war, whatever side they are
on. Killing them or their relatives won’t meet this criterion.
“Further, it should be sufficient to prevent any future use
of chemicals on civilians.”
I must have been feeling a bit down about things because I
then wrote …
“Can the circle ever be squared? It can’t. Talk of crossing
red-lines was fine as a threat, but now the Western world has got itself into
the position of a parent who tells an unruly child that he’ll be in serious
trouble if he steals chocolate biscuits from the fridge, only to discover that
the packet of Hobnobs is finished and the child denies all knowledge of it.
Some action has to be taken to preserve parental credibility. But what?”
Hmmm. Thankfully I got that one wrong. Actually the answer
was sitting there in the analogy, no more chocolate biscuits, or in this case
no more chemical weapons. Simple really, not only does it satisfy all three
criteria, but by neutralising stocks of Sarin and whatever other noxious agents
have been manufactured, the world at least feels a safer place to live in.
Being British, I would like to think that the decision by
our dear old Parliament not to authorise military action made some contribution
to allowing time for more creative solutions to percolate through. Why,
incidentally, are these high flown international activities important to me?
Well, I live here in Beirut and it seems that if Syria catches a cold, Lebanon is
usually in danger of getting pneumonia.
Does it matter, as some local pundits suggest, that the idea
is a Russian one? Not one iota. As noted elsewhere, good ideas are highly
promiscuous, they really do not care who has them. What does matter is that an
approach has been found that is acceptable to the international community and
espoused by local governments. The sight of Messrs. Lavrov and Kerry clearly enjoying
each other’s company on stage makes me hope that the relationships forged in
the heat of this crisis may be brought to bear on other difficult issues later
on as well.
Because although the most recent crisis seems to be drawing
to a close, one thing we can be sure of – there’ll be more before we’re done.
