The prickly point in the UN taking charge of Syria
by Mary Dejevsky
It is a measure of the desperation sensed by those trying to end the
civil war in Syria and stall the onward march of Islamic State that
a proposal for a UN mandate for the country has not been dismissed out
of hand. The suggestion was aired this weekend by Gilbert Greenall, a
veteran international relief adviser, who mooted the creation of a
structure similar to the one set up by the League of
Nations that administered Syria between 1923 and 1945.
While the idea seemed to come almost out of nowhere, there were hints
that talk of a mandate had quasi-official roots. Reports mentioned
support in Whitehall for an accelerated UN role.
The UK has – to put it mildly – a contested history in the region,
and is now also involved militarily. So the intention could be for
others – possibly the US and the Russians together – to pick up the
proposal and run with it. And the initial UK response, at least, seems
more positive than negative. Paddy Ashdown, one of the few people with
experience as something akin to a post-colonial overlord (as high
representative in Bosnia), said it was worth considering. So did the
Labour MP and ex-serviceman Dan Jarvis, who saw the formation of the
Afghan Army and Police as a possible precedent. The former foreign
secretary Malcolm Rifkind was also open to such an arrangement, while
warning that a political consensus would need to come first. Any armed
presence would have to come principally from the region, to avoid any
impression of a new “crusade.”
Avoiding new crusades
But why, if it has so much going for it, is the mandate idea being
canvassed only now? One reason is the absence of anything else that
might preserve Syria as a state and fend off the threat of a regional
conflagration from Lebanon and Jordan to Yemen and Iraq.
Another would be the changed balance of forces since Russia – and to
a lesser extent, Britain – became involved. A hallmark of Soviet, and
now Russian, foreign policy is a preference for international
structures. The UN is already involved in the talks that began in Vienna
at Russia’s instigation (and which continue in Riyadh this week), and
four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are now
engaged in air strikes on Syria. A greater role for the UN would be a
logical progression.
The flaws, though, are obvious. The first is that the conflict in
Syria began as a civil war. If the parties to the civil war are not
ready to contemplate its end, even in order to stop the predations of
Isis, it is doubtful that outsiders – however big, powerful and
consensual – will be able to enforce a settlement for long. Then there
are the proxy conflicts also being played out in Syria, with Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, Iran and now Russia all pursuing interests of their own.
No one, it seems, is ready to blink.
Yet the very complexity of the Syrian conflict makes the UN probably
the only body able to set a framework for a settlement and then stand as
its guarantor. Which brings us to the vexed question of the “day after?”
Could, and even should, the UN go the whole hog and assume a mandate for
Syria? Is this perhaps why things went wrong in Iraq and Libya?
The idea has to be tempting – as tempting, no doubt, as it was the
first time around, following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. And
there are those who argue not only that colonialism has been judged
unfairly, but that a new colonialism would be the best remedy for bad
governance anywhere in the world.
Would a UN mandate be feasible, however, in the connected modern
world, where the cry is more often for self-determination? Perhaps it
would. On the Maidan in Kiev, the calls were for closer relations with
the EU, but they were primarily a plea to Brussels to come and sort the
place out – and in some ways, it is now a voluntary colony of the EU.
Something similar could be said of Bosnia and Kosovo.
- Guardian
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