Foreign Policy In Focus

President Obama called their use a "game changer."

The Syrian government has denied permission to a U.N. mission ready to investigate alleged chemical attacks that have occurred in recent months in the country. Both Syria’s government and opposition requested that the U.N. form a mission to investigate the use of chemical weapons after trading blame over a March attack in Khan al-Assal—a village outside Aleppo—which killed at least 31 people.

However, Syria is now denying the team entry into the country over concerns of the U.N. widening the investigation to include other alleged chemical attacks—such as an attack near Damascus on the same day as the Aleppo attack and another from Homs in December, over which the government and opposition have also traded blame—brought to U.N. attention by Syria’s opposition.

Both Britain and France wrote to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon after the Aleppo and Damascus attacks, urging the mission to include all three reported instances of chemical weapons use in the country. Britain, France, and the U.S. have also provided Ban with intelligence about the possible use of chemical weapons in Aleppo and Homs.

Western powers have been particularly concerned over any use of chemical or biological weapons in Syria, since the country is believed by Western intelligence agencies to possess one of the largest undeclared stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the world. U.S. President Barack Obama has also already stated that the confirmed use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a “game changer,” which some have interpreted to indicate U.S. military intervention in Syria’s civil war.

Syria is amongst eight countries that did not participate in the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the use of such weapons internationally and, as of February, has seen to the destruction of 78% of the world’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles.

‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’

Syria’s government, according to the Guardian, argues that the inclusion of the other attacks in the investigation “might allow the U.N. mission to spread all over the Syrian territories,” which it claims “contradicts the Syrian request from the U.N." and "constitutes a violation of the Syrian sovereignty.” The Syrian government has hinted at a hidden Western agenda in the mission and likened the situation to the investigation for chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, particularly Ban’s submission to Western states “known for their support for the shedding of Syrian blood with the aim of diverting [the probe] from its true content.”

Russia—a steadfast ally of Damascus throughout Syria’s two-year civil war—has echoed this claim, suggesting that “Western countries are using the specter of weapons of mass destruction to justify intervention in Syria, as they did in Iraq,” according to Reuters.

Headed by Ake Sellstrom, a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, the U.N. mission is comprised of 15 inspectors, chemists, and medical experts—none of whom are from permanent members on the U.N. Security Council. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)—which oversees the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention—has prepared and sent the team to Cyprus, where it currently awaits a decision between Syria and the U.N.

Syria and the U.N., however, are at an impasse: Ban Ki-moon believes there is sufficient evidence to investigate at least the Aleppo and Homs attacks and has said that all implicated sites “should be examined without delay, without conditions and without exceptions.” Syria, however, will not allow the mission into the territory unless it can guarantee that the mandate only covers the Aleppo attack.

A decision needs to be made soon, regardless: Ralf Trapp, an expert on chemical and biological weapons and a former official of OPCW, predicted immediately after the Aleppo and Damascus attacks that the time frame of the U.N. mission, though critical, would likely take weeks. And the longer the investigation is halted also compounds the evidence lost and, therefore, the further testing needed to collect such data: “Each day lost will influence the speed with which the investigation can be concluded,” he said, according to NBC, “because as more time elapses before biological sampling occurs, more sophisticated DNA and other toxicological testing is required.”

The Syrian government is unlikely to budge, especially while being backed by Russia and given preliminary evidence that suggests the chemicals used in the Aleppo attack—but not necessarily those in Damascus or Homs—were rudimentary and likely the product of an Islamists. One would hope that Ban would take into account the fact that the team has unfettered access to at least one site for now, lest Syria deny the investigation altogether.

Leslie Garvey is a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus and Focal Points.

The Syrian government and the opposition trade accusations about using chemical weapons and propagandizing the attacks.

The alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria last week garnered international attention and prompted the UN—after receiving requests from both Syria’s government and opposition—to initiate an official investigation into the incident.

The attack, launched via a rocket allegedly containing “chemical materials,” was reported in Khan al-Assal—a village in Aleppo province—where 16 people were killed instantly. The death toll has since risen to 31. The Syrian National Coalition (SNC), the leading umbrella organization for the opposition, reported a second chemical attack in rural suburbs outside Damascus, though the number affected is still unknown.

Whether chemical weapons were actually used—and which party would be responsible—remains unverified. Both the Syrian government and the opposition accuse the other of using chemical weapons and propagandizing the attacks.

Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari implored UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to form a “specialized, independent and neutral technical mission” to investigate the opposition’s involvement in the Aleppo incident, which was first reported by the state-run news agency SANA as an attack by “terrorists,” the term the regime uses to refer to rebels. Jaafari also claimed that the government was “not aware of a second attack” in Damascus and insinuated that the SNC was using the Damascus attack to distract the UN from Aleppo.

The opposition denies the regime’s claims. A Free Syrian Army spokesman was quoted by Middle East Online as saying that, “We have neither long-range missiles nor chemical weapons. And if we did, we wouldn't use them against a rebel target.” The opposition also requested that the UN investigate the attack, a view that Western countries such as the United States, France, and Britain support.

During a debate in the UN Security Council, France insisted that both incidents in Aleppo and Damascus should be investigated as part of the official inquiry and that the UN should also investigate whether or not the Syrian regime possesses chemical weapons. However, Russia—who backs the regime and claims to have evidence that rebels are behind the chemical attack—responded that such an inquiry echoed Iraq’s inspection a decade ago and that the United States, France, and others were “launching propaganda balloons” and engaging in “delaying tactics.”

Crossing Red Lines

The attacks—coming after an unverified chemical attack in Homs last December—could be significant because their use, if confirmed, would mark a new stage in the Syrian war and could spur the United States to intervene.

U.S. President Barack Obama has previously stated that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be “totally and completely unacceptable” and would constitute a “red line,” which if crossed would be a “tragic mistake” with “consequences.” Though Obama has yet to specify what these consequences entail, many have interpreted his speech to indicate some form of military intervention, whether putting troops on the ground or arming the opposition. At a news conference with Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama reiterated this stance, saying, “Once we establish the facts, I have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game changer.”

However, other U.S. officials have expressed skepticism that chemical weapons were deployed. U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford told the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that, “So far, we have no evidence to substantiate the reports that chemical weapons were used ... But I want to underline that we are looking very carefully at these reports.”

In addition to the official UN inquiry, U.S. intelligence agencies are also investigating the attacks. The conflict in Syria, however, compounds the difficulties of conducting any investigation in the country. In an interview with NBC, Ralf Trapp—a specialist on chemical and biological weapons—noted that it could take “weeks” for the UN to pull together a team to investigate and “each day lost will influence the speed with which the investigation can be concluded... because as more time elapses before biological sampling occurs, more sophisticated DNA and other toxicological testing is required.”

Not to mention, the investigation team would need to be able to get to—and operate within—Aleppo safely, which would largely depend upon cooperation from both state and rebel agents.

UPDATE

Al Arabiya reports:

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed a Swedish professor who was a U.N. chemical weapons inspector in Iraq and now works at a research institute that deals with chemical incidents to head the U.N. fact-finding mission that will investigate allegations of the reported use of chemical weapons in Syria. 

Leslie Garvey is a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus and Focal Points.

"There cannot be a military solution to this crisis in Mali," Emira Woods said on the PBS NewsHour. "The crisis has its roots in political and also economic processes, with people in the northern part of the country feeling completely marginalized from the rest of the country."

Woods is the co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. You may read the full transcript of her comments on the NewsHour's website.

VIEW THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE.

"So clearly what you had was an opportunity because of the intervention, the NATO intervention in Libya, unleashing weapons, both from Qadaffi's coffers as well as from the international community, weapons flowing from Libya, across borders of Algeria, into northern Mali, to be able to actually create a crisis, and further destabilize northern Mali," said Woods. "So I think what you have is a situation where unilateral intervention could create complications down the road, both for civilians that could be targeted in these airstrikes, as well as for further complicating a political crisis that may not be resolved militarily."

The Senate hasn't approved any major multilateral treaties since 1997.

Cross-posted from Other Words.

America is suffering from a failure to commit. Just ask Bob Dole.

While the former GOP presidential candidate and decorated veteran watched from his wheelchair on the Senate floor, all but eight of the Republicans in that chamber shamefully voted down the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

It’s hardly a radical pact. To date, 126 other countries have ratified this treaty. Dole, who served as Senate Majority and Minority Leader for more than a decade, had championed it. So did veterans groups, disability rights organizations, and even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The treaty simply took our own Americans with Disabilities Act, and “expanded that kind of rights to people all over the world who don’t have them today,” explained Senator John McCain of Arizona, another former Republican presidential nominee and veteran with a disability.

But it takes two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty, and even with all 53 senators in the Democratic caucus supporting it, too few Republicans got on board for it to pass.

The treaty’s opponents seem stuck in a partisan twilight zone of UN black helicopters and conspiracy theories that undercuts U.S. influence in global affairs. They’ve perfected a method of defeating virtually every treaty that comes along. Since controversial treaties never pass in the Senate, opponents make any unobjectionable agreement divisive by inventing a big lie.

That global women’s rights treaty? Too pro-abortion. The International Criminal Court? A kangaroo court out to get American service members. The Convention on the Rights of the Child? Kids could sue their parents. The UN Law of the Sea? An excuse to slap unfair global tax on Americans. An arms trade treaty? A ploy to deprive Americans of their right to bear arms.

To sabotage the disabilities treaty, Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, joined forces with former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Together, they crafted a ludicrous excuse for Republicans to rally around. Lee falsely claimed that the treaty would allow “a foreign body based in Geneva, Switzerland” to decide “what is best for a child at home in Utah.” They used this big lie to mobilize vocal opposition from the home-school movement.

These ploys generate enough angry messages from constituents to block the requisite approval for the United States to become a party to the treaty. In fact, the Senate hasn’t approved any major multilateral treaties at all since it endorsed the Chemical Weapons convention in 1997 — a year after Dole retired from Congress.

The Senate’s habitual failure to commit threatens our nation. It erodes U.S. global leadership. It limits our ability to express our collective values and blocks the development of worldwide agreements to address very real challenges that can decimate our civilization, including climate change and nuclear proliferation.

Fortunately, there’s a simple way to defeat big lies. It’s called the truth.

Barack Obama, like all presidents who serve two terms, has a big incentive to leave a foreign-policy legacy. Here’s my suggestion: He should lead a national dialogue on global agreements, followed by a special Senate session devoted to clearing the backlog of multilateral agreements the United States has failed to approve.

A majority of U.S. voters support adopting each one of the above-mentioned treaties. Business, labor, civil society, and national security leaders are behind them too. The only thing missing is leadership and a serious discussion of the consequences of this national failure.

Ratifying these treaties would do little or nothing to ramp up U.S. spending but it would go a long way toward rebuilding the nation’s global credibility. We’d gain international respect and increase long term security by taking strides towards solving big global challenges like climate change and nuclear proliferation — problems that can’t be resolved by any one nation, no matter how powerful.

Americans understand that international cooperation is essential to build a more secure world. It’s high time that the Senate did something about it.

Don Kraus is the president and CEO of GlobalSolutions.org, a groundbreaking movement of Americans who support a cooperative and responsible U.S. role in the world.

If the General Assembly approves Palestine's application for non-member status, Israel's isolation from the international community would only grow.

The arrogance of the man seemingly has no bounds but still it seems highly presumptuous for Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to claim to speak for the United States. However, according to AFP, last week, on the eve of the U.S. Presidential election, he said the U.S. would subject the Palestinians to “severe measures” if their leaders go ahead and seek non-member status at the United Nations General Assembly. Israeli television Channel 10 reported that the rightwing minister said the U.S. would join Tel Aviv in assuring that the Palestinian Authority would “collapse” if the initiative proceeded.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas is planning to take the bid for recognition and admission to the UN assembly November 29. The body’s approval by majority vote in the 193-member body is considered a foregone conclusion.

The strange irony of all this is that for months now the Israeli leaders and their supporters in the U.S. and Europe, and most of the major media in this country, have insisted that a UN vote in favor of the Palestinians would be meaningless, have no effect on the situation in the region, and that a Middle East settlement can only be secured through negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Somehow that view doesn’t mesh with the near hysterical response and threats emanating from the Israeli government in response to the decision by Palestinian President Abbas to seek UN recognition. What is obvious, however, is that the Israelis are aware that the UN action would only increase the growing isolation of Tel Aviv in the international community, and lay bare the opposition to the continuation of Israel occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the unrelenting Israeli colonial settlement expansion.

On November 9, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Lieberman has also threatened to accelerate settlement building in the occupied territories should the Palestinians go to the UN.

Much media attention in the U.S. over the past couple of weeks has centered on the consequences of the re-election of U.S. President Barack Obama on U.S. –Israeli relations and the outlook for moving ahead with the “peace process.” It appears the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu was badly misled by its supporters in the U.S. Sensing some diplomatic advantage, the Israeli Prime Minister injected himself into U.S. politics on behalf of defeated candidate Republican Mitt Romney. Now that Obama has returned to the White House, the Israeli leadership has – at least in public – adopted a more conciliatory attitude toward the Administration. Supporters of the Netanyahu government, both in Israel and here, appeared to have concluded the prime minister’s bold intrusion into U.S. politics was unwise.

However, the official Israeli response to the prospect of a vote at the UN remains unchanged. “Only in direct negotiations can the real positions be clarified,” Netanyahu says. Adding that if the Palestinians are serious about a peaceful settlement they would agree to sit down together “immediately” and negotiate. A bid for UN membership will “only push peace back and will only produce unnecessary instability,” Netanyahu says.

Not all the hawks in the Netanyahu’s Likud party government are being restrained. Last week, Danny Danon, deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset, reacted to Obama’s re-election by telling reporters that “Obama’s victory demonstrates that the state of Israel must take care of its own interests.”

“We cannot rely on anyone but ourselves. Obama has hurt the United States by his naïve leadership in foreign policy, which prefers the Arab world over the Western world, along with Israel.” Dayan continued, “The state of Israel will not capitulate before Obama.”

“Recent second-term presidents, most tantalizingly Bill Clinton, turned their attention to the Middle East," the British newspaper The Independent said editorially November 8. “Mr. Obama, faced with the complexities of the Arab Spring, a civil war in Syria that threatens to destabilize the whole region, and pressure to use force to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb, may have a unique opportunity, post-Afghanistan, to address Israel-Palestine in a wider context.”

On the day of the U.S. election the Netanyahu government’s nine senior ministers were scheduled to discuss the Palestinian Authority's decision to request an upgrade of its status at the United Nations. According to Haaretz, they were to “consider a range of retaliatory actions against the Palestinian leadership,” an official in Jerusalem said.

“This unilateral step has broken the rules and crossed a red line,” Lieberman said before heading to Vienna to attend a gathering meeting of Israeli ambassadors to Europe where, according to the Jerusalem Post, they were to “discuss ways to lobby European governments not to support the plan and to pressure the Palestinian Authority to either delay, or drop, its bid.”

A Palestinian official recently told Reuters that the votes of 12 states of the 27-member European Union states are committed to vote for the admission of Palestine and that some were still undecided. Among the European delegations expected to vote “no” on the admission of Palestine are the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Georgia. Palestinians can expect overwhelmingly support from the delegates of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The ambassadors evidently won’t have to spend much effort on France. Last month Netanyahu met with President Francois Hollande in Paris after which the Israeli leader slammed the Palestinian efforts toward international recognition, saying, "Going to the UN with unilateral declarations is not negotiations. It's the opposite of negotiations." The Socialist Party President called for an "unconditional" resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. According to the Israel media, he added that France was still committed to a two-state solution in the Middle East but warned the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas against trying to force the issue unilaterally.

Following Netanyahu’s visit to France, Hollande called for an "unconditional" resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. "There is the temptation of the Palestinian Authority to seek at the UN General Assembly that which it fails to obtain through negotiation," he said. However, without at least a settlement freeze the likelihood of a resumption of talks is remote.

Following announcement last week that the Israeli government intends to build 1,200 new houses in East Jerusalem and on the West Bank, Catherine Ashton, the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs, expressed Europe's "deep regrets." She wrote, "Settlements are illegal under international law. The EU has repeatedly urged the government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, in line with its obligations under the roadmap." German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called the Israeli decision a "hindrance" to the peace process

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn this week told Spiegel Online that the Palestinian application to the UN “is an absolutely justified request and not a provocation. It is often forgotten that the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine of 1948 provided for two states -- Israel next to an Arab state,” said Asselborn. “After the Palestinians failed in their bid last year to be recognized as a state by the UN Security Council, Abbas announced he would follow the Vatican model and apply for the status of an observer state at the General Assembly. He even offered to formulate the resolution together with the Israelis, but Netanyahu refused.”

The real question is whether the Israelis are committed to a “two-state” solution, or any solution, or whether their strategy is to continue to establish “facts on the ground” through continued settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

On November 12, Mohammad Shtayyeh, a member of the Palestinian team working on the UN bid, said President Obama had voiced his opposition to the UN move, but that the Palestinian leader made it clear the decision was final. "I find it extremely shocking that the US and Israel would oppose this step,” Shtayyeh was quoted by Prensa Latina as saying. "What did we do to deserve this punishment? Did we declare war?"

Another Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat, told official Voice of Palestine radio, "Obama did not utter any threats but there are threats from the [US] Congress, which has a draft bill, according to which it would demand closing the PLO office in Washington and cutting off aid if the Palestinian leadership pursues any move at the UN and its related agencies."

This week the U.S. stepped up efforts to defer the Palestinians from going to the UN, including sending a special envoy to Europe to meet with Abbas. "We've been clear in the past about what some of the consequences that this would generate, or engender,” State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said November 13.

“The stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and the lack of prospects for their resumption anytime soon has persuaded the Palestinian Authority (PA) to chart its own course by applying to the United Nations General Assembly (U.N.G.A.) as a non-voting member state,” wrote Alon Ben-Meir, a senior fellow at New York University, at the Huffington Post October 31. “However uncertain the prospect of such a move may be from the PA’s perspective, there is very little to lose at this juncture and perhaps much to gain in taking such a unilateral step.

“The Palestinians are counting on Israel’s increasing isolation in the international community and the overwhelming political support for their cause, which is also the official policy of the U.S. The forthcoming elections in the U.S. as well as in Israel, regardless of their outcome, will provide the Palestinians with an opportune time to thrust the nearly forgotten Palestinian problem into the Israeli and American political agendas while ensuring that the conflict returns to the forefront of the international community’s attention.”

Ben-Meir pointed to the recent uniting of Netanyahu’s Likud Party with the Yisrael Beytenu group, led by Lieberman, seriously suggests that coalition government “will hold onto even more extremist views than the current one, which will further diminish any hope for achieving a peaceful solution if Netanyahu wants to legalize settlements.”

Lieberman’s threats to harm Palestinians have included withholding from the Palestinian Authority government the tax and tariff revenues Israel collects and canceling working permits of Palestinians who are in Israel. "If the Palestinians go to the UN General Assembly with a new unilateral initiative, they must know they will be subject to severe measures by Israel and the United States," Lieberman said, adding, "If they persist with this project, I will ensure that the Palestinian Authority collapses." So far, there has been no word as to whether the Obama Administration will go along with what would amount to not only collective punishment but action taken against a whole people for an action that involves no violence.

The U.S. State Department is trying to twist the arms of the Europeans to induce them to act against the Palestinians at the UN and Washington’s seeming willingness to let the far right in Israel speak for it in the international arena and make threats on behalf of the Obama Administration is not a pretty sight. Carrying out such threats would be ugly. It is not in the interest of peace in the Middle East. It would be a mockery of the lofty pledges the President made at Cairo University three years ago and it is not the kind of thing the people who gave Obama the Nobel Peace prize had in mind.

Carl Bloice, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, is a columnist for the Black Commentator. He also serves on its editorial board.