Russia and China again vetoed a Western-backed U.N. resolution Thursday aimed at pressuring President Bashar al-Assad’s government to end the escalating civil war in Syria, sparking dire warnings of even greater bloodshed and spillover to the wider region.
The key stumbling block was the West’s insistence that a new resolution be drafted under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict, and threaten non-military sanctions against the Syrian regime if it didn’t withdraw troops and heavy weapons from populated areas within 10 days.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the resolution should never have been put to a vote because the sponsors knew it had no chance of adoption.
Global News spoke with foreign policy expert Christian Leuprecht to discuss if a catalyst that could catapult the country’s infighting into international conflict exists.
Leuprecht is an associate professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada and Queen’s University and specializes in military and defence.
Global News: Violence is quickly escalating in Syria and today the international community responded to further bombings that killed senior Syrian government officials in Damascus. Western powers are insisting on UN measures to enforce new regulations but again Russia and China have vetoed resolutions. At this point, who is involved and who will get involved if the fighting escalates?
Christian Leuprecht: Who’s involved depends on who’s actively involved and who is clandestinely supporting the various sides. Officially, no country is involved and everybody is officially respecting Syrian sovereignty. The West is quite happy about the Russian veto because it means the West doesn’t have to face the predicament of if it will have to take action or not. As long as the Russians basically veto these resolutions, the West can say the Russians are the problem.
The rebels are clearly getting help. We can see this from the way they operate and from the way they deploy. The countries that are rumoured to have an interest in supporting the rebels are Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Qatar, in particular, was actively involved in the Libyan conflict.
Global News: Who are Syria’s allies at this point and is it in their best interests to hang on and keep offering support? In our previous discussion, you had said Russia had strategic ties to Syria and boatloads of money invested into fighting the war.
China, which has spoken against the recent bombings that have seeped into Damascus, is also an ally of Syria’s. Iran, which heavily relies on Syria as a route for weapons deliveries, is counting on keeping the regime intact.
Global News: Could this escalate beyond civil war, with the international world adding to the violence?
Christian Leuprecht: This is really dry tinder. It doesn’t take a lot to ignite a fire here and everyone’s concern is a regional conflict beyond Syria because nobody knows how this will transpire. A regional conflict will draw in the United States, Russia and Europe, and possibly China, with everyone backing the countries they’ve invested in. So the problem with any conflict in the Middle East is that it quickly becomes a global issue, not that we would go to war with Russia, but that certainly, for instance, the Americans would deploy troops to support Israel and so would Europe.
It would not take much under the current circumstances. Many countries have withdrawn their ambassadors so there’s no communication. This could very easily spiral out of control.
Global News: Reports coming out of the Middle East indicate Hezbollah’s close ties to Syria after the group’s leader called bombing victims who were Syrian government officials “comrades” in the struggle against Israel. What would happen if Hezbollah got involved in Syria’s fight? Is this entering murky waters?
Christian Leuprecht: Hezbollah is not going to get involved in Syria. Hezbollah has its hands full in Lebanon but it’s clear that it’s not in Hezbollah’s interests to have a weakened or possibly disappearing Assad regime. Hezbollah depends significantly on Iran and on Syria, not just for weapons deliveries but for intelligence.
Global News: As Russia and China continue to veto any possibility of UN resolution intervention, is this fight out of the UN’s hands?
Christian Leuprecht: Everybody talks about UN resolutions but in the end, if we don’t know where Assad is, if we’re not exactly sure who is now in charge of the various factions of the Syrian military, and the Syrian militia, if we don’t have an authority to talk to, we can have all the UN resolutions we want but there’s nobody there to actually stop the violence on the ground.
The UN security council was set up so we can have collective decision making for international security and it’s never too late to come to some sort of agreement for what we’re going to do with a situation. This is a genuine effort to see what the best options are, what Russia and China might have said no to yesterday, in light of changed security situation might actually support today. They might decide it’s in their best interest to drop Assad, or to grant Assad asylum. Given how quickly the situation is changing on the ground and how volatile the situation is, it’s perfectly conceivable that something to which they might have said no to a couple of days ago they might say yes to. There’s certainly room for resolution, there won’t be intervention.
Global News: What can Canada do to help and what is in our country’s best interests?
Christian Leuprecht: Canada has two basic interests in the world: open trade routes and international stability because most of our affluence and wealth comes from selling stuff to other people. This is clearly a question of international security and stability so it’s clearly not in Canada’s interests to have instability in Syria let alone in the region. In the end, Canada would support any solution that reestablishes security and stability in Syria and promises to bring back stability to the region as a whole but there’s nothing Canada can and should do, let alone would do.
There are always things we can do on the humanitarian side, but this situation is too dangerous and volatile to deliver any of that at the present time. Nobody in the West, and least of all the United States, is interested in an intervention in Syria, especially with the presidential campaign looming. Nobody wants to go in with the military. It’s a highly, densely populated country. There’s really not much to enforce so boots on the ground would be inconceivable.
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