News & Stories

France's Representative to UN Discusses Challenges of Syria Crisis

Posted Oct 24 2012

Why hasn’t the UN intervened in Syria the same way it did in Libya last year? Gérard Araud, Permanent Representative of France to the United Nations, gave key insights into the working of the Security Council on the ongoing crisis in Syria during a talk at SIPA on October 10 sponsored by the Alliance Program.

Gérard Araud, France’s permanent representative to the UN, said the example of Libya has been used as an argument both for and against intervention in Syria.

The basic dogma of the UN is non-interference into internal affairs, said Araud. “Countries like Russia and China have always been very careful to prevent the UN from drifting into interfering with internal affairs,” said Araud.

Libya, he said, is an argument that has been used by both sides on intervention in Syria. “On one side, we say, we were facing at the beginning of the Syrian crisis exactly the same thing -- the uprising of people against a dictator,” said Araud. “On the other side, people say, 'We are preventing you from doing in Syria the same thing you did in Libya, because in Libya, you went beyond what you were supposed to do.’”

If Russia and China caved in during the Libyan crisis, it was because “it was a very particular occasion,” said Araud. The Arab League asked for an intervention in the Libyan crises, and the African countries in the Security Council voted for it. By contrast, the Arab League was “quite silent” during the first few months of the Syrian crisis, said Araud.

“In Syria in the beginning, it was only the Western countries that were for an intervention,” said Araud. This led to the conflict being seen in the usual terms of the “interventionist West against Russia and China defending the sovereignty of the rest of the world.”

Another difference between the two crises, is that Russia has strategic interests in Syria and prefers Bashar al-Assad to radical Islam in the country. “What Putin is saying is, ‘Look at what is happening in Iraq, Egypt, Libya. What we are seeing is a wave of radical Islam,’” said Araud.

But keeping Assad would mean more radicalization in Syria, stressed Araud. “The more we wait, the more the uprising is radicalized like in any civil war.”

The Russians, said Araud, are not even accepting of the threat of sanctions on Syria. “After three vetoes, it is very clear that they will support Assad till the end.” The end result? “The Security Council is blocked. We have never had such a polarized Security Council since the Cold War.”

Moderating the discussion, Professor Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, spoke about what made Syria different from Libya from a regional perspective.

“The Syrian regime, which is hated by a majority of its people, does and did have a base of internal support which the Qaddafi regime never did. The regime has and had a base in the largest part of the country’s bourgeoise,” said Khalidi.

The other difference between the two countries, said Khalidi, is Syria’s military capabilities, which are way ahead of Libya’s despite the billions of dollars the latter spent on weaponry. Syria, which has one of the largest militaries in the Middle East, has engaged in serious military warfare on several occasions, Khalidi added. This, combined with the fact that it has difficult terrain, means that military intervention in Syria would come at a great cost.

Yet another factor making the Syrian crisis different, said Khalidi, was the involvement of major powers in the Syrian conflict. “There is a danger of a wider war should there be external intervention by any major power, even some of the local powers,” he said.

So, will the Security Council be able to resolve the conflict and prove its relevance to critics? “I fear that for the moment the logic which is triumphing is the logic of war. The UN is doing its best to avoid it, but so far we have failed,” said Araud.

 

— Neha Tara Mehta, posted October 24, 2012