by Clifford D. May
Remember R2P? Not to be confused with R2-D2 (a robotic character in the Star Wars movies), "Responsibility to protect" was an international "norm" proposed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan following the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the mass murders in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica a year later. The idea was for the "international community" to assume an obligation to intervene, militarily if necessary, to prevent or halt mass atrocities.
So why has R2P not been
invoked to stop the slaughters being carried out in Syria and Iraq? Why
isn't it mentioned in regard to the Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani
which, as I write this, may soon be overrun by barbarians fighting for
what they call the Islamic State?
Here's the story: In
2009, Annan's successor, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, issued a
report on "implementing" R2P. The foreign policy establishment cheered.
For example, Louise Arbour, a former U.N. high commissioner for human
rights, called R2P "the most important and imaginative doctrine to
emerge on the international scene for decades." Anne-Marie Slaughter, an
academic who served under Hillary Clinton at the State Department, went
further, hailing R2P as "the most important shift in our conception of
sovereignty since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648."
In 2011, U.S. President
Barack Obama cited R2P as his primary justification for using military
force to prevent Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi from attacking the
opposition stronghold of Benghazi.
If that was the apogee
of R2P, the nadir was not far off. The intervention in Libya has led to
chaos and bloodshed with no end in sight. Meanwhile, in Syria four years
ago this spring, Bashar Assad brutally cracked down on peaceful
protestors.
Obama made Assad's
removal American policy but overruled the recommendation of his national
security advisors to assist Syrian nationalist opposition groups. Civil
war erupted. Self-proclaimed jihadis from around the world flocked to
Syria to fight on behalf of the Sunnis. The opposition was soon
dominated by the Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliate, and the Islamic
State (also known as ISIS or ISIL), whose leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,
broke with al-Qaida and, audaciously, declared himself caliph -- supreme
leader.
As for Assad, he is
supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran, deploying both its elite Quds
Force (designated in 2007 by the U.S. government as a terrorist
organization) and Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militia loyal to Iranian
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Russia also backs Assad, even supplying
on-the-ground military intelligence specialists.
With no United
Nations-approved R2P effort to rescue the innocent civilians of the
region from these brutal forces, the death toll in Syria and Iraq has
topped 200,000, and the number of refugees is in the millions.
Failed experiments,
like crises, should not go to waste. Among the lessons to be learned
from the R2P debacle: (1) The notion of an international community that
can prevent or halt mass atrocities is a chimera. If such work is going
to get done, the U.S. has to do it, perhaps supported by a coalition of
the willing and, with few exceptions, not particularly able. (2) It's
ludicrous to propose that the U.N. Security Council -- whose permanent
members include neo-Soviet Russia and anti-democratic China -- should be
vested with the authority to pass judgment on the legitimacy of such
missions. (3) American power should be used primarily in pursuit of
American interests. Sometimes that will include humanitarian
interventions. But that's a decision for Americans to make.
This, too, should be
clear: While the Islamic State is currently attracting the most
attention, it is the Islamic republic -- which has been using proxies to
kill Americans on and off for the past 35 years -- that could soon have
nuclear weapons as well as missiles to deliver them to targets anywhere
in the world. Hezbollah and other terrorist groups offer an alternative
means of delivery. Iran's radical Shia rulers are more sophisticated
than the Sunni jihadis displaying disembodied heads on pikes. But their
goals differ little from those of their rivals.
In response to this
dire and deteriorating situation, Obama should be instructing his
advisors to present him with a range of strategic options. I''d
recommend conceptualizing the global conflict not as disconnected
"overseas contingency operations," and not as akin to World War II, but
more like the Cold War. That is to say, the U.S. should plan for a long,
low-intensity struggle. In particular, we should support those willing
to fight the jihadis who threaten them.
Economic weapons can be
powerful if used correctly, which has not been the case in the past.
For example, though sanctions brought Iran's rulers to the negotiating
table, premature relief from sanctions pressure has encouraged Iranian
intransigence as the talks proceeded.
Also long overdue is a
serious war of ideas -- it's insufficient to leave that to Bill Maher
and Ben Affleck on HBO. Bottom line: We are not really engaged in a
conflict against "violent extremism" or even "terrorism." What we're
confronting are ideologies derived from fundamentalist readings of
Islamic scripture. Proponents of those ideologies stress the supremacy
of one religion -- much as communists stressed the supremacy of one
class, and Nazis of one race. There is no reason to suppose that saying
this clearly, rather than obfuscating, will radicalize Muslims not
already favorably inclined toward killing infidels.
Our aim should be, to
borrow a phrase from Obama, to "degrade and eventually defeat" jihadism.
Nothing is more imperative than preventing Iran's rulers from taking
the next, short steps toward a nuclear weapons capability that they
clearly intend to use to threaten not just their neighbors but also
Americans for decades to come. For an American president, this is where
the R2P needs to begin.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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