International control of Syrian chemical weapons is the right move
by David Atkins
The latest proposal to have international forces take hold of Syrian chemical weapons seems to be a convenient exit strategy for all sides: the President of the United States gets to claim a diplomatic win even as Congressional support for military engagement seems lacking; the Syrian people avoid the further misery of cruise missile strikes; Bashar al-Assad avoids a potentially course-altering action in the Syrian civil war by Western powers; and Russia keeps its client state happy. Some will call it too convenient.
But it’s the right move. International norms on chemical weapons do need to be protected and enforced; the only question has been whether missile strikes were the right way to accomplish that. Only the foolhardy were considering a belligerent campaign to turn the tide of the civil war, while missile strikes seemed to be wildly disproportionate to the comparatively minor objective of preventing future chemical attacks.
Where international law can be strengthened and preserved peacefully with the use of international forces and global support, so much the better. It remains to be seen if the proposal can be made to work, but if it can, it’s a good thing. The Obama Administration will, not without merit, claim that this proposal would not have come into being without the threat of military force. Perhaps not, but that doesn’t mean war footing was appropriate in this case regardless. The stick that drives the Assads of the world to observe international norms must be an international one, not an American one. Drawing a red line in the sand on chemical weapons was an error in retrospect, and upping the ante from there has also been an error.
None of which is to say that the Assads of the world will observe human rights codes without the implicit threat of credible enforcement, any more than your local criminal will observe the law without the threat of police. But for now, without a mechanism for global enforcement it should not fall to the United States alone to play that policeman on the world stage. That allows far too much advantage-seeking by self-interested American politicians, but it also allows the rest of the world to pretend to take the moral high ground, do nothing to help in these situations, and speak ill of the United States while secretly hoping the United States will (hamhandedly) solve these problems for them. That’s an unhealthy codependent relationship that should end with a cooperative effort at building effective multilateral peacekeeping institutions.
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