The United Nations is opposing President Barack Obama’s move to send weapons to anti-government forces in Syria. A UN statement today said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “calls again for stopping the supply of arms to all sides and appeals to the parties in Syria and their supporters to focus instead on the search for a political solution that remains the only way out of this tragedy”.
The appeal’s timing is significant because Secretary of State John Kerry is pressing the UN to hold a peace conference on Syria as soon as possible. Despite two preparatory meetings, it is not yet clear who might attend and whether those who do attend will have the authority to reach terms for peace.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Syria has become much worse. Some 100,000 people have been killed so far and nearly four million people are displaced either internally or in refugee camps abroad.
The refugees estimated at 1.8 million are scattered over 1,400 locations. That places heavy costs on the international community to provide for their safety, shelter, nutrition and health. A UN appeal in June asked for $5 billion in funding just for the refugees but more will be needed because of expanding battles in the heavily populated Homs and Aleppo regions. UN experts think the refugee numbers may climb to 3.5 by this year-end.
The Ban statement expressed particular concern today for about 2,500 people trapped in Homs, which Syrian government forces are trying to retake from the rebels. He said he was also worried about threats to seize two Shiite villages in the northern province of Aleppo. (Some extremist elements among Sunni rebels last week destroyed a Syrian Christian village near the Lebanese border, killing almost everyone.)
Ban told journalists earlier he expected the Syrian government and opposition to send delegations that could “fully engage in negotiations with the Joint Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi”. However, there is another issue “of scope of participation, particularly Iran and Saudi Arabia”. There is no agreement yet “on whether and if their voices needed to be heard and in what way”.
Ban did not say so but the disagreements mean that the peace conference may not be worth holding because the chief enemies in the Syrian proxy war– Iran and Saudi Arabia – may not be allowed to attend. So, no one would have the power to turn it off. The US and Russia cannot end the war because they are not the central actors. The UN has no powers other than persuasion and providing a forum for negotiations.
In a usually emotional appeal, Ban said the Syrian people were seeing only “death upon death… Syria’s fires are spreading. They may soon engulf the whole region.” He called on “all those with influence to…act and act now.”
President Bashar al Assad’s regime quickly agreed to attend the peace conference because it thinks it is gaining the upper hand in the ground war with rebels, following earlier setbacks. The US has recognized the National Coalition of Revolution and Opposition Forces (SC) and its military wing, the Supreme Military Council (SMC), as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people but it has not yet provided the large weapons assistance needed to bring military victory to its chosen side.
The UN, which is conducting shuttle diplomacy among all sides, strongly opposes the injection of new weapons into an already fraught situation. Russia, which backs Assad, is determined to ensure that he is not deposed and hanged like Iraq’s Saddam Husain.
The White House’s non-recognition of the Assad regime creates a problem because, in principle, it would come to the peace conference as a rebellious movement against the SMC, now recognized by the US and its Western and Arab allies. This is not going down well with Russia and Assad.
Worse, the SMC is fractious patchwork of willful militant groups and is not recognized by the radical Islamists, including the al Nusra Front, which are the more successful fighters so far. Qatar is reported to have made those fighters still more powerful by supplying shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles in breach of American strictures.
The US bans placing such weapons in the hands of militants to prevent their later use against passenger aircraft or transfer to Afghanistan to down American helicopters. But Shia Iran and its Sunni rivals are pursuing their own agendas. They don’t care much for White House advice.