America, Syria and the UN - This is what foreign-policy success looks like

[Pirate Smile]

America, Syria and the UN
This is what foreign-policy success looks like

NOWHERE near enough attention is being paid to the way the diplomacy around the Syrian civil war is playing out. Nowhere near enough. The other day I noted that nothing had made me as pessimistic about development aid as the endgame of our failed intervention in Afghanistan. Today let me paint a stroke in the other direction: nothing has made me as optimistic recently about the prospects for a broadly international, pro-human-rights, anti-authoritarian foreign policy that brings together America, the democratic world, and many of the emerging-market/non-aligned countries as what's happening right now around the Syria question. The complete isolation of Russia and China in the Security Council vote on sanctions last week is a watershed moment. It not only, as my colleague writes, cemented the image of Russia and China backed into a corner together in defence of authoritarianism. It also strengthened the tentative cohesion formed during the Libyan revolution last year between the democratic West, Arab democracy movements, and the Arab League.

“The Western criticism was echoed in the Middle East, where Arab powers like Saudi Arabia and non-Arab Turkey have turned decisively against Assad in recent months.
"Unfortunately, yesterday in the U.N., the Cold War logic continues," said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. "Russia and China did not vote based on the existing realities but more a reflexive attitude against the West."
Arab League head Nabil Elaraby said the body still intends to build support for its plan. The veto "does not negate that there is clear international support for the resolutions of the Arab League," he said in a statement seen by Reuters.
The Security Council's sole Arab member, Morocco, voiced "great regret and disappointment" at the veto. Ambassador Mohammed Loulichki...said the Arabs had no intention of abandoning their plan.
Burhan Ghalioun, head of the opposition umbrella Syrian National Council, called Moscow and Beijing's veto "a new license to kill from these two capitals for Bashar al-Assad and his criminal regime, which just yesterday killed 300 people." The SNC said it held Moscow and Beijing "responsible for the escalating acts of killing and genocide."
Protesters stormed the Russian embassy in Libya's capital Tripoli Sunday, climbing on the roof and tearing down the flag. Men held up a banner saying: "Libyan revolutionaries are ready to fight with their brothers in Syria."

This is simply extraordinary....

-snip-
I could go on, but I'm really just supplying more and more examples to underscore the basic point. For the past three years America has been walking softly, and it's working very, very well. Ten years back, America often found itself isolated, struggling to pull together "coalitions of the willing" packed with small client states. Lately, we have been finding ourselves in the majority, along with the democratic world, while Russia and China front a dwindling coalition of the unwilling. To some extent, this reflects a smart, subtle foreign-policy presence in which we have done a vastly better job of looking at what other countries actually want, and seeing where our interests align, rather than trying to bully other countries into supporting our goals. To some extent, it's luck: the Arab spring happened.

And to some extent, there's a personal factor. Look through the Pew Global Attitudes project data on confidence in the US president. In almost every country, you'll see a dramatic or startling increase in confidence between 2008 and 2011. In Germany and France, George Bush had approval ratings in the low teens in 2008; Barack Obama's approval has never dropped below 80%. In Japan and Britain the shift is nearly as striking. In Egypt, the corresponding figures are 11% and 35%. Even in Russia itself, they are 22% and 41%. When Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice try to win backing for American positions at the UN, the exceptional popularity of the president they represent in other countries is obviously a factor. Commentators who envision Barack Obama running on his foreign-policy successes in this year's campaign generally adduce examples like the assassination of Osama bin Laden and the crippling of al-Qaeda. Perhaps these are the examples that figure most clearly in the American voter's imagination. It would be nice, though, if voters evaluated presidents' foreign policies on the basis of whether they had won the respect of the world and advanced American interests internationally. The evidence of recent American foreign-policy effectiveness isn't that we've shot a lot of bad guys. It's that when our UN ambassador calls the Chinese and Russian vetoes of action on Syria "disgusting", she's speaking for the overwhelming majority of the world, and they are in the isolated minority.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/02/america-syria-and-un?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/thisiswhatforeighpolicysuccesslookslike

[Lionessa]

1. Interesting read, though after watching some RT shows, and hearing the

Russian side of things, I'm not convinced this is the whole story.

[tabatha]

2. Russia's Syria veto at UN to 'protect' Putin, opponent says

Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution against Syria because Prime Minister Vladimir Putin fears he'll be the next strongman to fall, one of the country's opposition leaders said Wednesday.

"He believes that Gadhafi was in the past, Mubarak, now Assad, and next it will be Putin. That’s why to protect Assad means to protect himself," Boris Nemtsov said at a news conference in Ottawa, referring to former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak.

Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister who's leading Russia's democratic opposition to Putin, said Russia is going against the Middle East with its UN Security Council veto.

Last weekend, Russia and China vetoed a resolution to endorse the Arab League's plan to transfer power from Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

Nemtsov said the veto was to help protect Putin from future action by the rest of the world.

"This is not about strategy, no strategy at all. This is how to protect himself."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/02/08/pol-russia-election-boris-nemtsov.html?cmp=rss

Of course, this could just be campaign talk.

[teddy51]

3. I'm not buying your story. Russia and China are sick and tired of being minipulated by the US

and that to me is more why they vetoed the resolution. Again, I hate the fact that people are dying in Syria and the people that began the uprising certainly didn't think this thing through prior to taking on Assad and his mad men.

[Lionessa]

4. I have no story, nor presented anything except an inability to make a decent call now that

I'm hearing two sides. So my point is I have no story, I have no legit opinion at the moment. I just know that our MSM isn't 100% honest, and that their MSM, which I assume RT is part of having watched some now, isn't 100% honest.

But I am glad to be hearing two sides. And surprisingly they pretty much said what you're saying, Russia is tired of USA manipulating other countries into our POV. Otherwise it said that Russian officials were in Damascus trying to get all sides (apparently their are more than two?) to the table and that the Syrian gov't is showing signs of agreeability. IE not much different than what you're saying their problem is.

[teddy51]

5. My post wasn't directed at you, but the person that responed to your post. n/t

[tabatha]

7. Oh, and by the way as far as manipulation is concerned - it is on both sides.

I lived on a continent where the Russian influence was such that it was called the "Red Scare" until they intervened in Afghanistan and lost and their influence became greatly diminished. It was only then, that South Africa could no longer use the fear of "Communists" and could work toward the dismantling of Apartheid.

And China is manipulating currency, and is heavily involved in Africa - they built the new AU building.

Under apartheid, South Africa was a fascist state with a capitalist economy. The National Party was strongly anti-communist and said they were faced with a 'Rooi Gevaar' or a 'Red Threat'. The apartheid state used the label 'communist' to justify its repressive actions against anyone who disagreed with their policies.

During the Cold War, there was a contest for influence in Africa, between the US and Western powers on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries on the other. Most of newly independent ex-colonies in Africa received military and economic support from one of the Superpowers.

The collapse of the USSR in 1989 meant that the National Party could no longer use communism as a justification for their oppression. The ANC could also no longer rely on the Soviet Union for economic and military support. By the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union was in political and economic crisis, and it was increasingly difficult for the Soviet Government to justify spending money in Africa.

http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/impact-collapse-ussr-south-africa-grade-12

[teddy51]

9. I know that this might sound meaningless to you, but I so hear you with respect to

what is going on in Syria and for that mater, any kind of loss of life. When will we get to a point that war mongers look to life instead of death (non war mongers) as an alternative? I don't have an answer to mass killings, and don't expect to anytime soon. I don't believe in the death penalty, and I certainly don't believe in taking another life.

[Lionessa]

10. Oh my, my bad and then some. so sorry.

[tabatha]

6. That is not "my" story.

It is an article in a newspaper.

And I noted that it may be campaign rhetoric, so I was not totally buying it either.

Read, please.

[tabatha]

8. Jeez, were the South Africans wrong for not thinking it through before demonstrating for their freed

All the Syrians did was to demonstrate peacefully, like we do here in the US. Should we think it though here first as well? That would defeat the whole purpose of democracy.

It is only a totally, barbaric, medieval regime that bombards peaceful demonstrators - edit- and deserves not to run a country.

[teddy51]

11. But, the Syrian's have to know what Assad was going to do! We want you to step down,

ok I will step down and allow elections.... duh.. Not likely to happen. The Syrian people must have known what was going to come from this mad man. I guess I am surprised that the military has gone along with Assad and not staged a military coup, but they never did with his father 30 years ago either.

[tabatha]

12. The Syrians were expecting Assad to be better than his father.

There were talks of reform. They saw what happened in Tunisia and Egypt. They were hoping for the same.

Read about Assad Jr - and the reforms he promised.

[teddy51]

13. LOL... Trust for a Middle Eastern Dictator! What would make his people trust him to keep

his word on anything? I don't like or trust the Iranian President, nor did I trust George W Bush or Cheney and certainly didn't like them. Trust is something that is earned, and not given easily. Any of the Dictators that are left standing, can not be trusted or respected.

[tabatha]

14. Asma al-Assad

As her president husband’s closest confidante, it is Asma al-Assad who is most likely to lead him towards reform and help stave off the type of revolution that has erupted in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

So who is the woman U.S. Vogue recently described as ‘A rose in the desert’?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1373064/Syria-protests-Could-Asma-Al-Assad-doctors-daughter-Acton-stop-bloodshed.html#ixzz1lu61Uai7

Yes, but people generally hope for the best, it is often the only things that keeps them going.