15
February 2007
A new chapter in Syria's fortunes?
The two bus attacks near Bikfaya on Tuesday morning were the
latest demonstrations of
how far opponents of the
Hariri tribunal are willing to go to prevent its establishment. However, on this the second anniversary of Rafik Hariri's death, it is becoming
apparent that Syrian intransigence may be leading toward
an unintended consequence: passage
of the tribunal under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.
None
of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council is enthusiastic about going to Chapter VII. Creating a court under its authority would
take time, it could substantially alter the nature of Lebanese
participation in the judicial
process, and it would set a precedent that few if any of the permanent five is likely
to be happy with. However, with Syrian
officials bluntly declaring their opposition to the tribunal before various interlocutors, including Turkish Prime Minister Reccep Tayyip Erdogan, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Iranians, the Russians,
and, on Tuesday, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, we are nearing the stage where the international community's credibility will be at
stake.
Damascus is precipitating a crisis it could
have avoided. One year ago, a senior March 14 politician
who had just
returned from Saudi Arabia told
me the regime there was reluctant
to move ahead on the tribunal. Since then, the mood
in the kingdom has changed completely. As Syria built up its ties with
Iran in the past year, as it began
destabilizing the situation
in Lebanon, the tribunal became a valuable stick to use against Bashar Assad. The Syrian
president has squandered
one opportunity after another to dig himself out of the quicksand provoked by Rafik Hariri's assassination. He now finds
himself being sucked deeper into
it.
Assad would do well not
to rely too heavily on the Russians. There is nothing Moscow
would like more than for the tribunal to vanish, as it fears
the consequences of the Syrian backlash.
Russia will cry murder before
it agrees to Chapter VII. However, several informed sources believe that if the Security Council
moves in that direction, if
Syria leaves the international community with no alternative, then the Russians will
not thwart the procedure. As one person put it: "At the
end of the day, if there is
agreement at the top level, I doubt this is where
Russia would seek a confrontation through the use of a veto. It's not in its
national interest."
What will happen in the coming months
is that all sides will continue to give priority to a Lebanese solution. At the same time, deliberations over resorting to Chapter VII will gain momentum if the tribunal remains stalled in Lebanon. The permanent members of the Security Council
are not yet there. However, as the source put it, "there have been informal discussions. The word 'Chapter VII' is now being
used."
There has been some talk of amending
the tribunal's statutes as a way out of the deadlock, particularly
Article 3, paragraph 2, defining
responsibility for Hariri's murder.
The passage states that "a
superior shall be criminally responsible
for any of the crimes [being investigated] committed by subordinates under his or her
effective authority and
control, as a result of his
or her failure to exercise control properly over such subordinates
..." The Syrians have said that this
poses a major problem for them.
Under such terms, Syria's
top leadership could be held accountable.
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Yet even respected crisis-management organizations, such as the Brussels-based
International Crisis Group, have misread
the implications of Syria's uneasiness.
In its latest report on Lebanon, for example, the ICG proposed "a revision of Article 3.2 of the tribunal's statutes to clarify - and narrow
- the presently very broadly defined
circumstances under which a superior can be held
responsible for crimes committed
by a subordinate."
However, those advocating this measure fail
to see that the Assad regime
has already shown that it doesn't
think amending Article 3.2 is enough. By rejecting
all concessions; by refusing to offer
Lebanon any guarantees for its sovereignty or the security of its politicians; by blocking a comprehensive quid pro quo on the
tribunal - when leading
figures in the March 14 coalition would
probably be willing to arrive at one - Syria has all but admitted that altering the
tribunal's statutes is secondary. Syrian
leaders seem to believe that in a system as rigidly hierarchical as theirs, it would be
impossible to limit responsibility
to the lower rungs of decision-making when it comes
to Hariri's assassination. In that
context, everything becomes a zero-sum game: Either the
tribunal is scuttled, or
Syria's regime goes down. This
rigid reading, however, is preventing
Assad from considering median solutions that may still
be feasible, but that would also
involve his making substantial concessions in
Lebanon.
The Syrians can
continue to hold Lebanese political life hostage to their obstinacy. However, this is
damaging Syria's closest
allies. In Lebanon, Hizbullah
and Amal have paid a high price
in the last two months for a Syrian-induced standoff that has taken the country to the brink of sectarian
warfare. Iran, which has adopted the Syrian
position on the tribunal and
won't readily dump its
alliance with Damascus, does not want to see its complex
array of Middle Eastern calculations overcome by the single issue of the tribunal.
Russia is little inclined to expend political capital protecting Syria at the UN, particularly
against a tribunal that it helped create.
Sooner or later Syria must give something up in order to gain something in exchange. Otherwise,
it may find
itself all alone.
Syria's
mistake is to assume that the international community will just abandon the Hariri tribunal.
The Syrians are imposing a fight on the UN - one which the organization has little desire to engage in, but even less of a willingness to lose. Assad lost the
fight he picked over Resolution
1559; his regime's chances
of winning this one are rapidly diminishing.
Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY
STAR
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