Lord Williams of Baglan is Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Chatham House and a former UN envoy in the Middle East.
The Lord writes in an op-piece in The Independent on the agreement just reached between Russia and the US in relation to Syria's chemical weapons. But, now what? Talks are called for, says the Lord, because the present resolution on chemical weapons does nothing to stop the ongoing carnage - human and physically - in Syria.
"An international accord on Syria’s chemical weapons is hugely welcome. But its effect on the war is likely to be negligible, as less than 2 per cent of deaths are attributable to chemical weapons. The strategic balance within that war will remain grossly unequal given the regime’s arsenal of heavy armour, aircraft and missiles. Rightly, there has been international indignation at the use of chemical weapons, but almost no comment on the first known use of ballistic missiles by a government against its own people.
The time for real diplomacy on Syria is now, and the United Nations General Assembly meeting shortly in New York provides an opportune moment. The Foreign Secretary William Hague’s willingness to meet with his Iranian counterpart is a welcome first step. Some painful lessons have to be learnt from the past few weeks. It seems clear that in both the UK and US there is little public appetite for military action. The ghosts of Iraq and Afghanistan will, I suspect, haunt Western governments for a long time. Diplomacy’s hour on Syria’s war will only come if it is tightly coordinated and inclusive.
In Geneva in 1954 and in Paris in 1973, wars in Indochina were brought to a close by China’s acquiescence, and it was Henry Kissinger’s extraordinary diplomacy which made that possible. And it is worth remembering that before the disastrous Iraq war of 2003 there was a war in 1991 following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.
Before Operation Desert Storm, the then US Secretary of State, James Baker, toured the globe to ensure support for an Allied military operation that included a Syrian division dispatched by Bashar al-Assad’s father. Subsequently, UN investigators did an excellent job in exposing and eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. So much so that the US/UK invasion of 2003 did not find any such weapons. Against that background, there is hope for the anticipated UN mission to investigate Syria’s chemical weapons agreed to yesterday in Geneva.
The two Indochina wars, the first Iraq war and the Balkan wars in Bosnia and Kosovo underline the necessity of inclusive diplomacy. Just as China’s inclusion was imperative for a conclusion of the two Vietnam wars, Syria’s participation important for the first Iraq war and Serbia indispensable for settlement of the Balkan wars, so Iran must be in the room for any settlement of the Syrian war."
The Lord writes in an op-piece in The Independent on the agreement just reached between Russia and the US in relation to Syria's chemical weapons. But, now what? Talks are called for, says the Lord, because the present resolution on chemical weapons does nothing to stop the ongoing carnage - human and physically - in Syria.
"An international accord on Syria’s chemical weapons is hugely welcome. But its effect on the war is likely to be negligible, as less than 2 per cent of deaths are attributable to chemical weapons. The strategic balance within that war will remain grossly unequal given the regime’s arsenal of heavy armour, aircraft and missiles. Rightly, there has been international indignation at the use of chemical weapons, but almost no comment on the first known use of ballistic missiles by a government against its own people.
The time for real diplomacy on Syria is now, and the United Nations General Assembly meeting shortly in New York provides an opportune moment. The Foreign Secretary William Hague’s willingness to meet with his Iranian counterpart is a welcome first step. Some painful lessons have to be learnt from the past few weeks. It seems clear that in both the UK and US there is little public appetite for military action. The ghosts of Iraq and Afghanistan will, I suspect, haunt Western governments for a long time. Diplomacy’s hour on Syria’s war will only come if it is tightly coordinated and inclusive.
In Geneva in 1954 and in Paris in 1973, wars in Indochina were brought to a close by China’s acquiescence, and it was Henry Kissinger’s extraordinary diplomacy which made that possible. And it is worth remembering that before the disastrous Iraq war of 2003 there was a war in 1991 following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.
Before Operation Desert Storm, the then US Secretary of State, James Baker, toured the globe to ensure support for an Allied military operation that included a Syrian division dispatched by Bashar al-Assad’s father. Subsequently, UN investigators did an excellent job in exposing and eliminating Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. So much so that the US/UK invasion of 2003 did not find any such weapons. Against that background, there is hope for the anticipated UN mission to investigate Syria’s chemical weapons agreed to yesterday in Geneva.
The two Indochina wars, the first Iraq war and the Balkan wars in Bosnia and Kosovo underline the necessity of inclusive diplomacy. Just as China’s inclusion was imperative for a conclusion of the two Vietnam wars, Syria’s participation important for the first Iraq war and Serbia indispensable for settlement of the Balkan wars, so Iran must be in the room for any settlement of the Syrian war."
Comments