The St. Petersburg G-20 summit will be recorded as one of the recent history’s most important non-events. Nothing happened at the summit which is par for these gatherings. But the diplomatic context of this summit was material different than most others. President Obama needed action at the summit to halt the quickening erosion of his domestic and international standing precipitated by his awkward Syrian policy and his increasingly incoherent rationale for that policy. President Obama came to the fine old city hoping to gain the endorsement of most summiteers. He fell short of that aim.
The summit took place in the most inauspicious venue possible for the American. Summit host and Russian President Putin has been the most vociferous international opponent of America’s Syria policy calling for military action against the Assad government for purported misuse of chemical weapons. Breaking normal diplomatic etiquette by calling America’s top diplomat Secretary of State Kerry “a liar,” Putin declared the rebels, aided by foreign clandestine agencies, deployed the chemical weapons so that America and other western nations would blame Assad. Putin claimed it insane for Assad, who had gained a decisive strategic advantage in the war, to use chemical weapons. Assad surely knew deployment of said weapons could bring American involvement in a way tipping the balance of war against Assad. It was more probable the despairing rebels, losing ground by the day, concocted this situation to give America a colorable pretext to intervene, literally saving the rebels at the final moment of the eleventh hour, according to Putin. As evidence of his position, Putin pointed to the UN report attributing a prior incidence of chemical weapons use to the rebels.
Despite the usual primacy of economics at such gatherings, this summit’s climax came when participants discussed Syria. President Obama stated his case as did Putin. President Obama sought to isolate Putin in his own house. It did not happen. Summiteers divided also equally between those supporting Obama and those holding closer to Putin. America and the richest western nations craved military action. Russian and the more populous nations rejected a forceful strike against Assad.
The same dichotomy has been paralleled in American politics. The elite Washington-New York axis of political and financial power lusts for martial action as if addicted to war. Most ordinary Americans bitterly oppose war action in Syria as if tired of it.
In his post-summit press conference, Putin barely concealed gloating over the turn of the summit. He talked with the roguish look of a burglar who barely absconded with the purloined booty the moment before the detectives could apprehend him. In front of the world, he had withheld something the most powerful man in the world dearly wanted. In most cases, a thief is morally and legally in the wrong. With allegations about Assad’s government culpability still unproven and with the wisdom of aerial bombardment less than certain, it remains an open question whether the thief is right this time. If this is one of those rare occasions where the thief is right, Putin might have saved the world from a nasty turn expanding the Syrian civil war into a regional conflagration or worse.
In his press conference, President Obama looked tired, somehow appearing diminished yet swollen at the same moment. Clearly, he had been stung by the considerable domestic and international rejection of his Syria policy. He assumed he could convince the world of the rightness of his dubious cause by virtue of his eloquence and by basing his war appeal on humanitarian grounds. He has been taken aback by his failure to garner support despite the intense, high-priced public relations campaign mounted by Western governments and their agents, the largest global corporate media houses such as CNN and BBC.
Even critics of President Obama must feel a certain sympathy for him. Before the world, stood a man stewing in a cauldron of his own design or, at least, one designed by the vested, penumbral interests he so faithfully has served. He struggled to construct persuasive arguments much like a drowning man clutching at straws, hoping the harder he clutched the straw might turn into the rope that could save him.
He argued Assad’s purported recourse to chemical weapons was a dire breach of international law, warranting a martial reply. The assertion contradicts the predominant weight of international law. Chemical weapons use constitutes a breach but the breach is not the only pertinent legal factor. In its rush to action, the American government now behaves as if the weapons abuse is the only factor worthy of consideration. Fixated on punishing the terrible Assad, America caricatures the world as if it is based solely on one legal norm. That single norm, if viewed in isolation, would neatly place Assad on the scaffold constructed by America.
However, the world is a complexity where almost nothing can be assessed in isolation. The prohibition against chemical weapons must be read in consonance with the larger body of international law. Here, America runs afoul of the very corpus of international law it purports to protect. There are tenets of international law more established and more central to the conduct of global affairs than the chemical weapons prohibition. First, the most well established principle in international law is the restriction against interference in the internal affairs of another nation. Second, nations are disallowed from unilaterally using force against another state except in valid self defense. Third, where the law of self-defense is inapplicable, military action must be sanctioned by the United Nations.
America can’t claim self-defense; Syria poses less of the threat to it than America does to Syria. Under established law, America has no right to attack Syrian unless approved by the world body. Reading the prohibition against chemical weapons in harmony with other legal principles leads to one conclusion. To punish Syria’s purported use of chemical weapons, America can only unilaterally impose sanctions short of military action. If it seeks to legally apply a military sanction, America must gain approval from the global organization. However, since the world body rejects America’s position, America has decided to ignore canons of international law that America had previously authored in order to superimpose this presently favored legal precept over the entire body of international law. Because it believes Assad’s government has breached the law, America believes it has the right to distort that law for its own purposes. As such, both regimes are outlaws albeit committing somewhat different crimes.
President Obama opined that other despots will rush to deploy illicit weapons if Assad is not quickly punished. This position is nothing but dangerous conjecture clothed as statecraft. America winked when Saddam Hussein used deadly gas against Iran and against portions of Iraq’s population in the 1980’s. The rest of that unfortunately large club of despots did not rush to deploy such weapons. If the evildoers did not break the door to deploy chemical weapons at a time when America seemed to approve their use why would they now do so when America now seems hell-bent in opposition?
Despite the American political elite’s attempts to shape global opinion by depicting its enemies as evil incarnate, these enemy states have been more circumspect in the large-scale use of military power than has been the American government. Even the most wanton leaders do not frequently embark on large-scale military operations against their populations or against other nations. They would rather maintain power by employing the more mundane, daily tools of repression. Such tactics are less expensive and less of a gamble than massive endeavors that might backfire, squandering their regimes and lives.
Sadly, President Obama has become too slick. The danger in becoming too well-versed in the arts of verbal fabrication is that the accomplished hypocrite becomes the last person to recognize his cover has been blown. During his press conference, President Obama likened the chemical weapons incident to the Rwandan genocide. Twice, he criticized that the world watched idly as Rwanda turned itself crimson. Shame on any American leader for drawing this analogy. Either America’s present crop of leaders is ignorant of recent history or they believe the world has a grave memory deficiency. During the Rwandan carnage, much of the world wanted to act in concert to halt the slide. The UN was poised to do more. It was President Obama’s political mentor, Bill Clinton, who made sure the UN remained passive. Clinton did not want to bear the domestic political costs of UN involvement in Rwanda. In that instance, the world did not prevent America from taking morally and legally responsible action. It was America that prevented a unified world from doing the right thing. Attempting to justify an illegal strike against Syria, America no tries to whitewash its sad history of tolerating inhumane atrocities where America has no economic or political interests in thwarting the nightmare.
Further trying to justify his position yet absolve himself of personal responsibility, Obama had the temerity to claim he never said Assad government use of chemical weapons was a “red line” for him which if crossed would cause him to respond with muscle. Now, Obama’s tune is that the world community, America and the American congress drew this line and everyone’s credibility is at stake if no response is had. Someone should do him the favor for replaying his prior statement to him. He would quickly drop this revisionary tact as few leaders have publicly assumed such personal responsibility for a matter outside the ken if his country’s vital strategic interests.
Sadly, Obama has gone so far as to assert, because of this fictional red line, America’s credibility and thus national security has been placed at risk. This argument diminishes the man’s personal stature and that of his office. Clearly, the localized use of chemical weapons in a suburb of distant Syria is not an imminent national security threat to America. In fact, Obama undermined his own argument in the same press conference by later saying the world would have forgotten about this issue had not his Administration pressed it to the forefront. If the issue was so compelling and important, his government would not have had to work to keep it newsworthy. In other words, Obama admitted that his government has overinflated a serious local issue to become one of artificial global importance. As tragic as the lethal incident was, it is equally troubling for the most powerful man in the world to say the death of 1000 people in a distant civil war constitutes a grave threat to his nation’s security and, in fact, global security. In that case, every war no matter where is a matter of grave national security for America. In that case, America should commit half of its military to single-handedly resolve the civil war in the Congo which has consumed the lives of over 5 million Africans. However, America remains opposed to funding a sufficiently robust international peacekeeping force to resolve that perennial crisis.
Fortunately, most Americans and much of the world remain unconvinced by the hasty presidential expostulations. Opinion polls reveal the overwhelming majority of Americans regardless of race and party oppose unilateral action in Syria. Congress seems in lockstep with public opinion. President Obama has asked Congress to approve his desire to attack Syria. Unless the beneficiary of a political miracle, President Obama will suffer a dramatic, wholly unnecessary setback when the majority of congressional Republicans and a large minority of Democrats vote down his war request.
This is the second week I have dedicated this column to the Syrian crisis. I have done so for two reasons. First, if handled imprudently, what is essentially a local civil war can transmogrify into something larger, more sinister, and much more dangerous. Second, I am concerned about how easily our people are taken by western media and propaganda. Nigeria and Africa will never develop as they ought unless we can think more independently and objectively. If our collective mind is so easily moved in the direction determined by the western press and the vested interests the western media represents, we are sunk.
Last week, I received emotional comments that America was justified to seek retribution because of the civilian deaths caused by the incident. People just wanted to strike out emotionally, indiscriminately. These people uncritically swallowed that Assad’s government committed the crime. That allegation may eventually prove true. For now, it remains unproven. Thus, there should be no haste in action. In fact, the purported intelligence President Obama and his officials deem so convincing has been unable to persuade America’s own Congress.
Moreover, Russian President Putin has released his own report implicating the rebels and anti-Assad foreign intelligence agencies. General Colin Powell’s former Chief of Staff has implicated Israeli. An Associated Press reporter wrote a compelling piece wherein he interviewed people on the ground in the affected Damascus suburb. Rebel fighters and relatives rebels were interviewed. Although this area is in rebel control, the rebels and others admitted that the chemical weapons were in the possession of rebel factions financed by outside intelligence agencies. These agencies supplied the weapons which were inadvertently ignited by negligent mishandling by the rebels during an untimely conventional artillery shelling of the area by Assad’s forces. Why aren’t these reports being seen and considered as credible as the ones America backs? These and like reports never are revealed by the western media because that media’s primary mandate is not to present all or objective news but to project a subjective viewpoint promoting the interests of the vast powers behind the throne.
For the second time in less than ten years, those entrenched powerful interests have enticed the most visible, influential Black American political figure to stand before the world to promote needless war or military action. Wanting so much to belong to the global elite, both Black men chomped the bait and got hooked. First, Colin Powell lied to the world for his masters. His reward was to lose his reputation and later to be dismissed from his post. Failing to learn the lesson, Obama has allowed the puppeteers to dance him before the world, placing false arguments for false war in his mouth. This episode will likely diminish him permanently. If he attacks Syria, the world will conclude that his Nobel Peace Prize was improperly given. He will join the ranks of American warmongers no different than those of Bush Administration infamy. If he fails to carry out the attack, the entrenched interests will turn their vast wealth and media against him. They shall whittle him down before our eyes. It shall be a painful thing to watch. Again, those Black leaders who seek personal gain by giving faithful, blind obeisance to established interests move smoothly along at first. However, the powers will ultimately ask the Black leader to sacrifice himself because they don’t want that leader to become an independent force. Thus far, Black leaders have sacrificed themselves for interests not their own. As it is with individual Black American leaders so it has been with Black African nations. When shall we ever learn?
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