Interview: UN Resolution On Syria May Allow For Actions Against Supporters Of Rebels

Voice of Russia
September 29, 2013

UN resolution on Syria may allow for actions against supporters of rebels – Rick Rozoff

Audio
Interview is longer than transcript indicates

The full text of the United Nations Resolution on Syria has been published and thanks to the efforts of the Russian Federation and China is one of the most balanced of such documents in the last century. However there remains the threat of a western attack on Syria. In an interview with the Voice of Russia World Service, regular contributor Rick Rozoff also stated that there exists language in the resolution that could even allow for measures to be taken against an party that provides or supports the Syrian “opposition” with chemical and or other non-conventional weapons.

Hello this is John Robles I am speaking with Rick Rozoff, the owner of Stop NATO and the Stop NATO international mailing list.

Robles: Can you tell us about the United Nations Resolution on Syria? Are there any holes or loops in it that the United States might use to go ahead with a bombing campaign on that country?

Rozoff: I fear there is, indeed. Actually there are two that I can think of immediately. The resolution itself was adopted unanimously by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – Russia, China, France, Britain, the United States – and the current ten rotating members states for the most part – it makes some effort to be balance, better than what, I’m sure, the U.S., Britain and France would have wanted, and that’s because of Russia in the first place. The Russian and Chinese influence, I think, trying to introduce a balanced and moderate resolution…however, it mandates a number of issues, including the monitoring of chemical and other non-conventional weapons inside Syria.

Presumably by all sides, though when it comes to compliance issues and ultimately the use of Chapter 7, as they’re called, measures against the perpetrators of the violations of chemical weapons regulations, only the state could be held accountable. I hardly see how the ragtag and irregular military forces supported by the West could be held accountable. They couldn’t be sanctioned, for example and I don’t know if they could be bombed.

But what’s most alarming is that the penultimate demand in the resolution, number 21, and I’m reading it verbatim, “decides in the event of non-compliance with this resolution including unauthorized transfer of chemical weapons or any use of chemical weapons by anyone in the Syrian Arab Republic, to impose measures under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter” and what’s important to realize in that, there are several articles under Chapter 7, but the operative one and the one that we are most concerned about right now is Article 42, which reads as follows: “Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in the earlier Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, they may take such actions by air, sea and land forces as it may be necessary to maintain and restore international peace and security and these include,” I’m quoting again, “demonstrations, blockade and other operations by air, sea or land forces of members of the United Nations”, in other words, war.

And what we are talking about, of course, most recently is some equivalent of UN Resolution 1973 in March of 2011 that led to, contrary to what the Resolution asserts, a full six-month war by the Pentagon and NATO against the nation of Libya. So, the resolution passed recently does not stipulate Chapter 7 measures, I mean that’s the Russian contribution to have that left out, but at the end it leaves a little bit of room for the West – the United States, Britain, France and their allies – to come back to the Security Council and demand implementation of Chapter 7 military intervention against the government of Syria.

Robles: Right. But that would still require the approval of all the members of the UN Security Council, wouldn’t it?

Rozoff: Actually, it wouldn’t have to be all members. One permanent member alone could veto it, Russia or China.

In theory it would be unanimous but not necessarily. Russia and China could abstain, vote against and then not veto it, and this is what happened with Libya indeed. So either assent or passive assent is guaranteed by voting for or abstaining. Or even voting against and not vetoing.

We’ll see, but even though I think that we can pause for a little while and hope that in contravention of the UN Security Council and the recently passed Resolution 2118, the U.S. will not once again act outside of and in direct contradiction to the United Nations, as it did 14 years ago against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and as it did ten years ago against Iraq and as it has in any number of other cases since the creation of the United Nations.

So, I think, a couple of things: there is still the real threat of a US and allied military action against Syria regardless of this resolution but I think that we can agree that adept Russian diplomatic initiative has put a spoke in the wheel of the Western war machine.