Syria: Let's Make Sure Our Negotiations Are Bilateral

Russian President Vladimir Putin must have hired the biggest, most expensive public relations counsel in the world to help him with his unprecedented campaign on Syria.  And, his predictable tactics are working, unfortunately.

His Opinion piece in the New York Times takes your breath away for its chutzpah, but it is bold, even over the top.  God's name is invoked as establishing the equality of all human beings, and the Pope is acknowledged among the world's major political and religious leaders. Will wonders ever cease?

We criticized the Administration's first responses to Russia's overtures for talking over the heads of the Russians to the Syrians.  Why?  Because, now it has opened the door to President Assad making demands on our conduct before a deal is made on chemical weapons.  Suddenly, what should have been a bilateral negotiation between Russia and the U.S. is now a trilateral negotiation.  This can't work.

The door is still open to keep this process on track. President Putin's own words point the way. 

"My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this."  

So, he has understood that we are acknowledging his, and Russia's importance, on the world superpower stage. The disdain he has shown for President Obama has been overcome, and things are improving.  So, let's make sure it stays on track.

President Obama needs to hold President Putin to his words and make Russia responsible for keeping their Syrian client in line.  We need to tell President Putin what we we can accept as an outcome of this process--stability for the Russian client, no armed conflict or regime change, a rapid, internationally verifiable disarming of the chemical arsenal and plans for humanitarian aid--and make Russia responsible for bringing Syria along. Like Mr. Putin told us to work with his foreign minister, we need to tell him to have his foreign minister work with Secretary of State Kerry.

We should ask the U.N. Secretary-General to undertake the program of planning, implementing and monitoring the dismantling of the chemical arsenal through the appropriate mechanisms, including the Security Council.  He will know how best to achieve this goal, and let him work with the Permanent Members.  

We also need to lose our habit of blowing off steam and expressing frustration in the press, or speaking through mouthpieces like Susan Rice.  This initiative started at the highest level, and this is where it has to be seen through to the end.  

Michael Dell Gets His Pyrrhic Victory

Dell has been stumbling towards the finish line for some time, and today Dell's public shareholders get their payday and say sayonara to their company's long and checkered history as a public company.  Carl Icahn made a few quick millions, got lots of press, and generally muddied the waters and probably ensured that management would get its way.  "Activism" is not synonymous with better governance, nor is it a guarantee of superior share performance.

Who should feel good about today's announcement?   HP, its sales teams, and its shareholders for reasons we've discussed at length in a very popular post.

Michael Dell will own 75% of the post-transaction company, according to the Wall Street Journal.  If he is going to be hands on micro-managing the company like a founder, they're toast.  Assuming that he takes a Bill Gates approach and spends time on his philanthropic issues, then success will come down to his selection of a new management team.  Given that there has to be extensive cost-cutting, does Mr. Dell bring in a "Chainsaw Al" figure?  This doesn't seem to work well for technology companies.  While he's deciding, the best performers at Dell are up for grabs from HP, IBM, and start ups.  Any way you look at it, there's lots of risk.

"Dell is stuck," said Matt McIlwain, a managing director with venture-capital firm Madrona Venture Group, which invests in emerging business-tech companies. "They don't have the ear or the wallet of enterprises like H-P or IBM do, nor are they innovative enough to keep pace with emerging tech leaders like Amazon Web Services."

As Meg Whitman, the CEO of HP recently said of a large meeting with top CIOs, "You want us to win," meaning we CIOs need large, global, financially strong, innovative, customer-driven organizations that will help us succeed in our jobs.

There's nothing so far to indicate that the post-transaction Dell can achieve this status with their customers.

Another Perspective on Syria From the Ground

Here is an extended excerpt from a talk given by Bishop Basil of the Antiochean Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America to the New York Diocese of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Kerala, India.

We ask your prayers first and foremost for our president. That God might speak as we say in the liturgy “good things to his heart. That God might speak reasonableness and peace to the heart of our president. That he might speak peace to the heart of our elected officials, that they indeed become our representatives, that they speak the voice of the people. God speaks through his people, not through a congressman alone, or a president alone. He speaks through his people. May God hear our prayer for our armed forces. Men and women who sit on the edges of their seats to know whether they will be going to war or not. And don’t believe this “no boots on the ground.” It’s impossible. We’ve heard the promise many times. May God give strength to the parents. The spouses first and foremost of those soldiers, and their children, and their parents and their families, that he might grant them grace during these next coming days to prepare for the tension that must be laid upon them. And God be with the people of Syria. All of them, whether they’re Muslim, they’re Druze, Christians, Orthodox and not. May he be with our Father in God (Patriarch John of Antioch) who has already lost thousands of his people, and priests and deacons and monks and nuns in the war already. Whose monasteries and churches have been occupied and many destroyed by the so-called Free Syrian Army. Whose own brother was kidnapped and still remains kidnapped, Metropolitan Paul along with Archbishop Yohanna, since April 22 by freedom fighters. Freedom fighters--people who rape women, abduct bishops, desecrate churches, open peoples’ chests and pull their beating heart out and eat it in their presence. That’s the Free Syrian Army and their allies, Al Qaeda.

Two days ago I received a call from our Metropolitan Saba Esper, who you know, he has visited here. He is the archbishop of our own Wichita diocese’s sister diocese in south Syria. He spoke by telephone, right before he called me, with Mother Belagia. Mother Belagia is the abbess of the monastery of Saint Thekla in Maalula. It’s only like a 20-30 minute drive north of Damascus. It had been occupied for 3 days (the town). The town is one of three where they still speak Aramaic--Aramaic which our Saviour spoke. The only 3 towns left in the world. The majority of the people in Maaloula are Christians--Orthodox Christians. There’s a smattering of Catholics there, and there’s also some Muslims there, and they live there in peace. The beginning of this week they were occupied by the Free Syrian Army. It turned out to be Al Qaeda, and they turned out to be Chechens--the same ones who abducted our 2 bishops. The nuns took the children there, orphan girls there of St. Thekla, and they and the nuns, many who are aging, into the caves of the village to hide for 4 days. They didn’t even go out to buy bread. The villagers didn’t leave their homes for 4 days. And if you’ve never been to the Middle East, they don’t shop like we do. They go every morning to buy their bread and food for the day. So they were locked in their homes for 4 days. Those who went out were shot, so they knew to stay in their homes. Saba called me on Wednesday. Mother Belagia, and they were ringing all the bells in the town’s churches--the Syrian Army, you know the one that we’re told is so bad. The Syrian Army finally came and drove Al Qaeda out. And what did they find? They found 2 churches in the village completely destroyed. St. Thekla, which is ours, the Orthodox church in the village, and St. Sergius, which is a Catholic church in the village--completely destroyed. On the inside, the icons, the holy books, everything had been desecrated. Not just ripped off the walls, but covered in urine. Real desecration by that wing of the Free Syrian Army. God knows what the people of Syria, and by extension the people of Jordan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Turkey and the people of Iraq--because if there’s a war there’s a regional war--God knows the burden they may have to carry this week. Lighten their burden as you can. And that’s by your prayers. Have a soft heart towards the people. Wrongs were done on both sides--vicious wrongs on both sides. But as we’ve heard from some honest politicians this past week, there’s really no good armed force over there. No one we can trust. None. So the choice is between the evil that we know and that we’ve had for 30-40 years in that part of the world, or another evil we don’t know about except what they’ve shown us in this awful civil war for the past 2 and a half years.

So this week, really pray. Thank God that we live in a country that is safe. Where we can send our children to school, where you can go out and buy your groceries. But realize that that blessed country where we live can also be a disruptive force in other parts of the world, as it has been. Remember Bosnia. Remember Kosovo. Remember what happened in Belgrade, the capital of an Orthodox country, bombed by our armed forces on Pascha night, while people were going to church for the midnight service. God bless America--but a lot of evils have been done in her name. We pray that God will restrain our leaders from being the cause for any more evil and sorrow and hurt in this world. That we might extend a healing hand, to bring enemies together like we’re supposed to. Where we teach people to turn the other cheek, where we teach people to bless those who curse them, to love our enemies. That’s the gospel we preach, the gospel we die for. It’s the gospel which Orthodox Christians have been and I guess will continue to die for. Remember them in your prayers, and as I said, most especially our leaders, who will make the decisions. That God might pour out his Holy Spirit on them, and speak good things to their hearts."

Kerry Puts His Foot In It: The Russians Open A Door in Syria?

Secretary of State John Kerry added his name to President Obama's list of hapless foreign policy advisers by his off-the-cuff remark about Syria's turning in of their chemical weapons to international supervision as a way of avoiding a U.S. attack on Syria.

But, the Russian ploy could also be a real opportunity,  Why?  Russian President Putin believe that the world has moved to a multi-polar configuration of power, and it is critical to his personal and political belief systems that Russia be seen as primus inter pares to China and any other aspirants to the halls of power.  The problem is that the U.S. doesn't give him any sense that we believe the same thing.  Here is a chance.

Think about President Putin's remarks all along during this crisis.  Syria is a valued Russian client in the Middle East and a big purchaser of Russian arms and services.  The Tartus naval base has been a long standing maintenance and supply port for the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean.  Clearly, the President's message is that ambitions for removal of the client would be thwarted by Russia.  On the issue of chemical weapons, Russia's demand for hard evidence never confirmed or denied the existence of chemical weapons in Syria, and even after the St. Petersburg summit President Putin said there was no evidence of their use by the Syrian government.

So now, Russia is taking the statesman's position of getting its client to agree to turning over the weapons stockpile to international supervision and destruction.  Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said, "we will immediately begin work with Damascus."  This is what a Big Power does, and we should acknowledge it instead of talking over the heads of the Russians to the Syrians.

China needs to be a part of this discussion also, primarily because their government takes a very dim view of what seems like an American preference for regime change whenever foreign politics in a country of interest doesn't evolve to our liking.  Now, there could be three Permanent members of the U.N. Security Council on the same page to eliminating chemical weapons without unilateral military action by the U.S.

Secretary of State Kerry would have to step up to the plate and work with his Russian and Chinese counterparts to work out the broad parameters of how the Russian idea would be implemented through a Security Council resolution.  In the mean time, President Obama's aggressive politicking for action so as not appear weak might be problematical.  Perhaps a phone call from the President to Mr. Putin might be a good thing to break the ice from St. Petersburg.

Let's Not Bomb Syrian Streets

 Abo Shuja/Agence France-Presse and Getty Images.

What would a U.S. missile strike in Syria mean to the civilian population?   Here's a poignant image from the Wall Street Journal, of a man walking to work on a street that looks like the bombed out city of Dresden during World War II.  It is a town in the province of Deir-al-Zour, an oil-rich province bordering Iraq.

Would the life of this gentleman and his family be better in the aftermath of a strike?  Would this make him feel more positively about America and about our values?  Casualties are mounting, and the flow of displaced persons and refugees is increasing all over Syria.  We would add to both of these rivers of people.

The more the Obama administration's various mouthpieces spin a case of military action, the more heart-rending it becomes to see pictures of what Syrian society is suffering now, while awaiting a strike from the West whose justification is to hold an intransigent dictator, who is without conscience, "accountable."

As we've written before, we've never been cared a whit about the proliferation of chemical weapons, like nerve gas, throughout the Middle East---until now.  Here's what the Wall Street Journal notes today,

"Syria’s top leaders amassed one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons with help from the Soviet Union and Iran, as well as Western European suppliers and even a handful of American companies, according to American diplomatic cables and declassified intelligence records."

 Do you think Presidents Hollande of France and Obama of the United States are going to hold those companies accountable for violating non-proliferation treaties?  How about holding ourselves and our allies accountable for being blind, callous and inattentive to the obvious market signals about commercial traffic in chemical weapons?  Let's help the Syrian people by trying to work out a solution which brings them some respite from proxy wars by bringing them help with food, sanitation, and medical personnel.  Bomb fragments which say "Made in the USA" are the last thing they need to see on their streets.

The U.S. Comes Away With Nothing on Syria

Here is the bottom line on Syria.  Try making the bullish case for an international intervention to express outrage for the killing of 1,500 people using sarin gas outside Damascus. If there were a surgical strike, or limited military action against Bashar's regime, what would be the best possible outcome?  There isn't even a good outcome.

Syria can easily become the theater for yet another Sunni-Shia conflict which could eventually change national maps in the region. Were events to go down this path, the already intolerable civilian displacement and migrations would intensify into something which the international community would really find appalling.

Damascus is the crown jewel for Bashar al-Assad and his family history; he will not be driven out or displaced easily.  Striking at the air force on ground with cruise missiles, for example, wouldn't touch any stockpiles of chemical weapons, since those are probably hidden in civilian areas of Damascus itself. Shia militia in Iraq have already spilled over into Syria to reinforce the government troops.

The Syrian rebel forces, whom we might regard as the aggrieved parties, are not democracy-loving, secular humanists seeking to establish a modern state. There is no more compelling evidence of this than the video published in the New York Times of seven captured government soldiers being slaughtered in cold blood by their rebel captors as the rebels talk to the cameras. Western nations should be just as outraged by this behavior as they were by that of President Assad's troops using nerve gas.  Brutality and wanton killing are against our mores, no matter what the weapon used.

Saudi Arabia, which signed the eleven nation document today calling for action in Syria, knows that their monarchy will ultimately be at risk if a wider Shia-Sunni conflict were to expand around them.  There see no cost in throwing a bone to President Obama by signing today's document.  They have no skin in our political game, and they are looking elsewhere to put their money to work for their own preservation.

If there is some face-saving way for the Syrian regime to transition out of power, it would have to be driven by the United States, its European allies, and by Russia and its clients.  This is what they call "an international solution."  If China were to buy in also, then no permanent member of the Security Council would cast a veto against an appropriate resolution.  This is a long road with low odds, but that's called diplomacy. While the talking is going on, increased humanitarian aid  would be welcome by the suffering civilian populations.

The inept briefing by Ambassador Samantha Power today shows that nobody in the Obama administration really believes what they are forced to be saying.  Listen to her Freudian slip about the Security Council.  We have, at the President's whimsy, been forced down a road to taking senseless, military action.  It's time to take this off the table.  Like in Egypt and Libya, we have no idea how the aftershock of a military intervention would hit the fragile fault lines in the region.

A Syrian Intervention: A Mission Without A Mandate

In their latest Congressional testimony about military action against the Syrian regime of President Assad, Secretaries Hagel and Kerry were reported by the Washington Post to have said,

"Our military objectives in Syria would be to hold the Assad regime accountable, degrade its ability to carry out these kinds of attacks and deter it from further use of chemical weapons,” Hagel said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

Kerry said such a strike would have a “downstream” effect of limiting President Bashar al-Assad’s conventional military capacity. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said his goal would be to leave the regime weaker after any assault."

Holding a regime accountable is quasi-legal objective, not a military one.  Hitting and disabling the Syrian air force was the specific objective which appeared in the press over a week ago, and this certainly would have limited Assad's conventional military capacity, given some relief to rebel forces, and perhaps limited delivery options for chemical weapons; given the extended dithering, is the Syrian military really standing still and waiting on their runways for their Air Force to be destroyed?  Is this still a viable option?

Both officials made it clear that they are not asking for Congressional approval to "go to war."  That's nice, but it's also completely unclear what Congress is being asked to approve.

The argument about a pro-active strike showing commitment to the administration's support for "non-proliferation" of chemical weapons is laughable.  Were this the case, what substantive activities have been carried out through commercial, regulatory and diplomatic channels for the past six years?  None.

Chaldean Catholic Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo, who has personally seen thousands of his Syrian citizens injured and killed in the conflict argued against any outside military intervention as potentially leading to "a third world war."

His Holiness Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria said,

“The acts of violence against Christians in Iraq, Syria and other areas may be interconnected. There is a kind of pressure on Christians in the Middle East, and a large proportion of Christians have already migrated from Iraq,” 
He believed that wars in the Arab world aim at fragmenting the region.

Despite the very large diaspora of Coptic Christians from Egypt, H.H. Pope Tawadros too cautioned against military interventions by outside interests which would cause more casualties, division and instability in the Middle East.

The Security Council in New York is holding both formal and informal consultations about proposed actions in Syria, even as President Obama is washing his own hands claiming the world, not he, has drawn a "red line" on Syria, whatever that means.  France and Russia are both calling for U.N. resolutions, which of course would be vetoed by Russia, anyway.

As much as we dislike the long-standing dictatorship of Syrian President Assad, America has not achieved any kind of constructive engagement with Syria, for a variety of reasons.  President Obama, without the clear support of his advisers or of his own party, beats the drums for action while saying "It's not my decision, the world wants action."  Christian leaders in the region who know first hand about the violence and killing are calling for prudence and restraint, as is Pope Francis.  There is nothing positive to be gained, at this point in time given the public dithering, from any military action against Syria, no matter how much parties agree about the inhumanity of the regime in power.