What's going on at the UN?

We wake this morning to the news that Russia and China have vetoed a UN resolution, sponsored by the Arab League, for President Assad of Syria to leave office. At the same time Assad’s troops were committing another massacre in Homs.

On the face of it this would seem to render the UN Security Council an irrelevance. Russia is the major supplier of arms to Syria, which allows it to maintain a naval base – its only warm water port. It might be seen as cold calculation on Russia’s part. But again, you might argue that Assad is almost certainly a goner, and the new rulers, whenever they accede to power, will not be kind to those who prolonged the conflict. Russia may lose out by this.

And what of China? Little has been said about its interest here. There isn’t enough in the way of minerals in Syria to interest China, and they have no military presence there.

Perhaps the key lies in what the Russian foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asked Hillary Clinton: ‘what’s the endgame?’ and I think in the light of the West’s recent willingness to undertake military adventures we are entitled to ask it too. What if the Security Council were to endorse a motion for Assad to hand over to his deputy and to stop the violence, and then he refused. What would we do? Eh? You can just hear the self satisfied tones of politicians ‘We are right to do this... clear mandate....helping the Syrian people....’

For myself I find it quite easy to condemn Assad and his henchmen without feeling the West should involve itself militarily. But there is some doubt as to whether the governments of the USA, France and Britain think that way. For some, and British foreign Secretary William Hague looks as if he may be one of them, seeing something wrong and feeling we have the right and the duty to try to put it right, go together.

And this, I think, is what Russia and China are concerned about. They did not veto the action in Libya, only to watch Britain and France openly flout the terms of the mandate. They have recently said that they will oppose any vote which interferes with the sovereignty of a nation. And with good reason: there is nothing the leaders of Iraq or Libya or Syria have done to their people that the Chinese and Russians haven’t done to theirs. Where will it all end? Of course I may be maligning them: they may just be on a moral crusade not to allow military crusades. If this is the case this blog supports them.

Of course the Arab League could go it alone. Tunisia has already said that it no longer recognises the Assad administration. And interfering in Syria would establish the League as the major power broker in the area. But I think that, even with the newly discovered muscular influence of Qatar, it lacks the co-ordination and the guts to do so. It’s a shame for the Syrians, but it looks as if they will have to overthrow Assad on their own.

But if this is the price of the UN Security Council not becoming a global army, it might just be worth it.