Syria’s devastating conflict entered its third year on Friday with no agreement among EU leaders on British and French calls for an easing of the bloc’s embargo to allow arms supplies to the rebels.

With several member states expressing strong opposition, EU leaders at a summit in Brussels put off further discussions on the future of the arms embargo until a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Dublin next week.

EU President Herman Van Rompuy said that leaders had discussed easing it and “agreed to task our foreign ministers to assess the situation as a matter of priority” in Ireland.

Both London and Paris had warned they were ready to break ranks with their European partners to supply weapons to the rebels as their frustration mounts that diplomacy has failed to end the conflict.

But there appeared little appetite among other Europeans for lifting the ban, many fearing that a flood of weapons into Syria will only escalate the bloodshed.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said Vienna was not prepared to lift the ban. “We think the delivery of arms does not contribute to a possible solution,” he told reporters.

A Spanish diplomatic source said there was widespread hesitation about arming the rebels.

03/15/2013

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the Pentagon had backed proposals to arm the Syrian opposition battling to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

The idea — ultimately rejected — was first floated by then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who met privately with David Petraeus, CIA chief at the time, in the summer of 2012 as fighting raged in Syria.

They proposed vetting rebel groups and training fighters in a plan which they presented to the White House, according to the New York Times, quoting administration officials.

But the administration of President Barack Obama was worried about the risks of pouring more arms into the volatile conflict and rejected the idea, sticking instead to providing humanitarian assistance and non-lethal aid.

Panetta and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, admitted under questioning in the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday that they had both supported the idea.

“I would ask again, both of you, what I asked you last March when 7,500 citizens of Syria had been killed. It’s now up to 60,000. How many more have to die before you recommend military action?” Senator John McCain asked them.

“And did you support the recommendation by then secretary of state Clinton and then head of CIA General Petraeus that we provide weapons to the resistance in Syria? Did you support that?”

“We did,” replied Panetta. “We did,” added Dempsey.

McCain, who has long advocated arming the rebels, said in a statement later he “was very pleased to hear” both men say they supported the proposal.

“What this means is that the president overruled the senior leaders of his own national security team, who were in unanimous agreement that America needs to take greater action to change the military balance of power in Syria,” he said.

McCain called on Obama to heed the advice of his former and current national security leaders and “immediately take the necessary steps, along with our friends and allies, that could hasten the end of the conflict in Syria.”

“The time to act is long overdue, but it is not too late.”

02/08/2013 

Canadian Ambassador to UNESCO Jean-Pierre Blackburn had walked out of an executive board meeting while Syria’s representative was speaking, a spokesman said.
Photograph by: Reuters , Reuters

OTTAWA — Canada criticized UNESCO Thursday after members of the UN cultural agency’s executive board refused to kick Syria off a committee charged with investigating human-rights abuses.

Canada was one of 14 countries that had asked for Syria’s membership on UNESCO’s committee on conventions and recommendations to be revoked by sending a letter to the head of the executive board in December.

Syria was initially named to the committee in November. The appointment was made with unanimous consent from members of the executive board, including the United States and France, despite President Bashar Assad’s ongoing crackdown on demonstrators.

“Today, UNESCO had an opportunity to correct that wrong,” said a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, Joseph Lavoie. “Instead, it failed to call out Assad and his backers for what they are: a regime that slaughters innocent Syrians.”

Members of UNESCO’s executive board voted 35-8 to condemn the crackdown on civilians in Syria, but the motion did not include any reference to the country being removed from the committee on conventions and recommendations.

Canada was unable to vote as it only has observer status on the executive board. However, last week, Canadian Ambassador to UNESCO Jean-Pierre Blackburn had walked out of an executive board meeting while Syria’s representative was speaking, Lavoie said.

“While Canada was not involved in the original decision to name Syria to the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations at UNESCO, we nonetheless found it deeply disturbing given the Assad regime’s continual and repeated violation of human rights,” he added.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based advocacy group UN Watch, believed the international community squandered an important opportunity to send the Assad regime a message because many UNESCO members were worried that censuring Syria would set a precedent.

“Politics simply trumped human rights, with too many UNESCO diplomats fearing that if Syria were removed for its violations, many of them would be next,” he said in an email.

Meanwhile, a dispute between Saudi Arabia and Russia spilled into Ottawa on Thursday.

Russian diplomats in Moscow and Damascus have accused Saudi Arabia of supporting terrorism by providing arms and training to rebels in Syria.

In response, the Saudi Embassy in Ottawa sent out a news release condemning the statements and countering that Russian support for Assad’s regime might expose Russia to “moral, legal and criminal responsibility.”

“History alone will respond to such accusations of arming terrorists,” the release adds, “and will undoubtedly testify to who are the terrorists and who are behind them.”

lberthiaume(at)postmedia.com

Twitter.com/leeberthiaume

Posted By Josh Rogin - Friday, March 2, 2012 - 1:55 PM

If the international community gave the Syrian rebels arms, communications equipment, and intelligence, that would help speed President Bashar al-Assad’sremoval from power, the top U.S. military official in Europe said Thursday.

Navy Admiral James Stavridis, Commander of U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, told the Senate Armed Services that NATO is not doing any “detailed planning” for ways to aid the Syrian opposition or protect Syrian civilians. But under intense questioning from the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Stavridis admitted he believed that giving material aid to the rebels would help them get better organized and push forward the process of getting the Assad to step down.

“Yesterday the secretary-general of NATO, Mr. Rasmussen, told The Cable, quote, ‘We haven’t had any discussions about a NATO role in Syria and I don’t envision such a role for the alliance,’” McCain said, referring directly to our Feb. 29 exclusive interview with Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

“Is it true that NATO is doing no contingency planning of any kind with respect to Syria, including for the provision of humanitarian and medical assistance?” McCain asked Stavridis.

“We’re not doing any detailed contingency planning at this point, senator, and there’s a reason for that. Within the NATO command structure, there has to be an authorization from the North Atlantic Council before we can conduct detailed planning,” Stavridis said. The North Atlantic Council is the body charged with making NATO policy decisions.

After getting Stavridis to confirm he believes the Syrian crisis is now an armed conflict between government and opposition forces, McCain then asked Stavridis if the provision of arms, communication equipment, and tactical intelligence would help the Syrian opposition to better organize itself and push Assad from power.

“I would think it would. Yes, sir,” Stavridis replied.

McCain contrasted NATO’s reluctance to intervene in Syria with previous NATO missions to halt massacres in Bosnia and Kosovo. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) seconded that comparison at the hearing.

“This does remind me of experiences we had in Bosnia and Kosovo in the ’90s,” Lieberman said. “It actually took quite a while for us to build the political will, both here and in Europe, to get involved there. And while we were doing that, a lot of people got killed, and the same is happening in Syria now. I hope it doesn’t take us so long.”

Just down the hall from the SASC hearing, two top State Department officials were giving an entirely different take on the efficacy of arming the rebels. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman and Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the administration just doesn’t think that arming the Syria rebels is a good idea.

“We’ve been very hesitant about pouring fuel onto a conflagration that Assad himself has set,” Feltman testified Thursday. “So we’re very cautious about this whole area of questioning and that’s why we have worked with this international consensus on political tracks, on economic tracks, on diplomatic tracks, in order to get to the tipping point we were talking about earlier.”

As Ben Smith in Politico reported Thursday, the Syria issue has divided Congress on traditional party and ideological lines — lines that were muddled during the debate over intervention in Libya because of internal Republican disagreement. Most GOP senators and leading congressmen, along with all the GOP presidential candidates, are urging the Obama administration to begin directly aiding the Syrian rebels now.

Leading congressional Democrats, to the extent they have commented on the issue, have been more reluctant to get more involved in the Syria crisis. House Armed Services Committee ranking Democrat Adam Smith (D-WA) told reporters Thursday, “If there is something we can do that will make an immediate difference that is not overly risky in terms of our own lives and cost, we should try. Right now I don’t see that we have that type of support for something inside of Syria.”

“It is critical that we all proceed with extreme caution and with our eyes wide open,” SFRC Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) said at the Thursday hearing. “There are serious questions to be answered about the Free Syrian Army, but it is not too soon to think about how the international community could shape its thinking or encourage restraint.”

The debate in Congress over aiding the Syrian rebels will ramp up next week, with a March 6 SASC hearing with Central Command chief Gen. James Mattis and a March 7 SASC hearing with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.

A milestone has been reached in the conflict and, just as with the Libyan uprising last year, Doha is backing regime change. #Syria #FSA

On Monday, Qatar’s prime minister declared his state’s intent to start helping the Syrian opposition “by all means”, including giving them weapons. Two days later, anti-Assad officials received an offer of a $100m (£63m) donation, from their brothers in arms in Libya. Coincidence? Unlikely, if the Libyan revolution is any indicator.

The third act, in what looks very much like the beginning of a concerted push to arm the Syrian insurgency, took place today when the previously gun-shy Syrian National Council formed a military council, which it says will act as a clearing house for anyone offering it arms.

Two probabilities have quickly emerged: the first is that a militarised Syrian National Council is unlikely to be short of suppliers. And, second, Libya is merely a conduit for the $100m, which was at least partly funded by Qatar to get things rolling.

Libya’s national transitional council has been quick to stress that the money it is sending is for humanitarian aid, which is clearly desperately needed in western Syria, withering under a regime offensive. No one in the nascent Tripoli government is quibbling about where the cash comes from. When asked yesterday how a state still in turmoil could afford such a generous gift, an spokesman for the Libyan council replied simply: “It won’t be a problem”.

Qatar’s remarks this week, as well as Saudi Arabia’s claim last Friday that arming the Syrian rebels would be an “excellent idea”, clearly shows a new reality. The Rubicon has been crossed. Hopes of resolving Syria’s raging insurgency through patience, or dialogue, have evaporated.

From the early days of the uprising against Colonel Gaddafi, Qatar was running more weapons to Libya’s rebels than any other state. Throughout the war, giant Qatari military transporters regularly disgorged tonnes of weaponry in plain view at Djerba airport in Tunisia, not far from the Libyan border.

The Qataris sent jet fighters to bomb Gaddafi’s armour and special forces to train rebels. They opened a military operations room in Doha and hosted the regime’s highest-profile defectors, as well as rebel leaders to whom they provided with money and mentoring.

As Syria has unravelled throughout the past year, Qatar has played another lead role. It was centre stage in the Arab League’s move to suspend Damascus as a member state and it has been increasingly strident in its criticism of President Bashar al-Assad, whom Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, had earlier tried to engage. As was the case in Libya, its agenda remains unclear.

The change in attitude had been subtle at first: a gradual disengagement, followed by increasingly stern back-channel diplomacy. All carried out in the way of the Arab world: avoiding insult or direct confrontation.

Not any more. “We should do whatever necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves,” said Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani, on Monday. “This uprising in Syria now [has lasted] one year. For 10 months, it was peaceful: nobody was carrying weapons, nobody was doing anything. And Bashar continued killing them.

“So I think they’re right to defend themselves by weapons, and I think we should help these people by all means.”

After urging political recourse and discouraging intervention for so long, the Syrian National Council is now also speaking from a markedly different script

“We wanted to organise those who are carrying arms today,” its president, Burhan Ghalioun, said, stressing that any weapons coming into the country should be vetted by the council.

“The revolution started peacefully and kept up its peaceful nature for months, but the reality today is different. We know that some countries have expressed a desire to arm the revolutionaries. The SNC will be this link between those who want to help and the revolutionaries. It is out of the question that arms go into Syria in confusion.”

It is also beyond doubt that a long predicted milestone in the Syrian conflict has now been reached. From this point, nation states, rather than black-market arms bazaars, loom as potential suppliers to the outgunned opposition. Such a prospect is alarming the US and Nato, which said this week it absolutely ruled out direct intervention in a war that nobody seems to want and most seem to fear.

Martin Chulov – The Guardian - Thursday 1 March 2012 18.18 GMT