Last Saturday’s agreement between Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and US secretary of state John Kerry on securing and destroying Syria’s chemical weapons has caused the onset of prospect of peace through the triumph of diplomacy over threats of aggression held out by US President Barack Obama only a week before.
This deal, which has been called “one of the most challenging undertakings in the history of arms control”, restores the salience of Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin on the world stage, but no less significantly the process leading up to the signatures highlighted the dangers posed to world peace by the US threatening to use military force in regional
conflicts.
The threat of the use of force in international affairs, or the use of force without the sanction of the UN Security Council, are against international law. But this is a nicety to which America is purblind. If the US public opinion did not appear to be against the use of missile strikes against Syria, as polls showed, it is far from clear if the Obama administration would have embraced the Russian offer of a diplomatic solution.
But such has been the force of domestic opinion, and the spectacle of America’s western allies (bar France) backing down from the idea of the bombardment of Syria — after the post-US intervention fiasco witnessed in Iraq and Libya — that Washington and its allies have been persuaded by Moscow to have the agreement on Syria’s chemical weapons underwritten by a Security Council resolution. America has indirectly come to accept that its agreement with Russia will not have the force of law without the anchoring of the institution of the United Nations.
This is a major gain for the world although the US leadership continues to maintain that if Syria did not fully comply with the Geneva agreement, America would stand ready to use the military option, implying that it has only suspended thoughts of war, not abandoned them. We hope Syria will comply. We also hope that Russia, its strongest international backer with a strong interest in peace in West Asia, will make it comply. But we also hope that those in the West itching to demonstrate military prowess will not resort to casuistry to vilify an arms control process if it broadly seems to be on track.
It would be disastrous if minor or inadvertent infractions were permitted to become a casus belli.
The world has considerable stake in peace breaking out in West Asia, not war. Last week, market indicators in India (and elsewhere) showed a healthy spurt as the US threat of war receded. The momentum for peace must not be lost.