Ivor Roberts: Attacking Syria and Iran would open a Pandora's box
The western powers are still blundering around where these 'rogue' states are concerned, writes Ivor Roberts
When Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron put together a UN resolution on Libya which authorised Nato aircraft to bomb Colonel Gaddafi's forces and prevent civilian casualties, you could be forgiven for thinking that a valuable template had been created which allowed intervention on humanitarian grounds without putting foreign troops on the ground.
But as Gaddafi didn't fold immediately, the extent of the Franco-British led forces' activities widened and western rhetoric made it pellucid that the UN resolution was being interpreted as a licence for regime change. Noises off stage from Russia were ignored by the west but the implications were not lost on Messrs Putin and Medvedev.
And now the chickens have come home to roost with the Russian and Chinese vetoes of the latest UN resolution based on an Arab League draft. For regimes which lack democratic legitimacy, national sovereignty is paramount and having felt that they were tricked by the west over Libya, Russia and China are not disposed to be gulled again.
There are other less ideological elements in the mix. Russia is a traditional arms supplier to Syria, a trade worth over $1.5bn (€1.13bn) to Russia who lost trade in arms worth $4bn (€3.03bn) with the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, and the use of the Syrian port of Tartus as a naval base by Russia is not to be sniffed at.
But ultimately for a conservative regime like Putin/Medvedev's Russia what they fear is revolution; they abhor the 1917 moment. Partly this is a reflection of their domestic uncertainties, partly they worry that the Arab Awakening seems to lead to Islamisation, at least if Tunisia and Egypt are early indicators. So civil war with outside interference to make matters worse, namely to force regime change is very much to be avoided.
A diplomatic settlement with the Assad regime and the opposition entering a dialogue and agreeing on some form of power-sharing seems preferable. Yet as every day brings news of future murderous attacks on the civilians of the dissident town of Homs, the prospect of any negotiated settlement with the Assad regime looks increasingly unrealistic and indeed downright immoral.
It is curious that Russia is now placing itself on the wrong side of the moral divide and of history whereas for years it was the US and its closest allies who have been excoriated by the Arab street for supporting oppressive authoritarian regimes.
The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, all largely Sunni, have their own reasons for getting Assad out. The majority Sunnis have been under the cosh in Syria for four decades under the Alawite (an offshoot of Shi'ism) rule of the Assad
dynasty and the Gulf rulers and the Saudi royal family wish to see that reversed.
They also want to see Iran's key strategic and material supporter reverse policies. Without Syrian support and complicity, Iran would be unable to supply its surrogates in Lebanon and Gaza, Hizbollah (who have been helping the Assad regime butcher its own citizens) and Hamas.
Iran's role as a regional superpower would be much diminished as would Shi'ism in the area. While the Saudis would welcome a cutting down to size of Iran, Turkey too would see its growing neo-Ottoman pretensions helped by a reduced Iran.
All of this coincides with the west's strategic agenda. Putting further pressure on the Iranian regime might, the thought goes, make them more amenable to calls for their nuclear weapons pretensions to be shelved and/or create the conditions for an internal uprising.
On the other hand it might cause an explosion rather than the implosion of the mullahs' regime. As Ireland's least favourite Englishman, Oliver Cromwell, rightly said " none goes so far as he who knows not whither he goes". And the west is still largely blundering around where Iran and Syria are concerned, unable to gain any proper purchase.
The one country which seems to know exactly where it's going is Israel. It knows it cannot control or influence events in Syria but any reduction in Iran's presence in Syria will reduce the threat to Israel from Iran's surrogates. And its plans to bomb Iranian nuclear installations are now being openly discussed by the US defence establishment more in terms of when not if.
The US cannot decouple itself from Israel for well-known domestic political reasons particularly in an election year. But Europe would certainly distance itself from such an attack, wisely fearing an incalculable series of events being set in motion.
An Iranian riposte would lead to a regional war; with a civil war in Syria all but engaged already, an Islamist regime likely to take power in Cairo and the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians in the deep freeze, the lid to Pandora's box would be truly prised open. And as Ernie Bevin, the British Foreign Secretary immediately after the Second World War, said, "when you open Pandora's box, you never know what Trojan horses will jump out."
Sir Ivor Roberts is president of Trinity College, Oxford, and a former British ambassador to Ireland, Italy and Yugoslavia
Originally published in
