Thinking aloud

At a time of great uncertainties, the key responsibility of a political leader is to minimize potential risks and bring tranquility to the minds of the citizens. To contribute to further instability, uncontrollable perils and to the loss of economic opportunities is bad leadership. Even when moral values and principles are on the line, the point is to respond to those challenges within the law and rules that can be accepted by the larger number of people. To go alone on politics is the best way to increase the risk and to find oneself on the wrong side of the solution. 

A very complex environment around President Obama's choice

As we reach the end of today, we notice that the President Obama’s military option is losing momentum in the US House of Representatives and also in the American and European public opinions. It is become a tough call for the President.

In addition, Pope Francis's letter to the G20 leaders cannot be easily dismissed. The Pope reminds all of us that there is no alternative to the crisis but through dialogue and that a military intervention will make things much more difficult.

All this is creating an environment that will be deeply against the strikes once they take place. President Obama – and François  Hollande as well – will have to deal with the consequences in and around Syria, plus with the citizens’ views in their respective countries. This will transform  any military action into a political challenge of great complexity. It will open many unknown avenues.

Lottery and Assad

Now we know the Damascus official explanation. It runs basically along the following lines:

•           Saudi Arabia and Western intelligence agencies have given chemical weapons to their friends the rebels;
•         The point was for the rebels to make use of them the day the UN inspectors were to start their visit and get the blame on the Assad government;
•          The fellows tried to shoot them from the suburbs they controlled but they were so inept - amateurs, the government said - that they could not send them across to the regime soldiers and to the areas under government control;
•           They kept trying, those amateur rebels, and the more they tried the more they failed and people around them, women and children, not only men, just kept dying in droves.

You believe this and you are ready to talk to Father Christmas about your forthcoming lottery win.

Poor minds, strong wills

I watched today’s hearing on Syria and have to say that I was not particularly impressed by the Senators that raised the questions. They obviously lacked a strategic view of the issue and a very limited understanding of the Middle East and the European capabilities –which are very small, when it comes to the ability to strike in a foreign land like Syria.

John Kerry, on the other side of the table, was much more strategic. He was able to contain his contempt for some of the questions. Only in one occasion he was about to go beyond a restrained approach.

General Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also very professional. I wonder what he thought of some the Senators’ interventions. Not much, I guess. These military top guys have a very low opinion about the professional politicians.

In any case, it seems now clear that the Congress will approve President Obama’s resolution on Syria. For a “limited and narrow” campaign, it is said. But nobody knows what that means. And moreover, in this type of affairs everything starts small as the plan is to achieve the expected results within days. Experience has shown that it never happens that way. One knows when it starts, but no one knows how it will move on. 

Rajoy's strange neighborhood policy

Mariano Rajoy of Spain has added a new international tension to his conflict with the UK over Gibraltar. This time is with Portugal. He has instructed his Permanent Mission in New York to send a Note Verbale to the UN Secretariat stating that Spain considers the Selvagens Islands, an archipelago South of Madeira Island and on the way to Canary Islands, as a mere collection of rocks. And for that reason, Spain cannot accept any Portuguese claim over the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around the Selvagens. 

This position is touching a sensitive chord in Portuguese history. There has been, in the past, for many centuries, a strong anti-Spanish patriotic feeling. This feeling has been seriously attenuated during the last two decades, but it is still there. It is never a good idea to kick the sleeping dog. 

G20 and Syria

Syria continues to occupy the front pages. It will also be the key matter on the table at the G20 meeting this week in St. Petersburg on 5 and 6 September. It is not on the agenda but it will dominate the discussions. President Obama's decision to strike Syria will be the ghost in the room. The fact that he is delaying any action until the following week will give some space for diplomatic consultations. But it will certainly not change the positions of the key players, especially Russia.

In the meantime, one would expect that the UN Secretary-General be prepared by then to share the preliminary conclusions of the inspections with the Security Council members. That would add some substance to the G20 exchanges.

Kerry on Syria

US State Secretary John Kerry’s statement on Syria was an excellent piece of work. Brilliant, well thought through and properly grounded. It is also, in many ways, a seminal moment in terms of foreign policy doctrine. It will be often quoted in the future.

But, for now, it deserves, above all, unqualified support. 

No time for a greater crisis in the Middle East

Very quietly but very clearly, the big international business bosses and their friends in the academic and media worlds here in the EU have been sending the message that a major security crisis in the Middle East at this time, when the European economies are starting a timid recovery, would be an extremely bad idea. It is not just the vast and uncontrollable uncertainty that it will create, not just the impact on oil prices, not just the fact that existing crisis around the Suez Canal is threatening enough, to mention only a few of current hot spots. It is all that combined plus the fact that some of the Middle East countries remain major clients and investors in the EU economies. It is no time to destabilize them, as well. International commerce does not want any adventure at this moment. 

Syria's hell

As things stand, we can expect over the weekend some cruise missiles to be launched on Syria from war vessels sailing in the Mediterranean Sea or in the Indian Ocean. In many ways, the rhetoric in Washington, Paris and London has gone too far. The accusations against Assad on the gas deaths of last week leave little room for any other option but action by those who publicly made them. The UN Security Council is being dealt with by the British. In the international division of labour, they got the assignment. Once it becomes clear that the Council is not prepared to authorise the use of force by rejecting the British draft resolution, the unilateral approach will be more palatable to the Western public opinion.

There are many problems related to military action, in any case. Even if approved by the Security Council. Once it starts, it opens a new phase and a box of unintended consequences. This is particularly true in a corner of the world that is like a tinderbox. Therefore, those who decide to go for it should be ready for hell. And they should also have a clear end-game alternative. Unfortunately, experience has shown that we think small and never prepare for the big and complex situation that will follow. 

Assad is a war criminal

The gas attack against civilians in the suburbs of Damascus simply reveals how little respect Assad and his circle have for the international community and in particular for the United Nations.  They all know that the UN is divided and that the just launched international inspection is a mere tooth-less tiger. The many deaths caused by this unacceptable chemical massacre only serve to remind all of us that Assad has long become a war criminal with powerful godfathers.