Space, Syria and Stuff

 

Two events last week caught my eye. The first was the journey of Explorer One, an unmanned space craft launched in 1973 that has now travelled so far it is beyond the solar system. Voyager was constructed in a time when built-in obsolescence was fashionable. It was also built for NASA by the lowest bidder. It is a wonder that it still exists, let alone works.

The second event was the astonishing emergence of President Putin at the G20 Summit as the statesman who will receive the lion’s share of credit for brokering a breakthrough in the Syrian chemical weapons impasse. The deal, which is evidently agreed by USA and approved by the Syrian government, requires the latter to itemise its stock of chemical weapons in a short time space, to be followed by Syria joining the Chemical Weapons Treaty, UN inspections verifying the truthfulness and accuracy of the Syrian weapons manifest and destruction of the chemical weapons by mid 2014. That’s a lot of ground to cover within a tight time-frame.

This weekend I scoured the broadsheets for one missing piece of the jigsaw, the report of UN inspectors on the chemical weapons raids in August. I found nothing. However, when the report was published last night, it was damning in its conclusions that chemical weapons were indeed used on suburbs of Damascus.

The report is silent on the perpetrators. America, UK and France very swiftly pointed the finger at the Syrian government. Last Friday, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon pretty well accused the Syrian government of a war crime. He said:

“I believe that the report will be an overwhelming, overwhelming report that chemical weapons (were) used even though I cannot publicly say at this time before I receive this report.”

In that speech, Ban Ki-Moon also said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “has committed many crimes against humanity.” However, the broad implication of the statement was that the Syrian government was the perpetrator. Last night, Moon went so far as to call the attack “beyond the pale.” There seems little doubt in Moon’s mind that the Assad regime committed a war crime. If so, will the international community be satisfied that Syria gets a slap on the wrist? At the moment, it would seem so.

I wonder what took so long for the UN report to be published. I fear that those with vested interests may have tried to politicise it. I hope I am wrong because the reputation of the UN is now at risk, not to mention the millions of Syrian lives which remain at stake in this vicious civil war. Furthermore, what will the UN resolution say about sanctions if Syria fails to comply with the deal. I’ll take a large wager that there will be no threat of military action, unless a second UN resolution is passed.

Politically, it cannot hurt President Obama to leave President Putin in the spotlight. The experience of the UN in the Iraq debates thirteen years ago leads me to believe that this saga is just beginning. When I practised as a commercial lawyer, I found that with some cultures a signed agreement was the end of negotiations but with others, it was the prelude. If Mr. Assad is true to form, he will lead the UN a merry dance. What will Putin do then? How will he cope with the opprobrium if his deal falls apart? Obama will be able to point the finger and say “I told you so.” But that would be cold comfort.

Whatever the outcome, the world is now a more dangerous place. Both America and UK look weak on chemical weapons. In the case of the latter, it is because we are weak. In the case of USA, it has elected a president who is a decent man who respects life. He has the world’s biggest and most dangerous arsenal at his disposal but he is reluctant to use it and rightly so. Sadly, his timing may well prove to be wrong. Perpetrators of crimes against humanity need to be opposed and, if possible, deposed. They should not be offered political solutions which costs them next to nothing.

If America is regarded as politically weak, what is there to stop North Korea dropping a nuclear weapon on its neighbour? There are so many danger spots in the world that the threat of American and Russian military action is needed to keep things in check.

How sad that one of America’s great successes in Voyager should happen in the same week as the country’s political weakness is badly exposed.