Wesley Clark: Syria vs. Kosovo

Wesley Clark

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As in the case of Syria today, there was no United Nations resolution explicitly authorizing NATO to bomb Serbia. But NATO nations found other ways, including an earlier U.N. Security Council Resolutionpage 105, to legally justify what had to be done. In Syria, the violation of the 1925 Geneva prohibition against the use of chemical weapons is probably sufficient justification. (The fact that Russia used chemical weapons in Afghanistan in the 1980s should be used to undercut Russian objections to strikes against Syria today.)

Kosovo also reminds us that it isn't imperative to strike back immediately after a "red line" is crossed. In 1998, NATO had established a red line against Serb ethnic cleansing; the Serbs crossed that line with the massacre of at least 40 farmers at Racak in January 1999. But NATO didn't strike immediately. Instead, France took the lead for a negotiated NATO presence. This strengthened NATO's diplomatic leverage and legitimacy, even though the talks failed.

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At a time when the U.S. faces many other security threats, not to mention economic and political challenges at home, it is tempting to view action against Syria's regime as a significant distraction. Certainly, it also carries risks. A year after Saddam was bombed in 1993, he deployed Republican Guard Divisions to Iraq's southern border into the same sort of attack positions they had occupied before the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. A few years later, the Republican Congress passed, with Democratic support, a resolution advocating "regime change." You can't always control the script after you decide to launch a limited, measured attack.

But President Obama has rightly drawn a line at the use of chemical weapons. Some weapons are simply too inhuman to be used. And, as many of us learned during 1990s, in the words of President Clinton, "Where we can make a difference, we must act."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/08/29/syria-wesley-clark-kosovo-nato/2726733/

Wesley Clark: Syria vs. Kosovo

Wesley Clark

<...>

As in the case of Syria today, there was no United Nations resolution explicitly authorizing NATO to bomb Serbia. But NATO nations found other ways, including an earlier U.N. Security Council Resolutionpage 105, to legally justify what had to be done. In Syria, the violation of the 1925 Geneva prohibition against the use of chemical weapons is probably sufficient justification. (The fact that Russia used chemical weapons in Afghanistan in the 1980s should be used to undercut Russian objections to strikes against Syria today.)

Kosovo also reminds us that it isn't imperative to strike back immediately after a "red line" is crossed. In 1998, NATO had established a red line against Serb ethnic cleansing; the Serbs crossed that line with the massacre of at least 40 farmers at Racak in January 1999. But NATO didn't strike immediately. Instead, France took the lead for a negotiated NATO presence. This strengthened NATO's diplomatic leverage and legitimacy, even though the talks failed.

<...>

At a time when the U.S. faces many other security threats, not to mention economic and political challenges at home, it is tempting to view action against Syria's regime as a significant distraction. Certainly, it also carries risks. A year after Saddam was bombed in 1993, he deployed Republican Guard Divisions to Iraq's southern border into the same sort of attack positions they had occupied before the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. A few years later, the Republican Congress passed, with Democratic support, a resolution advocating "regime change." You can't always control the script after you decide to launch a limited, measured attack.

But President Obama has rightly drawn a line at the use of chemical weapons. Some weapons are simply too inhuman to be used. And, as many of us learned during 1990s, in the words of President Clinton, "Where we can make a difference, we must act."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/08/29/syria-wesley-clark-kosovo-nato/2726733/