The United Nations has never looked more impotent, irrelevant and politically motivated in its actions than it has regarding the ongoing conflict in Syria.
It has categorically failed to take an impartial stance on the conflict which has raged for over 5 years now. This includes a failure to properly identify the conflict as a foreign-funded and backed proxy war rather than a “civil war,” as well as identify and hold accountable those nations fueling anti-government hostilities within and beyond Syria’s borders.
By failing to do so, the UN has undermined its own credibility, credibility required to ensure the Syrian government and its allies adhere to international law and observe human rights as they execute security operations aimed at restoring order and stability across the country.
Quest for “Veto Limits” is Politically Motivated
The most recent and perhaps severe collapse of the UN’s credibility revolves around US-backed calls to “limit veto power” upon the UN Security Council, effectively allowing the council to green-light without opposition any war the US wills predicated on its well-practiced “humanitarian war” rhetoric.
The US State Department’s Voice of America would publish an article titled, “UN Official Calls for Security Council Veto Limit to Halt Syrian Bloodbath,” which claimed:
The United Nations’ top human rights official has called for limits on the use of the veto power by the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members to halt the tragedy unfolding in east Aleppo in northern Syria.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein has called the situation nothing short of calamitous and likened the horrors being inflicted on the citizens of Aleppo to those that occurred in cities such as Warsaw, Stalingrad and Dresden in World War II.
It is no coincidence that Zeid hails from Jordan, one of several nations directly involved in harboring, training, arming and refitting militant groups along Syria’s borders, belying claims that the conflict is a “civil war” rather than a foreign sponsored proxy war.
VOA also claimed:
Russia, often backed by China, has used its veto power in the Security Council to block resolutions it deemed unfavorable to its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The high commissioner’s spokesman, Rupert Colville, said Zeid was calling for bold leadership to end this practice.
And indeed, Russia’s veto is all that prevented a recent French-sponsored resolution aimed at establishing a no-fly-zone and thus impunity for terrorists trapped in the city of Aleppo and surrounding it, prolonging the conflict and suffering of those trapped amid it, not ending it.
It was a US-European sponsored no-fly-zone implemented through the UN Security Council (that Russia failed to veto) that transformed Libya from a functioning nation-state into a divided and destroyed failed state.
The ability for Syria and its allies to continue security operations aimed at reclaiming eastern Aleppo from militant groups admittedly affiliated with terrorist organizations is essential in reestablishing peace and stability and normality for the civilian population of Aleppo, the majority of which already live in relative peace and stability in government-held western Aleppo.
Qatari state media, Al Jazeera, in an article titled, “Syria’s war: UN Security Council votes on Aleppo,” would claim:
Western governments and Russia have clashed at the UN Security Council even while the Syrian government presses ahead with its military offensive against rebel-held areas of Aleppo.
The UN Security Council voted on Saturday on two rival resolutions on the fighting – one drafted by France calling for an end to air strikes and a second by Russia that urged a ceasefire but made no mention of halting the bombings.
In reality, US and European efforts to end the bombings is based on a necessity to preserve the fighting capacity of militant groups operating in Syrian territory, thus perpetuating the conflict, not ending it — at least not until US and European terms are met regarding regime change and the division and destruction of Syria as a functioning nation-state.
As in Libya, So to in Syria
Observers should note that similar claims by the US and its allies were made regarding the conflict in Libya in which its UNSC proposals were meant to prevent a “humanitarian crisis” resulting instead in a devastating US-led war that ultimately created by far a vastly larger humanitarian catastrophe than it was allegedly aimed at preventing.
A US-led air campaign destroyed essential infrastructure across Libya, eliminated Libya’s security forces and helped propel extremist militant groups the US and its European and Arab allies armed and supported, into power across the remnants of the North African nation-state.
The collapse of Libya as a nation-state has led to racially motivated attacks and ethnic cleansing by US-European-Arab backed militants, transforming Libya into one of now several epicenters fueling Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis.
It is clear that the US knew its actions would lead to Libya’s collapse, the creation of chaos within Libya and the creation of a refugee crisis that would compromise regional security far beyond Libya’s borders. There is absolutely no reason to believe the US and its political allies vying to push forward yet another resolution within the UN Security Council, are unaware that Syria will suffer a similar, if not worse fate than Libya, should they succeed.
The UN, willfully serving as a medium through which the US openly pursues its self-serving politically objectives behind the letter of international law, cripples its own credibility, preventing it from fulfilling its role as the impartial mediator required to resolve global conflicts, including the Syrian conflict.
It is clear that no solution will be found within the halls of the UN, and instead, it will continue to serve as a stage upon which nations perform public relations stunts rather than carry out genuine diplomacy.
Syria’s fate will ultimately be decided on the battlefield either through continued combat operations, or direct negotiations with those bearing weapons, face-to-face, far from the halls of the impotent and ultimately compromised United Nations.
Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
