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Putin shows global leadership to trump West’s lust for blood

Author: Christopher Kenneth Section: Politics

Issue: October 2013, Vol. 10

Tags: Putin

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Despite the shortcomings that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have in his domestic policies, his stand on the Syrian crisis and stoic defense of the international norms are excellent indications of a true international statesman and global leadership.

Putin did not give in to the pressure mounted on him by western leaders, who had promised to convince him with their “highly questionable intelligence evidence of debatable quality” at the G20 Forum in St. Petersburg. As one Russian diplomat put it, it is the western leaders less equipped in logical and coherent reasoning that would be convinced by Putin that “they are fully wrong on Syria and that their readiness to act without a UN approval is tantamount to an act of aggression.” That was exactly what he did at the summit.

Then came the Kremlin’s masterstroke diplomatic move – urging Assad to handle over chemical weapons arsenal to avert US attacks, which Kremlin sees as an act of aggression under the UN Charter. This will be a case study on the power of “smart dove diplomacy over a hawkish approach in international affairs.

Many in and outside Russia are justifiably calling on the Norwegian Nobel Committee to give Putin the Peace Prize for stopping the almost imminent U.S. aggression against Syria at the 11th hour. Their reasoning is that the practical outcome of Putin’s decision yielded far more practical gains than the shaky and flimsy premises used to award a similar prize to Obama in 2009.

“Many in and outside Russia are justifiably calling on the Norwegian Nobel Committee to give Putin the Peace Prize for stopping the almost imminent U.S. aggression against Syria at the 11th hour.”

Indeed, today Putin seems the only sane major politician of international caliber across the globe still capable of logical reasoning after the tragic events of 9/11 changed the modus operandi in international diplomacy and business as usual regime in our daily lives. It is therefore surprising that the Pope deemed it fit to appeal to the Russian leader, rather than to western powers, to stop the looming Syrian intervention.

The fact that the pontific called on Putin for action should be a waking call for the western leaders, whose collective behaviors on the international stage are increasingly very similar to those of a school bully or neighborhood hooligans. Both lay claim to always being right, irrespective of evidence to the contrary, and are ever-ready to use brute force to enforce their might on dissenters, where good faith negotiations and logical reasoning would have been more logical. Putin brought such use of crude and brutal diplomacy more eloquently home to the US politicians in his opinion to NY Times.

The West sees global institutions as their national policy instruments

Both past and current western leaders, starting notably from Bush and Blair to their successors, Obama and Cameron, saw and have continued to mistakenly see the global international institutions as “mere extensions of their national policy instruments.” This is why they often forget that the UN’s Security Council veto mechanism is intended to prevent any countries, and notably, the so-called superpowers, from taking unilateral actions on the international stage. Such actions had over the past become the norms in most western capitals.

The veto mechanism requires that legal global actions will only be taken when all the Security Council’s permanent members unanimously agree on such issues. If London sees itself as an appendage to the US, and thus always vote in tandem with Washington, that is its choice. The price it deems worthy to pay for its so-called “special relationships” with the US, whatever that means.

The fact that Washington sees London as a junior partner in these special relationships was again evident recently, when the US thought the British Parliament would simply fall in line with its position on Syria attack. A top US diplomat even noted that Britain will vote accordingly, and when the vote was negative, the White House bluntly said Washington would act alone to “defend the U.S. interests.” It did not say, the “U.S. and UK’s interests, nor the West or global interests.” The Britons probably turned a blind eye to such minor clarifications.

But other permanent Security Council members, notably Russia and China, still have their national pride and core, non-tradable geopolitical interests. These may at times coincide or differ from those of Washington or London, but the veto system requires such differences, whenever they occur, to be respected or otherwise there will be deals. And when there are no deals, read unanimous resolutions, no global actions can be taken, whatever the motivations. Period.

Instead of engaging Moscow and Beijing in good faith negotiations, western leaders often resort to name callings when Russia and China justifiably refuse to rubber stamp their questionable resolutions. They also turn to twisting of the international norms or inventions of new rules, such as “Obama’s so-called red line” on Syria, or the doctrine of international humanitarian interventions, to dabble into other countries’ domestic affairs.

The western leaders, who seemed to have mostly read only comics in their universities of international diplomacy,

have forgotten that there are only two legal premises for launching “civilized wars” under the UN norms in modern days: self defense and UN resolution. Anything outside these premises, no matter the justifications and motivations, constitutes an act of aggression against a sovereign country, with all the attended ramifications. The West thinks it right to break the UN norms to enforce what it sees as a moral obligation or a move to protect its national interests.

According to experts’ tallies, US, since the end of WWII, has either unilaterally or along with its allies, bombed scores of sovereign countries. These include North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Iraq, the last four several times, just to name a few. Also, along with its allies, Washington has been relentlessly threatening to attack Iran and North Korea, with its policy of “all options” on the table when dealing with these it has unilaterally declared the “axis of evil” along with Iraq of Hussein’s era. The policy of bomb dropping, seen and used by the West as a panacea to resolving all issues, is a futilely wrong approach to management of geopolitical differences. As Putin has rightly noted put no

sustainable peace has resulted in any of these countries after the West’s blatant acts of aggressions or, more politically, so-called humanitarian interventions. Maybe it is time to try another route.

Actions not backed by logics

How can the self-proclaimed leaders of the “free world” forget to know and uphold the very foundation that holds the world together today? Such blood lust war ideology and thinking, fully akin to Al-Qaeda’s philosophy, can and will only bring only harm and other collateral damages. Al-Qaeda felt it had an axe to grind with the US and decided, unilaterally, to hit it in the 9/11 attacks.

The West, acting like global police and attacking sovereign states without UN resolutions to that effect, is also doing the same things against the nations they have issues with. That these attacks are often “colored in flowering democracy and human rights concern rhetoric” does not make them legal, if unsanctioned by the UN. As one British MP pointed out during the debate on Syria, what if other nations start using such tactics, unilaterally declaring some countries not meeting their mystic obligations and attacking them, without UN approvals. What moral justification will London have to question such attacks, if this has become a modus operandi among western powers?

For those lacking in history, Putin reminded them the fate of the League of Nations that fell because of the utter disregard by members for its authority. It is disheartening to see politicians such as Obama, Cameron and others reasoning like, or even worse than, my six-year old son.

Take their reasoning on the Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons and the need to punish him for that. Both London and Washington said they had “hard or high-level intelligence evidence” against Assad, but most of the information they disclosed “was mostly based on photo and video footages from western media outlets and Facebook. Both claimed they did not have the “so-called smoking guns”, but they noted that they “were very confident” it was Assad that was responsible. The reasons for attack were effectively based on “guts feeling.” What a new high level of intelligence.

At Bush and Powell were even more entrepreneurial, as when lacking “a smoking gun,” they at least had the brains to ‘cook up’ evidence, an ampoule – blatantly demonstrated by Power at the UN when seeking approval to attack Iraq – to justify their case. Obama, Cameron and Hollande preferred guts feeling ideology. And the fact that the US and UK intelligence services now rely on social media or news outlets’ hearsay for their information helps explain the inaccuracy of such evidence.

Unlike Putin, none of the western leaders saw it necessary to consider the possibility of provocation by the opposition comprising mostly hardened jihadists and terrorist, some of whom had openly displayed affinity for cannibalism in 21st century. The rhetorical question put by Putin, “are these the so-called defenders of democracy and human rights that the West is partnering with in Syria failed to find accord in western partners’ faculties of reasoning.

A reminder that the same policy of “convenient partnership with evil” against a common foe in Libya was later rewarded by the jihadists by brutal murders of US envoy to Libya and several other western citizens, and a flow over to Mali that later warranted NATO interventions also fell on deaf ears.

"Indeed, today Putin seems the only sane major politician of international caliber across the globe still capable of logical reasoning after the tragic events of 9/11 changed the modus operandi in international diplomacy.”

Putin has shown in actions, deeds and even in writing, that irrespective of the all the negative labels slapped on him by western leaders and media, warmongering and dismantling of the international norms are not among them. More global leaders who do not agree with the West’s unilateral and myopic perceptions of the new world order should speak out vehemently against them. This will prevent the Obamas and Camerons claiming a legal birth obligation to act on our collectively behalf with flowing speeches, as they act unilaterally, illegally and without the UN resolutions on issues of collective global importance and interests.

Putin has effectively shown that this is 100% doable without any repercussions. Such steps can also be taken by any G20 members; at least the sizes of their economies will make them fully independent on the West to also have their own independent opinions on key global issues that concern us all.