Jimmy Carter's 5 Nation Syria Plan Is the Least Bad Option

[bananas]

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2015/11/05/jimmy-carters-5-nation-syria-plan-is-the-least-bad-option

The Least Bad Option in Syria

The U.S. has to swallow some bitter pills, because letting the civil war drag on is even worse.

The war needs to end.

By Karen Alter
Nov. 5, 2015 | 2:30 p.m. EST

The highest priority for America and the world should be to end Syria's civil war now. The best of the bad choices is former President Jimmy Carter's five-nation plan. The Obama administration has listened in part, inviting Iran to join peace talks in Vienna. The next steps will be even more costly, but it is both ethically and strategically imperative that the U.S. negotiate an end to the hostilities.

Carter endorsed the blueprint Iran presented to the United Nations Security Council. Pretty much every civil war ends with some version of Iran's four-step proposal: ceasefire, unity government, constitutional reforms and a supervised election. In crediting Iran with this bland proposal, Carter is implicitly acknowledging that Iran and Russia will get the credit for ending the war, the "unity government" will not involve any real power-sharing, the constitutional reform will be mostly cosmetic and President Bashar Assad's re-election is a foregone conclusion.

Carter envisions Russia and Iran forcing a deal on Assad that is far better than he deserves, while the U.S. forces Saudi Arabia and Turkey to end their support of extremists in the region. The "win" for Russia and Iran, in combination with the American arm-twisting needed to realize Carter's plan, will change the geopolitical future of the region. It may even jeopardize America's longstanding relationship with Saudi Arabia, creating another opportunity for China to expand its arms sales and influence.

<snip>

There are three ethical and interest-based reasons to support Carter's plan. First, the flow of refugees from Syria is a destabilizing humanitarian disaster. Half of Syria's population is seeking refuge around the world. Europe cannot absorb Syrian refugees without fomenting a political backlash that will destabilize European and world politics for years to come. We must deal with the refugee crisis at its source.

Next, the Islamic State group openly endorses slavery, genocide and sectarian conflict around the world and for this reason it must be defeated. Ignoring it as it gains strength by practicing its medieval vision of Islam is just plain stupid.

Lastly, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already taught us the cost of backing weak, inept governments that pursue their own sectarian strategies. Does the U.S. seriously want to prop up yet another set of questionable allies, this time in Syria?

<snip>

Karen J. Alter is professor of political science and law at Northwestern University where she teaches courses on international law and ethics in international affairs.

[shadowmayor]

1. Blessed are the Peacemakers

After all the chaos, destruction, displacement, and death we have caused in the Middle East, it is time for our just desserts - a HUGE helping of humble pie. Time to eat some real crow or as we said in the Army, time to suck it up and drive on. That the USA would not be viewed as the primary recipient of credit for this peace process is only fitting as we are the primary cause of all this trouble. If I remember correctly, Assad was our buddy when we needed some torture, er enhanced interrogation conducted on our behalf. I also think we should send Cheney and Rumsfeld as our emissaries to meet with al Qaeda 3.0 (ISIS), preferably in their underwear. Obviously, these two are strikingly expert in their understanding of Arab and Persian culture. After all, they have both proven to be so extremely competent in their management of our invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. What could be more important than peace (according to Shrub one answer is money)? What in the hell did the people of Iraq ever do to the people of the United States? Give peace a chance, please.

[blackspade]

2. Good article.

Sometimes you have to make do with what you can get.

[geek tragedy]

3. It's really a one-part plan--Assad remains president for life.

It's very possible that Assad remaining president for life is preferable to how things are now, but spare us the bullshit about constitutional reforms and free elections.

Those are not part of the deal. The "unity government" is code for "Assad." And "ceasefire" is code for "Assad wins."

The idea that legitimate elections are going to take place in areas controlled by either Assad's goons, or Al Qaeda, or ISIS, is a perverse joke.

[Jesus Malverde]

5. Assad and the house of saud

Birds of a feather, what's the difference? Should we Arab Spring the Saudis next? Why do we consider one illegitimate and the other an ally?

[mrdmk]

4. The Syria plan was straight out of the playbook of the following

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (commonly known as the "Clean Break" report) is a policy document that was prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Perle for Benjamin Netanyahu, the then Prime Minister of Israel. The report explained a new approach to solving Israel's security problems in the Middle East with an emphasis on "Western values." It has since been criticized for advocating an aggressive new policy including the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and the containment of Syria by engaging in proxy warfare and highlighting its possession of "weapons of mass destruction". The polices set forth in the paper were rejected by Netanyahu.


Criticism

Journalist Jason Vest wrote that the report was "a kind of US-Israeli neoconservative manifesto" and that it proposed "a mini-cold war in the Middle East, advocating the use of proxy armies for regime changes, destabilization and containment. Indeed, it even goes so far as to articulate a way to advance right-wing Zionism by melding it with missile-defense advocacy." He wrote that because of the shared organizational membership of the paper's authors the report provides "perhaps the most insightful window" into the "policy worldview" of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs and Center for Security Policy, two United States-based thinktanks.

An October 2003 editorial in The Nation criticized the Syria Accountability Act and connected it to the Clean Break report and authors:

To properly understand the Syria Accountability Act, one has to go back to a 1996 document, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," drafted by a team of advisers to Benjamin Netanyahu in his run for prime minister of Israel. The authors included current Bush advisers Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. "Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil," they wrote, calling for "striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper." No wonder Perle was delighted by the Israeli strike. "It will help the peace process," he told the Washington Post, adding later that the United States itself might have to attack Syria.

But what Perle means by "helping the peace process" is not resolving the conflict by bringing about a viable, sovereign Palestinian state but rather, as underscored in A Clean Break, "transcending the Arab-Israeli conflict" altogether by forcing the Arabs to accept most, if not all, of Israel's territorial conquests and its nuclear hegemony in the region.

more at the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm


Syria Accountability Act

The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SALSRA) is a bill of the United States Congress passed into law on December 12, 2003.

The bill's stated purpose is to end what the United States sees as Syrian support for terrorism, to end Syria's presence in Lebanon, which has been in effect since the end of the Lebanese Civil War in 1990, to stop Syria's alleged development of WMDs, to cease Syria's illegal importation of Iraqi oil and to end illegal shipments of military items to anti-US forces in Iraq.

The bill was sponsored by Representative Eliot L. Engel (D) from New York and was introduced April 12, 2003.


2013 Ghouta chemical attack

In response to the use of chemical weapons against civilians during the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, president Barack Obama asked Congress to authorize the use of military force against Syria. An early draft of that authorization cites the Syria Accountability Act, saying:

Whereas in the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, Congress found that Syria’s acquisition of weapons of mass destruction threatens the security of the Middle East and the national security interests of the United States.

There are other links for research on this matter at this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Accountability_Act