In 2011 the Security Council was dominated by military intervention in Libya and non-intervention in Syria, writes Graham Usher at the UN At the start of 2011 the UN Security Council expected trouble on three fronts. The latent stand-off between Western and non-Western countries over Iran's nuclear programme; the risk of a war with Khartoum over the secession of South Sudan as an independent state; and a looming confrontation with the United States over the Palestinians' decision to return their case to the world body after 20 years of futile negotiations with Israel. All three issues buffeted the council in 2011. But they were squalls. The storm was the council's embroilment with the protests, uprisings, rebellions and insurgencies that became known as the Arab Spring -- and in two countries especially. With Libya, the council was energised into approving its first NATO-led military action since Afghanistan; with Syria, it was paralysed by its deepest schism since Iraq. The cause of both was over the need for intervention, "humanitarian" or otherwise. Very simply -- and after initial hesitation -- Western and NATO countries on the council (especially Britain, France and the United States) saw military intervention tasked with a "responsibility to protect civilians" as a useful way to reform, discipline or oust recalcitrant Arab regimes. The so-called BRICS -- Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa, all currently on the council -- saw non-intervention or the inviolability of state sovereignty as a way to shore up Arab regimes that, though authoritarian, were secular, non-aligned and a bulwark against Islamic radicalism. Libya was a test of the first case; Syria, of the second. Libya emerged early in the spring. It compelled the council's attention in ways earlier Arab uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt had not. First, there was the carnage. By February Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship had killed up to 2,000 people in a desperate reprisal to prevent Libya going the way of its North African neighbours. There was restiveness in the region. The Arab League suspended Libya for its brutality and then called for a UN authorised no-fly zone (NFZ) to protect its people. And there was a clear rupture in the regime. The rebel Transitional National Council (TNC) declared itself the de facto government in Benghazi, in effect declaring sovereignty over East Libya. Libyan UN envoy Abdel-Rahman Shalgham compared his leader of 40 years to "Hitler and Pol Pot", calling on the council to refer Gaddafi to the International Criminal Court for war crimes. Faced with this regional groundswell -- and despite nervousness about an outside induced regime change -- the BRICS basically sacrificed a regime with which they had minimal ties. So did the West. Despite recent rapprochements with Gaddafi, France and Britain ditched him as a potential pariah who could become lethal in the charged atmosphere of the Arab Spring. They also believed that by nurturing and militarily shielding the TNC as the next Libyan government they could install a friendly regime in Tripoli. This, they hoped, would be predisposed to a permanent NATO presence and permit greater Western control over some of the richest oilfields in North Africa. With Gaddafi fighters massing near Benghazi, the council in February approved a NFZ over Libya with little dissent. South Africa voted in favour for fear Benghazi might become "another African genocide". And Russia, China, India and Brazil abstained because none wanted to be blamed for atrocities "if things went badly", said an UN observer. But the unity was a one-off. Within weeks the BRICS were charging that NATO had exceeded a council mandate that permitted military action only in the defence of civilians. Instead, NATO had become the "armed wing" of a Security Council weighing in on one side of an Arab civil war, fumed Hardeep Singh Puri, the UN Indian ambassador. Russia's UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, was even more scathing. "A NFZ used to mean nobody is flying," he said. But "in the brave new world, NFZ means freewheeling bombing of targets which [NATO] chooses to bomb". Moscow's fear was that NATO's intervention would be a dry run for Syria: a dictatorship, like Libya's, in the throes of an increasingly militarised civil war but, unlike Libya, with which Russia had geostrategic, military and trade ties. But it wasn't only Russia and China that opposed the West's reacquired taste for regime change. The emerging nations of India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) were also worried. For them Libya strengthened the hunch that intervention in the name of responsibility to protect civilians was a Western ruse to gain a foothold in "antagonistic" Arab states, install friendly regimes there and/or co-opt protest movements or revolts to further Western interests. It was also extraordinarily dangerous. IBSA believed the end of the Al-Assad regime for instance would entail not democracy but sectarian slaughter and regional war. So it was no surprise when, in October, Russia and China vetoed a European Union tabled resolution at the Security Council that mildly chastised Syria's use of force against civilian demonstrators. "Regime change" was written all over this resolution, said Churkin. IBSA nodded, and abstained. Their hope was inaction by the UN would buy the Al-Assad dictatorship time to contain or crush the revolt. Instead, the reprieve only emboldened it to become even more savage in its repression. By December, the UN said 5,000 people had been killed in eight months, most of them civilians. There were other echoes from Libya. In November the Arab League drew up a peace plan in which its observers would enter Syria to monitor an end to the violence and the army's return to barracks. Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia warned, should Damascus not comply, they would support referral to the Security Council. The regime, too, was in slow collapse: thousands of conscript soldiers were defecting to the other side (geographically and politically); tracts of the country were falling beyond government control; and different opposition groups were fighting the army inside the country or being hosted (and, some claimed, armed) by countries like Turkey outside it. For all these reasons, Russia moved swiftly from abstention at the Security Council to engagement by tabling a new resolution. The essential demand was for Syria to comply with the Arab League peace plan by allowing its observers into the country. On 22 December Syria, finally, complied. The UK, France and the US welcomed the Russian draft, though they will want tougher language. And everyone supports the Arab League peace plan. The BRICS because they believe it represents the last hope for a Syrian-led transition to more a stable order. The Western states because, should it fail (as they are convinced it will), the Arabs may have to call for some kind of UN intervention in Syria that Russia may feel too isolated to veto. That may be wishful thinking. The BRICS may not be ready to write off Al-Assad's regime just yet. And even if they are the divide on the Security Council in 2012 will be same as it was in 2011: not so much who will replace the Al-Assad dictatorship but what, how and by whose arms. Nor will that divide be confined to the Security Council.
