The Arab League's latest appeal to the Security Council will likely be no more successful than the last, writes Graham Usher at the UN On 12 February the Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo called on the United Nations Security Council to authorise a joint Arab-UN peacekeeping force to "supervise the execution of a ceasefire" in Syria. The call came a week after Russia and China had vetoed another League call urging Bashar Al-Assad to step aside as part of a new Arab peace plan. The peacekeepers may go the way of the plan. The European Union supported the call. But Security Council members France, Britain and Russia were cool, especially on the peacekeeping force. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said any such mission rested on a "credible ceasefire" being agreed first, and even then should not mean "Western boots on the ground". There are other reasons why the peacekeeping proposal is unlikely to fly. First, the Security Council is historically loath to deploy peacekeepers in places where there is no peace. And there is no peace in Syria. In Homs there is war. On 13 February UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay spoke to the General Assembly on the human rights and humanitarian situation in Syria. She sketched an utterly harrowing picture, corroborated from various sources. To wrest back rebel held areas in Homs the Syrian army had used "tanks, mortars, rockets and artillery" against densely populated civilian neighbourhoods. Three-hundred people had been killed in 10 days, Pillay said. "Crimes against humanity are likely to have been committed." And she would "encourage the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the international criminal court". But Pillay didn't just castigate the regime. States which had vetoed UN involvement shared blame for the carnage. "The failure of the Security Council to agree on firm collective action appears to have emboldened the Syrian government to plan an all-out assault in an effort to crush the resistance with overwhelming force," she said. Western and Arab diplomats would probably agree but say they lack the means and legal authority to protect civilians in Homs or anywhere else. Russia and China, the two veto wielders, say very little. On 13 February Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov mused only that the problem in Syria "is the armed groups that are fighting the�ê� regime do not answer to anyone and are not controlled by anyone". For Russia and China eradication of such groups from cities like Homs may be the necessary price for a political transition agreed by the regime and a wholly political and unarmed opposition. Any other challenger is unacceptable. Russia has also said any peacekeeping force in Syria would require the consent of the host country. Syria gave its answer within hours of the Arab League decision being broached. "Completely rejected," it said. Given this cool to hostile reception, why did the League propose a peacekeeping force? One reason is to fill the void left by the vetoes. In addition to Pillay's address, Saudi Arabia is circulating a resolution for the 193-member General Assembly. Like the vetoed Security Council draft, this calls for an end to violence and support for the Arab League peace plan, in which Al-Assad hands power to a deputy so that a new national unity government can be formed and elections held. Unlike a Security Council resolution, this has no legal weight. But, together with the peacekeeping idea, its approval by the General Assembly would lend greater moral force to the League's view of a post Al-Assad transition. Another reason for keeping Syria at the UN is almost certainly the desire by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to garner greater international legitimacy for the Syrian opposition, particularly the Syrian National Council (SNC) and Free Syrian Army (FSA) militia. But here they appear to face resistance from within the Arab League as well as beyond it. In Cairo foreign ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council urged Arab League nations to withdraw their ambassadors from Damascus and expel Syria's counterparts from their capitals. Saudi Arabia and Qatar reportedly also wanted formal recognition of the SNC, possibly to open the sluice for arms and cash to flow to the FSA. Neither proposal is included in the League's final resolution, suggesting differences among the Arabs. There is instead a call to "halt all forms of diplomatic cooperation" with the Syrian government. But even here Lebanon and Algeria murmured reservations. There seems to be a rift emerging, says one analyst. In the absence of outside intervention it appears Qatar and Saudi Arabia believe that greater support would not only enable the SNC/FSA to protect civilians; it would anoint them as a government-in-waiting. Other states -- Arab and non-Arab -- believe if that support includes arming an opposition as local, fragmented and fractious as the FSA, an incendiary situation could turn lethal. More arms are the last thing Syria needs. There are already accounts of jihadi fighters from Iraq and Libya joining the opposition, as well as reports of Hizbullah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards reinforcing the regime. US officials cited by the McClatchy news agency say the likeliest suspects behind recent suicide car bombings in Damascus and Aleppo seem to be neither the regime nor the opposition but Al-Qaeda in Iraq. And on 12 February Ayman El-Zawahri -- the emir of the Iraqi and every other Al-Qaeda franchise -- issued his first video message about Syria. He called on Islamic militants in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey to support "their brothers in Syria" to get rid of a "cancerous regime". For many, the appearance of sectarian jihad is the grimmest of portents: another sign that a democratic rebellion that began as an offshoot of a Tunisian spring may be descending into an Iraqi winter. (see p.11)
