Operation Ostrava: Month 14, Week 1, Day 7.5.

Subtitle - "Ooops"

At around 15:30GMT today (14/4/12) the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) unanimously passed a resolution authorising international observers into Syria. Obviously thirty minute later the official text of the resolution has yet to be made public. However I gather it places no restriction on the nationally of the soldiers who will act as observers and allows the Syrian government no control over their actions. Therefore it seems to have opened the door for Saudi and Qatari soldiers to go into Syria and do what they want. Do we really think that's a good idea?

It's quite obvious though why the UNSC has made this error because they're currently swamped. Apart from Syria they are also today being asked to consider talks over Iran's nuclear program, North Korea's rocket launch and the continuing war in Sudan. So they seem to have simply waved through the Syria resolution in order to lighten the workload.


Congratulations must go out to the USA and Israel for bringing all these issues to the UNSC at the same time but I'm not sure for what purpose. After all Syria descending into anarchy is not in the US' interests and certainly not in Israel's security interests. Maybe that's Israel's long game though - make the Saudi's extremely unpopular by letting them trash Syria. Then in a year or so be forced to invade parts of Syria to set up buffer zones to secure Israel from rocket attacks. Then in a year or so more start building settlements in the buffer zones.

Edited at around 18:30GMT on 14/4/12 to add:

No official text of the UNSC resolution on Syria (2042) is yet available. There is though something purporting to be the text of 2042 on the al-Jazeera blog here; http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Syria however that it so littered with errors I'm sure it must be a hoax. For example;

The fifth paragraph of the pre-amble beginning; "Noting the government's commitment on March 25 2012 to implement the six-point proposal" is factually inaccurate because on March 25th 2012 the Syrian government only committed to implement the first paragraph of the third point of the six-point plan.

The fourth paragraph of the pre-ample beginning "Condemning the widespread violations of human rights by the Syrian authorities," seems to indicate that members of the Saudi Irregular Army (SIA) are to be afforded human rights. If you check Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention you will see that this is not the case. So unless we are no longer considering Saudi Arabia to be a "Sovereign Nation" the entire fourth paragraph needs extensive clarification before it is consistent with international law.

Likewise paragraph 6 of the main document beginning; "Calls on the Syrian government to ensure the effective operation of the mission," paragraph 7 of the main document beginning; "Decides to authorize an advanced team of up to 30 unarmed military observers," and paragraph 8 of the main document beginning; "Calls on all parties to guarantee the safety of the advance team," all demand that Syria gives full freedom of access and movement to foreign nationals within the country. The right to restrict the movement of foreigners into and within a nation is one of the defining features of national sovereignty. So these paragraphs violate Syria's national sovereignty and in doing so violate both international law and the United Nations charter.

Therefore if this is actually the text of resolution 2042 long before it is sent to the Syrian government to reject it must be put before a United Nations General Assembly to determine if the Security Council has exceeded it's authority and gone rogue.

Edited again at around 21:00GMT on 14/4/12 to add:

I've done some checking and I meant to say that the fourth paragraph of the pre-ample beginning; Condemning the widespread violations of human rights by the Syrian authorities," is incompatible with Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention. Article 5 only applies if there is any doubt as to whether Article 4 applies. When it comes to the SIA there is no doubt that it doesn't. Also it is irrelevant who is paying the SIA or supplying them with weapons because a state of war has existed between Israel and Syria since 1967. Also it turns out that the al-Jazeera link was to the actual text of 2042 which can also be read here; http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/sc10609.doc.htm

So like I said it appears the UNSC have just waved the text through without bothering to read it. Now I'm getting bored of this League of Nations impersonation so I'm going to bed.