ConservativeHome's Big Ideas blog

Nine non-military ways to show the Assad regime what the US government thinks of their phony excuses

Natalie Gonnella
Follow Natalie on Twitter

Despite the fact that nearly 1500 civilians have been killed in Syria and another 10,500 have fled, the Obama administration has remained conspicuously silent about the ongoing atrocities committed by the Assad government.

But while the White House continues to avoid the issue, at times even playing to the regime's propaganda, a growing number of foreign policy experts are urging immediate action.

One of those people is Richard Grenell, the longest serving US spokesman to the UN, who in in an op-ed last week in The Huffington Post outlined nine non-military actions that the US can immediately undertake to both isolate Assad and show support to those behind the opposition movement.

As the security crackdown in Syria continues, here's a look at Grenell's suggestions:

1. Order US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford home immediately, and shut down the Embassy.
2. Publicly call upon Assad to resign and ask other countries to do the same
3. Call upon the Europeans and others to pull their Ambassadors from Damascus too.
4. Restrict the movement of the Syrian Ambassador to Washington and the Syrian Ambassador to the UN to a small radius around their offices.
5. Ask European capitals to restrict the movement of Syrian Ambassadors in their countries too.
6. Force the UN resolution on Syria to a vote and dare the Russians to veto it.
7. Move USAid employees into southern Turkey to care for the Syrian refugees arriving daily.
8. Schedule an Al Jazeera TV interview with President Obama to explain our actions and why Assad must go. 
9. Demand the IAEA inspect Al Kibar and offer an immediate UN resolution authorizing it.

Grenell's original op-ed is available to read here.

"Reform first, pay later": House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen outlines four key lessons from past attempts at United Nations reform as she prepares to introduce a revised version of legislation focused on reshaping the organization

Natalie Gonnella

Since taking the reins of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in January, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has been very vocal about the current failures of the United Nations and the need for serious and sweeping reforms to both the organization as a whole, as well as US involvement.

During a hearing earlier in March, the Congressman Ros-Lehtinen commented that as a country:

We must demand that funding for the UN budget and UN entities move from an assessed to a voluntary basis...That way, Americans, not UN bureaucrats or other member countries, will determine how much taxpayer dollars are spent on the U.N., and where they go...We should pay for U.N. programs and activities that advance our interests and our values...If other countries want different things to be funded, they can pay for it.

As the US participates in UN backed strikes against President Gadhafi's regime, the Chairwoman this week reiterated her frustration with the widespread failures of the UN, articulating once again the need for bold, widespread changes:

One striking example [of failure] is the UN Human Rights Council, which is set to soon pass several more anti-Israel resolutions, on top of 33 such measures passed by the Council in the past five years. Israel is the only country on the Council’s permanent agenda, while abuses by rogue regimes like Cuba, China, and Syria are ignored. Libya’s Qaddafi regime was actually a member of the Council until recently, and other serial human rights abusers still sit on the body. From shams like the Human Rights Council, to corruption scandals, to mismanagement, and more, it is clear that the UN is broken.

In addition to discussing her views on current failings of the organization, in her statement the Congresswoman further outlined four important lessons from past attempts at reform she sees as key components in shaping future strategy. Here's a look at what she had to say:

Lesson One: Money talks . The biggest problem with the UN is that those who call the shots don’t have to pay the bills. Most UN member nations pay next to nothing in assessed contributions, work together to drive the UN’s agenda, and pass the costs on to big contributors like the United States. The U.S. government goes along and pays all assessed contributions — 22 percent of the UN regular budget — plus billions more every year. The UN bureaucracy and other member countries know that we will pay in full no matter what, so they have zero incentive to reform. Almost every successful U.S. effort to reform the UN has been based on withholding our contributions unless and until reforms are implemented. In the 1980s, Congress withheld funding until the UN changed how budgets are voted on. That effort showed some success, until we stopped conditioning funding on reform. Then, the UN returned to business as usual...In the 1990s, when UN regular and peacekeeping budgets were skyrocketing, Congress enacted the Helms-Biden agreement. We withheld our dues and conditioned repayment on key reforms. When the UN saw we meant business, members agreed to change, which saved U.S. taxpayers money. Smart withholding worked. Funding for the UN budget and UN entities must also move from an assessed to a voluntary basis. That way, Americans, not UN bureaucrats or other countries, will determine how much taxpayer dollars are spent on the UN, and where they go. We should only pay for UN programs and activities that advance our interests and our values. If other countries want different things to be funded, they can pay for it themselves. 

Lesson Two: U.S. leadership matters. Leadership is what our allies expect from us, and what our enemies fear. We should not be afraid to stand up for our values and interests, even if that means standing alone — though we should reach out for other responsible nations to join us. Indecisiveness undermines our credibility with allies, and weakens our ability to advance our goals at the UN. 

Lesson Three: Don’t settle for cosmetic changes. In 2006, the U.N. finally abolished the discredited UN Commission on Human Rights, which was once chaired by Qaddafi’s Libya. Instead of replacing the Commission with a credible and effective body, the UN created a Human Rights Council that is as bad as its predecessor. The Council’s rare resolutions criticizing real human rights abuses are usually too little and too late. Why did it take the massacre of hundreds of people in the streets for the UN to throw Libya off the Council? Why was Qaddafi’s regime permitted to join the Council to begin with in 2010? Why are other human rights abusers — including China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia — still on the Council? The Obama administration has tried to reform the Council from within, but has failed. We should finally leave the Council and explore credible, alternative forums to advance human rights. 

Lesson Four: Don’t compare apples and oranges. Some of the UN’s defenders like to point to good UN activities to justify the bad ones. However, we’re not here to play “Let’s Make a Deal.” Each UN program must be justified on its own merits, and funded voluntarily. UNICEF aid to starving children cannot excuse UNRWA having members of Hamas on its payroll. 
To incorporate these lessons learned, I will soon introduce a revised version of UN reform legislation which I first introduced in 2007. Its fundamental principle will be “reform first, pay later.

The Congresswoman's full statement can be viewed here. 

In response to current developments in the Middle East, Elliott Abrams details six key points for US policymakers to consider

Natalie Gonnella

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs, led by chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, hosted the first of a two part hearing examining "Recent Developments in Egypt and Lebanon: Implications for U.S. Policy and Allies in the Broader Middle East." 

In the initial session, committee members heard testimony from The Honorable Elliott Abrams (Council on Foreign Relations), The Honorable Lorne Craner (International Republican Institute) and Dr. Robert Satloff (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

With remarks focused on democracy, human rights and stability in the Middle East, in response to current developments, Abrams outlined six key points which policymakers should consider as they assess US strategy in the region:

1. The uprisings we have seen in Tunisia and Egypt are exciting proof that the thirst for freedom is indeed universal. The Middle East has lagged behind the rest of the world in moving toward democracy...President Bush was right when he adopted a Freedom Agenda for the Middle East. 
2. American policy in the region should accordingly favor democracies and countries that are moving toward reform.  That means one building block for us should be our alliance with Israel, the region’s only established democracy...Favoring democracies and those on the road to reform mean we should also value and enhance our relations with countries such as Jordan and Morocco, where reform efforts are under way....Democracy promotion cannot be a policy applied to American allies while America’s enemies are forgotten...We should be relentless in denouncing the massive human rights violations in Syria and Iran: the abuse of political prisoners, the lack of freedom of thought, assembly, speech, and press, and the phony elections.  The sooner the tide of democracy reaches those shores the better off and safer we in the United States will be.  
3. The events in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, and several other Middle Eastern states should persuade us once and for all that the linkage argument—that every problem in the region is really tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—is false.  None of those events had anything to with Israel and the Palestinians. 
4. US strategy in the region should use our assistance programs, economic and military, to help those building democratic systems and respecting human rights. Too often there’s a disconnect; we make speeches about human rights but we wink at violations.  This is not to say we should insult friendly rulers, or break alliances, but we should be much clearer about our values and our hopes—about which side we are on in the struggle for change and reform.
5. Despite the drama in Tunisia and Egypt events in Lebanon compel our attention.
6. Are we doing all we can?: How is democracy promotion faring? Look at the way we are training our foreign service officers, for example, to meet the challenges we see before us in the Middle East.

Abrams full testimony can be viewed here.

The organized extremism in Iran requires our attention, and helps us temper our own accusations of extremism here at home

Ryan Streeter

Of the Arizona tragedy, Ross Douthat wrote this morning in the New York Times, "From the Republican leadership to the Tea Party grass roots, all of Gabrielle Giffords’s political opponents were united in horror at the weekend’s events. There is no faction in American politics that actually wants its opponents dead."

Indeed, assassinations such as that of Salmaan Taseer in Pakistan remind us just how different our situation is in America from havens of organized extremism. Nothing about this fact dilutes the horror of what happened in Arizona. But it is a good reminder of the scale of threats that exist around the world.

Paul Marshall has been a tireless advocate over the years for the rights of religious and other minorities around the world in countries that oppress them. He is to be commended for drawing our attention to the attacks happening against Christians and others in Iran right now. While we struggle with the results of violence at home, it is also good to remain aware of how violence abroad by some of America's adversaries emboldens the perpetrators to the extent that they think America looks away.

In a National Review post today, he writes of the escalation in attacks in Iran, which began on Christmas and have possibly resulted in as many as 600 arrests.

The bad news is that religion as a tool of oppression is alive and well. The good news is that, in Iran, the recent spate of repressive activity is a sign of weakness.

These arrests reveal a great deal about Iran’s rulers. First, they still take religion utterly seriously: Even as they face internal political challenges and the bite of external economic sanctions, and while worms chew the innards of their nuclear program, they still resolutely divert resources to repressing peaceful religious rivals. With all due allowance to the ineradicable political constants of personal venality, partisan rivalry, state ambitions to regional hegemony, and realist drives for security, the Iranian regime remains committed to its perverted religious goals, and for them will sacrifice economic advantage and bourgeois comforts.

Second, they are weak. They are panicked by growing but peaceful and usually apolitical religious movements comprising a tiny percent of the population. Iran’s religious minorities are growing because many Muslims can no longer tolerate the regime’s version of Islam. The regime lacks confidence that it can appeal to or persuade people any longer, so it resorts instead to beating or killing them, or burying them in cells. Many such regimes can survive decades, but few have survived generations.