During his first overseas trip as the United States’ top diplomat, and in advance of this week’s Friends of Syria meeting in Rome, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke forcefully in response to concerns from the Syrian Opposition Coalition that the United States is not providing sufficient support to the opposition:
This piece originally appeared in the Huffington Post on November 27, 2012.
This is a joint post with Owen Barder.
With relentlessly bad news out of Syria, the search continues for what the world can do to put pressure on Assad’s regime and to lay the groundwork for a future, legitimate Syrian government. The case for preemptive contract sanctions is becoming ever more compelling. Under this approach, the United States, United Kingdom, and other members of the Friends of Syria, would declare that new contracts with the Assad regime are illegitimate and that our courts should not enforce them if a legitimate successor government in Syria repudiates them. This could deter new loans and investments in Syria’s oil or other sectors and send a signal to the Assad regime that the economic pressure will not loosen.
For the third time in recent months, Russia, supported by China, blocked United Nations action to put additional pressure on Bashir Assad and help end the violence in Syria. A UN Security Council resolution is the preferred way to go. But if that is not possible, preemptive contract sanctions can tighten the squeeze on Assad without the cooperation of Russia and China.
The Friends of Syria coalition will meet in Paris on July 6 to discuss how they might stem the escalating violence in Syria. Once again there will be much hand wringing on what to do and a search for new ideas. Owen Barder and I, who have been working with our colleagues at CGD and officials in the U.S.
David Gordon and Stephen Krasner, two respected former State Department Policy Planning Directors, have a timely oped in Politico today on Syria policy options. They claim, convincingly, that the current bimodal choice between the (dead?) Kofi Annan plan or (costly & risky) military strikes ignores further squeezing the Assad regime.
This is a joint post with Kimberly Elliott
The April 12 deadline for a complete ceasefire in Syria seems to have slightly damped the violence in Syria for now, but alone it will do nothing to ensure a peaceful transition to a democratic government. President Bashar Assad’s government is still not complying with other parts of the UN brokered peace plan aimed at ending more than a year of deadly violence, and world leaders are insisting that a credible political transition must take place quickly for this fragile progress to hold any weight.
Last night we (Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy Magazine) honored Geeta Rao Gupta with the Commitment to Development “Ideas in Action” Award. The event, a huge success, highlighted her numerous contributions to the field of gender and development. I had fun because the event brought to CGD so many of the early advocates of ensuring attention to women in development (I couldn’t resist saying it felt in a good way to me like “the old girls club”).
This is a joint post with Julia Barmeier.
Tuesday, June 15 marks the last day that the board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) can object to the UNESCO-Obiang International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences, which is made possible by a $3 million grant given to UNESCO by Equatorial Guinea’s dictator of 31 years—Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. As we blogged earlier, UNESCO gets to keep half of the money as a finder’s fee for identifying the winner. If the award ceremony does go forward, Obiang plans to attend, along with UNESCO's director-general, Irina Bokova.
This commentary also appeared on The Huffington Post and Global Post
Last week at a United Nations conference, donors pledged more than $10 billion to finance reconstruction and development investments in Haiti. The United States promised a hefty $1.15 billion.
But pledging money is the easy part. The United States, the lead donor and friend with the greatest interest in Haiti's future development, can do much more, in two ways: its own aid programs can be more effective; and it can take steps beyond aid that are far more critical to long-run prosperity for Haiti's people.
As the international response to Haiti’s earthquake shifts from emergency rescue to longer term reconstruction, things are inevitably going to get harder.