UN Resolution on Syria vetoed. What’s next?

After the failed attempt to get an UN security-council resolution against Syria many more have been wounded and died. The death toll since then rose to another 50 to 100 each day activist say and it seems as if Syria’s president Assad takes the absence of action from the United Nations as a free ticket to take the killing even to another level: Several unprecedented barrages of rockets, mortar rounds and artillery shells have hit the rebellion stronghold Homs and furthermore tanks are everywhere on the streets. Activist Omar Shaker said: “There is nowhere to take shelter, nowhere to hide.” This statement gives evidence that more and more even the civilian population is at risk of their lives and that the killing is happening almost randomly.

Russia blocks the UN resolution together with China’s veto against it

The UN resolution was meant to stop the     bloodshed ongoing since March 2011, if needed with hard power namely with military action or at least to threaten president Assad with it, but it failed due to the veto of Russia and China, who are quite big stakeholders of Syria’s economy. Now afterwards the two countries have to justify their veto against the western society, the western media and foremost against the suffering people of Syria.

Russia first went the way of blaming the “emotional west” of rushing into thinks and that Russia wanted to have two or three days more in order to visit Syria and to get a better insight into details of the situation on their own before signing a resolution. Next the Russian foreign minister accused the west of being “on the brink of hysteria”.

Libya mission a success?

The Chinese attempt to come up with an explanation for their veto was based on the previous experience with military action in Afghanistan, Iraq and especially Libya where the Chinese say that the Un resolution of a “No-flight zone” was misused to back rebels with firepower and that the intervention caused many deaths and that Libya is still not in an stabilized situation at all.

Whereas many western countries, such as the United States of America, Great Britain, France and Italy have called back their ambassadors and many more of their diplomatic staff. Russia and China still try to find a solution trough a diplomatic channel and since last Tuesday the Russian foreign minister Lawrow is in Syria to negotiate about a controlled changeover in power.

Whether this mission is of success is to be doubt, since Assad’s regime certainly did not stop the escalation of violence while Lawrow is in Syria and next it is not only Assad who needs to be persuaded to step down, but as well his entourage of military leaders, family members and influential friends.

However if it should work, China and Russia would have proved that there is another option of using diplomatic soft power rather than military hard power.