NATO intervention in Syria depends on allies’ political choice

The failed resolution on Syria at the UN Security Council, which was rejected after Russia and China vetoed the proposals, has led some to speculate that Turkey, along with its NATO allies, may intervene in Syria to check the growing crisis. Experts suggest that the political will of the NATO allies is a decisive factor in whether or not Article V is invoked, which is a distinct possibility if Turkey finds itself facing a refugee crisis that cannot be handled alone.

In an interview with Sunday’s Zaman last week, İlter Turan, professor of political science at İstanbul Bilgi University, claimed that “any decision on Syrian intervention that is not backed by the UN would be not a legal, but a political, choice.”

NATO’s “right to collective defense” does not require the UN to pass a resolution authorizing such an intervention, but it would be desirable to have the UN on board if NATO takes military action. Whether or not NATO launches an intervention will be the sole decision of treaty partners, who will assess the severity of the perceived threat.

Recent death tolls, including hundreds of deaths in Homs on Thursday, suggest the situation in Syria is rapidly turning into a humanitarian tragedy. Even worse, Assad is said to have taken last weekend’s vetoes as a signal to continue the violent crackdown on the Syrian opposition.

Hopes for a UN-backed foreign intervention were dashed after communication between UN Security Council members was hindered by intense polarization, which points to a lack of consensus between the West and Assad’s Chinese and Russian allies. The Russians led the charge against any condemnation of Syria and vetoed the watered-down resolution at the UNSC. Moscow is maintaining old economic, strategic and political ties to the Syrian regime, which has purchased significant amounts of arms from Russia. Syria also provided Russia with a base at the port of Tartus, which offered Russia the opportunity to have more say in the eastern Mediterranean, particularly in relation to the US and its allies. Furthermore, the Assad-led Baathist regime in Syria participated in decades of political alliances with Soviet Russian and Chinese regimes.

An example of NATO using force as a result of political choice is the US operations in Afghanistan beginning on Oct. 7, 2001. The invasion was justified by the US under the terms of NATO’s Article V, which ensures that if a NATO ally is the victim of an attack, each and every other member of the organization will consider this as an act of violence against all members and will provide assistance.

In 2011, the extremist Islamic group Al-Qaeda was declared responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, which were considered to be a foreign attack on the US by Afghanistan. Intervention was justified under the terms of Article V, although some claimed that NATO violated the UN charter by doing so because the UNSC did not specify a right to self-defense in its 2001 resolutions. Furthermore, there was no investigation proving an al-Qaeda involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks that was internationally accepted as being legal.

In another case, a cyber attack allegedly launched by Russia against NATO member Estonia’s government networks in 2006 led to discussion over whether it could be interpreted as constituting an Article V incident, but NATO investigators were unable to find evidence that the attack was the work of the Russian government.

NATO taking similar steps to prepare the groundwork for a foreign intervention in Syria does not seem possible from an international perspective. “Any claim by Turkey that foreign intervention is necessary, either on the grounds of security or humanitarian concerns, would fall on deaf ears,” claimed Hüseyin Bağcı, head of international relations at Ankara’s Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ), in an interview with Sunday’s Zaman.

Bağcı claimed that the US and other influential NATO countries like France, Germany and the United Kingdom do not want to take such an initiative. Pointing out that France, among other countries, suffered negative economic and political consequences as a result of the intervention in Libya that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, he added that France is not showing the same boldness over Syria, which may also be a result of the upcoming presidential election in April.

“It is the same situation in the US, which is busy with the presidential election. Also, since the US withdrew its forces from Iraq, it does not want to enter into the Middle East again,” he added, further explaining why a Western military initiative is unlikely in Syria.

As a result of the West avoiding a military intervention, Arab League member states turned to Turkey to take the initiative over its neighbor. However, Turkish-Arab League cooperation would not have a significant impact internationally, Bağcı stated.

Turkish officials claim they are ready to join a collective international initiative, being either military or diplomatic, with the objective of forcing Assad to resign in order to prevent the negative repercussions of a possible civil war in the region. With a total length of 877 kilometers, Syria and Turkey share an extensive border, which means the ongoing conflict poses a serious threat to Turkey. The number of Syrian refugees living in Turkey after fleeing from the crackdown is currently more than 10,000, according to figures from human rights organizations.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said in televised remarks this week that “Turkey has opened its doors to those who flee from oppression,” referring to the Syrian refugees in Turkey, but stressed that an international initiative must take place in order to prevent the number of refugees from rising to hundreds of thousands, which he says Turkey would not be able to cope with.

As relations between Syria and Turkey get worse due to the ongoing atrocities committed by the Assad regime, another threat to Turkey posed by Syria is the likelihood of Assad playing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) trump card against Turkey. The terrorist organization is ready to wage a proxy war against Turkey, and the Syrian regime is preparing to back this action.

A PKK camp was discovered in October in Syria, near the Turkish border, which housed 150 militants and a number of senior PKK commanders, including Fehman Hussein and Nurettin Sofi, who are believed to have important links with Syrian intelligence agencies. Furthermore, Assad has warned that Turkey will face a similar situation to Syria in the near future, referring to PKK operations that caused dozens of deaths in southeastern Turkey in October.

Çağrı Erhan, professor of international relations at Ankara University’s faculty of administrative sciences, ruled out speculation that Turkey would take the initiative on a NATO intervention in Syria. “Turkey has more to lose than win from such an intervention,” he told Sunday’s Zaman, noting that intervening in what seems to be an internal affair in the region might have a negative impact on Turkey in the long term, given its own internal conflicts stemming from the Kurdish problem.