The spectre of the major powers’ leaders finding themselves at the current 70th General Assembly meeting devoted, among its other preoccupations, to a focus on Sustainable Development will have drawn global attention. But that this is so is, as must be recognised, is also due to a sense in the global community that things have gotten somewhat out of hand, not simply as the difficulties in relations between Russia and the Western powers continue, but also because these powers have now been faced with what might well be perceived as an unanticipated challenge.
Virtually the whole world has been drawn to, and fascinated by the mass migration of persons not only from Syria, but also from parts of Africa. This seems to have been completely unforeseen in the West, and particularly in Western Europe, even though, it is fair to say, the Government of Turkey for example, has been feeling the weight of pressure across its borders with Syria for some time. But, it appears that they have been distracted from action towards that country as President Erdogan seemed to be swaying away from the system of parliamentary orthodoxy, to what has been perceived as an effort to enforce a substantial degree of autocracy.
Now, however, undoubtedly, the centre of attraction has become the apparently sudden and rapid, almost as if it were planned, movement of Syrians fleeing from the worsening civil war in their country, given the dramatic rise there and in Iraq, of the IS (ISIS) movement dedicated essentially to mass murder as a means of removing, in particular, President Assad of Syria, and gaining absolute political dominance in that country.
This appears to have surprised the Nato powers who seem to have been willing to see the Syrian civil war continue, with its essential focus on Assad’s removal. However in recent months, they have come to realise that IS has more dramatic objectives, including, it appears, the removal of any Western presence in that part of the world, in favour of their establishment of some form of theocracy, but a theocracy based on modern forms of oppression and the liquidation of opponents.
The United States in particular, appears to have been hesitant to fulsomely engage IS for a number of reasons. First there seems, with their withdrawal from Iraq, to have been an assumption that a certain degree of stability could be established in that country. But they quickly learned that those installed in power there were bent on dominance of their ethno-religious group over all others, a phenomenon which the US, particularly with the assumption of office of President Obama, no longer had the stomach for.
The collapse of the government installed in Iraq during the American presence has seemed, in fact, to reduce the American interest in the wider Middle East, as its major ally, Sunni Saudi Arabia became more and more disturbed by President Obama’s determination to negotiate a deal with Iran concerning that country’s determination to establish nuclear weapons capabilities; and perhaps even more by the spectacle of a United States’ virtual coalition with Russia in ensuring the success of that mission.
The result has been the curious spectacle of Saudia Arabia and Israel in a de facto coalition of opposition to the nuclear deal agreed between the West and Russia, and the Saudis’ apparent strategy towards Syria of determination to assist anti-Assad forces. But at the same time, the Nato powers have had to partially reverse their opposition to President Erdogan of Turkey’s apparent shift to domestic autocracy, as they have come to realise that that country is a virtual bastion of assistance to Syrian refugees as the civil war there worsens.
In addition, the Nato powers now fully realise the commitment, for his own reasons, of President Putin to supporting the Assad regime. But as this occurs simultaneously with the mass migration from Syria, the United States and Europe have now found themselves constrained to initiate a diplomacy that seeks to inhibit a further Russian presence, through both military assistance and diplomatic intervention in the country. The strain under which the European Union has itself come, as the virtually unstoppable migration causes increasing friction within that grouping, has now become an incentive to seek to cope with the situation in Syria.
So while the convergence of the leaders of the major powers would previously have appeared to be normal or even fortuitous, it is now obvious to onlookers in the rest of the world, that the leaderships of Russia and the United States in particular, now come with an unanticipated agenda to the UN, in the face of the resistance towards a meeting which had been portrayed over the Ukraine.
This means that the situation in the UN between the major powers, that might have appeared to be somewhat strained in the context of the Ukraine situation, now, in the context of the Syrian migration, takes precedence over Russia’s behaviour in the Ukraine, and even over what might have been a wider concern about President Putin’s actions. And in turn it means that the European Union, feeling the strain of the Syrian migration, will support this encounter and, for the moment, put aside its grievances vis-à-vis the Ukraine situation.
