International political order at a crossroads

‘We are going to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for human rights abuses’; so pronounced US President Joe Biden. Given the immense gravity of the issues flowing from the chillingly inhuman murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in October 2018, this somewhat bland statement by the US President on the US’ purported future course of action on the killing is disappointing for supporters of democracy the world over.

The statement comes as a disheartening anti-climax, considering that much more was expected of the US by way of helping to bring all those behind the murder to justice. Merely naming and shaming Saudi Arabia as being accountable for HR abuses falls short of taking the process of meting out justice in this matter of the first magnitude to its logical conclusion.

Recent news reports said that the US had for the first time ‘publicly accused Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of approving the gruesome murder’ of Khashoggi, but nothing concrete, apparently, could be expected of the US in terms of facilitating the bringing to justice of the accused any time soon. Apparently, Realpolitik considerations are preventing the US from taking the most effective remedial measures on this issue. The US would evidently prefer not to antagonise its long-standing ally in the Middle East.

Right now, the ‘world’s mightiest democracy’ comes across to the observer as a failed defender of democracy. The stale, stock explanation of the high-profile murder being a matter that is ‘internal’ to Saudi Arabia holds no water considering that international mechanisms for the dispensation of justice on issues such as these are readily available. A prominent democracy may might as well shrug its shoulders dismissively at the HR atrocities that are currently being unleashed by the Myanmarese junta, if lukewarm reactions are what must be expected by the world on questions such as the Khashoggi murder, for instance, which smacks through and through of unalloyed state terror. Hopefully, supporters of democracy would be proved wrong by the US on this score.

The role of the US in this connection is crucial in view of the fact that it remains the most preponderant power in the world system and has some unquestionable democratic credentials. Moreover, it is a pivotal power in the UN Security Council (UNSC) whose decisions are crucial in shaping world security and law and order. Accordingly, if the US fails on the Khashoggi question, its standing as a principal state possessing the highest potential to positively influence international politics could very well be strongly questioned.

Right now, the US is crucial to the effective functioning or otherwise of the international political system that came into being at the end of World War Two, which was generally seen as a battle for supremacy between democracy and fascism, the former bloc headed by the US and Britain and the latter helmed by Hitlerian Germany. Since then, the US has projected itself as a key exemplar of democratic values and institutions.

The strengthening of human rights world wide, depends on the credibility of the US as an exponent of HR, to a considerable degree, and the cause of HR could be strengthened or weakened to the extent to which the US lives-up to the role expected of it or fails in the endeavour. Accordingly, the US would need to help in bringing the killers of Khashoggi to justice, if the present international political system, with its accent hitherto on democracy, is not to render itself dysfunctional or descend into a state of atrophy. With these questions coming to the fore the present international political order could be said to have arrived at a cross-roads.

However, the US has lived up to the expectations of the democratic world to some extent by taking up the cause of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The sanctions clamped by the US in this connection, it is hoped, would result in Russia initiating political liberalization measures, with the accent on HR.

The dilemmas confronting the US are inevitably bound up with those that have been bedevilling the UN system over the years. It is no secret that the UNSC has time and again been rendered ineffective by the power struggles among its five veto-wielding permanent members. It is very rarely that these powers have shared the same perceptions on the crucial questions of our time, with the consequence that the permanent members have failed to act consensually on matters relating to global war and peace. The gridlocks within the UNSC, that is, have ensured the continuation of strife and war in some parts of the world. The Middle East is a case in point.

The problem of atrophying power struggles within the UNSC, unfortunately, is unlikely to unravel any time soon. Syria and Myanmar are just two current conflict zones that will likely further compound the issue of the UN’s seeming ineffectiveness amid strong disagreements among some permanent UNSC members. The US and Russia have been continually at daggers drawn on Syria, rendering it a chronically-wasting killing field.

The Syrian conflict has resulted in the death of at least 380,000 people and caused half of Syria’s population to flee their homes. Some of the latter have ended-up as refugees abroad, numbering six million, BBC reports. It is difficult to see how fresh US air strikes in Syria will result in a respite from war and strife for the latter. But consensuality on Syria between the US and Russia wouldn’t materialize in a hurry either.

Tougher times are in store for the UNSC on issues growing out of the present strife in Myanmar. Formal democracies among the permanent UNSC members would likely call for a restoration of democracy in Myanmar and demand the freeing of the country’s detained political leadership. But China and Russia are unlikely to support these demands. The result is the continuation of conflict and unrest in the country with the latter’s civilians bearing the brunt of the junta’s repressive and bloody law-enforcement measures. Once again, the UN system will come to be seen as ineffective in keeping the peace world wide.