Getting Around a Veto

Turkey certainly seems to be leaning forward on the Syria question. Turkey's ultimatum to Assad to halt the violence back in August is certainly stale, but I wouldn't say it is non-operative from the time lag. Russia and China may reliably veto any UN Security Council authorization (or anything that can be twisted into regime change, as we did regarding Libya) to intervene against Bashar Assad, but that won't stop Turkey.

Already, Turkey seems ready to invoke their NATO alliance if the Syrian threat can be portrayed as a significant problem--even if it is just refugees:

"We have many options. A country has rights born out of international law against border violations," Erdogan was quoted as saying by Hurriyet daily and other newspapers.

"Also, NATO has responsibilities to do with Turkey's borders, according to Article 5," added Erdogan, whose country is a NATO member.

Strategypage also addresses this issue and brings up a bilateral 1998 Turkish-Syrian accord that might be used to trigger the NATO question:

Turkey has been vetting intervention options in Syria for almost a year. In the last month the government has begun discussing the Adana Agreement of October 1998. Now it is also discussing invoking NATO’s Article 5, which covers mutual defense in the event of an attack. Article 5 of the NATO alliance treaty says an armed attack against any single NATO member constitutes an attack on all NATO members. It was invoked after the 9-11 terror attacks on the US.

The Adana Agreement came after Turkey threatened to invade Syria because Syria’s Assad dictatorship was harboring the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) senior commander, Apo Ocalan. Syria didn’t want war with Turkey. The Assad regime gave Turkey Ocalan and then promised (in the Adana agreement) to refrain from aiding the PKK. One article of the agreement states that Syria (quote) “will not permit any activity that emanates from its territory aimed at jeopardizing the security and stability of Turkey.” While this is aimed at the PKK (denying bases, stopping training and funding activities, etc.) other groups and incidents with connections to Syria (and for that matter, attributable to the Syrian government) could also jeopardize Turkish security. Refugee flows, for example.

Throw in an Arab League resolution (where Persian Iran is not allowed) and Turkey will have enough international support to make lack of a UN Security Council resolution irrelevant.

We'll see how Friday after-prayers protests in Syria look today. I think Assad is just buying time and hoping negotiations weaken and divide the opposition. We'll see how long the truce holds. And how long Turkish restraint holds when that lull ends.