THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION

AGENDA: THE QUESTION OF INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

THE NLIUMUN, 2016

NATIONAL LAW INSTITUTE UNIVERSITY

KERWA DAM ROAD, BHOPAL-462044

 CONTENTS
LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE BOARD......................................................................................3
BACKGROUND.............................................................................................................................4
MEMBER STATES:....................................................................................................................4
THE TURKISH SECURITY ISSUE AND NATO ACTION..................................................................5
ORIGINS OF ISIL/ISIS AND PRESENT DAY POLITICAL CLIMATE................................................5
NATO INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIA SO FAR.....................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................6
GENESIS OF THE ACTIONS.......................................................................................................7
HUMANITARIAN EFFECTS OF THE INTERVENTION...................................................................7
COUNTRIES PART OF THE USA-LED COALITION:....................................................................8
SOME GUIDING QUESTIONS........................................................................................................8
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................................9
LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE BOARD
Greetings Delegates!
It gives me great honor to welcome you to the simulation of The North Atlantic Treaty
Organization at the NLIUMUN. The agenda for this committee shall be: The question of
intervention in Syria.
Simulating this committee at this MUN gives you the opportunity to work together to engage
in debate on some of the most critical issues facing the international community. Please do
note that this Background Guide is not meant to replace further research and we highly
encourage you explore in-depth your countries policies. Presence of mind and attentiveness
is extremely essential for all delegates. We expect each and every delegate to be well
researched with the broad areas presented; every delegate has an equally important role to
play in committee, apart from this we would like to emphasize the importance of ensuring
that the delegates are aware of their countrys historical background and current situation in
the global politics and international relations.
It is imperative that the delegates come to the conference with a clear and decisive foreign
policy as the representative of their respective countries. In the committee, we expect a
diplomatic personality and a proper decorum to be maintained. We expect you to be thorough
with the rules and procedures however queries regarding the same could be addressed in the
committee.
Looking forward to interesting and fruitful debate on the 3rd and 4th of September.
Regards
BACKGROUND
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was founded on the 4th of April 1949 by
12 member countries in order to safeguard Europe and other Western countries against the
Soviet Union. Currently, NATO has 28 member countries.
The signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, 1949 in Washington established one of the most
powerful military alliances of human history. Of highest significance is Article 5 of the treaty
which states:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North
America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if
such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective
self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations
The purpose of NATO is to safeguard the freedom and security of its members through
political, and if necessary, military means. NATO as an organisation promotes democratic
values and encourages consultations to build trust and cooperation between members of the
organisation. The organisation is also committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes
through diplomatic efforts. If these efforts fail then the organisation has the capacity to
undertake military efforts under Article 5 of the Washington treaty, under a United Nations
(UN) mandate, alone or in cooperation with other member states.
The organisation provides a unique opportunity for member states and aspiring states to talk
about security issues on all levels with any NATO decision taken by the council being
through consensus meaning all members need to vote in favour.
MEMBER STATES:
Albania (2009) Greece (1952) Portugal (1949)
Belgium (1949) Hungary (1999) Romania (2004)
Bulgaria (2004) Iceland (1949) Slovakia (2004)
Canada (1949) Italy (1949) Slovenia (2004)
Croatia (2009) Latvia (2004) Spain (1982)
Czech Republic Lithuania (2004) Turkey (1952)
(1999) Luxembourg The United
Denmark (1949) (1949) Kingdom (1949)
Estonia (2004) Netherlands The United States
France (1949) (1949) (1949)
Germany (1955) Norway (1949)
Poland (1999)
THE TURKISH SECURITY ISSUE AND NATO ACTION
In June 2012, the Assad regime in Syria shot down Turkish reconnaissance jets, causing
Turkey to call on Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty. This article states that if any member
nation feels that their territorial or political sovereignty has come in to question, all of the
member states must meet to discuss the issue. In turn, NATO came together for a consultation
meeting to assess the threat (both to discuss terrorist threats and the threat of the unstable
Syrian Regime) in Turkey and to what extent the member state needed aid. On October 3rd
2013, the Syrian Army shell struck Akcakale, resulting in the deaths of five Turkish citizens.
After this obvious breach of Turkeys sovereignty, Turkish forces started to fight back by
aiming for Syrian military targets. In response to the Assad Regimes hostility toward Turkey
on the South-Eastern border, NATO stated that there existed clear and present danger to the
security of one of its allies, and demanded the immediate cessation of such aggressive acts
against an ally and urged the Syrian regime to put an end to flagrant violations of
International Law. This declaration ensured NATOs protection of Turkish borders against
external threats and spawned the creation of a defense plan that involved the use of six
missile batteries to be operated under the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)
(The head of Allied Commander Operations and the officer who oversees all of NATOs
military endeavours). Despite this support from NATO, Turkey continued to feel threatened
by the Syrian regime and shot down a Syrian fighter jet in March 2014 that had been
violating Turkish airspace. When questioned about this action, President Erdogan stated, if
you violate my airspace, our slap after this will be hard. Our response will be heavy [...]. In
addition to the security threat from the Assad Regime, the growth of ISIS (or ISIL) in the
Middle-East, particularly in Syria and Iraq, garnered NATOs attention. Particularly relevant
is the groups violent and dramatic means of garnering a public voice. ISIL has taken
responsibility for or at least had some involvement in the March 2014 terrorist attacks on
Turkish police, the June 2014 kidnapping of 49 staff members of the Turkish consulate, the
June 5th, 2015 Diyarbakir Bombing and the July 25th 2015 Suru Bombing of 32 youth
protesters. After these attacks, NATO began to put more focus on Turkeys requests for a
council on aiding Turkey in maintaining their security forces and began to create strategies on
how to combat these acts of violence from ISIL. The result was A US-led coalition in which
NATO reaffirmed partnership with Iraq in order to create stability and provide ample security
forces to combat ISIL. Additionally, the Pentagon deployed 400 troops to train Syrian rebels
and in September of 2014, the US began Air Strikes against Syria.

ORIGINS OF ISIL/ISIS AND PRESENT DAY POLITICAL CLIMATE

ISIS (or ISIL), headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is a self-established militant group that has
taken control of Western Iraq and Eastern Syria and has focused its efforts on creating an
Islamic state in territories that hold nearly six and a half million residents. ISIS was originally
a part of alQaeda, but eventually split from the organization due to differences it shared with
the Osama Bin Laden-led faction. While Al-Qaeda places much of its focus on a far-away
enemy and mainly blames the United States for wrongfully intervening in the Middle East
and backing oppressive, authoritarian regimes, ISIL places its main focus on the near
enemy and has mainly taken action on a regional level, particularly against the Assad regime
in Syria and the Abadi regime in Iraq. Unlike a typical terrorist organization, ISIS (or ISIL)
employs a more organized militia and uses state building tactics, versus solely insurgent and
terrorist tactics. After successfully taking control of multiple areas in Iraqs Sunni
heartland, including the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, the Islamic State issued that it is the true
caliphate and therefore holds exclusive political and theological authority over the worlds
Muslims. The organization receives thousands of foreign recruits, incites mass violence
against local citizens of conquered territories and uses beheadings of Westerners as means
of promoting its radical message. What makes the group particularly difficult to define is that
although it acts like a terrorist group and utilizes many of the same tactics as a terrorist non-
state actor, it engages in fairly successful state building. The Islamic state funds itself by
extracting oil in the regions that it controls and it is estimated that the state produces forty-
four thousand barrels a day from wells in ISIS-dominated Syria and four thousand barrels a
day from wells in its conquered portions of Iraq. This oil is then sold to truckers and middle
men and is estimated to provide a revenue of about $1 to $3 million a day. This process
allows the group to maintain sufficient funding and continue to remain a relevant actor in the
region. In the present day, ISIS controls an area the size of Belgium, receives revenue of
billions and governs a population of millions, which brings into question whether it should be
treated as an enemy state or a non-state actor. There have been some allegations, particularly
by Kurdish parties in Turkey and Syria, stating that the Turkish government is secretly aiding
ISIS and allowing the group to pass through their borders, but official government statements
continue to negate this theory.

NATO INVOLVEMENT IN SYRIA SO FAR

US ambassador to NATO, Ivo H. Daalder, and NATO's supreme allied commander, Adm.
James G. Stavridis, argued last May that NATO's "victory" in Libya was a "model
intervention (...) The first lesson is that NATO is uniquely positioned to respond quickly and
effectively to international crises." However, NATO has still only been passively observing
the crisis Syria, and has not taken any positive action with respect to Syria. There was
however an instance where Turkey's flirtations with a possible NATO role in Syria (during
the jet crisis) had been dodged by calling for political consultations based on the Alliance's
Article 4, rather than framing the event an Article 5 (collective defense) situation.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA-LED INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

INTRODUCTION

The role of the United States of America has been very pivotal in the intervention in Syria in
the ongoing civil war (Syrian Civil War). It was in 2011 that the USA first supplied the rebels
of the Free Syrian Army with non-lethal aid which mainly included pickup trucks and food
rations. But it quickly began providing with training, cash, and intelligence to selected Syrian
rebel commanders. On September 22, 2014, the United States, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates began to strike targets of the ISIL inside Syria, as well
as the Khorasan group in the Idlib Governorate to the west of Aleppo, and the al-Nusra Front
around Ar-Raqqah, as part of the Military intervention against ISIL. The moderate militant
groups in Syria like Al-Nusra Front, the Khorasan group and the Jund al-Aqsa tried to unite
against such interventions of the USA but any such efforts among the groups failed.
GENESIS OF THE ACTIONS

The beginning of intervention began with the U.S. sending surveillance flights, including
drones, over Syria to gather intelligence on ISIL targets in Syria. The flights began gathering
intelligence that would aid future airstrikes; however, airstrikes were not yet authorized at
that point, and no approval was sought from the Assad government for flights entering Syrian
airspace.

On 5 September, 15 September and 3 December 2014, different sets of countries came

together to discuss concerted action against ISIL. Present at all three meetings were the
United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Turkey and Denmark. The
coalition of 5 September (10 countries) decided to support anti-ISIL forces in Iraq and Syria.
A coalition of 3 December 2014 (59 countries) agreed on a many-sided strategy against ISIL,
including cutting off ISILs financing and funding and exposing ISILs true nature.

The preparations for American airstrikes was first formulated by the Obama administration in
his address to the country on September 10, 2014 where he announced a program to train and
arm rebels who were fighting ISIL and Syrian forces of Al-Asad. For the first time, he
authorized direct attacks against the militant group in Syria. In his address, he said the United
States were going on offensive, launching a steady, relentless effort to take out the group
wherever they exist. Obama also announced creating of a broader coalition against ISIL.
On September 17, 2014 the U.S. House of Representatives approved Obama's plan to train
and arm the Syrian rebels in their fight against ISIL.

HUMANITARIAN EFFECTS OF THE INTERVENTION

The website Airwars which maintains an extensive database of all known allegations in
which civilians and friendly forces have been reported killed by the Coalition since August
2014 reports between 503 and 700 civilians killed by Coalition airstrikes in Syria as of April
2016.

On September 29, 2014, several groups including the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights,
the Aleppo Media Center, and the Local Coordination Committees reported that U.S. strikes
hit a grain silo in the ISIL-controlled town of Manbij in northern Syria, killing two civilians.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported ten airstrikes, also targeting various parts
of the province of Idlib, killed at least one child and six other civilians. The group said at
least 19 civilians had been killed in coalition airstrikes at that time. The Pentagon reported it
had no evidence of any civilian casualties from airstrikes targeting militants in Syria. The
United States has also acknowledged that its rules to avoid civilian casualties are looser in
Syria than those for drone strikes elsewhere.

On May 21, 2015, the United States admitted it probably killed two children in bombings
near Harem on November 4 and 5, 2014. These are the first such admissions of the campaign,
and followed a military investigation. A similar investigation regarding an event in Syria is
underway, and two regarding events in Iraq. Two adult civilians were also minorly injured in
the Harem strikes. The deaths and injuries are attributed by the military investigation to
unintentional secondary explosions, after the bombers hit their intended targets, linked to the
Khorasan. On July 19, 2016 a coalition led airstrike on the ISIL controlled villages of Tokhar
and Hoshariyeh reportedly killed at least 56 civilians, including 11 children. On 3 August
2016, dozens of civilians were killed after an airstrike in Qaim, some sources claiming that
30 were killed.

In addition to this among the most prevalent of the permeating subtopics within the Syrian
Civil War is the expanding number of refugees and internally displaced persons. In addition
to the previously cited 2.5 million refugees and 4.2 million internally displaced persons
(IDPs), the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, a branch of the
UNHRC, estimates that as of February 2014 more than 250,000 Syrians are besieged and
under attack daily. According to UNHRCs figures, there are in total over nine million at-risk
civilians as a direct result of the Syrian Civil War, and while a large percentage of those are
being assisted by UNHCR, the organization is not all encompassing. As the situation stands,
there are no Arab League forces, observer, humanitarian, or otherwise in Syria, and current
aid to IDPs is maintained by the UN exclusively.

In addition to the prevalent crisis of refugees, IDPs, and civilians under siege, as well as the
lack of resources available to aid them, there is a clear trend of human rights violations that
have been reported out of Syria to date. The February 2015 UNHRC report cites slaughter of
non-combatants, execution without due process of law, detainment without cause, torture, and
gender discrimination as only some of the practices on all sides of the conflict that should be
immediately addressed. The report identifies all sides as guilty of a lack of distinction
between military and civilian objectives; that is to say, military operations are carried out
against combatants and non-combatants alike. Today, the restoration of a legitimate national
Syrian government would be capable of containing these ongoing human rights violations.

COUNTRIES PART OF THE USA-LED COALITION:

Australia (Operation Okra) Jordan

Bahrain Qatar
Belgium Saudi Arabia
Canada (Operation Impact; Turkey
formally pulling out of the United Arab Emirates
coalition) United Kingdom (Operation
France (Opration Chammal) Shader)
Germany (Operation Counter United States of America (Leader
Daesh) of the coalition)
The Netherlands
 SOME GUIDING QUESTIONS
1. Is there an impending need for NATO action in Syria?
2. Were the interventions in Syria by the United States of America-led coalition are
justified?
3. Are there any the feasible alternatives to Intervention?
4. Is an intervention in Syria in consonance to the NATOs political values?
5. Whether a NATO Intervention in Syria could bring about positive results, considering
its previous successful intervention in Libya.

REFERENCES

1) http://www.nato.int
2) NATO on Youtube Turkeys border threat and NATOs role
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZItna-X84I#t=54
3) Amnesty International. Syria: No respite for the millions displaced by the conflict.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE24/031/2013/en/ca196772-fb7d-43fe-
a1a4- 4b7e281ed779/mde240312013en.html.
4) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24179084
5) US Department of Defence: Airstrikes Hit ISIL in Syria, Iraq
http://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/603478
6) World Heritage Encyclopedia, American-led intervention in Syria
http://www.self.gutenberg.org/articles/american-led_intervention_in_syria