Was R2P a viable option for Syria?

Opinion content in the Globe and Mail and the

National Post, 2011–2013
Author(s): Tom Pierre Najem, Walter C. Soderlund, E. Donald Briggs and Sarah Cipkar
Source: International Journal , Vol. 71, No. 3 (SEPTEMBER 2016), pp. 433-449
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian International Council

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26414041

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Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2016, Vol. 71(3) 433–449
Was R2P a viable option ! The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
for Syria? Opinion sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0020702016662796

content in the Globe and ijx.sagepub.com

Mail and the National

Post, 2011–2013
Tom Pierre Najem
University of Windsor, Canada

Walter C. Soderlund
University of Windsor, Canada

E. Donald Briggs
University of Windsor, Canada

Sarah Cipkar
University of Windsor, Canada

Abstract
In the spring of 2011 the Syrian civil war emerged as a late chapter of the ‘‘Arab Spring,’’
a chapter that in retrospect has turned out to be the most complex and potentially
most serious. How such crisis events are framed in press coverage has been identified
as important with respect to possible responses the international community makes
under the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). By most indicators (number of
casualties, number of refugees, plus the use of chemical weapons against civilians), Syria
certainly qualified as a candidate for the application of a UN Security Council authorized
R2P reaction response; yet during the first two-and-a-half years of the war no such
action was forthcoming.
This research examines editorial and opinion pieces on Syria appearing in two leading
Canadian newspapers, the Globe and Mail and the National Post, from March 2011 to
September 2013 in terms of assessing how the civil war was framed regarding the
appropriateness of an R2P military response on the part of the international community.
The research has both quantitative and qualitative dimensions. The former examines
whether framing promoted or discouraged international involvement (i.e. a ‘‘will to

Corresponding author:
Tom Pierre Najem, University of Windsor, Political Science, 401 Sunset Avenue, Chrysler Hall North,
Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada.
Email: tnajem@uwindsor.ca

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434 International Journal 71(3)

intervene’’), as well as whether diplomatic and especially military actions such as a

‘‘no-fly zone’’ or more direct military attacks would be likely to result in success or
failure. Qualitatively, the major positions taken and arguments presented regarding R2P,
and whether it should be invoked for Syria, are reviewed.

Keywords
Canadian foreign policy, civil war, Globe and Mail, international intervention, Middle East,
National Post, R2P, Syria, UN, US foreign policy

The 2001 Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State

Sovereignty, ‘‘The Responsibility to Protect’’ (R2P), sought to redirect the
world’s attention from the traditional but increasingly problematic emphasis on
state sovereignty to the responsibilities of both nation states and the international
community to provide for the human security of states’ inhabitants.1 More specif-
ically, it sought to reduce the impediments to collective action when no other means
of protecting people from egregious violence were available. It laid on the inter-
national community the well-known three-fold responsibility to prevent such
occurrences, react to them when prevention failed, and rebuild after any reaction
that was necessary.
R2P did not seek to provide carte blanche for international military operations in
any and all instances of humanitarian crisis. It emphasized, in fact, that resorting to
a military reaction should only occur when all other methods of intervention had
been exhausted, and then only under strict conditions—such as confidence of suc-
cess and assurance that forceful methods would not worsen the situation. The form
ultimately endorsed by the United Nations in 2006 also made clear that the
Security Council would be the arbiter of if, when, and how R2P would be
operationalized.2
In a strict sense, therefore, R2P changed little. The same body as before
remained charged with dealing with challenges to the conscience of humanity
according to the same methods as existed prior to its appearance. This said,
R2P’s greatest virtue might be that it takes a fairly significant step in the direction
of human security. It may have altered little in a procedural or legal sense, but it
undoubtedly elevated the principle that the protection of human beings must
become a central focus of international efforts to create a better world. That in
itself increases the pressure on all governments to respond in a positive manner to

1. International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, ‘‘The Responsibility to Protect:

Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty,’’ International
Development Research Centre (IDRC), 2001, http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS%
20Report.pdf (accessed 28 July 2014).
2. See Theresa Reinold, ‘‘The responsibility to protect—much ado about nothing?’’ Review of
International Studies 36 (2010): 61; see also Aidan Hehir, The Responsibility to Protect: Rhetoric,
Reality and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012).

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Najem et al. 435

obvious humanitarian needs wherever and whenever they appear. Moreover, it

underlines not only their right but also their duty to do so. R2P will not, and
should not, eliminate the need for each government to evaluate crisis situations
for itself and weigh what it might be able to contribute toward alleviating them, but
it should increase states’ willingness to at least consider that possibility. That may
be seen as scant progress by the impatient, but it’s a real advance over the thinking
prevalent at the time of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
For R2P boosters, the task now is to convert a statement of moral principle into
an obligation for decisive action. In the view of Frank Chalk and associates, this
will necessitate creating a ‘‘will to intervene’’ by world states, and that in turn will
depend heavily on the performance of the mass media:

The ‘‘fourth estate’’—the news media—exerts a powerful influence on government.

The ‘‘CNN effect’’ is credited with persuading the U.S. and Canadian governments to
intervene in Somalia in 1992, Bosnia in 1995, and Eastern Zaire in 1996. Policy experts
argue that the process of ‘‘policy by media,’’ or formulating policy in response to
media coverage, is a contemporary phenomenon that arises from the government’s
sensitivity to media coverage. While news media reports influence policy, the inverse is
also true: an absence of reporting on mass atrocities in a particular country removes
the pressure on the American and Canadian governments to act on their ‘‘responsi-
bility to protect.’’3

Although few analysts today endorse the idea that government policy is literally
media/public opinion driven, they do accept that media coverage, or lack thereof, is
of major interest to democratic policymakers. Indeed, analysts generally recognize
that (a) how much a particular crisis is highlighted,4 and (b) how governments and
the international community are urged to respond to it are both important.
The latter is the focus of the reported research. Specifically, research on
‘‘framing effects’’ has established that the way in which news is presented (e.g.,
what is identified as the problem, who is responsible, and what are the acceptable
boundaries of remedial action) influences the way in which audiences evaluate
possible responses, and thus constitutes the basic input to public opinion, which
few governments deliberately choose to ignore. To our knowledge, no study

3. Frank Chalk, Roméo Dallaire, Kyle Matthews, Carla Barqueiro, and Simon Doyle, ‘‘Mobilizing
the will to intervene: Leadership and action to prevent mass atrocities,’’ Montreal Institute for
Genocide and Human Rights Studies, 2010, 48, http://www4.carleton.ca/cfp/app/serve.php/1244.
pdf (accessed 4 November 2012).
4. Media effects associated with volume of coverage have been studied under the concept of ‘‘agenda
setting.’’ See, for example, Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, ‘‘The agenda-setting function of
mass media,’’ Public Opinion Quarterly 36, no. 3 (1972): 176–187; Everett Rogers and James
Dearing, ‘‘Agenda-setting research: Where has it been, where is it going?’’ in J. Anderson, ed.,
Communication Yearbook, vol. 11 (Beverley Hills, CA: SAGE Publications, 1988), 555–594;
Maxwell McCombs and Amy Reynolds, ‘‘News influence on our pictures of the world,’’ in J.
Bryant and D. Zillmann, eds., Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. 2nd ed.
(Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), 1–18; Maxwell McCombs, ‘‘A look at
agenda-setting: Past, present and future,’’ Journalism Studies 6, no. 4 (2005): 543–557.

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436 International Journal 71(3)

dealing with the question of how international involvement in the Syrian conflict
was presented to Western mass publics has been carried out, either in Canada or
elsewhere.5
The Syrian civil war received abundant attention from its beginning, and the
attention only increased with the conflict’s growing severity—indeed, it became a
‘‘mega-story.’’6 How that ample coverage was framed, however, is less obvious.
This research accordingly focuses on how opinion-oriented materials in two leading
Canadian newspapers, both having an active interest in Canadian foreign policy,
appeared to promote or discourage resort to the more forceful components of the
R2P doctrine.

The Syrian civil war: Background and context

In March 2011 protests against the authoritarian regime of Bashar al-Assad broke
out in several parts of Syria. They varied in tactics and aims, but were at the outset
generally peaceful and non-sectarian calls for reform. They were quickly seen as an
extension of the Arab Spring that had already brought about the largely peaceful
end of the 22-year reign of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, the
30-year presidency of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and the 33-year rule of Yemen’s
president Ali Abdullah Salah. More violent actions, including those of a
UN-authorized, NATO-led ‘‘no-fly zone,’’ led to the swift downfall of the
42-year reign of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi. That international intervention was
widely seen as a direct response to R2P imperatives.
These events unquestionably created a contagion dynamic that exacerbated
deep-seated discontent with Assad’s rule, and when protests transformed into

5. See, for example, Thomas Nelson, Zoe Oxley and Rosalee Clawson, ‘‘Toward a psychology of
framing effects,’’ Political Behavior 19, no. 3 (1997): 221–246; Sean Aday, ‘‘The framesetting effects
of news: An experimental test of advocacy versus objectivist frames,’’ Journalism and Mass
Communications Quarterly 83, no. 4 (2006): 767–784; Adam Berinsky and Donald Kinder,
‘‘Making sense of issues through media frames: Understanding the Kosovo crisis,’’ The Journal
of Politics 68, no. 3 (2006): 640–656; Robert Entman, ‘‘Framing bias: Media in the distribution of
power,’’ Journal of Communication 57, no. 1 (2007): 163–173; Kimberly Gross, ‘‘Framing persuasive
appeals: Episodic and thematic framing, emotional responses, and public opinion,’’ Political
Psychology 29, no. 2 (2008): 169–192; Dietram Scheufele and Shanto Iyengar, ‘‘The state of framing
research: A call for new directions,’’ 2011, http://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2011/scheufele-framing/
pdf (accessed 20 July 2014); Adam Kramer, Jamie Guillory, and Jeffrey Hancock, ‘‘Experimental
evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks,’’ Proc Natl Acad Sci USA
[PNAS] 111, no. 24, 17 June 2014: 8788-8790, http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full.pdf
(accessed 10 July 2014).
6. During January 2012, for example, the Factiva database reported a total of 25 ‘‘Syria’’ stories
(including news items, editorials, and opinion pieces) for the Globe and 44 for the Post; by
September of that year, 51 items were reported for the former and 47 for the latter newspaper.
For these randomly selected months, this represents an average of well over a story per day for each
newspaper. An Ipsos poll conducted between 4 September and 18 September and released on 9
October 2013 indicated that 91 percent of Canadians had ‘‘seen, heard or read about the current
situation in Syria.’’ For a succinct breakdown of the polling data, see Ipsos, ‘‘Taking sides on
Syria,’’ 9 October 2013, http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id¼6279 (accessed
22 August 2014).

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Najem et al. 437

civil war the humanitarian consequences quickly reached staggering proportions.7

In approximately three years, over 160,000 Syrians died; nearly 3 million became
refugees in neighbouring countries; and more than one-quarter of a population of
23 million became internally displaced. The UN predicted that by the end of 2014
the refugee problem would become the worst ‘‘since the Rwandan genocide 20
years ago.’’8
But these numbers tell only part of the story. When mass rapes, ethnic cleansing,
barbaric treatment of opponents, and especially the use of chemical weapons are
added to them, the case for international intervention on humanitarian grounds is
overwhelming. However, when non-military efforts to stem the carnage proved to
be unsuccessful, there was little inclination for decision makers in Washington,
Ottawa, or elsewhere, to escalate the response to more forceful methods.9
Two questions therefore arise. First, what role did Canada’s press play with
respect to a lack of ‘‘will to intervene’’ on the part of the international community?
And second, does the absence of a military response in Syria mean that R2P
‘‘failed’’ before escaping its infancy? We hope to shed light on both these questions
through an examination of the treatment of the crisis in opinion material appearing
in the National Post and the Globe and Mail.

Research methodology
Data for the research were accessed from the Factiva electronic database beginning
on 1 March 2011 and continuing to 30 September 2013. This period covers the
beginning of protests against the Assad government up to and including a UN
Security Council resolution endorsing the agreement to remove and destroy Syria’s
chemical weapons following their use on 21 August 2013.10 Editorials and opinion
articles were first read to ensure that there was sufficient material dealing with the
Syrian civil war to merit inclusion. Those that dealt with Syrian topics unrelated to
the war and those in which Syria was mentioned peripherally or as an example of
some larger phenomenon were excluded. For the Globe, this vetting process
resulted in 84 cases, while for the Post it yielded 83 cases. These items were then

7. See Marc Lynch, Deen Freelon, and Sean Aday, ‘‘Syria in the Arab Spring: The integration of
Syria’s conflict with the Arab uprisings, 2011–2013.’’ Research and Politics 1 (October-December
2014): 1–7.
8. Mercy Corps, ‘‘Quick facts, what you need to know about the Syria crisis,’’ 19 June 2014, http://
www.mercycorps.org/articles/iraq-jordan-lebanon-syria/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-about-
syria-crisis (accessed 20 August 2014).
9. In the case of Canada, a parliamentary debate on Syria in the spring of 2013 was inconclusive.
According to Globe and Mail reporter Campbell Clark, Canada emerged from the debate with a
policy that called for ‘‘Mr. al-Assad to go, but is so wary of jihadists among rebels it does not want
to tip the balance in their favour’’. Campbell Clark, ‘‘All urgency, no action in Syria debate,’’
Globe and Mail, 9 May 2013, A8.
10. The search term ‘‘Syria’’ was entered, along with the content filters ‘‘Commentaries/Opinion’’ and
‘‘Editorials.’’ The articles resulting from this search were catalogued into a database which was
then cross-referenced with two other electronic databases—Proquest and Canadian
Newsstand—to ensure completeness. Only articles that appeared in printed copies of the news-
papers were included.

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438 International Journal 71(3)

Table 1. Framing leading to a ‘‘will to intervene’’ by newspaper (percentage of total opinion

items).

Globe and Mail National Post Total

N ¼ 84 N ¼ 83 N ¼ 167

Pro Ambiguous Anti Pro Ambiguous Anti Pro Ambiguous Anti

14.3% 14.3% 21.4% 6.0% 18.1% 18.1% 10.2% 16.2% 19.8%

coded according to whether media framing specifically promoted or discouraged a

‘‘will to intervene,’’ as well as whether a stable democratic order was seen as likely
to emerge in Syria at the conflict’s end. In addition, suggested diplomatic and
military strategies were evaluated in terms of their perceived effectiveness in
ending the conflict. Using Ole Holsti’s percentage agreement method, inter-coder
reliability was established at 84.7 percent.11
Finally, in order to provide a greater understanding of what lay behind the
numbers presented in the quantitative analysis, the actual arguments and policy
positions offered in opinion material in the two newspapers dealing with the oper-
ationalization of the R2P doctrine during the first two-and-a-half years of the war
were reviewed.

Quantitative findings
Table 1 indicates that there was nearly twice as much opposition to forceful inter-
national intervention in Syria as support for it; neither paper came even close to
assuming the positive advocacy role hoped for by Chalk and colleagues. Negative
assessments of intervention were somewhat higher in the Globe than in the Post,
although the Globe also ran considerably more pro-intervention pieces than
appeared in the Post. On balance, anti-intervention exceeded pro-intervention
items by 7 percent in the Globe and by 12 percent in the Post.
As seen in Table 2, on neither paper’s opinion pages was hope expressed that the
political situation in Syria would end well. This negative assessment of Syria’s
political future (outstripping even ambiguous ones) clearly bolstered the anti-inter-
vention frame evident in the previous table.
Table 3 addresses the question of which conflict-ending R2P strategies were
evaluated as promising. The dominant finding is that neither diplomacy nor
an ascending range of military strategies was regarded as very promising, although
the Globe expressed more optimism for diplomacy and the Post narrowly endorsed
the idea of a no-fly zone, largely on the basis of arguments imported from the US.

11. Ole Holsti, Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities (Reading, MA: Addison
Wesley, 1969), 140.

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Najem et al. 439

Table 2. Assessments of positive or negative outcomes for democracy by newspaper

(percentage of total opinion items).

Globe and Mail National Post Total

N ¼ 84 N ¼ 83 N ¼ 167

Positive Ambiguous Negative Positive Ambiguous Negative Positive Ambiguous Negative

1.2% 13.1% 21.4% 0% 12.0% 22.4% 0.05% 12.6% 22.2%

These differences aside, there is little to suggest that there was much optimism
about finding any successful approach to end the conflict.

Qualitative findings
While numbers are useful in summarizing how R2P was evaluated by the news-
papers, in order to produce a fuller picture of how R2P was seen as impacting the
international reaction to the crisis it is necessary to address some of the arguments
and positions opinion writers in the two papers adopted on the issue.

The first year: 2011

During the first year of the war, the Post’s opinion commentary centred on the
relevance of R2P and the Arab Spring. Concern was expressed about what a post-
Assad Syria might look like, as well as what the likely outcome of the Arab Spring
in general might be. Initially, the paper’s position with respect to the role of the
international community in the conflict was ambiguous. On the one hand, George
Jonas specifically warned against a ‘‘Libyan-style’’ intervention,12 while on the
other, an editorial praised international support for the rebel cause against the
Libyan dictator.13 The one editorial that dealt directly with the UN conveyed
the strong impression that nothing useful could be expected from the
organization.14
Globe opinion writers focused on the connections between NATO’s Libyan
operation and the possibility of a replication of it in Syria. On this the dominant
theme was that the application of the R2P doctrine was unlikely and probably
unwise for two reasons: the perceived mandate excesses in Libya, and the fact that
a variety of factors made the Syrian situation far more difficult than the Libyan
one.
With respect to the first of these, a June editorial argued that NATO’s ‘‘over-
stretched interpretation—and application’’ of the Security Council’s mandate in

12. George Jonas, ‘‘The spring of my Arab discontent,’’ National Post, 30 March 2011, A14.
13. Editorial, ‘‘Shades of Versailles,’’ National Post, 31 August 2011, A12.
14. Editorial, ‘‘Honouring Syria’s butchers,’’ National Post, 28 April 2011, A16.

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440 International Journal 71(3)

Table 3. Optimism vs. pessimism regarding possible R2P responses, by newspaper (percent-
age of total opinion items; ambiguous items omitted).

Globe and Mail National Post Total

N ¼ 84 N ¼ 83 N ¼ 167

Optimistic Pessimistic Optimistic Pessimistic Optimistic Pessimistic

Responses
Diplomacy 19.0% 21.4% 3.6% 20.5% 11.4% 21.0%
Arming the opposition 2.4% 10.7% 2.4% 4.8% 2.4% 7.8%
No-fly zone 6.0% 10.7% 6.0% 3.6% 6.0% 7.2%
Military action 7.1% 22.6% 4.8% 15.7% 6.0% 19.2%

Libya ‘‘undermin[ed] . . . the international community’s attempts to respond to the

bloodshed and repression in Syria.’’ Russia, among others, felt betrayed by
NATO’s ‘‘mission-creep’’ operations.15 Moreover, as an August editorial added,
‘‘the NATO nations that took part in the Libyan intervention . . . have no appetite
for another such mission so soon.’’16
The differences between Syria and Libya and the near impossibility of a
successful military intervention in the former were explained in detail by professors
Heather Roff and Bessma Momani. Syria was, for instance, more densely popu-
lated than Libya; its territory was mountainous rather than desert; and it possessed
a much stronger military. It was also further away from NATO’s bases in Europe.
Finally, in Syria there was ‘‘no identifiable rebel group occupying and controlling
territory.’’ Roff and Momani concluded that ‘‘unless Western powers . . . are pre-
pared for an on-the-ground invasion, we will continue to merely deplore what the
Syrian regime is doing against its own people.’’17

The second year: 2012

Early in 2012, the Post reprinted an editorial from the Wall Street Journal that
pushed for greater US action. Claiming that the US had provided most of the
‘‘firepower’’ seen as critical to the removal of Qaddafi in Libya, the editorial
proposed ‘‘another coalition of the willing’’ and pointed to the ‘‘American
folly . . . in giving the UN any ability to stop an anti-Assad coalition that includes
the Turks, all of non-Russian Europe, the U.S. and the Arab world.’’ It added that
‘‘a no-fly zone above Syria also shouldn’t be ruled out.’’18

15. Editorial, ‘‘Too little and too much,’’ Globe and Mail, 21 June 2011, A16.
16. Editorial, ‘‘No easy exit,’’ Globe and Mail, 29 August 2011, A10.
17. Heather Roff and Bessma Momani, ‘‘The tactics of intervention: Why Syria will never be Libya,’’
Globe and Mail, 25 October 2011, A17.
18. Wall Street Journal, ‘‘Another coalition of the willing, anyone?’’ National Post, 7 February 2012,
A12.

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Najem et al. 441

In addition, based on new arguments, the Post continued to develop its position
that international intervention in Syria was a mistake. First, the nature of the anti-
government forces came under greater scrutiny and comparisons with the Assad
regime were offered. In this context, Marni Soupcoff observed that ‘‘the rebels’
supporters, which include al-Qaeda and Hamas, are potentially just as threatening
to human rights and stability as Assad himself—perhaps even more so.’’ Brutal and
unappetizing as Assad was, she wondered if the best alternative for the world might
not be ‘‘standing by and not doing very much.’’19 The Post also endorsed this
position editorially on 26 July: ‘‘It is not entirely clear that, overall, it is in
Western interests for Mr. Assad to go.’’ One of the reasons for that was the pres-
ence of ‘‘foreign terrorists, Islamic extremists and al-Qaeda zealots’’ in the rebel
ranks, and the other was the likelihood of full-scale civil war if he were to be forced
from office.20
Second, the issue of Syria’s chemical weapons enhanced doubts concerning the
desirability of the anti-government groups. As one editorial asked, ‘‘would we
prefer that these weapons fall into the hands of an ill-defined agglomeration of
armed insurgents, whose only shared interest is in seizing Assad’s power for them-
selves?’’21 George Jonas described this as the worst possible scenario.22 Other argu-
ments were also advanced editorially in support of the ‘‘hands off’’ position. Syria,
it was asserted, was going to fall apart ‘‘no matter what the rest of the world does,’’
and who wanted to be left trying to put the pieces together again? Moreover, half-
hearted interventions like the imposition of a so-called no-fly zone were dangerous
and had to be avoided because they inevitably led to deeper involvement.23 Lastly,
the discouraging example of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was
raised. If the rebels won, there would be long-term, continued chaos and violence in
Syria just as was still occurring in the DRC, and if Canada were to help the rebels
oust Assad, it would be tarnished by the ‘‘resultant butchery.’’ The editorial con-
cluded that ‘‘overall, the humanitarian arithmetic just doesn’t favour
intervention.’’24
Opinion writers in the Globe also developed new themes in 2012, mostly along
the same lines as their counterparts at the Post. There was a similar recognition
that a victory by the rebels was possibly a worse outcome than the continuation of
the Assad regime, and that, whatever the outcome, Syria was likely to remain
chaotic for the foreseeable future. The only hope for dealing with the situation
(albeit a faint and unclear one) lay with diplomacy, and any chance of that being

19. Marni Soupcoff, ‘‘UN impotence may be a blessing in Syria,’’ National Post, 12 June 2012, A8; see
also George Jonas, ‘‘From Suez to Syria: A half century of self-destructive Western foreign
policy,’’ National Post, 12 June 2012, A13; Jonathan Kay, ‘‘How we won in Syria: Barack
Obama played his cards exactly right—by doing virtually nothing,’’ National Post, 20 July 2012,
A12.
20. Editorial, ‘‘Careful what you wish for,’’ National Post, 26 July 2012, A16.
21. Ibid.
22. George Jonas, ‘‘Coming off our high horses,’’ National Post, 8 December 2012, A27.
23. Editorial, ‘‘Let Syria fall apart on its own,’’ National Post, 2 February 2012, A14.
24. Editorial, ‘‘Staying out of Syria,’’ National Post, 29 September 2012, A26.

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442 International Journal 71(3)

successful depended on regional players like Turkey and Iran, but most of
all Russia. Retired Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie argued that ‘‘the only
solution to the Syrian conflict goes through Moscow,’’ and he urged Canada to
‘‘convince Vladimir Putin to visit Damascus.’’ He was also cautious about vilifying
one side in the struggle while canonizing the other, claiming that ‘‘55 per cent of
Syrians support Assad.’’25 A Globe editorial supported the notion that Russia was
of crucial importance in bringing the killing to an end.26
The Globe also presented two opinion pieces in favour of Western intervention.
Senator Hugh Segal, invoking the pre-Second World War analogy of
Czechoslovakia, argued that ‘‘the price we pay for not acting is often far greater
than the actual price of deciding to act in the name of humanity.’’ He considered
Syria a test case for R2P and advocated the mounting of a Libyan-style no-fly zone,
despite the fact that this would be ‘‘hard, complex and messy.’’ Standing by and
watching, however, was ‘‘simply criminal.’’27 Professor Wesley Wark, by contrast,
was less concerned with humanitarian considerations than with realpolitik. He
maintained that if the West wished to be able to influence post-Assad Syria, it
had to become engaged in the conflict now; and that since ‘‘we have to accept
the fact that diplomacy has failed,’’ the only way this could be accomplished was
militarily.28

The third year: 2013

The final year of the study witnessed both continuity and change in the Post’s
opinion positions. The change involved some softening of the previously unflinch-
ing opposition to involvement in the Syrian tragedy, brought about primarily by
the issue of chemical weapons and what should be done about them.
In January 2013, Middle East Forum analyst Gary Gambill offered a spirited
rebuttal to pro-interventionists’ frequent tendency to attribute the deterioration of
the Syrian situation to American failure to intervene militarily on the side of the
rebels at an early stage. He maintained that ‘‘whatever America’s failings . . . they
cannot be shown to have decisively impacted the trajectory of the conflict once it
started.’’29 Senator Segal, however, reiterated the pro-intervention case, arguing
that ‘‘the absence of meaningful Western intervention early on in the conflict
made . . . [the deterioration of the situation] . . . practically inevitable.’’ Moreover,
he claimed, ‘‘a coalition composed of Arab and NATO countries could still inter-
vene decisively with a targeted air campaign,’’ augmented by the deployment
of ‘‘Western special forces units.’’ He saw the issue as a moral one à la R2P,
but also, given the threat of chemical weapons use, a practical national

25. Lewis MacKenzie, ‘‘The road to Damascus goes through Moscow,’’ Globe and Mail, 22 February
2012, A17.
26. Editorial, ‘‘Syrian peace begins in Moscow,’’ Globe and Mail, 29 May 2012, A14.
27. Hugh Segal, ‘‘We must act now in Syria or pay later,’’ Globe and Mail, 22 June 2012, A13.
28. Wesley Wark, ‘‘How to end the fighting in Syria,’’ Globe and Mail, 19 July 2012, A13.
29. Gary Gambill, ‘‘Don’t blame the U.S. for Syrian strife,’’ National Post, 14 January 2013, A8.

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Najem et al. 443

interest matter: ‘‘This is no longer about our moral responsibility to protect Syria’s
helpless citizens. It’s about protecting our allies, and ultimately, ourselves.’’30
Segal was neither the first nor the last to focus on the chemical weapons issue,
even before they were actually used. In August 2012 US President Obama had
drawn a ‘‘red line,’’ warning that their use would trigger unspecified US responses.
David Frum interpreted this as an indication that the president ‘‘clearly wanted to
avoid intervening in Syria’’ and hinted that Assad probably saw it the same way.31
Editorially, the Post was critical of Obama’s red line on the basis that it increased
the possibility of an undesirable intervention: ‘‘it would be a mistake for Mr.
Obama to now send U.S. warplanes simply for the sake of superpower pride.’’32
An editorial in mid-June included pro-intervention quotes from US Senator John
McCain: ‘‘For us to sit by, and watch these people being massacred, raped and
tortured in the most terrible fashion, meanwhile, the Russians are all in, Hezbollah
is all in, and we’re talking about giving them more light weapons? It’s insane.’’33
This represents clear pro-intervention framing and, in that it appeared in an edi-
torial, certainly implies a rethinking of the paper’s earlier position. McCain went
on to propose a ‘‘no-fly zone’’ which he believed could be established and main-
tained ‘‘without risking a single American airplane.’’ While not actually endorsing
McCain’s position, the editorial pointed out that with respect to Western foreign
policy ‘‘there is a great distance between its actions and rhetoric,’’ and one can
assume the paper was looking for a change in the former rather than the latter.34
The actual use of chemical weapons on a civilian neighbourhood of Damascus
on 21 August changed significantly the direction of the debate. Given the Obama
red line, commentary quickly focused on whether and how the US should respond
to this serious development. Post columnist Matt Gurney led off by arguing that
Syria’s chemical weapons should have been destroyed nine months previously, as
soon as their likely deployment had been detected, because that would have wea-
kened whoever won the civil war by denying the victor their use. Gurney further
argued that indeed, they should still be destroyed.35 Even as staunch an anti-
interventionist as George Jonas left a small window open for an international
military response. While repeating his disdain for R2P (placed ‘‘in a class with
the ‘White Man’s Burden’’’) he observed, ‘‘when tyrants get too murderous,
when they start gassing their own citizens, we may get disgusted, as nations and
individuals. Tyrants should be careful not to make us lose our temper.’’36
Other commentators reprised arguments both for and against intervention.
Irwin Cotler presented the classic pro-intervention case based on R2P: ‘‘We must

30. Hugh Segal, ‘‘Intervene in Syria to protect ourselves,’’ National Post, 13 March 2013, A16.
31. David Frum, ‘‘Testing President Obama’s red lines on Syria,’’ National Post, 19 January 2013,
A24.
32. Editorial, ‘‘The West’s humanitarian mission in Syria,’’ National Post, 14 May 2013, A12.
33. As quoted in Editorial, ‘‘The West’s non-existent Syria policy,’’ National Post, 18 June 2013, A12.
34. Ibid., A12.
35. Matt Gurney, ‘‘Destroy Syria’s chemical weapons,’’ National Post, 23 August 2013, A14.
36. George Jonas, ‘‘White man’s burden 2.0: Why is it the West’s job to help Syrians from different
sects share the same country?’’ National Post, 31 August 2013, 21.

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444 International Journal 71(3)

reaffirm and reassert the moral and juridical imperative of the Responsibility to
Protect (R2P) doctrine.’’ Citing a UN report in June indicating that ‘‘war crimes
and crimes against humanity have become a daily reality,’’ he argued that ‘‘if mass
atrocities in Syria are not a case for R2P, then there is no R2P.’’37 Jonathan Kay
responded directly to Cotler by maintaining that ‘‘R2P has been dead for a while,’’
and that ‘‘ordinary voters do not want to see their sons’ blood spilled, or even their
tax dollars spent, to protect the dignity of an acronym.’’38
An opinion article by Bill Keller of the New York Times urged the Obama
administration ‘‘to persuade Congress, and the American public, that the U.S.
still has an important role to play in the world, and that sometimes you have to
put some spine in your diplomacy.’’ He favoured ‘‘calibrated intervention to shift
the balance in Syria’s civil war,’’ but given the ‘‘deep isolationist mood’’ into which
the country had fallen (comparable, he thought, to that faced by Franklin
Roosevelt during the early stages of the Second World War), he was not optimistic
that it would be undertaken.39
The Globe’s opinion material during 2013 can be characterized by two trends.
On the one hand, the paper’s editorial position early in the year came down more
firmly in favour of some sort of Western intervention, calling first for arming of the
opposition forces. This continued over the summer with support for a no-fly zone
and finally ended up deeply suspicious of the chemical weapons agreement that
took US air strikes (which the paper supported) off the table. On the other hand,
the Globe continued to present a range of opinion pieces which revealed no con-
sistent line with respect to whether the use of force by the international community
would be beneficial or harmful.
The first 2013 Globe editorial conveyed a sense of urgency not seen earlier:
‘‘The Syrian civil war has reached a point at which the international
community—that is to say the world’s responsible powers—needs to take a more
active hand, still with caution, favouring carefully selected insurgent groups that are
not Salafist, and have no affinities to al-Qaeda.’’ Such an ‘‘active hand’’ included
arming the anti-government forces by ‘‘supplying equipment, such as surface-to-air
missiles, to certain opposition groups.’’ The motivation for such a policy was that
the Assad regime was likely to fall and that in the resulting chaos ‘‘a group such as
Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian group affiliated to the Iraqi factions that are in turn
aligned with al-Qaeda, could well find and keep a foothold.’’ Even more critical
was the judgment that if Assad resorted to the use of chemical weapons, ‘‘foreign
intervention would become almost inevitable and indeed morally desirable.’’40
A mid–March opinion article by Paul Heinbecker endorsed the use of military
force, albeit very circumspectly. He suggested that an intervention could be accom-
plished by establishing ‘‘safe havens and no-fly zones,’’ described as ‘‘limited but
viable alternatives.’’ However, keeping ‘‘Western boots’’ out of Syria was a priority

37. Irwin Cotler, ‘‘Syrians are dying while the world dithers,’’ National Post, 31 August 2013.
38. Jonathan Kay, ‘‘R2P is no basis for bombing Syria,’’ National Post, 3 September 2012, A12.
39. Bill Keller, ‘‘America’s new isolationism,’’ National Post, 17 September 2013, A13.
40. Editorial, ‘‘Pitfalls, chaos and terrorism,’’ Globe and Mail, 2 January 2013, A12 (italics added).

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Najem et al. 445

because ‘‘intervention fatigue’’ was widespread in ‘‘financially strapped and dis-

tracted Washington and Europe.’’ In such circumstances Canada was urged ‘‘to
accept a greater share of the lead.’’41
A Globe editorial toward the end of April opened commentary on the issue of
Syria’s chemical weapons in the context of the Obama-declared red line. It cited US
evidence, confirmed by British and French intelligence, that ‘‘Syria is probably
using nerve gas on a small scale.’’ Obama was urged to give ‘‘some practical sub-
stance to his words, in such a way as to protect Syrian citizens while not putting
Islamic extremists in power.’’42
Globe foreign affairs reporter Campbell Clark assessed the May House of
Commons emergency debate on Syria and concluded that there wasn’t much to
show for it: ‘‘no vote on what steps to take, no call to back military intervention or
a no-fly zone or to arm rebels.’’ While Ottawa’s reluctance to back the rebels
stemmed from the presence of ‘‘extremists in their midst,’’ Clark pointed out
that in reality ‘‘there is no prospective military mission to join.’’43
In an opinion article toward the end of May, Anne-Marie Slaughter, former
director of policy planning for the US State Department, criticized President
Obama for timidity in not pursuing a military option, and argued the case for
intervention. She claimed that at least a credible threat of military force on the
part of US was required to get Assad to negotiate a settlement.44
While conceding that ‘‘reasons for not intervening militarily are not trivial,’’
Paul Heinbecker pointed out that ‘‘not acting in Syria is far from cost-free.’’ Chief
among these costs were the strengthening of Iran and Hezbollah and the weakening
of the United States. Heinbecker proposed the creation of no-fly zones, a solution
that would not stop the killing and was not without risks, but one that ‘‘would
diminish Mr. al-Assad’s capability to visit vast destruction on his citizens by air.’’ It
was noted that ‘‘Canada has the capability to contribute . . . [but]. . . if it doesn’t
want to do so, it should not impede others who do.’’45
Former diplomat Derek Burney and academic Fen Osler Hampson took the
opposite view, advancing ‘‘five reasons to stay out of Syria’’: an untrustworthy
opposition, a possibility of conflict escalation, a worsening of relations with Russia,
no end to the conflict with the removal of Assad, and Western democracies’ simply
not having ‘‘the stomach for protracted, inconclusive military gambits.’’ Canada
was not seen to ‘‘have a dog in this fight . . . [and] . . . should not be stoking its fires
or trying to pick winners.’’46
Lewis MacKenzie was unimpressed with no-fly zones, a concept that emerged
following the first Gulf War with the simple warning to Iraqi pilots: ‘‘Don’t fly or

41. Paul Heinbecker, ‘‘Heed the lessons of Iraq,’’ Globe and Mail, 15 March 2013, A15.
42. Editorial, ‘‘The reddening line,’’ Globe and Mail, 26 April 2013, A14.
43. Clark Campbell, ‘‘All urgency, no action in Syria debate,’’ Globe and Mail, A8.
44. Anne-Marie Slaughter, ‘‘Going to school in Syria,’’ Globe and Mail, 29 May 2013, A15.
45. Paul Heinbecker, ‘‘Every day, the cost of inaction grows,’’ Globe and Mail, 18 June 2013, A15.
46. Derek Burney and Fen Hampson, ‘‘Five reasons to stay out of Syria,’’ Globe and Mail, 19 June
2013, A15.

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446 International Journal 71(3)

you’re going to die.’’ By 1999, in the Serbia–Kosovo conflict no-fly zones took on a
different meaning. Although the Security Council had not authorized the use of
force, NATO used the no-fly zone concept to launch ‘‘an all-out bombing cam-
paign against the infrastructure of the former Yugoslavia.’’ In Libya, a no-fly zone
had been authorized by the Security Council and MacKenzie argued that Russia
and China were ‘‘truly duped’’ into thinking they were approving something along
the lines of the limited application seen in Iraq. Instead, NATO was as aggressive
as it had been in Kosovo, commencing ‘‘all-out attacks on Libya’s aircraft on the
ground, airfields, command-and-control centres, supply depots, military units and
so on.’’ As for Syria, MacKenzie saw no way Russia and China would again be
fooled. Furthermore, while NATO might be able to mount a successful no-fly zone,
he argued that it ‘‘would not be wise’’ for Canada to sign on.47
As with the Post, the supposed use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime
in August opened a new chapter in the debate regarding what the inter-
national community should do, and occasioned an immediate Globe editorial
that argued strongly for a military response that went well beyond the creation
of a no-fly zone: ‘‘The message needs to be made clear that the world will not
tolerate the use of chemical weapons.’’ It was argued that ‘‘Syria must pay a
price.’’48
Former Canadian cabinet ministers Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock cham-
pioned the 1999 NATO mission in Kosovo ‘‘as an appropriate precedent . . . [with
R2P] . . . to be used as the basis for action in Syria.’’ In that Russia would veto any
Security Council authorization for the use of force, the mission would of necessity
fall to ‘‘a coalition of countries prepared to take action,’’ and President Obama was
reportedly ‘‘looking to Kosovo as a model in Syria.’’ Axworthy and Rock called
upon ‘‘friends, allies, all those who seek a world of justice to urge him on, and offer
their support.’’49
A second editorial following the 21 August attack appeared to be not quite as
enthusiastic in its endorsement of military action. First it noted that ‘‘the consensus
is that this monstrous act must not go unanswered,’’ but what was missing was a
parliamentary debate to consider ‘‘the full range of options available to Canada
and its allies, not to mention the degree of Canada’s participation in what now
appears to be an inevitability.’’50 In early September, Jeffrey Simpson joined the
debate on the side of caution. He questioned why the US in particular would want
to be drawn into ‘‘a civil conflict of almost unfathomable complexity,’’ and whether
there was any possibility that air strikes could be effective when the Syrian gov-
ernment ‘‘had plenty of warning to disperse its assets.’’ He also questioned whether
there was in fact ‘‘another coalition of the willing’’ ready to step up; and if
there were, it certainly would not be NATO. Most notably, he dismissed the

47. Lewis MacKenzie, ‘‘Why this strategy won’t fly in Syria,’’ Globe and Mail, 25 June 2013, A13.
48. Editorial, ‘‘Red line crossed,’’ Globe and Mail, 23 August 2013, A10 (italics added).
49. Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock, ‘‘Intervene in Syria? Look to the ‘Kosovo model,’’’ Globe and
Mail, 27 August 2013, A13.
50. Editorial, ‘‘Parliament needs to debate war,’’ Globe and Mail, 29 August 2013, A12.

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Najem et al. 447

Kosovo analogy: ‘‘by bombs alone Syria’s hellish war will not end.’’51 In a second
piece three days later, Simpson again called for restraint, maintaining that ‘‘the
United States, with support from Canada, is about to enter [the civil war] with only
the vaguest ideas of what intervention will or should bring.’’52
Another opinion article by Axworthy and Rock appeared between Obama’s
decision to seek congressional approval for military action and Putin’s proposal
for destroying Syria’s chemical weapons. It referred to ‘‘‘our’ collective failure,’’
and, with the exception of Canada, no one escaped scathing condemnation. The
UN led the list, and its Secretary-General in particular was criticized because ‘‘his
recent statements fail to reflect the underlying principle of R2P’’; and he had
chosen ‘‘to wring his hands and leave the immense moral authority of his office
untapped.’’53
The Globe’s final editorial in our study expressed skepticism about whether the
agreement to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons ‘‘will prove effective.’’ In any event
it argued that ‘‘Western powers must remain tenacious in pressing Russia and the
Syrian government to fulfill their end of the chemical-weapons bargain,’’ and if
there were signs of ‘‘bad faith’’ in carrying out the agreement, the use of force in the
form of ‘‘limited military air strikes should be revisited.’’54

Conclusions
What is perhaps most notable about the dominant orientation of the Globe and the
Post with regard to the Syrian crisis down to August 2013 is that both arrived at
roughly the same position despite radically different evaluations of R2P. The Post
was more adamantly negative about physical involvement in the conflict than the
Globe, but neither could be characterized as promoting a ‘‘will to intervene’’ by
either Canada or the international community. For the Post’s editorial board and
the majority of its opinion writers, R2P was more than irrelevant; it was a flawed
concept that should never have seen the light of day. In contrast, a majority of
Globe opinion supported the doctrine in principle but argued that its effectiveness
had been seriously compromised by misuse by NATO in Libya; hence it could not
be applied in Syria for political reasons. However, following the use of chemical
weapons in August 2013, the Globe supported a military response while avoiding
the problem of obtaining UN Security Council authorization.
As for the future of R2P, the debate continues. Aidan Hehir and Robert Murray
concluded that ‘‘R2P has demonstrably failed’’ and claimed that the doctrine
should be replaced by ‘‘a new legal architecture’’ to do what R2P failed to do.55

51. Jeffrey Simpson, ‘‘Syria is not a test of U.S. leadership,’’ Globe and Mail, 4 September 2013, A13.
52. Jeffrey Simpson, ‘‘Intervention is easier said than done,’’ Globe and Mail, 7 September 2013, F2.
53. Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock, ‘‘Syrians suffer ‘our’ failure,’’ Globe and Mail, 10 September
2013, A13.
54. Editorial, ‘‘Chemical weapons and hard diplomacy,’’ Globe and Mail, 17 September 2013, A12.
55. Aidan Hehir and Robert Murray, ‘‘The need for post-R2P humanitarianism,’’
OpenCanada.ORG., 17 March 2015, http://opencanada.org/features/the-need-for-post-r2p-huma
nitarianism/ (accessed 20 April 2015).

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448 International Journal 71(3)

To this Evan Cinq-Mars responded that ‘‘boiling R2P down to the use and poten-
tial abuse of military force in ‘hard cases’ is as inaccurate as it is self-
serving, . . . [and] . . . while there is much to be done to make R2P implementation
more effective and consistent . . . [it is] . . . far from dead.’’56 We side with the latter
position. Unfortunately, the sort of ‘‘boiling down’’ cited by Cinq-Mars tends to
characterize much analysis and criticism of R2P and overlooks the reality that the
doctrine was never intended for blanket application. That such mischaracterization
of R2P persists stands in the way of a reasoned evaluation of its effectiveness.
However that may be, since the end of the period focused on here, the Syrian
civil war has morphed into the regional conflict that many feared, thanks to the
brutal interventions of the radical terrorist group(s) known as the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which appears to have wide-spread Islamist territorial ambi-
tions. Various Western powers are, as of this publication, engaged in what are so
far limited forms of military confrontation with ISIS in both Syria and Iraq.57
While it is likely that ISIS began with more limited objectives focused on the
ousting of the Assad government, the current conflict is more than an extension
of that campaign; thus, Western military intervention is different from an effort to
protect the innocent from tyrannical brutality. Russia’s military intervention in
Syria in the fall of 2015 was also aimed at, purportedly, fighting ISIS. What is
going on in Syria and Iraq now is not, therefore, an affirmation of R2P, nor is it a
denial. R2P is simply not applicable to a barbaric, chaotic, multisided, and multi-
issue mélange. If the ISIS situation proves to be at all typical of what the future
holds, further debate on R2P’s life or death may itself be irrelevant.

Acknowledgement
The research reported in this article is part of a book-length, three-nation study of
press framing of the Syrian civil war: No Good Options: Syria, Press Framing and
the Responsibility to Protect is under contract for publication with Wilfrid Laurier
University Press.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

56. Evan Cinq-Mars, ‘‘In support of R2P: No need to reinvent the wheel,’’ OpenCanada.ORG., 18
March 2015, http://opencanada.org/features/in-support-of-r2p-no-need-to-reinvent-the-wheel/
(accessed 20 April 2015].
57. The Canadian government under Stephen Harper joined Western efforts against ISIS, but
Canadian participation was withdrawn by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. It is too
early to tell whether the new government will treat the Syrian conflict within the context of liberal
internationalism.

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Najem et al. 449

Author Biographies
Tom Pierre Najem is associate professor of political science at the University of
Windsor, where he served as department head from to 2002 to 2012. His latest
publications include Track Two Diplomacy and Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Old City
Initiative (co-editor, 2016), and Africa’s Deadliest Conflict: Media Coverage of the
Humanitarian Disaster in the Congo and the United Nation’s Response, 1997–2008
(with Walter Soderlund, Don Briggs, and Blake Roberts, 2012).

Walter C. Soderlund is professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science at

the University of Windsor. He has a longstanding interest in intervention and
international communications and is the author of Media Definitions of Cold
War Reality (2001) and Mass Media and Foreign Policy (2003) and co-author of
several other books.

E. Donald Briggs is professor emeritus of political science at the University of

Windsor specializing in international relations and African politics. Among his
publications are Africa’s Deadliest Conflict: Media Coverage of the Humanitarian
Disaster in the Congo and the United Nations Response, 1997–2008 (with Walter
Soderlund, Tom Najem, and Blake Roberts, 2012) and, with Walter Soderlund,
The Independence of South Sudan: The Role of Mass Media in the Responsibility to
Protect (2014). For many years he was the coordinator of the World University
Service Canada program at the University of Windsor, which sponsored 15 refugee
students from conflict-ridden countries in Africa to Canada.

Sarah Cipkar recently completed graduate work at the University of Windsor. She
worked as a research assistant to the book-length study on media coverage of
international intervention in the Syrian conflict. Sarah was instrumental in finding,
retrieving, cataloguing, and organizing the material that forms the data on which
the quantitative and qualitative research of the book is based.

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