Syria Avoids Security Council Sanctions, Agrees to Cooperate in Hariri Investigation

Syria has agreed to comply with the demands of Security Council resolution 1636 and will cooperate with the Hariri investigation by allowing five Syrian government officials to be interviewed in UN offices in Vienna. This ends, for now, the Syrian stalemate with the Council, and avoids a follow on resolution that would likely have slapped sanctions against Syria. The progress of the Mehlis team investigating the Hariri murder and the Security Council’s robust response is significant, fairly rebutting Julian’s view that UN investigations tend to produce “muddy, often useless conclusions.” But it is also too early to declare complete success here.

What will happen to the co-conspirators in the Hariri assassination? If the earlier conclusions about official Syrian involvement are true, Assad faces further tough decisions with enormous international and domestic implications. It is not a foregone conclusion that the Council will continue to take a tough stance and hold Syria to the stringent obligations of 1636. The Council is, nonetheless, the only mechanism through which meaningful international sanctions can be imposed. As such, the case demonstrates the value of the UN playing the role of the disinterested third party in an investigation in which no one country can claim to be truly neutral.