The Bush administration was not done showing its contempt for the views and rights of its fellow permanent members on the Security Council. Although the Council had reluctantly authorized the NATO-led postwar occupation of Kosovo under nominal UN auspices, Beijing and Moscow assumed that the province would not be granted independence from Serbia without another Council vote. But the United States, Britain, and France adopted a markedly different course. They recognized Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008-once again over the strenuous objections of China and Russia.
Events soon showed that those countries could respond to such policy snubs in ways that frustrated U.S. officials. The Russian government cited the Kosovo precedent for its own moves against the Republic of Georgia in 2008, helping to detach that country's two restless regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, despite Washington's angry denunciations and the lack of UN Security Council approval. China issued pointed warnings that U.S. leaders should not even think about using the Kosovo strategy toward such sensitive secessionist issues as Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.
Barack Obama has demonstrated that he is no more respectful than his two predecessors toward the views and interests of Russia and China. Washington persuaded Beijing and Moscow not to veto a Security Council resolution authorizing force against the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi by assuring those governments that air and missile strikes would be limited in nature and motivated solely to prevent atrocities against innocent civilians. That proved to be untrue. It quickly became apparent that the real goal of the United States and its NATO allies was regime change. Chinese and Russian officials felt, with considerable justification, that they had been conned. Now, Obama is offering similar assurances that attacks on Assad's forces would be only to punish the regime for the chemical attacks, not help the rebels oust Assad. Unsurprisingly, those assurances are being viewed with a good deal of skepticism.
Adding a Syria intervention to the Kosovo, Iraq, and Libya episodes will convince Beijing and Moscow, if any doubt lingers, that the United States shows no respect for their Security Council roles and will use the Council when, and only when, it is convenient for Washington's policy objectives. Given the number of economic and security issues requiring cooperation with Russia and China, the Obama administration's flirtation with that course is myopic and counterproductive. The damage to Washington's crucial relations with Beijing and Moscow will likely exceed any conceivable policy "victory" with regard to Syria.
