Last time the UN Security Council (UNSC) demanded the attention of major capitals, world media and Arab Spring watchers on the scale witnessed Tuesday was nearly 11 months ago, when the 15-nation body expedited a crippling round of sanctions against Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, followed shortly thereafter by the authorization of military intervention in the North African country.
This week, another Arab Spring uprising that has morphed into a bloody conflict was the focus of debate, but neither sanctions nor military intervention were on the table. Indeed, Council members remain split over how to stem the 11-month long Syrian struggle which has killed more than 5,400 civilians by the UN's count and 2,000 Syrian soldiers, according to Damascus.
To throw weight behind one of the camps, which on Friday introduced a draft resolution backing an Arab League peace deal (PDF), U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her counterparts from the UK and France flew to New York.
The convergence of Foreign Ministers from three of the Security Council's five permanent member countries was designed to isolate Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin and Chinese envoy Li Baodong, who together double vetoed a resolution on the Syrian government in October.
In contrast to that Western-sponsored draft, which condemned Syria's crackdown on protesters and threatened sanctions should the violence continue, Tuesday's text was introduced by an Arab member of the Council - Morocco - and seeks to implement the Arab roadmap for peace, which calls on both sides to the civil war to adhere to an immediate ceasefire, allow unhindered access to outside observers and agree to a devolution of power at the top.
Not unexpectedly, Syria rejected the League's Jan. 22 peace plan, which emerged from a three week monitoring mission.
Days later, amid a marked spike in violence, growing defection from its 21 members and widespread criticism from civil society and other international actors, the Arab League suspended its monitoring mission and requested a briefing before the Security Council.
The question going into today's meeting was whether the West's star power, in conjunction with a concerted appeal from top Arab League officials, would create enough pressure to lure Ambassador Churkin away from his veto. In the absence of a Russian veto, senior Council officials close to negotiations have said China would refrain from using its own. Meanwhile, according to other diplomats, the Moroccan resolution in its current form enjoys the support of 10 members. A UNSC resolution requires nine votes and no veto from any of the permanent five members to go into effect.
Judging by the media blitz outside Council chambers, which outshone the Libya meeting last March, the star offense worked.
Inside the gathering, around the Council's roundtable, high-level foreign policy officials painted a more nuanced picture. Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who headed the Arab League monitoring mission, said that after months of resistance it had become "clear that the Syrian government was committed to stalling and prevarication."
Secretary-General of the Arab League Nabil Elaraby, citing Article 52 of the UN Charter concerning the role of regional arrangements in the maintenance of international peace and security, said his organization sought simply "to ensure immediate cessation of violence and implementation of Arab road map for a peaceful and political solution."
Secretary Clinton echoed the League's position, saying, "Syria is a unique situation that requires its own approach, tailored to the specific circumstances on the ground. And that's what the Arab League has proposed." She was careful to emphasize there would be no use of force, and that any attempt to compare Syria to Libya was employing a "false analogy."
Ambassador Churkin seemed to at once agree with and oppose the Arab-Western alliance. Declaring that the meeting might be the "last chance to save the spiral of violence ... in a strategically important region," he called for an internal, Syrian-led solution "guided by the principle of non-imposition." He also said the Council "cannot impose the parameters of an internal political [negotiation] ... It is not in the Charter. This is not the business of the Security Council."
"Don't do any harm is one of the principles we need to keep in mind in the Security Council," he added.
Negotiations on the Moroccan draft resolution are scheduled to resume Wednesday.
(AP Photo: United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to reporters after attending a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012 at United Nations headquarters.)