Syrian soldier sets fire to an Islamic State flag. (JOSEPH EID/AFP/Getty Images)
In mid-March, both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the U.S. House of Representatives characterized atrocities ISIS has perpetrated as “genocide.” These declarations mark only the second time in history—after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s determination in 2004 in relation to Darfur—that a U.S. presidential administration has stated that an ongoing crisis constitutes genocide.
After recognizing such odious crimes against humanity, what should the U.S. government actually do to stop or at least mitigate them? On February 11, a bipartisan coalition of 15 senators introduced the “Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2016” (“the Act”). Two weeks later, more than 60 faith, human rights, humanitarian and anti-genocide groups released a statement lobbying for the bill’s passage. The Act is certainly laudable in calling attention to the ongoing scourge of mass atrocities, in formalizing both Democratic and Republican support for confronting this issue, and in institutionalizing mechanisms to monitor and combat such crimes. What the U.S. government needs more than new legislation, however, is greater political will to actually deal with such heinous offenses.
What the legislation proposes
One of the key features of the new legislation is to authorize the President to establish an interagency “Atrocities Prevention Board” (APB) to monitor atrocities and make recommendations to the President about atrocity prevention and response. But note that the APB already exists.
On August 4, 2011, President Barack Obama ordered the APB to be created within 120 days; it was then actually established eight months later, on April 23, 2012. Although the Act, if passed, would help cement the APB as an institutional feature of the executive branch beyond the Obama administration, the legislation does not guarantee that this bureaucratic body will function as designed, or at least as hoped.
The APB has already been criticized for a lack of transparency, for not possessing a clear sense of what atrocity prevention entails, and for not making more meaningful contributions to certain crises, including those in Syria, the Central African Republic and South Sudan. Even President Obama’s own support for the APB and for atrocity prevention more generally has been questioned. He has yet to issue the executive order he directed to be drafted within six months of the APB’s inception that would “publicly set forth the structure, functions, priorities, and objectives of the Board, provide further direction for its work, and include further measures for strengthening atrocity prevention and response capabilities as identified in the course of the Board’s work.”
The Act’s other features are to train foreign service officers in conflict and atrocity prevention, to expand the director of national intelligence’s annual testimony to Congress on threats to U.S. national security to include countries and regions at risk of genocide and mass atrocities, and to create a “Complex Crises Fund” in the U.S. Treasury to enable the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development to prevent or respond to emerging or unforeseen foreign challenges, including potential mass atrocities. While all welcome initiatives, a gulf persists between the rhetoric and reality of U.S. policy on atrocity prevention.
The rhetoric and reality of U.S. atrocity prevention policies
When he ordered the APB to be created, President Obama declared, “preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States.” He went on to describe how atrocities threaten U.S. interests: “Our security is affected when masses of civilians are slaughtered, refugees flow across borders, and murderers wreak havoc on regional stability and livelihoods. America’s reputation suffers, and our ability to bring about change is constrained, when we are perceived as idle in the face of mass atrocities and genocide.” In addition, he emphasized American exceptionalism: “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.”
And yet, even when America’s eyes are clear, its policy on atrocities is often ineffective. Rival strategic concerns as well as political, financial and logistical obstacles often thwart meaningful action. These factors include: competing foreign priorities, such as combatting terrorism and dealing with increasingly assertive states like China, North Korea and Russia; competing domestic priorities, such as economic recession and inequality, racial tension and a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court; an American public distracted by a presidential election and wary of additional foreign entanglements while the U.S. military remains actively involved in the Middle East; an international community skeptical, after Iraq and Libya, of U.S. government claims to be motivated by humanitarian concerns; and veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council willing to block collective action to protect their own self-interest or their allies.
Obama's meaningless "red line"
As I have documented elsewhere, politics and pragmatics have often trumped America’s self-declared principles in confronting atrocities. For instance, in the case of Syria, which some experts have called the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II, the challenge of bringing President Bashar al-Assad and other senior Syrian officials to justice is not for a lack of U.S. awareness or infrastructure.
The Syrian conflict has so far left 250,000 people dead. (KARAM AL-MASRI/AFP/Getty Images)
March 15 marked the fifth anniversary of the conflict, which so far has left 250,000 people dead, more than 4.5 million refugees and 6.5 million internally displaced. It is widely believed that the Assad regime is responsible for perpetrating atrocities, including the use of chemical weapons. In doing so, the regime crossed a “red line” President Obama himself stated would trigger a robust U.S. response.
Rather than holding Assad accountable for his actions, the U.S. government recently expressed its willingness to negotiate with him, a tactic even some human rights organizations have acknowledged may be necessary. Commentators have criticized the Obama administration’s Syria policy as feckless, shameful and complicit. Hindering more effective U.S. involvement in Syria are the facts that the Assad regime enjoys a powerful ally (Russia, which can veto UN Security Council action) and Americans are reluctant to support yet another intervention in the Middle East. In addition, some suspect that greater U.S. engagement, whether through the establishment of a no-fly zone or the introduction of boots on the ground, could exacerbate, not ameliorate, the calamity. Instead, Russia and some realists have proposed that the U.S. government prioritize peace over justice and even work with Assad in combatting the threat of ISIS.
Certainly, the U.S. Senate should pass, Congress should adopt, and the President should sign the Act that was introduced in February. But in a world in which mass atrocities—from Burundi to Burma and Syria to Sudan—show no sign of abatement, President Obama and his successor must actually lead on atrocity prevention. Institutions, training and reports are helpful; the government’s will to act is essential.
Mr. Kaufman is also the author of United States Law and Policy on Transitional Justice: Principles, Politics, and Pragmatics (Oxford University Press, 2016).
