The U.N. and Syria: A "Mere Frothing of Words?"

In the past week, U.N. Special Envoy Kofi Annan proposed a six-point plan for ending the violence and oppression in Syria. As of today, the Arab League was discussing his proposal, and was expected to endorse it.



Syria itself has accepted Mr. Annan's call for a ceasefire and his other five points, though it has a long history of violating such agreements whenever President Bashar al-Assad feels like it. Shelling his citizens, including women and children. Torturing dissidents. Imprisoning journalists. These are the hallmarks of Assad's dictatorship.



I applaud Annan's active diplomacy, his courage and his leadership. The former U.N. Secretary General has built his reputation on such pillars, in stark contrast with the Syrian despot he is attempting to peaceably remove.

However, I question why it took the United Nations so long to create such a plan. Same goes for the Arab League, which expelled Syria last year and yet has done little to effectively curb Assad's abuses.

During his March 1946 speech in Fulton, Mo., (actually called "The Sinews of Peace" but soon re-christened "The Iron Curtain speech"), Winston Churchill's most famous soundbytes were his definition of the Iron Curtain and the "special relationship" between the English-speaking peoples, led by Britain and America. Yet there are other significant messages therein that are often overlooked.

One such message is Churchill's urging that the U.N. become a "temple of peace" instead of a "Tower of Babel." Churchill also cautioned against the fledgling association succumbing to a "mere frothing of words" rather than active diplomacy backed by strength. He had witnessed first hand the failure of The League of Nations to achieve its primary aim, namely that World War I should be "the war to end all wars." With Nazism gone but the specter of Communism darkening Eastern Europe and menacing the Middle and Far East, Churchill realized that the new version of the League would have its work cut out. And so it proved.

While the U.N. eventually took decisive measures in Bosnia (thanks in no small part to President Bill Clinton's leadership) and has other successes it can be proud of, its record is blighted with inaction in Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Uganda, to name just three. This is not to say that the U.N. should be a hawkish organization that authorizes pre-emptive strikes or full-scale ground invasions every week. But neither should it, neither can it, sit idly by while ethnic cleansing, Assad-style brutality, and genocide occur under its very nose.

Churchill's advice?

"We must make sure that its work is fruitful, that it is a reality and not a sham, that it is a force for action, and not merely a frothing of words, that it is a true temple of peace in which the shields of many nations can some day be hung up, and not merely a cockpit in a Tower of Babel. Before we cast away the solid assurances of national armaments for self-preservation we must be certain that our temple is built, not upon shifting sands or quagmires, but upon the rock."
Or, roughly translated, the U.N. must be a body built on "the rock" of close associations within the Anglosphere, a body of nations committed to defending those who cannot defend themselves in word and in deed.

Congratulations to Mr. Annan on putting Churchill's timeless guidance into action. I hope it is not too late for the Syrian people.

Israel, Obama & Iran: What Can Winston Churchill Teach Us?

Today I appeared on the Fox News morning show, Fox & Friends, to discuss how Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech holds key lessons on diplomacy as Israel and the democratic West attempts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. I will write more on this in the coming days. Click here to watch the interview

Vladimir Putin, Winston Churchill and the Trampling of Democracy

Tomorrow, March 5, marks the 66th anniversary of Winston Churchill's The Sinews of Peace address, better known as the "Iron Curtain" speech. A lot has changed since Churchill took the podium at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in 1946. And yet, while the Soviet Union, the gulags and the KGB are no more, Russia is in many ways no closer to true democracy.

One of the primary reasons for this is the reign of Vladimir Putin, himself an former member of the KGB. Today, Putin won another six years at the helm of his nation in an election that was supposedly democratic. "We won in an open and honest struggle!" he told a rapturous crowd that cheered his victory as they gathered outside the Kremlin on a frigid Moscow night.

Despite Putin's typically bold claims, there have been dozens of reports of voting irregularities and electoral frauds that would be almost laughable if their consequences weren't so serious, including "carousel voting," whereby buses of voters are driven to many different polling stations to punch many ballots. Independent monitors have broadcast these abuses to the world media, but Putin and his cronies simply don't care - they just issue one dismissive denial after another.

In the "Iron Curtain" speech, Churchill stated, "the people of any country have the right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell." If the election monitors are to be believed, nothing of the sort took place in Russia. And nor will it at any point during the next stage of Putin's reign, which began in 2000. Maybe in time for the 75th anniversary of Churchill's call for universal democracy and liberty, the Russian people can shake off Putin's yoke and finally take hold of the "title deeds of freedom."

Winston Churchill and the Digital Iron Curtain

March 5th will mark the 66th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s “Sinews of Peace” address, better known as the “Iron Curtain speech,” delivered in a gymnasium at Westminster College in tiny Fulton, Missouri.

There, Churchill gave the epoch-defining of the division between the Communist “Soviet sphere” and the democratic West, the memorable (and now, almost overused) appraisal of the Anglo-American partnership as the “special relationship” and a word-perfect exhortation of the principles of freedom and liberty.
But all these years later, with the USSR no more, do Churchill’s words still ring true?

In searching for an answer, one need look no further than the recent censorship actions of another Communist regime, North Korea. Following the death of Kim Jong-Il, their Supreme Leader, the Pyongyang authorities declared that anyone caught using a mobile phone during the state-ordered 100-day mourning period would be convicted of a war crime. Similarly, during the recent crackdown in Syria, the tech minions of Bashar al-Assad used a “kill switch” to cut its embattled citizens off from the web – the same tactics used by the panicking regime in Egypt during its last days. Meanwhile, Iran tried to close down all social networking sites to prevent protest organizers from spreading the word.

And how does this relate to Churchill, a technophobe who, after all, denied Westminster College president Franc “Bullet” McCluer’s request to broadcast the Iron Curtain speech by TV, telling him "I deprecate complicating the matter with technical experiments”?

One of Churchill’s reasons for using the “iron curtain” metaphor was that Stalin’s cronies were preventing media access to Poland, Yugoslavia, and other countries struggling under the Red Army’s jackboots.

Click here to keep reading at the blog of Boston University's The Historical Society