Syria Struck with Tomahawks, Trump Quits Paris, Qatar Blockaded, Manchester Bombed

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review | Published 3 July 2017 | Reporting Period: 3 April – 2 July 2017

Quarterly Briefing

• The United States fires 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase on April 7 following a chemical weapons attack in Khan Shaykhun that killed at least 80 civilians.
• President Trump announces the United States will withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change on June 1, isolating Washington from every other signatory nation.
• A suicide bomber kills 22 people at the Manchester Arena on May 22 at an Ariana Grande concert; a vehicle and knife attack on London Bridge on June 3 kills 8 more.
• Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of supporting terrorism and maintaining relations with Iran, in the most serious split within the Gulf Cooperation Council in its history.
• The battle for Mosul’s western half is in its final stages; Iraqi forces have retaken most of the city from ISIS but fighting continues in the old city as this edition is published.
• Turkey’s April 16 referendum approves a new constitution that concentrates executive power in President Erdoğan’s office, with the result disputed by opposition parties and European election monitors.

Prologue: A World of Simultaneous Crises

The second quarter of 2017 demonstrated that the international system was now operating with multiple serious crises active simultaneously and without any clear capacity to resolve them sequentially. A chemical weapons attack in Syria triggered US military action that changed nothing about the underlying conflict. A global climate agreement was abandoned by its most important signatory. Britain’s streets were attacked twice by Islamist terrorists. The Gulf’s monarchies split in a manner whose economic and diplomatic consequences were still unfolding. And the battle for Mosul ground through the ancient alleyways of Iraq’s second city with a cost in lives and heritage that was staggering even by the Syrian civil war’s numbing standards. For Jamaica and the Caribbean, the quarter brought a new source of oil market uncertainty in the Gulf crisis and a deepening anxiety about the world’s capacity to address the climate change that makes Caribbean islands existentially vulnerable.

Syria: The Tomahawk Strike and Its Limits

On 4 April 2017, Syrian military aircraft dropped chemical weapons — determined by Western governments and international investigators to contain sarin nerve agent — on the town of Khan Shaykhun in Idlib province, killing at least 80 people including children. The attack produced images of mass civilian suffering that generated international outrage. President Trump, who had previously signalled reluctance to be drawn into the Syrian conflict, ordered a cruise missile strike on Shayrat Airbase — the origin of the chemical attack — on 7 April. The US fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at the base, destroying aircraft, fuel depots and radar systems. Russia and Syria condemned the strike; most Western governments endorsed it as a proportionate response to chemical weapons use.

The strike did not alter the fundamental trajectory of Syria’s war. Syrian government forces, backed by Russian airpower, continued their campaign to retake opposition-held territory. The chemical weapons programme was not destroyed. The humanitarian catastrophe continued. For Caribbean observers, the episode was a study in the limits of military force as a tool for resolving complex political conflicts: a dramatic gesture that changed the immediate situation not at all while creating ambiguity about future US intentions that all parties to the conflict would exploit.

Paris Agreement Withdrawal

President Trump’s announcement on 1 June that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change was received with dismay across the Caribbean. CARICOM had been among the most consistent advocates for ambitious climate action, having contributed negligibly to global greenhouse gas emissions while facing existential risk from sea level rise, coral reef degradation and intensifying hurricane activity. The United States, as the world’s largest historical emitter and the second-largest current emitter, is central to any credible global response. Trump’s stated rationale — that the agreement imposed unfair economic burdens on American workers — was rejected by virtually every other signatory. The EU and China announced they would honour their commitments and accelerate cooperation.

For Jamaica, the withdrawal was a geopolitical blow to the multilateral architecture through which small island states have historically sought leverage on large-emitter behaviour. It reinforced the case for domestic renewable energy investment as a form of energy security independent of international political commitments whose reliability was now demonstrated to be contingent on electoral outcomes.

Manchester, London Bridge and Terrorism in Britain

The suicide bombing at Manchester Arena on 22 May 2017, which killed 22 people at a pop concert attended mostly by young people and their parents, was the deadliest terrorist attack in the United Kingdom since the 7 July 2005 London bombings. The attacker, a Manchester-born man of Libyan descent, had recently returned from Libya. Two weeks later, on 3 June, three attackers drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before attacking people in Borough Market with knives; eight people were killed. The British general election, already underway, continued three days later. The episodes contributed to a period of acute anxiety about Islamist-inspired domestic terrorism in Western Europe that had followed the Paris attacks of November 2015 and repeated attacks in France, Belgium and Germany since.

The Qatar Crisis and Gulf Stability

On 5 June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposed a land, sea and air blockade, presenting a list of thirteen demands including the closure of Al Jazeera, the severance of ties with Iran, and the closure of a Turkish military base. Qatar rejected the ultimatum. The crisis reflected long-standing tensions within the GCC over Qatar’s independent foreign policy and its maintenance of diplomatic relations with Iran, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The United States sent contradictory signals: President Trump initially sided publicly with Saudi Arabia; the State Department called for dialogue; the US had a major military base at Al Udeid in Qatar that served as the command centre for operations across the region.

For oil markets, the Qatar crisis added a new source of Gulf instability risk. Qatar is the world’s largest liquefied natural gas exporter; its energy exports flowed primarily by sea and were not immediately affected by the blockade. But the fracture within the Gulf’s political structure had implications for OPEC coordination and for the regional stability that underpinned stable oil production. Caribbean energy importers watched with concern.

Looking Ahead

The Mosul battle is in its final phase; liberation appears imminent and will represent a significant milestone in the campaign against the Islamic State. The Qatar crisis shows no sign of near-term resolution, with both sides deeply dug in. North Korea’s ballistic missile programme continues: multiple tests in May and June have included missiles of intermediate range. The Paris Agreement’s institutional architecture will need to function without the United States — the question is whether the remaining signatories can maintain momentum. And the Caribbean enters the Atlantic hurricane season with anxiety heightened by the awareness that the region has had several narrow escapes in recent years, and that its luck will not hold indefinitely. As Jamaica’s own strong tourism performance continues, the importance of protecting that performance through energy resilience and climate adaptation is clearer than ever.

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review is published quarterly, examining how wars, geopolitical tensions and major international crises have shaped Jamaica, the Caribbean and their economies.