SPEAKING FREELY West faces chemical fait accompli in Syria
By Bob Rigg
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
Together with Israel, Syria has ratified neither the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) nor the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions (BWC and CWC).
In the eyes of the West, Egypt, Libya, Iraq and Syria have stepped out of line with their chemical weapons (CW), precipitating military interventions in all except for Egypt. However, Egypt’s growing instability means that its considerable chemical and biological weapons capabilities are now a source of concern to the West. Because Israel is a strategic ally of the West, its
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are deemed to be an asset, not a liability.
Because Syria, like Israel, has not ratified the CWC, it is not violating international law by developing CW. Syria is believed to have large underground CW stockpiles, including mustard and the deadly nerve agents sarin, tabun, and VX.
Syria’s CW specialists are highly trained and well-organized, with a formidable range of what are euphemistically called delivery vehicles, well-suited for an attack on Israel. They apparently include binary warheads, aerial incendiary and cluster bombs, and optically-guided Scud missiles that can penetrate Israeli missile defenses.
While the Syrians have declared that they will never use CW against their own population they have indicated that, if attacked by foreign armed forces, their CW option is on the table, as President Obama might say.
This is what worries the West, which is under great pressure to support a military intervention. Moreover, if Assad’s back was against the wall, he could decide to launch a CW missile attack on Israeli WMD facilities and population centers. It would be difficult for Israel to retaliate with WMD against a divided Syria.
Perhaps equally worrying is the certainty of chaos in Syria if an intervention succeeds. This is why even the West, its fingers burnt from Libya, is reluctant to intervene. If Assad is overthrown the rebel groups that even now are at each other’s throats will battle to the death over conflicting variants of radical Islam, further destabilizing their neighborhood.
If Assad falls, rebels could smuggle Syrian CW into other corners of the Middle East, especially Lebanon and Israel’s occupied territories, where their psychological and military potential would be considerable. Israel is agitating for pre-emptive action to head off this possibility. But relocating or legitimately destroying Syria’s CW arsenal would be a huge task. If it was attacked enormous quantities of CW would be released, causing an environmental catastrophe.
The UN Security Council has been in a permanent state of gridlock over Syria, with Russia and China standing up to the West. It was Syria’s government that drew the recent CW incident to the attention of the UN, alleging that rebel groups were behind it and requesting a UN investigation. Russia and the US then waded in.
There are also concerns that a foreign government might launch a clandestine false flag operation simulating a CW attack by Syrian armed forces, to precipitate military action by the US to bring down the Syrian government.
When the UN Secretary-General announced that he would conduct an investigation into the “specific incident brought to my attention by the Syrian government”, rebel groups argued that its terms of reference should be extended to include other allegations of CW use. The West immediately supported this, while Russia objected, contending that the West wanted to compromise the investigation requested by Syria.
While governments locked antlers in the diplomatic stratosphere, experts were collecting factual information reflecting a surprising degree of consensus that CW had not been used, and that the home-made rocket had not been fired by Syria’s army.
As the diplomatic dust began to settle it became apparent that a single home-made rocket had been fired at a military checkpoint at the entrance to the small town of Khan al-Assal, west of Aleppo, killing about 26 people, approximately six of whom were Syrian Army soldiers. The rocket appeared to have been fired from a district controlled by Jabhat al-Nusra, a jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq. The rocket had been carrying, not a chemical weapon, but a caustic type of chlorine known as CL17, commercially available for swimming pools, which, when mixed with water, forms hydrochloric acid.
Then the Russians and Chinese, suspicious that the West would try to stack the inspection team with its own loyalists in order to predetermine the outcome of the investigation, objected to the selection of inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and insisted on being involved.
Rebel groups and US intelligence have now upped the ante by claiming that the Syrian government twice used CW in Damascus on March 19, although they also expressed uncertainty about whether CW or incapacitating agents were used.
In the meantime Syria has categorically stated that it will not accept the UN Secretary-General’s extended terms of reference.
Further points of difference have also crystallized.
Syria, whose prior consent is required for any investigation on its own territory, has objected to Ban Ki-moon’s demand for “unfettered access”. The Syrian government stated that UN inspectors, now waiting in Cyprus, will be granted access only to the Khan al-Assal site originally drawn to the attention of the UN.
Syria said that the UN had helped pave the way for the US-led invasion of Iraq, and expressed its regret that Ban Ki-moon had "given in to pressure from states known for their support of the bloodshed" in Syria. Such adversarial rhetoric reveals that Syria has lost confidence in the UN, making it unlikely that the inspection can proceed.
Moreover, concerns for the safety of inspectors could also stymie the investigation. The UN has already withdrawn half of its staff from Syria, and has accepted that certain parts of Syria are no-go areas.
Last but not least, the UN Secretary-General has puzzlingly stated that the investigation will look “at whether chemical weapons were used and not at who may have used them.” This takes the cake, even for the Byzantine UN Security Council. Even if CW are found to have been used, no one will be held responsible. What, then, was the real purpose of the investigation?
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say.Please click hereif you are interested in contributing. Articles submitted for this section allow our readers to express their opinions and do not necessarily meet the same editorial standards of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
Bob Rigg is former senior editor, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, also former chair, NZ National Consultative Committee on Disarmament
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