Why Did Syria Want CW Anyway?

An air of inanity pervades the debate about Syria—obscuring the underlying fears and motives, the real forces behind a surrealistic, blood-soaked drama worthy of Kafka, Ionesco, or Pinter.

It’s evident, for instance, that the 800-pound guerrilla hovering behind the debate is Israel and its American backers, one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.

What has not been made clear is that, lurking in the background, is another shadowy hulking presence: Israel’s nuclear weapons capacity, which—as I’ve previously blogged--Israel has never officially acknowledged and most U.S. administrations have done their best to ignore. As have the mainstream press and the gaggle of statesmen, commentators and “experts” with weighty proposals on how to resolve the current crisis.

For instance, Senator Joe Manchin III, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia, would give Bashar al-Assad 45 days to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and begin ridding the country of its weapons stockpiles. Only if Assad refuses would the American president be authorized to take military action.

“We need some options out there that does something about the chemical weapons,” Mr. Manchin said. “That’s what’s missing right now.”

That proposal, however, comes across as hopelessly naïve when you understand why Syria’s leaders opted for chemical weapons in the first place.  

It was not with the intention of deploying CW against their own people. It was instead an attempt to develop an affordable and meaningful deterrent to Israel’s daunting military might, particularly to Israel’s nuclear capability.

That’s the bottom line of several serious studies of Syria’s weapons program, done over the past few years by American and other experts. As a study published by the European Union’s non-proliferation consortium in July 2012, concluded, “Syria’s CWs are not tactical or battlefield weapons, but rather a strategic deterrence against Israel’s conventional superiority and its nuclear weapons arsenal.IWhile Israeli leaders have always portrayed their country as an embattled David, confronting an existential threat from an Arab –and now,Iranian—Goliath, Syria’s perspective has been totally different.  

As the rulers in Damascus have seen it, Israel, thanks to its sophisticated industrial base,  and unwavering financial and political support from the United States, has been able to develop by far the most powerful military forces in the region—with its own nuclear trump card.  

The Syrians, on the other hand, have suffered one humiliating setback after another, from the failure to defeat Israel in 1948, to Israel’s on-going occupation of the Golan Heights, which they took in 1967, to Israel’s repeated forays into South Lebanon.

The Syrians, however, came to realize they could never equal Israel’s military might.  They opted instead for a practical alternative: chemical weapons. If not strategic parity, CW would at least give Syria, if the chips were down, a fearful enough weapon to brandish against Israel’s nuclear capabilities.

As the European Union’s study said, “With meager resources, an inadequate military culture and a weakening, less-than-reliable Soviet patron, Syria was in no position to maintain its policy of conventional parity. That became amply clear at the turn of the 1990s, when Syria approached economic bankruptcy, witnessed the collapse of the USSR and had to adapt to rising US influence in the region.”

Syria’s determination to maintain its chemical arsenal could only have increased after 2007 when Israeli planes bombed what was apparently a Syrian attempt to construct a nuclear reactor.

One Israeli analyst claimed that  CWs and associated delivery systems became, for lack of better options, the ‘core’ of Syria’s security strategy, a ‘wild card’ that would create enough uncertainty in the minds of Israeli decision makers to prevent an escalation of an existential nature.

Another analyst who has a unique view of Syria’s CW strategy is  M. Zuhair Diab, an international security analyst now living in London. From 1981 to 1985 he was a diplomat with the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As he put it in a study in 1997.

“Syria seeks to neutralize Israel’s ability to employ nuclear blackmail to coerce it into accepting unfavorable conditions for a peace settlement. Syria’s increased bargaining leverage with Israel as result of its CW capability has been demonstrated by Israel’s inability to dictate its terms in the peace negotiations between the two sides. Indeed, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recognized that a condition ofstrategic stalemate had emerged between Israel and Syria.”

Syria has not signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Whenever the issue comes up, Syria’s leaders have invariably cited Israel’s nuclear weapons program, and the fact that Israel refused to sign the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In other words, Syria is not going to unilaterally lay down its most potent weapon.

Think what you will of the men governing Syria, but how can Israel or its American backers, answer that argument? Particularly if they still refuse to admit officially that Israel even has nukes?

The analysis of Syria’s CW program by the former Syrian diplomat, was written in 1997, 14 years before the outbreak of the civil war which is currently ripping apart his country. At that time, according to him, there were only two realistic scenarios for Syrian tactical use of CW. They both involved defending against Israel.

“1) if Israel launches an offensive involving first use of CW, forcing Syrian units to retaliate in-kind; or 2) if the defensive perimeter of Damascus, the Syrian capital, (italics added) collapses as a result of an Israeli incursion through the Golan Heights or a flanking maneuver through the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.”

With the existence of the Assad regime now at stake, the Syrian military’s doctrines on whom they might target with CW may have changed. But not the trip wire that might provoke them to unleash CW: a serious threat to the Syrian capital.

What is striking about the study from the former Syrian diplomat I’ve just cited is the fact that, according to some sources, the reason that Syrian military units may have resorted to CW on August 21, was as a desperate measure to drive rebel forces from a strategically key suburb of Damascus.

Jon Stewart on Obama's red line.

In case you missed it, check out Jon Stewart's take on Obama and Syria...Much more incisive than Noam Chomsky or Vladimir Putin. 

Syria and Iraq: On Drawing Lines in the Sand

There’s a certain irony to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision—dictated by the British Parliament and public—not to join President Obama’s coalition of the willing.

Though the American President may still order an attack on Syria in retaliation for the horrific chemical attack last week,  Cameron’s surprise move has at least slowed Obama’s militant momentum.

What’s ironic about this situation is that, 23 years ago, it was another British Prime Minister—Margaret Thatcher—who played a major role in the disastrous decision of another American President—George H.W. Bush--to deploy hundreds of thousands of American troops to the Gulf after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.  

Common to both of those fateful events was the failure of American presidents to establish and maintain a clear policy line. And their ultimate resolve to maintain the image of U.S. power.

In August 2012, Barack Obama seemed intent on clearly warning Bashar al-Assad that the U.S. would act if the Syrian dictator unleashed his chemical weapons. In fact, as I blogged yesterday, Obama’s warning was far from clear, nor well thought out.

Furthermore, according to the British, since that warning, Assad’s forces have used chemical weapons several times in smaller doses, with only the most tepid reaction from Obama.  So what was Obama’s policy?

There was a similar question of American resolve in1990, as Saddam Hussein grew more belligerent in negotiations with Kuwait. To ascertain how the U.S. would react if he were to invade his Gulf neighbor. Saddam called in American Ambassadress April Glaspie, who told him quite clearly, “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.”

Later, Glaspie would take the fall for making Saddam think the U.S. had given him the green light. In fact, though, as I wrote in my history of that period, ‘Web of Deceit”, Glaspie was only one of several top American officials who declared publicly that the U.S. had no defense pact with Kuwait and would not react militarily to an invasion.

Indeed, according to a former top official in Iraq’s foreign ministry, the person most responsible for giving that benign impression to Saddam was President George H.W. Bush himself, who had written a letter on July 27th to the Iraqi dictator- a letter so bland and conciliatory--that Paul Wolfowitz, attempted—unsuccessfully--to have it cancelled. 

As Congressman Lee Hamilton, former chairman of the House International Relations Committee told me in a documentary I did on the subject, , ‘Saddam Hussein looked on Kuwait as if it were a province of Iraq. He was looking for an excuse to go in, and I think he did not understand clearly, unambiguously that the United States would oppose any effort by Iraq to move into Kuwait. We did not draw a firm line in the sand. It’s not difficult. What is clear to me is at the highest levels of the U.S. government we did not convey strongly and clearly to Saddam Hussein that we would react militarily if he went across that border.” 

Incredibly, however, during the same period, General Norman Schwartzkopf, then  American commander for the Gulf region, was urging Kuwaiti officials not to back down in their negotiations with Saddam.

The U.S., he said, would support them. As the New Yorker’s Milton Viorst later wrote. “I was convinced in the spring of 1990, the Kuwaiti government felt itself free to take a dangerous position in confronting Iraq…the Kuwaitis played their tricks because Washington, deliberately or not, had conveyed the message to them that they could.”

Indeed, Saddam’ August 2 invasion caught President Bush flat-footed. He scrambled for some kind of response. Though he condemned the invasion, the president told a reporter  “We’re not discussing intervention.”

One of the key leaders who urged Bush to react--convincing him that military force was required--was British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who met Bush on August 2nd at a conference at Aspen.

According to Bob Woodward’s account, Thatcher took Bush by the arm, “You must know, George, he’s not going to stop.” She said, referring to the possibility that Saudi Arabia would be Saddam’s next target.

Saddam, she insisted, had to be expelled from Kuwait, his threat permanently destroyed.

Bush’s subsequent decision--to deploy hundreds of thousands of American troops to the Gulf--was probably the most disastrous decision that any American leader ever took.

It would ultimately lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the rise of Osama Bin Laden, the attacks of 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and, it could be argued, at least partially continues to fuel the on-going turmoil across the region—including the tragic situation in Syria. 

Along that sorry way, another British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was the major foreign cheerleader for the President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

This time around, however, under the wary eye of Parliament and the British public, the British Prime Minister is bowing out.

Syria-Perilous Precedent

The issues in Syria we are told by the Obama administration and its allies, are clear -cut. America has no choice but to act. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The current face-off between the U.S. and Syria is the product of blurred rhetoric, diplomatic double talk, and shocking miscalculations from both sides. The upshot: the U.S. and a few of its allies are ready—once again to unleash a volley of sophisticated weapons against another Middle East dictator, with no solid legal basis nor any realistic goals in mind.

For example, one of the questions many are asking is: knowing how devastating the U.S. response would be, why would Assad risk using chemical weapons?

The answer is that Assad didn’t know what the U.S. response would be.

Indeed, President Obama was less than precise when he made his statement at a press conference August 20, 2012 that the introduction of chemical weapons in Syria., might change his decision not to order a U.S. military engagement.

We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.  That would change my calculus.  That would change my equation.

Furthermore, we are told that many of Obama’s aides were taken aback by that new and vague policy declaration, the President in effect painting himself into a very imprecise corner.  

Just the same, after Obama had issued that warning. why would Assad have risked  using chemical weapons in the horrific this past week, killing hundreds of his own people.

One part of the answer is that Assad’s forces had apparently already used chemical weapons, in much smaller doses over the past few months, triggering little more than a tepid response from America and its allies, Obama declaring a vague intention to arm the rebels---though such arms have yet to get through.

Another part of the answer is that the August 21 chemical attack may have been a dumb miscalculation on the part of one or more of Assad’s commanders, rather than the result of an order from Assad himself. That, according to Foreign Policy magazine, was the conclusion that U.S. intelligence drew after listening to intercepts as “an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people.”

Thus, it is not at all clear that the slaughter was not the work of one or more Syrian officers overstepping their bounds. “Or was the strike explicitly directed by senior members of the Assad regime? "It's unclear where control lies," one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable. "Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?" 

It was thus revealing when the New York Times reported today that

“American officials said Wednesday there was no “smoking gun” that directly links President Bashar al-Assad to the attack, and they tried to lower expectations about the public intelligence presentation…But even without hard evidence tying Mr. Assad to the attack, administration officials asserted, the Syrian leader bears ultimate responsibility for the actions of his troops and should be held accountable.

“The commander in chief of any military is ultimately responsible for decisions made under their leadership,” said the State Department’s deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf — even if, she added, “He’s not the one who pushes the button or says ‘go’ on this.”

Of course, using that same doctrine—others might argue—as they often do--that American Presidents, like George W. Bush, or yes, even Barack Obama, should be held responsibility for the atrocities committed in the field by their forces.

But that’s probably not something the White House would like to discuss at this time.