If 1,300 really died as is claimed by rebel sources, that would indicate a pretty massive chemical weapons use:
Syria's main opposition group accused the government of "massacring" more than 1,300 people in chemical weapons attacks near Damascus Wednesday, as the UN (United Nations) Security Council called for "clarity" and expressed "strong concern" over the allegations.
If the number is really much smaller, this could be simply chemical exposure not related to chemical weapons use. Or sheer fabrication by rebels desperate for our intervention based on President Obama's clearly erased red line of regime chemical use.
On the other hand, just because rescuers aren't in chemical suits doesn't mean no chemical weapons were used. Non-persistent agents could have been used and by the time rescuers arrived the gas could be at less-than-immediately dangerous levels.
But on the third hand, I find it rather surreal that the question of 1,300 deaths from a possible chemical weapons strike counts more in judging Assad than over 100,000 dead from more conventional means.
Why it isn't a no brainer to help non-jihadi rebels in an effort to overthrow Assad is beyond me. Talk of a jihadi takeover being worse than the survival of the Assad regime is just ridiculous. As is talk by our top military officer that our help won't immediately put the Vermont Chapter of the League of Women Voters in charge in Damascus:
The Obama administration is opposed to even limited U.S. military intervention in Syria because it believes rebels fighting the Assad regime wouldn’t support American interests if they were to seize power right now, according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I don't think we need to intervene directly in Syria with our troops or air power.
But we can aid rebels to overthrow our clear enemy the Assad regime, which has the blood of thousands of American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi and Syrian civilians (and toss in some large amount of Lebanese and Israeli dead, too) on its hands. This should have been our strategy two years ago.
One thing at a time. Topple Assad. And accept that we won't get perfection when that happens. Did we get perfection in Iraq or Libya after the tyrants were dead? Use those examples not to avoid action but to keep moving forward by engaging in the post-Assad stage when we cope with jihadis who no doubt have alienated a lot of Syrians despite their out-of-proportion role in the rebellion.
Turkey and Israel are two powerful neighbors with an interest in coping with the repercussions of an Assad defeat, remember.
Remember too that we were willing to aid the Soviet Union under Stalin to defeat Nazi Germany even though the USSR gained a lot of ground in 1945 and posed a threat to Western Europe from that territory. It took forty more years of hot and cold struggle to finish off the Soviet Union and bring democracy to all of Germany. Successful foreign policy does not consist of some Perfect Plan that foresees all consequences and lays out the solutions before the fight begins.
In the end, it is certainly credible that Assad (or a subordinate on their own initiative) could still be desperate enough to use chemical weapons. I did not go along with the analytical herd that said Assad had regained momentum. Assad regained the initiative because of reasons that did not signal a permanent reversal of rebel advantages.
Yes, Iran's Shia foreign legion has helped Assad a great deal above what I discussed. But the rebels are still fighting after enduring Assad's counter-offensive this summer. And achieving successes:
Syrian rebels have received an unexpected windfall in the form of large weapons caches seized in fighting during the past three weeks, including stocks of heavy arms that could help offset recent battlefield gains by government forces, U.S. and Middle East officials say.
The weapons include hundreds of advanced anti-tank missiles captured in fighting near Damascus and a sizable haul of armored vehicles, machine guns and rockets taken from a Syrian air base overrun this month, the officials said.
Assad held off imminent defeat this summer. And he may have put himself in a better position to hold a Core Syria. But he is still losing this war. And we should be helping push this enemy over even as we prepare for the next stage of the struggle against jihadi rebels. Debates over chemical weapons use really miss the bloody point by focusing on a narrow point of fact rather than strategy.
UPDATE: Focusing on the few chemical casualties rather than the total body count and our national interests allows Syria to play games with uncertainty:
Syrian state television said soldiers found chemical materials on Saturday in tunnels that had been used by rebels, rejecting blame for a nerve gas attack that killed hundreds this week and heightened Western calls for foreign intervention.
It is even plausible that rebels have some chemical weapons. They may be jihadis. They used chemical weapons in the Iraq War, after all. Or rebels with no intention of using them may simply have hoped to have a way to respond in kind if Assad uses them in a major way.
Or the chemical "materials" might be planted or misrepresented.
More important from Assad's point of view, by muddying the waters and making this a debate on a technical point, Assad exploits our president's history of slamming the Iraq War as a war based on incorrect intelligence on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. How can President Obama start a war without rock solid proof under those circumstances? And what would be enough given that current intelligence agency assessments of Assad's guilt are no more certain than the intelligence assessments of Saddam's programs prior to the Iraq War?
Assad is just about saying "if the WMD don't fit, you must acquit." And Assad might get away with it while he pledges to seek the true killers of Jobar.
