... well short of a victory for America and the West. Lacking any concrete threat of force for non-compliance, it could be used by Syria’s bloody dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to deceive the global community and hold on to his gases nonetheless.
When Russian officials announced their plan for the Syrian government to hand over its chemical weapons stockpiles to the UN for destruction, thus averting an American punitive strike, everybody agreed that it had to be given a chance. Hailed by Russia’s press as a “diplomatic coup”, it did seem a comfortable solution ...
... should prompt the same kind of response in both cases. Since there now have been allegations that both sides have used CWs, shouldn’t the US and the UN wait for conclusive proof before taking any direct military action on the side of the Free Syrian Army? Second, in a setting of such uncertainty and conflicting evidence, the probability of false flag incidents is high. If there was indeed a chemical weapons attack at the capital’s outskirts on August 21, we cannot yet be sure who it really was that pulled the trigger. Logic begs the uncomfortable question: which side would be more willing to carry out a chemical weapons attack against civilians there and then? The Syrian government, while being ...