Quoth William Polk --
4: Who Are the Possible Culprits and What Would be Their Motivations?
The public does not know the answer to William Polk's question No. 4 and our government has not provided evidence that it knows the answer to this question. Yet, having a certain answer to this question would seem determinative on the issue of whom to attack in a military strike against Syria.
If you read this post by Meteor Blades, you know that William Polk is a senior American statesman with unusually well informed and experienced insights into the Middle East in general and Syria in particular. The linked post sets out a baker's dozen of questions about the Syrian gas attack raised by Mr. Polk. His analysis addressing the very complex question No. 4 is, by itself, longer than the average Daily Kos diary.
It seemed worth while to break down his analysis into smaller bits and see if there is anything worth discussing about this question and its possible answers. Come out into the tall grass if that interests you.
Here is Mr. Polk's conclusion to his extensive analysis of this question, which, condensed, amounts to cui bono:
Clearly, Assad had much to lose and his enemies had much to gain. That conclusion does not prove who did it, but it should give us pause to find conclusive evidence which we do not now have.
Here I condense his major points leading to his conclusion:
His first three questions were these:
1: What Actually Happened?
Answer: The release of gas killed 1000's in localized areas.
2: What Has Been Reported?
Sarin gas came from rockets landing in three areas to the East plus one patch Southwest of Damascus. These areas are disputed between rebels and the government of Assad.
3: Who Told Us What We Think We Know?
Mostly Israel. But Israel has an agenda of Syrian regime change and what it offers is thin and inconclusive. Meanwhile UN inspectors who could identify a substance like Sarin for up to a month can't perform meaningful inspections and suffer obstruction from every side, including U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
Given the uncertainties of resolving as simple a question as whom to blame in a retaliation for this gas attack, it is worth considering how the Assad regime might expect to benefit from this kind of attack in this kind of area, hence question No. 4.
Polk lists reasons Assad might want to use Sarin:
"If Assad were to initiate an attack, it would be more logical for him to pick a target under the control of the rebels."
To make such a high risk and controversial move, Assad "must have thought of it either as a last ditch stand or as a knockout blow to the insurgents."
A military style attack would be "aimed at storage facilities, communications links, arms depots or places where commanders congregated."
Mr. Polk also assesses the attack as, at least, a surprise, if not baffling and out of character move by Assad's military:
the fighting over the last two years suggests that its military commanders would not have seen a massive gas attack either as a “game changer” or an option valuable enough to outweigh the likely costs.
Polk concludes that nothing about this attack serves any interest of the Assad regime. Assad's opposition is fragmented,with
highly variegated tolerance to Western intervention. Militarily, Assad appears to be gaining on the insurgents.
How might rebels, on the other hand, benefit from such an attack?
As in Libya, evidence of an ugly suppression of inhabitants might justify and lead to foreign military intervention.
There are a lot of reasons for the U.S. to forgo intervention militarily in Syria. Foremost among them, it would seem, might be not knowing, actually, whom to attack. Hence, I would particularly like to hear from
the thousands of folks on this site who are disposed to approve of a military strike, and learning what evidence convinces them that we know who set off the gas.