Syrian refugee.
As
reported here earlier this morning, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has
told the BBC in an interview that the United States has "moved assets into place" and is "ready" to launch military action against Syria if President Obama gives the word. On Monday, in a short, tough, unequivocal statement to reporters that clearly laid the groundwork for an attack, Secretary of State John Kerry
said that it is "undeniable" that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons in the nation's civil war, which has been raging since March 2011.
What seems undeniable is that the United States will definitely attack Syria. What is unclear is how many other nations will approve of or join that attack. What is unclear is what the objective will be. Simply destroy the Syrian government's stocks of chemical arms? Take out Syria's fairly capable air force and its less capable air defenses? Blast a broad range of strategic targets, including military headquarters to give the rebels, who include Islamic extremists, a decisive advantage in the stalemated war? What are the intended consequences? What could be the unintended consequences?
Reuters reported Tuesday that Western powers have informed exiled Syrian opposition leaders in Istanbul to expect such an attack within days:
"The opposition was told in clear terms that action to deter further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime could come as early as in the next few days, and that they should still prepare for peace talks at Geneva," one of the sources who was at the meeting on Monday told Reuters.
And NBC News
reported "senior U.S. officials" as saying an attack could come as "early as Thursday." Such remarks should always be viewed cautiously. They may be true, they may be part of psychological warfare to stir up anxiety in Syria, they may be pure speculation on the part of individuals who themselves are outside the decision-making circle.
Please read below the fold for more on this story.
Chuck Hagel definitely isn't one of the outsiders. And he says various contingency plans for an attack have been developed:
"[President Obama] has seen them, we are prepared," he told the BBC's Jon Sopel, adding: "We are ready to go."
Mr Hagel said that intelligence currently being gathered by the UN inspectors would confirm that the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical attack last week.
"I think it's pretty clear that chemical weapons were used against people in Syria," he said.
"I think the intelligence will conclude that it wasn't the rebels who used it, and there'll probably be pretty good intelligence to show is that the Syria government was responsible. But we'll wait and determine what the facts and the intelligence bear out."
However, the U.N. inspectors, who came under sniper fire Monday while in transit to the site of an alleged chemical attack outside of Damascus, are only mandated to determine whether chemical attacks occurred, not who launched them. Various reports have said the attack affected up to 3,000 victims, with more than 300 killed. If the attack were proved to have been carried out by the Syrian regime of Bashir al-Assad, it would mark the first time that the government has been clearly tied to the use of chemical weapons.
Syria’s foreign minister says Walid al-Moallem challenged anyone accusing the Syrian regime of using chemical weapons to provide proof.
Previous allegations of the government's use of such weapons have not been proved, with some sources, including the Damascus government, claiming any chemical attacks originated with some element of the rebels. But just as the government has denied using chemical arms itself and blamed the rebels for the attacks, the rebels have denied they are responsible and blamed the government. The fog of war is further clouded by media around the world, each outlet with its own agenda, some of which have nothing to do with journalism.
The White House has been seeking support for an attack from its allies as well as other sources. The Saudis support the rebels and have indicated they would back a U.S. attack. France is firmly on board, and Britain can surely be counted on to lend its support. The Arab League, after a meeting of representatives of its 22 member nations in Cairo, issued a statement, not of support for U.S. intervention, but urging the U.N. Security Council to:
"overcome the differences among its members by taking the necessary ... resolutions against the perpetrators of this crime, for which the Syrian regime bears responsibility, and to end the violations and crimes of genocide that the Syrian regime has been carrying out for over two years".
While it is said that President Obama has not yet decided whether to attack, it seems more likely, given Kerry's statement and Hagel's comment and the positioning of U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea, that what is undecided is the timing and how much diplomacy will precede military intervention. Otherwise, one would have to believe that this is the most elaborate bluff in recent history.
Any attack is bound to kill more civilians in a nation where more than 100,000 people, a large portion of them civilians, have already been killed. A case could be made that attacking now could save future lives. But there is no evidence that the kinds of attack that seem likely to be carried out, even if they were to topple Assad, would achieve such a goal.
Assad's government has been involved in a string of massacres, tortures and other crimes. The rebels have committed atrocities of their own. The use of chemical weapons, whoever is doing it, is a war crime. And war crimes ought not to go unpunished, although most do, as we have unfortunately seen right here at home with such criminals getting fat speaking fees and big advances on their memoirs. That fact alone is, to use the words of John Kerry, a "moral obscenity."
People high and low across the political spectrum in the United States keep saying there are no good options in Syria. When that is the case, how is it that bombing gets moved to the head of the queue as one of those options?
