Red line is gone; welcome to the age of chemical warfare
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SABRIA S. JAWHAR
Published — Monday 16 September 2013
Last Update 16 September 2013 12:16 am
There is nothing in my vocabulary that can express my rage over the weak-kneed response from US President Barack Obama to back down from staging a strike against Bashar Assad’s murderous forces.
Obama says the use of chemical weapons against civilians is a “red line”. When the Syrian government crosses that red line, Obama dithers about for a bit and then asserts with the mighty authority of the United States to initiate precision strikes as punishment.
Obama says the use of chemical weapons against civilians is a “red line”. When the Syrian government crosses that red line, Obama dithers about for a bit and then asserts with the mighty authority of the United States to initiate precision strikes as punishment.
Today, however, it is let’s wait until the middle of 2014 to remove or destroy chemical weapons from Syria’s arsenal.
Obama came on strong only to kowtow to Russia, which has absolutely no authority to participate in mediating disarmament of Syria’s stockpile of weapons in the first place. By putting his initial desire to stage airstrikes on the back burner, Obama has allowed the Syrian Army to gain momentum. This week alone Assad forces have waged renewed and heavy attacks on rebel strongholds. By giving Assad an additional eight months to get his act together, the Syrian Army can effectively crush the rebels while the international community stands by and twiddle its thumbs. Let’s assume for a moment that Assad will fail to comply with the US-Russia agreement. The matter then goes to the United Nations Security Council, which could authorize punitive measures under Chapter VII. Yet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov has already made it clear that Russia continues to object to a military intervention. This is a win-win situation for Assad. Obama has no intention of unilaterally staging a strike. He wants the House of Representatives and the US Senate to make that call for him. He wants a consensus from the American people. Well, nearly 60 percent of Americans say they want the US to stand down on attacking Syria, so he will find no consensus. In the end, no military intervention from Western nations is likely to occur whether or not Assad complies with the agreement. No Western nation wants to follow in the footsteps of the US, which was responsible for the slaughter of 100,000 civilians in Iraq and tens of thousands of innocent lives in Afghanistan. No Western leader wants to share former President George W. Bush’s war legacy.
But neither should any Western leader want to share the legacy of Obama, who is seemingly paralyzed by Bush’s folly and refuses to do the right thing.
Rebels are understandably furious, having been given so many promises of support over the last two years, only to be let down by every leader of the free world. While the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the prison at Guantanamo Bay have deeply damaged the United States’ reputation in the Muslim world, Muslims still look upon the US as a nation of laws, justice and a leader in doing the right thing when crimes against civilians are committed.
Obama was correct that the use of chemical weapons is a red line. But by failing to act on his promise to act, Obama has erased that red line and has given license to every despot on the planet to act on his baser impulses if his people get out of line. The US-Russia agreement, I suspect, will become a watershed moment in our history when free nations abdicated their responsibility to the greater good of humanity by tacitly endorsing the use of chemical weapons. Accountability, it seems, is out of fashion.
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