Assad’s chemical attacks will encourage rogue regimes
Lost in the hubbub over the Jamal Khashoggi case was the airing this week of a BBC report suggesting that chemical attacks played a crucial role in Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s victories in battles with rebels. Although his regime has denied ever using such weapons, the research, conducted jointly by BBC Panorama and BBC Arabic, is significant on at least three counts. For one, it highlights the failure of the much ballyhooed agreement reached between the US and Russian governments in late 2013, following a horrific sarin attack, that prompted Assad to belatedly sign the international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and agree to the destruction of his chemical-weapons stockpile.
The ostensible climbdown followed a warning by the US that its planned air strikes could be averted if Syria turned over “every single bit” of its chemical-weapons arsenal. Assad’s clever decision to sign on the dotted line became a stock defence for his regime afterwards against charges that it used chemical weapons.
What the world failed to notice was that there was a loophole in the deal large enough for numerous trucks filled with cyanide gas canisters to pass through. Admittedly, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN jointly destroyed all 1,300 tonnes of chemicals that the Syrian government declared to keep its side of the bargain. But the key word was “declared”.
The announcement in June 2014 that Syria’s declared chemical weapons material had been removed or destroyed was met with glee by Twittering pacifist liberals. Yet reports of chemical attacks continued to trickle out from Syria. For the OPCW inspectors, it was no big mystery. As one of them told the BBC investigation, “All we could do was to verify what we’d been told was there. The thing about the Chemical Weapons Convention is it’s all based on trust.”
To be fair, the OPCW did draw attention to “gaps, inconsistences and discrepancies” in Syria’s declaration. But in retrospect, those anomalies may have been significant enough eventually to turn the tide of war in Assad’s favour, albeit with added support from the Russian air force, Iranian-backed Shia paramilitaries and battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon.
The BBC investigation’s findings are also significant in that they come just as the international community and Syria’s neighbours are signalling a tacit acceptance of the Assad government as the legitimate representative of the people.
The change in attitude is not entirely surprising given that no opposition group is in a position to challenge Assad’s authority except a hodge-podge of Islamists and Al Qaeda-linked fighters in the flashpoint northern Idlib province. Still, the question that cannot be evaded is whether the world is ready to overlook the alleged war crimes of the Syrian regime in a rush to “let bygones be bygones”.
After seven years of fighting, tensions and border closures, the economic argument in favour of normalisation of ties does seem compelling.
Take the Nassib frontier post between Jordan and Syria, which reopened this week. Before it shut down in 2015 due to the civil war, goods worth billions of dollars passed by trucks through the trade route, according to a
report. With Jordan gripped by a prolonged downturn and the Syrian economy in tatters, the potential dividends of a reopening of the border crossing can scarcely be overstated.
Next in line is the Albu Kamal crossing, whose reopening has been described by Iraqi and Syrian government officials as imminent. As one of only three such posts on the Iraqi border in Syria’s far east that is under the Assad regime’s control, the windfall is likely to be substantial for traders on either side once Albu Kamal is reopened.
And yet, none of the developments will alter the fact that Syria today is the equivalent of a giant crime scene, with no dearth of evidence to establish the guilt of senior regime officials in a fair trial by an international court.
The rush to re-embrace the regime should be tempered by the knowledge that more than 500,000 Syrians, including regime soldiers and supporters,
the bbc’s investigation should alert the international community to the possibility that syria’s example might encourage rogue regimes to follow in its footsteps.
have been killed or are missing and half of the population has been displaced since 2011 when a popular uprising against Assad’s rule first began.
The fact that Daesh, opposition rebel groups and the US-led coalition have also been charged with human rights violations and massacres, in no way diminishes the scale of war-crime allegations levelled against the Syrian regime. The opprobrium it has richly earned cannot be allowed to become the proverbial elephant in the room as more governments resume dealings with Damascus.
Finally, the BBC’s investigation should alert the international community to the possibility that Syria’s example might encourage rogue regimes to follow in its footsteps. International humanitarian law may be strict in its prohibition of the use of chemicals because “their effects are indiscriminate in nature and designed to cause superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering”. But unless the UN can bring the people behind the ghastly chemical attacks in Syria to justice within a reasonable time, the law will be seen as lacking teeth.