Assad isn’t testing the line, he’s ignoring it
THE warning could not have been clearer. Exactly a year ago, President Barack Obama declared that if Syria’s regime were to unleash its chemical weapons – or even move them – America’s ‘‘red line’’ would be crossed and the whole ‘‘calculus’’ would change.
If hundreds of people were indeed gassed near Damascus yesterday, President Bashar alAssad will have marked the first anniversary of that warning by stepping straight over Obama’s ‘‘red line’’.
What price the credibility of a superpower? In truth, it has been clear for a while that Obama’s words meant little in reality. Britain, France and the US have all concluded that Syria’s regime has used poison gas many times during the last year.
In response, America quietly redrew its ‘‘red line’’. The original threat that everything would change if Assad simply moved his chemical weapons – never mind used them in anger – was quickly forgotten. Implicitly, it became clear that if the dictator restricted himself to gassing his enemies on a small scale, then America and its allies would stay their hand.
The language used by US and British officials has reflected this shift. They always say chemical attacks have taken place, but carefully add how localised the effect has been. So Ben Rhodes, the US deputy national security adviser, said in June that Assad had used gas ‘‘on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year’’.
Last month, William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, told the foreign affairs select committee: ‘‘I believe that the Assad regime, given the pattern of events, has at some stage over the last six months or a year given authority for the use of chemical weapons in a smallscale, localised way.’’
If the latest reports are true, Assad has now used gas on a bigger scale than anyone else since Saddam Hussein. If so, he is not so much testing America’s ‘‘red line’’ as ignoring it completely and daring his enemies to do their worst. As Senator John McCain noted, Assad has suffered ‘‘no consequence’’ for using chemical weapons, so ‘‘we shouldn’t be surprised he’s using them again’’.
How will the West respond? Hague’s words betrayed the wrenching dilemma. All the efforts of the Western powers to build a coalition against Assad have been thwarted by Russia and China. Hague ruefully noted that ‘‘whenever we’ve tried to pass strong resolutions in the past,’’ they have run into the vetoes of Moscow and Beijing.
Without any hope of unity in the Security Council, military intervention is highly unlikely. The dangers attached to arming the rebels are so great that the US and Britain continually shy away from this option.
And so they summon emergency meetings, urge UN experts to find the truth about chemical weapons and call for a political solution, while knowing none of this will make any difference where the killing is taking place.
Their policy on Syria has become a counsel of despair. If hundreds of people have now been poisoned, the credibility of Obama’s ‘‘red line’’ will be another casualty.