Syria Has Used Chemical Weapons

United State’s President Barack Obama’s administration has assessed that Syria has likely used chemical weapons twice in its civil war. This has intensified calls where I work on Capitol Hill for a more aggressive U.S. intervention in Syria. However, American lawmakers are far from agreeing on what a greater American role would look like.

The U.S. intelligence community has determined that Syria has crossed the red line set out by Mr. Obama, who has said the use or transfer of chemical weapons would constitute a “game changer” to his policy of providing only humanitarian and nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the news yesterday during a trip through the Middle East. “It violates every convention of warfare,” Hagel told reporters in Abu Dhabi.

Several U.S. Senators have since renewed their calls for stronger U.S. intervention in Syria without United Nations involvement.

New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says that he supports working with regional partners, establishing a no-fly zone with international support, and potentially arming vetted rebels in some sort of controlled process.

“It is clear that we must act to assure the fall of Assad, the defeat of extremist groups, and the rise of democracy,” Menendez said in a written statement.

However, calls for intervention in the Syrian civil war are being met in the U.S. and elsewhere with trepidation.

The Syrian military’s defense mechanisms are sophisticated and located within major population centers. Removing those devices could cause mass civilian casualties. This will make instituting and maintaining a no-fly zone very difficult. Furthermore, potential ethnic divisions within the country are severe.

There is also a lot of concern within the Western intelligence communities about who some of these various groups are aligned with. Some groups have ties with al-Qaeda and other groups have ties to other jihadi organizations. Another particular concern is the role that Hezbollah may be playing in the war.

Hezbollah is a Shi’a militant group. It has a paramilitary wing that is one of the stronger militant movements within the Middle East. Hezbollah has been a recipient of financial assistance from Syria for years, and what actions it is taking during the civil war remains unclear. Hezbollah would be one actor that could stand in opposition to al-Qaeda (a Sunni organization).

Indeed, there are reports coming out of Syria that sectarian conflict, between Shi’a and Sunni groups as well as between tribes within those denominations, is erupting in the wake of conflict between rebel forces and the military.

The Syrian civil war is a very complicated contest. The breakdown along ethnic lines will be every bit as problematic as it was in Iraq – only Syria has chemical weapons.

There are many ways to analyze the ongoing conflict in Syria. It can be seen as a revolution against an authoritarian regime, or as a proxy war between Sunnis and Shi’a, or as means for al-Qaeda and similar organizations to find new relevance. All of these approaches are helpful in understanding the nuances of varying actors and their motivations in the war.

Further debate on a U.S. response to Syria is expected later today after lawmakers receive a classified briefing on the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons.

The White House said that the administration will wait to announce its next moves until a United Nations investigation into the two suspected cases of chemical weapons produces “credible corroboration” of the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment.

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the ranking republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “If it is verified, then obviously it is a crossing of the red line and would greatly change our posture there.”

Syria Using Chemical Weapons?

The United States has stated that American intervention in Syria is precipitated upon Syria’s use of chemical weapons. This is the ‘red line’ that U.S. President Barack Obama has drawn around the Syrian civil war.

Now there are rumors that last week the Syrian government used chemical weapons on a small scale against some rebel groups. If true, this could be a way for Syria to test this ‘red line’ position. However, I’ve heard from several sources that this alleged use of chemical weapons could be a case of definition mischaracterization.

Most now believe that the Syrian government used tear gas to control a small pocket of insurgents. I find this to be a credible explanation, because no one is alleging that sarin, sulfur mustard, or any other kind of device considered a chemical weapon among Western governments was used. Regardless, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is escalating attacks against his own people, and Assad has shown that he is willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power.

Hezbollah has been an instrument of the Syrian government. Syria has helped to fund and train Hezbollah militants since the group’s inception, and Syria has used Hezbollah as its primary device to attack Israel. The United States is using Israel’s security as a high watermark for further American intervention in the region.

The United States would prefer to put the Middle East behind it. The U.S. has shifted its focus to Asia. China’s growing influence and the increasing regional instability from a nuclear armed North Korea have sapped resources away from the Middle East and North Africa. 

Syria has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the world. The prospect of radical Islamist groups getting their hands on some of these weapons is the gravest fear that the U.S. intelligence community has for Mid-East terrorists. But, the shadow of the Iraq war hangs over America’s actions in Syria. The Obama administration’s reluctance to intervene in Syria has been colored by the strategic mistakes of the early Iraq War and the cost the war had to American blood and treasure. The way the Iraq War was launched and the sectarian violence that followed has informed how President Obama approaches the situation in Syria. Mr. Obama really doesn’t want to get involved in the Syrian conflict. But the situation in Syria is not comparable to Iraq before the Iraq War.You can make a much more credible case for intervention now in Syria than you could before in the case of Iraq.

However, more American troops in the region would surely galvanize Islamists not already involved in the Syrian conflict, and I can envision a myriad of scenarios where you could have thousands of Jihadi terrorists flooding into Syria to fight the Americans. This could further destabilize Syria and give even more opportunities for chemical weapons to fall into the wrong hands. So there are strong arguments for why the U.S. should stay out of the Syrian conflict. Nevertheless, if the United States is to remain credible, Mr. Obama will have to stay firm to the ‘red line’ he has drawn around Syria’s use of chemical weapons.

Al-Qaeda’s Designs For Syria

A massive blast rocked Syria’s Aleppo University on Tuesday, blowing the walls off dormitory rooms and killing at least 87 people with the death toll expected to rise. The explosion hit the campus as students were in the middle of taking exams.

Government institutions within Aleppo have been a target in the past, because Aleppo is the country’s largest city and it has been Syria’s main commercial hub. However, the targeting of students marks a major escalation in Syria’s civil war. The government and the rebel opposition have blamed each other for the university bombing, and it is easy to see why. The target of attack as well as the scale of destruction is inconsistent with the rebel’s modus operandi or the rockets they are known to possess. The bombing shows all the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

The ongoing threat of terrorism by al Qaeda presents a different pattern from what has been seen in the past. Leadership of the network appears to have evolved from a centralized body to now being a loose aggregation of groups. One reason for this new development is that al Qaeda relies heavily on geographical safe havens. These are areas of the world where al Qaeda has the ability to set up training camps and meeting places without fear of interference or interruption. The chaos and confusion that has erupted around Syria’s civil war has created one of those safe havens.

Jabhat al Nusra is a member of al Qaeda’s loose aggregation of groups, and it has claimed responsibility for attacks on Syrian government targets in the past. In my opinion, this group is a prime suspect for the university bombing, but it may be reticent to take responsibility for fear of reprisals from other rebel groups.

As I’ve said in the past, al Qaeda’s financial and logistical problems have forced the network to strengthen its alliances with other groups such as the various Taliban franchises in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban, Balochi and Punjabi extremists, Saudi dissidents, Iraqi insurgents, unaffiliated groups who profit from drug smuggling, and now Syrian rebel forces. This dependence on alliances has caused the network to become as close operationally with outside groups as it has ever been. With these new ties, al Qaeda has also been able to bond ideologically with other groups like never before. This adds a whole new dimension to the insurgencies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and a troubling new dynamic to Syria’s civil war.

The latest violence in Syria sees Jabhat al Nusra and other al Qaeda affiliated groups attacking soft targets in the larger cities. For al Qaeda, these methods are meant to establish a two-pronged goal. The organization is intent on making it more difficult for the weakened Shi’a led government of Syria to physically challenge al Qaeda and the network’s alliance with Sunni groups; more importantly, a weakened Syria could further destabilize the region and possibly further embroil the the United States in regional conflicts.

Al Qaeda’s goal remains the same. It aims to “provoke and bait” the United States into “bleeding wars” throughout the Islamic world.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi masterminded and oversaw the strategy that al Qaeda originally used to destabilize Iraq. Zarqawi focused on the fault line in Iraqi society – the divide between Sunnis and Shi’a – with the intention to cause civil war. The attacks he launched against the Shi’a became a kind of roadmap for wreaking controlled havoc. He did this with the intention of keeping the United States bogged down in conflicts with Muslim fighters; however, it must be noted that al Qaeda has always seen its ability to defend and preserve Sunni norms and law at the expense of Shi’a political power as a benefit to its war on the West.

I believe that if Syria’s government does eventually fall, al Qaeda will then initiate a second Syrian civil war among the Sunni/Shi’a divide in order to bait the United States to intercede. If a second civil war did occur, the United States would move to keep Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons out of the wrong hands. They could play right into al Qaeda’s trap.

There are possibly hundreds of opposition rebel groups within Syria. Several of these groups consider themselves to be the incumbency for the opposition and would move to form a new government should President Bashar al-Assad’s government fall. These groups are not part of a larger monolithic whole; rather, they are divergent ethnic groups that are antagonistic and even violent towards one another. Their only unifying factor is that they oppose Assad. Al Qaeda will surely exploit this situation.

Syria’s civil war is only one round in a dangerous ongoing game of chess that al Qaeda is playing with the United States.

Many of the al Qaeda fighters in Syria came from Iraq, and they promote a jihadist vision that is global in scope, intolerant of other Sunni doctrines, and fanatically anti-Shi’a. Al Qaeda’s main grievance with the Syrian regime is that it is run by Alawites, people who belong to a branch of Shi’a Islam. Syria’s population is over 70% Sunni, yet the country is run by minority Shi’ites who make up only around 12% of the population. Al Qaeda wants to change that, and they are building and expanding training camps in pockets of Syria where sympathetic Sunnis hold power.

Like all bombings associated with al Qaeda, the bombing at Aleppo University was designed to sow fear and induce economic damage. Syria’s state-run SANA news agency has quoted the minister of higher education, Mahmoud Mualla, as saying that Assad has ordered the reconstruction of Aleppo University “with the utmost speed.”

Kofi Annan Leaves Syria

Another blow has been dealt to the Syrian peace process.

Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has resigned from his role as the U.N.’s chief peace negotiator in Damascus. The announcement comes as the severity of fighting has risen in recent weeks. This is yet another sign that there will not be a peaceful end to the Syrian civil war any time soon.

Mr. Annan had been in this role since February, but success always appeared to be a long shot for him: It can be almost impossible to demilitarize a conflict with so many moving parts. As I have written, there are possibly hundreds of opposition groups within Syria vying for a leadership position in the rebellion. Getting all of these groups to the table would be a daunting task in and of itself. Even then, getting them to agree on anything is another matter entirely.

So what are the consequences of diplomacy failing?

I’ve noted previously that the Syrian military is using war planes to fire on the opposition. These are fighter jets and helicopters that were designed to fight a different kind of war (a war with another state actor). This could indicate the military’s desperation and hint at a disintegration of its other capabilities.

Reports now attest that portions of the rebel opposition have become more capable and better organized since al-Qaeda got involved in the fight. News reports out this morning cite intelligence sources indicating that a substantial presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq is within Syria. This compounds matters.

Al-Qaeda operatives have previous combat experience, and they are probably offering to help the local opposition forces be more effective. Al-Qaeda will likely embed their fighters in existing opposition forces and move to systematically co-opt the agenda of these groups, once they are in place.

Western intelligence services need to find out who and where these operatives are – and fast: Syria is known to be armed with a substantial stockpile of chemical weapons. It will be vital for western governments to ensure that those weapons do not fall into terrorist hands.