by Dore Gold
There is a fundamental
question concerning President Bashar Assad's decision to launch the
devastating chemical attack on the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta on
August 21, that led to as many as 1,300 fatalities, according to
opposition sources. What was his motivation? The New York Times ran a
headline this week saying "Confident Syria Used Chemicals," indicating
that the attack showed that Assad was sure of his own standing.
But there could be
another interpretation of his decision to resort to chemical weapons on
such a scale. Lt. Col. Jonathan Halevi has written that contrary to the
conventional wisdom, after his successful operations against Sunni
rebels in Qusair and Homs, Assad did not feel he was on the verge of
winning the Syrian civil war.
Qusair, after all, was a
Shiite village inside of Syria so that it is no wonder Assad's
Hezbollah allies were successful in taking it. Moreover, Assad's Sunni
opponents moved the battle shortly thereafter to the countryside of
Latakia, the port city which is in the heart of the Alawite area of
Syria.
According to this view,
Assad's decision to use chemical weapons last week was because, to a
large extent, he is already feeling that his back is against the wall.
After all, he used his chemical arsenal against a rebel stronghold not
in some remote region but right outside of Damascus, that could have
become the springboard for a final offensive against the regime.
An important indicator
of Assad's situation is his dependence on foreign fighters from Shiite
communities in neighboring countries, beyond the Lebanese Shiites of
Hezbollah. The Assad regime has been using Iranian security forces for
some time, and has employed pro-Iranian Iraqi Shiites as well. But all
these forces have not been sufficient for providing Assad with a
decisive outcome. Presently, Tehran appears to be spreading its search
for Shiite allies to more distant areas, like Pakistan.
There are Shiite
communities in the Gulf, in places like Bahrain and eastern Saudi
Arabia, that have been backed by Iran as well. The Shiite insurgency in
Yemen, known as the Houthi rebellion, has been supplied by Iranian
weapons ships. The fact that Assad and his Iranian allies have not been
able to win the war, despite all the assistance they have received to
date, indicates that Assad's situation must be much worse than it seems
on the outside.
As the U.S. considers
the scale of its intervention in Syria, it needs to consider the impact
of any action it takes on the future course of the Syrian Civil War. Up
until now, by not using force of any kind, the West has paid a price
that it will likely feel in the years ahead.
While Iran pours Shiite
militias into Syria, rival Sunni jihadist forces have built up their
military capacity,as well. After 9/11, the financial backers of the
Sunni terrorist networks in the Gulf reconsidered their partnerships
with groups like al-Qaida and its affiliates. Walter Russell Mead correctly observed in
The Wall Street Journal last week that the recent revival of al-Qaida,
due to the Syrian Civil War, has led to the oil-producers in the Gulf
reconnecting with the jihadists fighting Iran's allies.
Moreover, in the years
ahead, Syria could well become a far more dangerous sanctuary for
jihadist organizations than Afghanistan, ever was. Syria, after all is
situated on the Mediterranean, right across from Europe, while the bases
of bin Laden in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan or the tribal
regions of Pakistan were far more remote. Failure to take any action
would probably deepen these trends creating a far more dangerous Middle
East in the future.
The real danger from
doing nothing about Assad's chemical attack is that it signals that
there are no boundaries in modern war that the Great Powers insist on.
Because the international community places chemical, biological, and
nuclear weapons into one category -- namely, that they all belong to the
family of weapons of mass destruction -- any tolerance of a Syrian
chemical strike also lowers the international barriers against the use
of biological and nuclear weapons.
This will have enormous significance for the future strategies adopted by the affiliates of al-Qaida and especially by Iran.
Going back to Syria
specifically, why is the question over whether Assad used chemical
weapons because he felt strong or because he is really weak still
important? If Assad is indeed weaker than anyone thought and his
chemical attack was more an act of desperation rather than a statement
about his self-confidence, then U.S. military action, depending on its
scale, could potentially accelerate the end of his regime.
For example, if Assad
is stripped of his air force, then the dynamics of the civil war will
undoubtedly change. Moreover, if Assad feels his regime is nearing its
end, then his propensity to continue to use chemical weapons will
increase.
Clearly, before the U.S. and its
allies decide what course of action to adopt, what is needed is an
accurate picture of Assad's situation on the ground, for in many
respects that will dictate the political impact within Syria of any
military option.
Dore Gold
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=5549
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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