Call it a lesson in the limits of feel-good one-worldism.
Two weeks ago, a Norwegian panel awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the UN-affiliated Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the group tapped to destroy Syria’s chemical-weapon stash. This weekend, the Norwegian government rejected a proposal to destroy all that icky mustard gas, sarin, etc. in Norway.
And this is only the latest cloud over the project.
Yes, OPCW’s reports are all sunny so far, but remember: As of now, it’s all show — and a show produced and directed by the murderous regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Over the weekend, Syria handed in its official report detailing how many chems it has and where they’re stored. Sources tell me that Assad owned up to some 1,000 metric tons of chems and gases, located in 23 army bases around the country.
And as of Monday OPCW inspectors have already visited 21 of those sites. And they already helped Syria break the machines that turn raw ick into a weapon of death.
Whoop-de-doo.
Assume that Assad hasn’t already transferred some of his chems to, say, Hezbollah in Lebanon. And that he really has only 23 chemical-laced army camps — rather than 35, as US intelligence believes. And that the devices the Syrians broke in front of the inspectors are indeed all the mixers and loaders that Syria possesses (and never mind that they’re easy to rebuild.)
Still, what do you do with 1,000 tons of raw poison? You need a specially built (and very expensive) incinerator, and a place to do the incinerating.
Doing it in Syria is too hazardous. The war’s already killed 120,000, with no sign of abating. Syria’s no place for a respectable OPCW inspector to oversee an already-risky operation.
So where to send it?
Well, Russia came up with the idea of letting the OPCW oversee the destruction of Syria’s chems, so why not load all the ick on ships in the Russian Navy’s base in Syria, then send it to sites in the motherland? The Russians already have all the right equipment to burn and destroy various forms of chemical weapons.
But Moscow said nyet.
Jordan is just across the Syrian border, and has vast remote empty deserts, It’s a US American ally, so we could help by building the incinerators. But Jordan is already suffering tremendously from Syria’s war, taking in millions of refugees that threaten the kingdom’s stability; it said no, too.
That’s when desperate American and OPCW planners turned to Norway. Can’t they finally do something for humanity, rather than merely award a Nobel each year to whoever is best at reciting peace clichés?
No, it turns out.
Perhaps the new conservative government that Norwegians elected last month isn’t as gaga about UN organizations as its predecessors were. Maybe Scandinavians just fear importing deadly ick into their small countries.
Either way, Foreign Minister Boerge Brende officially rejected the idea Friday.
So it’s back to the drawing board. Next time you read an optimistic sounding OPCW report, remember: They haven’t even started planning for the most complex phase of the job that won them the Nobel on spec.
And their biggest problem, for now, is . . . well, what’s Norwegian for not in my backyard?