Opinion

Who’s watching Syria’s chemical arms?

Recent reports that Bashar Assad is moving around some of his vast stockpiles of chemical weapons underline one of the scariest aspects of our “Syria? What’s that?” policy.

Whether or not Assad survives the deadly 16-month rebellion against him, his long-ignored weapons of mass destruction may soon be in play.

Whoever gets these terror weapons, and what they do with them, is a question to be handled by real world powers. It’s far beyond the capacity of the United Nations and Kofi Annan, to which America has so far subcontracted our Syria policy.

Washington has reportedly detected trucks moving chemical munitions out of storage facilities in the area of Homs — a hotspot of the rebellion against Assad’s rule.

Our intelligence community is stumped: Is the move meant to strengthen Assad’s control over one of the world’s largest chem-weapon stockpiles, or is he planning to use them against his own citizens?

As former Army intelligence official Joseph Holliday told The Wall Street Journal (which first reported the story), Assad & Co. may soon view their plight as “existential.” We therefore must assume that they’d “use chemical weapons against their population at some point in the conflict.”

That’s not the only nightmare scenario. Israeli defense officials fear that a desperate Assad might try to gas Tel Aviv, hoping to trigger a regional holy war so his regime can survive amid the chaos.

Yes, Israel has long displayed its air superiority. Its jets used to routinely buzz Assad’s vacation homes — and it destroyed a Syrian nuclear facility a few years back.

But if the end is nigh, Assad may well chose to forget those lessons and hope he can shuffle the deck by launching regional Armageddon.

While intelligence types try to guess what’s behind Assad’s chem-weapon shuffle, Washington planners seem even more stumped about how to handle the “emerging” threat.

Do we intervene in Syria if grotesque TV images of gassed villagers flood the Web? Or will it strengthen those who argue against getting entangled in an internal conflict?

Worse: To date, Assad has admirably maintained tight control over his undeclared stockpiles of sarin, mustard gas, cyanide and possibly VX, as well as tens of thousands of missiles that can carry them. But what if he falls? Whoever takes over will likely be too weak to secure the WMD sites. Shady arms dealers are already licking their chops.

Alternatively, al Qaeda-type jihadists among Syria’s Sunni rebels may get their hands on some of those toys. Or Assad may decide, just before the end, to send his arsenal over the border to his Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.

All these scenarios keep Jerusalem’s defense types awake at night, as Assad’s missiles can easily reach Israel’s major cities. But the arms might end up in the hands of America-hating terrorists — with Midtown Manhattan in their crosshairs.

Washington is working on plans, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just consulted with Israel on the issue (on her first visit there in two years). Yet Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the House Intelligence Committee chairman, told The Atlantic yesterday, “I can’t talk about operational details, but I don’t believe that we’re ready. If the regime were to fall this week, I think we’d be in serious trouble.”

President Obama has long treated Syria as a distraction from “big picture” foreign-policy issues, letting Annan and others run with the Syria ball. Now we must catch up. Let’s hope there’s still time.