As expected, the threat of a Russian veto has prevented the United Nations from adopting any position on the latest chemical attack in Syria, which killed hundreds in three suburbs of Damascus. An organization meant to act in support of peace has been turned into an instrument for preventing all such action.
To justify his government’s endorsement of mass murder, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claims the attack was the work of Syrian rebels.
In fact, that cynical contention is belied by months of evidence to the contrary. This attack is merely the latest in a string of escalating atrocities — all aimed at preventing the rebels from setting up the rudiments of an administration in areas under their control.
The start of the “chemical campaign” was signalled by a Feb. 24 editorial in the newspaper Tishrin, published by Assad’s Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party. Writing of areas controlled by rebels, it declared: “The dar al-harb (houses of war) must be wiped off the face of the earth.”
In other words, Assad had switched to total war.
Less than a month later, on March 19, came the first chemical attack on Khan al-Asal, killing dozens. Rebels had captured Khan al-Asal and villages around it six months before and were transforming it into a local administrative center for what they call “Free Syria.”
A few hours later, another putative local government center, this time in al-Utaibah, suffered the same fate as an attack by chemical weapons claimed dozens of lives.
A third attack came March 24. This time, the target was Adra, an important communication hub for the rebels’ administration.
On April 13 came the attack on Sheik Maqsud, a strategic village designated by rebels as an administrative center close to Aleppo, Syria’s second-most-populous city. Again, numerous people died.
On April 29 the town of Saraqeb, also set up by rebels as a local government center, was attacked by helicopters firing chemical weapons. One person died and eight others were injured.
The latest attack on Ghouta on Aug. 21 was even bigger, claiming (according to multiple reports) over 1,300 lives, with many more injured. One reason for the higher death toll is that Ghouta is more densely populated than the previous targets.
Rebel sources tell me that Ghouta had been chosen as “the last step toward setting up a government in the heart of Damascus,” which is a short ways to the west. Apparently, Assad simply wouldn’t tolerate a rival government operating some 10 miles from his presidential palace.
The six chemical attacks so far have followed a pattern of spiraling upward, each bigger than the previous one.
Assad was likely trying to test international reaction to his use of chemical weapons, since President Obama had repeatedly said that such attacks constituted a “red line” and would be a “game changer.”
But, as Obama didn’t react to the first attack, the second followed, opening the way for four more. It’s a safe bet that Assad has decided that, thanks to Russian support and Obama’s own cynical indifference, the Syrians can get away with mass murder.
To give Russians a diplomatic fig leaf, Assad has agreed to let UN inspectors in to check reports of chemical attacks. But the UN mission is clearly designed not to find the truth, but only to produce a report that will foment further confusion.
To start with it, the mission is allowed to inspect only three sites, under the supervision of Assad’s security officials. And the inspections must be completed within a single day, although vast areas have to be covered.
The permitted areas do not include Ghouta, where the most deadly attack has occurred. Inspections will take place at other sites, weeks after the attacks, easily long enough for traces of the weapons, mostly with deadly gases, to dissipate.
Assad is not the first Ba’athist leader to use chemical weapons to mass murder his fellow citizens. On March 16, 1988, Saddam Hussein’s army attacked the city of Halabjah, 150 miles north of Baghdad, with chemical weapons, killing some 5,000, mostly Kurdish women and children. Saddam joked that the attack was his “gift” to Kurds who were about to celebrate their New Year on March 20.
Note that Assad’s first chemical attack came on March 19, also on the eve of the Kurdish New Year. Since the Khan Asal attack, an estimated 40,000 Syrian Kurds have fled into neighboring Iraqi Kurdistan.
After Saddam fell in 2003, some of his chemical “wizards” — including Hissam Hashem, Abdul-Rahman Ibrahim and Salman Khuwailad — fled to Syria to work for Assad.
After Halabjah, the major democracies turned their face away and said little. Will they commit the same mistake again — and so allow mass murder by chemical weapons, banned under strict international treaties, to be readmitted as a legitimate part of warfare?