• World
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Central & South Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America & Caribbean
    • Middle East & North Africa
    • North America
  • Coronavirus
  • Politics
    • US Election
    • US politics
    • Joe Biden
    • Brexit
    • European Union
    • India
    • Arab world
  • Economics
    • Finance
    • Eurozone
    • International Trade
  • Business
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Startups
    • Technology
  • Culture
    • Entertainment
    • Music
    • Film
    • Books
    • Travel
  • Environment
    • Climate change
    • Smart cities
    • Green Economy
  • Global Change
    • Education
    • Refugee Crisis
    • International Aid
    • Human Rights
  • International Security
    • ISIS
    • War on Terror
    • North Korea
    • Nuclear Weapons
  • Science
    • Health
  • 360 °
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice
  • About
  • FO Store
Sections
  • World
  • Coronavirus
  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Sign Up
  • Login
  • Publish

Make Sense of the world

Unique insight from 2,000+ contributors in 80+ Countries

Close

Chemical Attacks and Military Interventions

By Omar S. Dahi • Aug 28, 2013

The only option left for Syrians is to demand a political settlement. 

Images of dead bodies laid out on floors wrapped in white cloths, with no sign of blood or injury, circulated across social and news media last week to signal another horrific stage of the Syrian war. As of August 24, Doctors without Borders has indicated that many patients treated in the aftermath of the attack in eastern Ghouta had "neurotoxic symptoms," though they stressed they can neither confirm scientifically nor establish causality. Since then, several other groups — including the Violation Documentation Center — have left little doubt that some sort of chemical attack did indeed occur. 

The mass scale of suffering in Syria, upwards of 100,000 killed and millions displaced, should not numb us to the fact that this was a major crime that, like other killings that have taken place inside Syria, should be impartially and independently investigated.

The government accused the rebels of a false flag operation, as have other observers arguing for the implausibility of a government attack while UN inspectors were in Syria for the first time in over a year — stationed several miles away from the assault. Why should the government attack now when it seems to be winning the war with conventional weapons? If confirmed, it would be the only scenario that might trigger more aggressive US and/or European armed intervention. 

A rebel attack seems equally implausible. If rebels are indeed able to manufacture such a large scale chemical attack, and murderous enough to use these weapons on civilians, why not attack government forces and change the tide of the war, instead of choosing territory sympathetic to the uprising and outside regime control? 

Logic and reason are therefore not sufficient means of investigating such actions or attributing culpability. There are other interpretations that are also plausible: that the regime initiated the attack in response to a perceived or actual escalation by the rebels (including reported US and US-trained special operations units advancing towards Damascus); that defectors connected with the opposition and launched the attack to spur international intervention by implicating the regime; or finally, that the command structure is disintegrating within the Syrian government, a topic that has consumed many reports of late.

Necessary to Push for Political Settlement

What should be the response to these events? The answer for those who care about the fate of Syrians is the same as it has been to the ongoing violence previously, which is to push for a political settlement and an immediate cessation of violence coupled with humanitarian aid for Syrians.

A US- or NATO-led attack, which appears to be imminent, is likely to be disastrous for Syrians (as well as Lebanese and Palestinians). If the attack is intense enough to completely destroy the Syrian regime, it will destroy whatever is left of Syria. If it is not, it will leave the regime in place to retaliate where it is strong, against its internal enemies, except now having its nationalist credentials bolstered as having fought off US aggression. 

Either way, the strike will be devastating to millions inside Syria, not to mention the millions of refugees and internally displaced populations, who are living hand to mouth and who depend on daily humanitarian aid that will surely be disrupted or stopped. There is no such thing as a surgical strike, and no possibility in a country as densely populated as Syria for an attack that does not incur civilian casualties. This is excluding the fact that US foreign policy in the Middle East, past and present, including its own complicity in chemical weapons attacks, makes it impossible not to be cynical about the motives behind this attack. Moreover, in the past two years, people within the region became convinced that US policy towards Syria is dictated — as before — by what benefits Israel, which had not desired a total regime collapse but was benefitting from a perpetual conflict in its northern border so long as it remained contained.

I have heard a refrain over the past two years after every escalation in the conflict that "things cannot get any worse." Partly under this banner, the turn to militarization was first nervously justified then embraced, and crippling economic sanctions were imposed. In each case, the rate of death and suffering dramatically escalated and conditions got much worse — not for the regime, but for ordinary Syrians.

A political settlement would be the beginning, not end of the struggle. Right now, the struggle is drowned out by a war of annihilation that is also a proxy war by regional countries at the expense of Syrians. There is no doubt that the Syrian regime has waged a war of destruction against its own people with decisive material and political support from Iran and Russia, and that it bears the primary responsibility for the violence. It has not shown a serious inclination for anything other than total victory. 

However, from the start of the uprising, the Gulf countries immediately saw the opportunity to defeat Iran in Syria and have used their money and arms to highjack the uprising and the language of the revolution in the benefit of a sordid counterrevolutionary agenda. This has led Iran to become more entrenched in its support of Syria, and to increase its support at every turn. The United States and its allies were setting up the possibilities for an endless civil war. The fact that the United States is threatening to strike now has nothing to do with the welfare of Syrians, and everything to do with the United States maintaining its own "credibility," its position as a hegemonic power.

It is hard to avoid the hopeless feeling that Syrians have lost almost all agency over their collective future. The European Union, Gulf, and the United States may very well increase armaments to the rebels, the United States may launch cruise missiles into Syria, NATO may impose a no-fly zone or invade part or all Syrian territory. But whatever actions take place, continuing to claim them in the interests of the Syrian people is simply an exercise in public relations and deception.

Both the supporters of the government and the rebels continue to frame the possible outcomes of the conflict as either a victory for the government or the rebels — a way to avoid coming to terms with the third possibility: that both sides have already lost. The only option left for Syrians still interested in stopping the fall further down the abyss is to demand a political settlement and massive aid to help heal the mass humanitarian catastrophe inside Syria and the neighboring countries. It would be the beginning of politics and possibilities — very bleak ones as things stand, but nevertheless ones that do not now exist.

*[This article was originally published by Jadaliyya.]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © Shutterstock. All Rights Reserved

Share Story
Categories360° Analysis, International Security, Middle East & North Africa, Politics TagsArmed Opposition, Bashar Al-Assad, Chemical Weapons Attacks, Ghouta, Military Strike, NATO, Political Settlement, Syria, Syrian Civil War, Syrian Government, Syrian Opposition, UN Inspectors, United Nations
Join our network of more than 2,000 contributors to publish your perspective, share your story and shape the global conversation. Become a Fair Observer and help us make sense of the world.

READ MORE IN THIS 360° SERIES

The Geopolitics of the Syrian Civil War (Part 2/2)
By Joseph Hughes • Jul 31, 2014
Syria’s Salafi Awakening: Existential Psychological Primers (Part 2/2)
By Zach Goldberg • Jul 31, 2014
The Geopolitics of the Syrian Civil War (Part 1/2)
By Joseph Hughes • Jul 20, 2014
Syria’s Salafi Awakening: Existential Psychological Primers (Part 1/2)
By Zach Goldberg • Jul 15, 2014
The Hezbollah Cavalcade: Iran’s Important Weapon in the Middle East
By Nicholas Heras & Phillip Smyth • Jun 07, 2014
100 Years Later: Lessons for the US in Syria
By Max Reibman • May 21, 2014
France's Gung-Ho Policy in Syria
By Clotilde de Swarte • Mar 28, 2014
The Fallout From Syria: Hate Speech in Indonesia
By Navhat Nuraniyah • Mar 25, 2014
Policy From Inside the Perimeter: No Finger in the Wind
By David Holdridge • Mar 12, 2014
Returning From Syria: Terrorism in the West
By Paul Ashley • Mar 01, 2014
The End of a Unified Syria
By Carl Anthony Wege • Sep 04, 2013
The Alawite Question
By Dina Yazdani • Aug 22, 2013
International Jihad and the Syrian Conflict
By Nicholas Heras & Aaron Zelin • Aug 07, 2013
Syria and the Crumbling Region: A Look at Lebanon
By Helios Global • Jul 17, 2013
The Prevalence of Sectarianism: Hezbollah and the Syrian Civil War
By Josef Olmert • May 27, 2013
Who Will Be Syria's Knight Sans Armor? (Part 1/2)
By Jennifer Helgeson • May 18, 2013
Stop Syria From Becoming an Afghan-Style Disaster
By Dmitri Trenin • Mar 21, 2013
Syria: All the King's Horses...
By David Holdridge • Feb 14, 2013
Syria: Political Dialogue and the Rise of Salafists
By Rajai Masri • Feb 02, 2013
The Middle East in 2013
By Juan Cole • Jan 01, 2013
Will Brahimi Reach a Breakthrough in Syria?
By Vijay Prashad • Dec 30, 2012
Is Chaos in Syria the Way Out?
By Maksymilian Czuperski • Nov 18, 2012
Syria: At the Epicenter of Regional Fault Lines
By Adrian Shahbaz • Jul 23, 2012
Libya to Syria: R2P and the ‘Double Standards’ Issue
By Jean-Baptiste Jeangene Vilmer • Jul 23, 2012
Russia Supports Syria For Old Times’ Sake
By Anna Pivovarchuk • Jul 10, 2012
Assad at the Tipping Point
By Jeffrey Laurenti • Jun 10, 2012
Don't Despair on Annan’s Syria Plan, Yet
By Jeffrey Laurenti • Apr 24, 2012
Annan Plan Up Against the Syrian Wall
By Jeffrey Laurenti • Apr 10, 2012
The Revolution Will Be Uploaded: Citizen Journalism in Homs
By Nicholas Heras • Mar 04, 2012
Adding Fuel to Syria's Fire
By Foreign Policy in Focus • Feb 16, 2012
Russia’s Hard-Nosed Realism in Syria: The Roots and Reasoning
By Gordon Hahn • Feb 16, 2012
The UN's Return on Syria
By Jeffrey Laurenti • Feb 15, 2012
Is Assad’s Syria ‘Too Important to Fail’ for the Resistance Axis?
By Kevjn Lim • Feb 13, 2012
A Test of Wills: The Arab League Asserts Itself in Syria
By Nicholas Heras • Feb 13, 2012
Chaos in Syria
By Ari Katz • Feb 05, 2012
Damascus: Assad's Fortress
By Ayya Harraz • Jan 27, 2012
"Cold War" in West Asia: Asia Pacific Nations Look On
By Zorawar Daulet Singh • Jan 26, 2012
The Need for Intervention in Syria
By Hina Mahmood • Jan 12, 2012

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Post navigation

Previous PostPrevious Images of the Colonial Past and Identity Politics on the Korean Peninsula
Next PostNext India in 2012: Strategic and Security Challenges Beckon
Subscribe
Register for $9.99 per month and become a member today.
Publish
Join our community of more than 2,500 contributors to publish your perspective, share your narrative and shape the global discourse.
Donate
We bring you perspectives from around the world. Help us to inform and educate. Your donation is tax-deductible.

Explore

  • About
  • Authors
  • FO Store
  • FAQs
  • Republish
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Contact

Regions

  • Africa
  • Asia Pacific
  • Central & South Asia
  • Europe
  • Latin America & Caribbean
  • Middle East & North Africa
  • North America

Topics

  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Business
  • Culture
  • Environment
  • Global Change
  • International Security
  • Science

Sections

  • 360°
  • The Interview
  • In-Depth
  • Insight
  • Quick Read
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • Interactive
  • My Voice

Daily Dispatch


© Fair Observer All rights reserved
We Need Your Consent
We use cookies to give you the best possible experience. Learn more about how we use cookies or edit your cookie preferences. Privacy Policy. My Options I Accept
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Edit Cookie Preferences

The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.

As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media.

 
Necessary
Always Enabled

These cookies essential for the website to function.

Analytics

These cookies track our website’s performance and also help us to continuously improve the experience we provide to you.

Performance
Uncategorized

This cookie consists of the word “yes” to enable us to remember your acceptance of the site cookie notification, and prevents it from displaying to you in future.

Preferences
Save & Accept