Response and responsibility for Syria

It is no wonder that in the wake of the First World War, when they were first used, the international community united in banning chemical weapons in military conflict. The horrors they had inflicted on human beings, both soldiers and civilians, were seen to be beyond the pale.

In waging war against his own people, Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad has done just that — he inflicted those same horrors on them. Since the outbreak of the rebellion not quite three years ago, his regime has slaughtered 100,000 Syrians and then, as if emboldened by the seeming indifference of the big powers, he launched a gruesome assault on August 21 where poisonous gas was used against civilian targets that killed well over 1,400 men, women and children and affected thousands others, perhaps for life. That clearly puts the man in the dock as a war criminal.

You would have imagined that the case for taking the Syrian president to task for this crime is evident. Surely, sending rockets loaded with sarin gas into residential neighbourhoods represents one compelling reason to act urgently against him. The gut-wrenching images from the Damascus suburbs, where the attack took place, of countless children supine on the floor writhing in pain are alone sufficient reason to hit back at a leader whose cruelty appears to know no bounds. How deeper into lawlessness would a regime have to descend before the international community, with the US as its self-styled moral arbiter, intervenes? Where is that community’s resolve when you need it?

One can say here, without resorting to hyperbole, that not since the Rwanda massacres in East Africa, when Hutus slaughtered Tutsis en masse in 1994, has there been a case of such organised mayhem directed at a people as the one the Syrian regime as unleashed so far — 100,000 people killed, hundreds of thousands injured, two million displaced from their homes and now more than 1,400 falling prey to Sarin gas — the latter reportedly representing the deadliest use of chemical agents since these were outlawed close to a century ago. What to do in order to punish and deter?

Initially, the US, to its credit, took the lead in making plans to respond, with the expectation that the other big powers would follow suit. President Barack Obama, who as commander-in-chief had the constitutional right to order strikes, came out swinging, as did his secretary of state. Then came the cold feet, precipitated by both the news that the British parliament had voted down the country’s participation in another military campaign spearheaded by Washington and by polls at home that showed large numbers of war-weary Americans far from being in favour of military intervention in yet another far away country — reportedly less than 50 per cent of Americans can place Syria on the map and as of early last week, 59 per cent opposed while only 30 per cent supported strikes — where they fear that any involvement there may turn into a sinkhole like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nor did it help that the Arab League last Sunday held back from offering support for US military intervention.

Then after the rumblings began on Capitol Hill, the administration retrenched. The president will now seek congressional authorisation before proceeding. As of this writing, it appears that the American chief executive may have as tough job on Capitol Hill as the British prime minister had had in Westminster. Truth be told, if Obama fails to sell his Syria strategy to legislators, it is because he has no Syria strategy.

Ever since the rebellion broke out there, he has prevaricated, dithered and sat on is hands, evincing no coherent position on where his administration stood on the issue other than to reiterate that Al Assad “must go”, while doing little to see to it that the monster was shown the door. That kind of position is no position. Now, even if Congress goes along, Obama is contemplating “limited” strikes that will somehow “degrade” the Syrian military’s capabilities, with no plans to upgrade those of the opposition. Needless to say, Al Assad and his regime will absorb the blows — punished, yes, but deterred, no.

Obama has repeatedly claimed that his administration’s plans are to fire a mere “shot across the bow” in order to warn the regime. This is laughable. Blowing up a couple of air bases may degrade the ability of that regime’s air force to supply its forces and bomb opposition targets, but it will not cripple it. It sure as heck will not topple the dictator who has been directing all this mayhem against his own people.

Is it any wonder then that the American president’s wishy-washy attitude was seized upon by Syria’s government and its excitable media as a “victory” for the regime, representing a “historic American retreat” and a blow to the administration’s credibility?

We are left, in the end, with questions to answer: When 1,400 innocent souls are deliberately targeted and killed in a poisonous gas attack, and more are maimed by it, to whom do you turn for justice?

When will the families of these victims get closure?

Who will protect the survivors from a future, perhaps more deadly, assault? Should not a dictator, who has already chalked up a whole gamut of villainy, be punished for the brutal mauling of his people?

Will the victims of this war, including the two million fugitives in refugee camps who had arrived there faint with terror, harrowed and beaten — human beings like you and me, different only because by a trick of fate they were born in Syria, not elsewhere — forever be denied intimations of a happy ending to their suffering?

Fawaz Turki is a journalist, lecturer and author based in Washington. He is the author of The Disinherited: Journal of a Palestinian Exile.