Sarin is extraordinarily unpleasant stuff. It can be inhaled or, even at very low atmospheric concentrations, penetrate the skin. It attacks the body’s nervous system, causing systems and glands to “overload.” Exposure, unless treated with specific antidotes immediately, results in convulsions, coma and then death.
Over the last year and half of fighting in Syria, the West has kept a close eye on Syria’s weapons depots. As recently as a few months ago, Western defence officials were quietly telling journalists that the Syrians were behaving responsibly, given the circumstances: They had stepped up security at the storage facilities and taken no provocative acts.
Yet over the last few days, that has changed. Defence officials are now telling major U.S. media outlets that Syria has activated its sarin and loaded it into bombs for dispersal.
Sarin’s component chemicals are normally stored separately. Only when they are mixed together does sarin become a deadly weapon. But sarin, once mixed, has a short shelf-life — months at most, or perhaps only weeks. Past that and it will become inert.
In other words, activated sarin is a use-or-lose weapon. The clock is running. President Bashar Assad’s possession of these weapons in a high state of readiness is incredibly dangerous and destabilizing for the entire region.
Because Assad, who is fighting for what a Russian diplomat recently termed “his physical survival,” is now going to face a deadline on when he can use these munitions, and thus psychological pressure to do so. It also means that he’s concluded, for the first time since the civil war started, that he might need them. Even in the context of Syria’s bloody civil war and its thousands of civilian casualties, these developments are extremely disturbing.
Syria’s neighbours are reacting accordingly. Turkey has requested NATO Patriot missiles to protect itself against missile attacks — missiles that could be carrying sarin. [ital]The Atlantic[endital] has reported that Israel sought Jordan permission several times for a strike at Syrian chemical weapons depots before the weapons are armed and used. Jordan, which Israel felt obliged to consult because several of Syria’s depots are very close to Jordanian territory, apparently denied permission, but left open the possibility of granting it later.
Clearly, Turkey and Israel — hardly countries that see eye to eye on anything these days — are equally alarmed at the prospect of a collapsing regime arming its most deadly weapons. And that raises the prospect that either of them might feel compelled to strike first if they feel threatened. Israel, in particular, has a history of pre-emptive action against threats posed by weapons of mass destruction. Sarin certainly qualifies as such.
Turkey doesn’t have the capability to surgically destroy the weapons by itself. Israel does, but can’t relish the prospect of starting a war with its northern neighbour. The last thing the world needs is another Arab-Israeli war, one in which chemical weapons are primed and ready to go from the outset.
But these weapons must be destroyed, and quickly. Only the United States has the capability to do so with both precision and overwhelming force. As reluctant as President Obama understandably is to involve his country in Syria’s civil war, the risk of inaction is greater.
This does not mean the West should take a side in the conflict. We should not begin arming the rebels or sending in our own ground troops.
But a surgical attack against the weapons, plus whatever Syrian air-defence assets would stand in our way, will not materially impact the course of the ground war between Assad’s forces and the rebels. It would simply remove an extremely dangerous weapon from the hands of an increasingly desperate man.
No military operation is ever without risk, but in this case, the risk is warranted. Syria’s chemical weapons must be destroyed.
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: Matt Gurney
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