On 2013-06-14, at 7:42 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> [WS:] This does not pass a smell test. Why would Syrian government use
> WMD in *small* quantities - enough to provoke international reaction but
> not enough to make any difference in the situation on the ground. It does
> not make any sense!
>
> A more likely scenario is a false flag operation to provoke foreign
> intervention on the side of the rebels.
(This looks more a like diplomatic maneuver than preparation for a large-scale US-led military intervention. The Obama administration has not shown any appetite for a wider war, and has been working closely with the Russians to bring about a negotiated settlement of the conflict which would neutralize the Islamist militias carrying the fight on the rebels' side.)
* * *
Shift in military balance forces Obama to change policy By Geoff Dyer in Washington Financial Times
President Barack Obama will use new evidence of chemical weapon attacks inSyria to put pressure on Russian president Vladimir Putin at next week’s G8 summit after Washington unveiled plans to begin arming Syrian rebel groups.
After months of debate and fierce internal divisions, the Obama administration has decided to intervene more decisively in the Syrian conflict, initially sending small arms and ammunition to more moderate elements of the Syrian opposition, but so far opting not to send anti-aircraft weapons or to enforce a no-fly zone.
The White House said its decision to arm the rebels was based on its new assessment that Syrian forces used chemical weapons “multiple times” in recent months, causing the deaths of 100-150 people. President Barack Obama has repeatedly described the use of chemical weapons as a “red line”.
US officials acknowledge that the military balance has begun to shift, perhaps decisively, in the Syrian government’s direction in recent months, especially after forces from Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant group, helped secure the strategically important town of Qusair.
However, the decision also comes just days before the G8 summit when Mr Obama and Mr Putin are expected to meet on the sidelines to discuss Syria. The two governments agreed in May to organise a peace conference for Syria but the initiative has languished in recent days.
Officials and diplomats said one reason the Obama administration has been vague about the precise nature of the military support it will give the opposition is to give the president time to put more diplomatic pressure on Mr Putin over Syria at next week’s summit.
As a senior UK official put it: “What Obama may well be saying to Putin next week is: ‘Here’s my direction of travel, here’s what I intend to do in terms of arming the opposition. So what will you do now about bringing Assad to the negotiating table before the US gets to that stage?’.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron held an hour-long video conference with President Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President François Hollande of France and Prime Minister Enrico Letta of Italy on Friday evening to discuss the G8 working for a political transition in Syria.
The US decision to begin arming the rebels was sharply criticised by the Russian government, which has been providing support to the Assad regime.
“There is little doubt that the decision to ‘pump’ additional weapons to illegal armed formations will increase the level of violent confrontation and violence against innocent civilians” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich at a briefing on Friday.
Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy aide to President Vladimir Putin, said the US had shared evidence with Moscow on the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, but added: “to put it bluntly, what the Americans showed us was unconvincing . . . It would be difficult even to call them facts.”
He recalled Colin Powell’s famous 2003 briefing before the UN Security Council in which he defended US intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which was later found to be deeply flawed, “though I do not want to draw parallels” he insisted . Speaking after the American announcement, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said that the United Nations Security Council needed to “urgently” discuss the new disclosures about chemical weapons. “We hope the Security Council will achieve a united approach,” she said.
British prime minister David Cameron welcomed the US decision. “If we do not engage with elements of the opposition and encourage those who have a positive democratic and pluralistic view about the future of Syria, we won’t be able to influence the shape of that opposition,” he said.
Mr Cameron also said on Friday that groups affiliated to al-Qaeda have attempted to acquire materials for chemical weapons to be used in Syria, the first time a Western leader has publicly discussed such efforts by al-Qaeda sympathisers.
His disclosure underlines the delicate balancing act that the Obama administration is trying to implement, strengthening moderate groups in the opposition on order to halt recent advances by government forces, but hoping not to also help the Jihadi elements within the rebels.
Amid calls from Syrian rebel leaders to provide much more heavy weaponry, analysts said the new US intervention would likely do little to change the conflict.
Salman Shaikh of the Doha Brookings Center think tank said the US would need both to provide anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons and “a heavyweight effort to help the rebels organise themselves.” He added: “If they don’t do that then they may have to intervene more readily themselves.”
US officials have indicated that they are considering other military options and are examining a proposal to impose a no-fly zone around the area of Jordan where Washington and Amman are jointly operating a training camp for rebel forces. So far, however, they have ruled out anti-aircraft weapons or a no-fly zone in Syria.
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, said that a no-fly zone would carry “great and open-ended costs” for the US and might not improve the situation on the ground.
Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that there were risks that any surface-to-air missiles given to moderate rebels might fall into the wrong hands. However, the US could not change the dynamic of the conflict without giving the rebels weapons to use against the regime’s air power, which was helping it retake cities.
“Trying to remain half pregnant is not a strategy,” he said.
Additional reporting by James Blitz in London, Abigail Fielding-Smith in Beirut and Charles Clover in Moscow