Thursday, 06 February 2014
Not only has the West’s chemical weapons agreement with Damascus done nothing to stem the humanitarian disaster in Syria, it has made matters significantly worse by strengthening the Assad regime and perpetuating a deadlock
Less than five months after the US and Russia claimed an unprecedented diplomatic victory in pressuring President Bashar al-Assad to give up his chemical weapons stock, the deal that was touted as a breakthrough in the Syrian crisis is already unravelling. Not only has it done nothing to stem the humanitarian disaster in the country where a 1,30,00 have been butchered by regime and rebel forces alike, it has, in fact, made matters significantly worse by perpetuating a deadlock.
On Tuesday, this is precisely what the Director of National Intelligence, Mr James Clapper, testified at a US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee hearing. He said: “I foresee kind of more of the same, sort of a perpetual state of a stalemate where... neither the regime nor the opposition can prevail”. In a scathing indictment of the chemical weapons deal, Mr Clapper also said that “(Assad) is actually in a strengthened position than when we discussed this last year, by virtue of his agreement to remove the chemical weapons”.
The US State Department has expectedly downplayed Mr Clapper’s testimony and sought to deflect focus by pointing to the external assistance that the Assad regime continues to receive, primarily from Iran. Now, while there is no doubt that Tehran has propped up its ally in Damascus with men, money and more, to argue that that Iranian support has somehow nullified the West’s peace bargain is downright disingenuous. The deal is falling apart because it was never meant to hold together, as had been argued in this column earlier.
From a purely logistical point of view, it was premised on the ridiculous assumption that President Assad would lead UN weapons inspectors to his chemical weapons stockpiles (which until then he had not even acknowledged existed) and then stand aside while they take over his weapons — while a civil war rages in the backdrop. It is no wonder then that four months after the deal came into force, and with only another four months to go before the June 30 deadline for destruction of all chemical weapons expires, Syria has given up less than five percent of its chemical weapons arsenal.
The programme made a good start last year, when the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons destroyed equipment and ammunitions that could be used to launch another CW attack like the August 2013 incident in Ghouta. But now it “has reached a kind of a stasis”, according to OPCW spokesperson Michael Luhan. These views were also echoed by Mr Clapper in Washington, DC, who noted before Congress that the project was moving at a “slow pace”.
So far only 53 metric tonnes of chemical have left the Syrian port of Latakia to be destroyed abroad. This is just a fraction of the most lethal elements in Mr Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal that include sarin and mustard gases, which were supposed to have been handed over by December 31, 2013. On Wednesday, the regime also missed a second deadline for handing over other industrial chemical components. On behalf of the Syrian regime, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov has assured the international community that the former is planning a move another in shipment this month and will, in fact, complete the entire process by March. But most experts agree that this is unlikely.
On their part, Syrian officials have cited “safety concerns” — rather legitimately, it would seem, in the backdrop of a civil war — for the delay, and put out a laundry list of things they need for transporting the material across the country. Unsurprisingly, this list is heavy on items such as armoured troop carriers and armoured sleeves for containers loaded with chemicals which can also be used to beef up the regime's military might. For now, Washington has refused to fulfil the request — “The regime has every tool they need in order to deliver on their promise of moving the chemical weapons to the port at Latakia,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki — and instead accused the regime of dragging its feet.
This might well be the case. President Assad has a long and successful record of pushing the West’s tolerance limits, then backing off a bit with false promises, to buy time, gather his troops, and push forth again. Against this backdrop, news reports that his regime is actually stockpiling chemical weapons gains significance. The Times of London quoted unnamed Russian and Israeli sources as saying that Syria is working with Iran and North Korea to upgrade its arsenal so that it can be used as an “insurance policy” of sorts to protect President Assad’s rump state, extending across his Alawaite turf in the north-western part of the country, in case Syria is partitioned.
If true, this will not be the first time that a rogue leader has taken the West for a ride. Even Muammar Gaddafi, who voluntarily gave up his chemical weapons to end Libya’s international isolation, had put away a secret stash that was discovered unguarded in the middle of the desert after his death in 2011. Indeed, the deal’s overt dependence on the Assad regime, which has proven itself to be unreliable, has always been one of its biggest pitfalls.
Even before the deal was finalised in September 2013, this author had labelled it as one that was for everybody and yet belonged to nobody. It was a diplomatic victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin who “resurrected Russia’s image from a Cold War relic to a 21st century superpower” and reiterated “Moscow’s influence in West Asia”, a face-saver for US President Barack Obama who “needed to extricate himself from the ‘Red Line’ narrative in which he had foolishly entwined himself” and finally, and perhaps most worryingly, it allowed President Assad to “breathe easy” as the possibility of a Western military intervention in Syria was drastically reduced. The deal, which is narrowly focussed on chemical weapons, turned the spotlight away from the Assad regime’s killings by conventional weapons — most recently, deadly barrel bombs were used by the Syrian Air Force in the rebel stronghold of Aleppo — even as the death toll in Syria continues to rise.
On a concluding note, it is interesting to note that on Monday the United Nations announced that the deputy to Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, was resigning. While no official reason was given, it is well-known that President Assad had objected to the deputy’s presence at the Geneva II talks as he was a nephew Yasser Arafat. This is possibly because Mr Assad’s father despised the Palestinian leader. Some view this UN move to be a conciliatory gesture towards the Assad regime. If true, it points to the possibility of a some sort of a political settlement which is the only way out of this mess.
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