Rami G Khouri writes: It is quite stunning to experience for the sixth time in a decade a global debate about whether Western powers should use their military superiority to attack Arab countries in order to get those Arab countries to conform to “international norms.” After the experiences of Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Mali, and the global use of drones to attack suspected Al-Qaeda militants, we are now witnessing heartfelt debates across the world about the wisdom, efficacy and legitimacy of an American-led attack against Syrian targets.It is heartening to see the best aspects of Western democracy in practice, in the British parliament’s rejection of Prime Minister David Cameron’s request to join the U.S. attack on Syria, and in the skepticism that many American congressmen and women express about the validity of the administration’s case for the attack. Not surprisingly, President Barack Obama’s administration is making the case that it does not need congressional approval for an attack, and seems determined to go ahead with it, with or without Western partners or Congressional support.

So in the coming days we are likely to see a few dozen American missiles smashing into selected Syrian targets, accompanied by passionate arguments for and against this action. Since we have witnessed this scenario several times in the past decade, and are likely to encounter it again in the years ahead (Iran? Sudan? Afghanistan and Pakistan again?), this might be a good moment to step back a bit from the din and haze of battle and focus for a moment on the core issues at hand that matter to all sides.

I see those issues very clearly as two sides of the same coin: What do we do about the criminal use of armaments by a government against its own people, especially when such action breaks prevailing global norms and conventions? And what do we do about the criminal use of armaments by a government against other countries – even ones whose governments kill their own people – in the absence of legitimate international support for such action?

Our prevailing global media- and entertainment-based society does not like to discuss such issues in a symmetrical manner that juxtaposes the criminal actions of the Syrian president against the criminal actions of the American president. Yet we must do so if we wish to reduce the recurring incidents of Western attacks against Arab or other regimes in the global South that kill their own people with impunity.

The cautious Barack Obama has now shifted into a common policy mode for American presidents who are confronted with the need to respond to a complex foreign policy issue somewhere far away and largely alien to them. This is the policy that, in political science terms, should best be called the “kicking ass policy.” It uses the United States’ massive advantages in military technology and force projection to unleash powerful missiles against virtually defenseless targets in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and Yemen, and now perhaps Syria. It aims to teach those people over there a lesson they will never forget, and push them to comply with norms of civilized behavior, but it also almost always happens without Washington fully calculating or understanding the consequences of such a policy. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Supporters of the president’s proposal contend that a limited punitive strike can be carried out without inflaming an already volatile situation. But a number of diplomats and other experts say it fails to adequately plan for a range of unintended consequences, from a surge in anti-Americanism that could bolster Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to a wider regional conflict that could drag in other countries, including Israel and Turkey.

“Our biggest problem is ignorance; we’re pretty ignorant about Syria,” said Ryan C. Crocker, a former ambassador to Syria and Lebanon, who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.

The American strike could hit President Assad’s military without fundamentally changing the dynamic in a stalemated civil war that has already left more than 100,000 people dead. At the same time, few expect that a barrage of cruise missiles would prompt either side to work in earnest for a political settlement. Given that, the skeptics say it may not be worth the risks.

“I don’t see any advantage,” said a Western official who closely observes Syria.

In outlining its tentative plans, the Obama administration has left many questions unanswered. Diplomats familiar with Mr. Assad say there is no way to know how he would respond, and they question what the United States would do if he chose to order a chemical strike or other major retaliation against civilians.

That would leave the United States to choose between a loss of credibility and a more expansive — and unpopular — conflict, they said. “So he continues on in defiance — maybe he even launches another chemical attack to put a stick in our eye — and then what?” Mr. Crocker said. “Because once you start down this road, it’s pretty hard to get off it and maintain political credibility.” [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: The Obama administration’s plan to launch a military strike against Syria is being received with serious reservations by many in the U.S. military, which is coping with the scars of two lengthy wars and a rapidly contracting budget, according to current and former officers.

Having assumed for months that the United States was unlikely to intervene militarily in Syria, the Defense Department has been thrust onto a war footing that has made many in the armed services uneasy, according to interviews with more than a dozen military officers ranging from captains to a four-star general.

Former and current officers, many with the painful lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan on their minds, said the main reservations concern the potential unintended consequences of launching cruise missiles against Syria.

Some questioned the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggested that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to fundamentalist rebels, they said, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous.

“There’s a broad naivete in the political class about America’s obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity about the effects that employing American military power can achieve,” said retired Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the run-up to the Iraq war, noting that many of his contemporaries are alarmed by the plan.

Marine Lt. Col. Gordon Miller, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, warned this week of “potentially devastating consequences, including a fresh round of chemical weapons attacks and a military response by Israel.”

“If President [Bashar al-Assad] were to absorb the strikes and use chemical weapons again, this would be a significant blow to the United States’ credibility and it would be compelled to escalate the assault on Syria to achieve the original objectives,” Miller wrote in a commentary for the think tank. [Continue reading…]

Tehran Bureau: This week’s statement by the US defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, that his country’s armed forces are preparing for a strike on Syria appears to have produced a marked shift in the public position taken by the Iranian leadership on Tehran’s primary Middle Eastern ally.

Early this year, Ali Akbar Velayati, the top international affairs adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said of Syria’s embattled president: “Bashar al-Assad is our red line and we will support him to the end.” Three weeks ago, the conservative Alef website featured a letter from Assad that was hand delivered to Khamenei, which read: “With the support of steadfast, visionary and strong allies like Iran we are certain of victory.”

On Wednesday, however, in his first meeting with President Hassan Rouhani’s new cabinet, Khamenei limited himself to expressing Iran’s strong kinship with Syria and characterising a potential western attack as “a certain catastrophe”. Avoiding any pledge of specific support, he raised his palms in prayer, saying: “I hope merciful God protects this region from the menace of America and Zionism and other evils.”

Khamenei’s silence about defending Assad was underscored by a subsequent report from the semi-official Fars news agency on a speech delivered by General Mohammad Ali Jafari, chief of the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. In extensive excerpts of his address to a conference of ground force commanders, there was not a single word about Syria.

A year ago, by contrast, Colonel Mohammad Ali Asoodi, the head of the guards’ culture and propaganda office, said: “If America attacks Syria, Iran, along with Syrian allies will go into action.”

The tone of General Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy chief-of-staff of Iran’s armed forces, took a particularly noticeable turn this week.

On Sunday, he had threatened: “The United States is aware of the red zone of the Syrian front and any violation of the Syrian red line will have serious consequences for the White House,” including revenge by multiple nations.

Three days later, however, he said little more than that an internationalised war would be a net loss to Israel. Like Khamenei, the only intervention he invoked was divine. “God willing, the flames of this conflagration will set Zionism’s robe ablaze,” he said.

He refrained from making any threats towards the US, and settled for offering advice: “The Americans should rid themselves of this arrogant self-assuredness and if they have any resources, spend them on saving the American people.” [Continue reading…]

EA WorldView adds: In contrast to days of heated propaganda from Iran, warning that airstrikes on Syria will bring “fire” upon Israel and lead to defeat for the US and its allies, President Rouhani continues to avoid the rhetoric of confrontation while warning against military intervention.

The President’s office said via Twitter that Rouhani had agreed with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that “any use of military force against another country without a UN mandate was a blatant violation of international law” and that the Syrian conflict can “be resolved only through diplomatic means”. The office emphasized the warning that US-led airstrikes “could destabilize entire region, breeding extremism and terrorism” with the hashtag “#prudence”.

Rouhani’s mentor, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, bolstered the line on Thursday by urging “leaders of powerful countries” to resolve the situation with dialogue, rather than military force.

Mohammed Attar interviewed Noam Chomsky in July, 2013:

Attar: Your discourse unambiguously states that America and Israel have no desire to see the regime fall and that their actions are determined by the “better the devil you know” principle. How do you explain a counter-discourse, promulgated by analysts and intellectuals, especially among Leftist circles in Europe the US and the Arab world, which is based on the supposition of an American/Israeli/imperialist plot? For some people, the revolution in Syria has been a conspiracy from the outset. For others it was hijacked by the conspiracy.

Chomsky: For a long time, the Arab world and other places beside have played host to stories and illusions about the supernatural power of the United States, which controls everything through complex conspiracies and plots. In this worldview, everything that takes place can be explained in terms of imperialist conspiracies. This is an error. Without a doubt, the United States are still a great power and capable of influencing events, but they are not always able to manipulate them by means of complex conspiracies: this really is beyond their capacities. Of course the Americans do sometimes try to do this, but they fail, too. What happened in Syria is not outside our understanding: it began as a popular and democratic protest movement demanding democratic reforms, but instead of responding to it in a constructive, positive manner, Assad reacted with violent repression. The usual outcome of such a course of action is either a successful crushing of the protests or otherwise, to see them evolve and militarize, and this is what took place in Syria. [Continue reading…]

Bloomberg reports: The powerful brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is suspected of authorizing the chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of Syrian civilians, according to a United Nations official who monitors armed conflicts in the region.

Maher al-Assad, the younger brother of the president, commands the regime’s Republican Guard and controls the Syrian Army’s 4th Armored Division, an elite unit that the opposition says launched the Aug. 21 attack on the eastern Ghouta suburbs of the capital, Damascus.

The use of chemical weapons may have been a brash action by Maher al-Assad rather than a strategic decision by the president, according to the UN official, who asked not to be named.

Identifying the chain of command behind the chemical attack would go into calculations about who, what and how to strike in any retaliatory action, the UN official said. If Maher al-Assad is the culprit, for example, a Republican Guard stronghold may be targeted rather than a presidential facility, the official said.

Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, doubts that such an important action — openly defying U.S. President Barack Obama’s “red line” against the use of chemical weapons — would be done without Bashar al-Assad’s approval. [Continue reading…]

Hans Blix writes: It is true that the UN security council is not a reliable global policeman. It may be slow to take action, or paralysed because of disagreement between members. But do we want the US or Nato or “alliances of willing states” as global policemen either? Unlike George Bush in 2003, the Obama administration is not trigger-happy and contemptuous of the United Nations and the rules of its charter, which allow the use of armed force only in self-defence or with an authorisation from the security council. Yet Obama, like Bush and Blair, seems ready to ignore the council and order armed strikes on Syria with political support from only the UK, France and some others.

Such action could not be “in self-defence” or “retaliation”, as the US, the UK and France have not been attacked. To punish the Assad government for using chemical weapons would be the action of self-appointed global policemen – action that, in my view, would be very unwise.

While much evidence points to the guilt of the Assad regime, would not due process require that judgment and consideration of action take place in the UN security council and await the report of the inspectors that the UN has sent to Syria – at the demand of the UK and many other UN members?

We may agree with John Kerry, the US secretary of state, that the use of gas is a “moral obscenity”, but would we not feel that “a measured and proportionate punishment”, like striking at some missile sites or helicopter bases, is like telling the regime that “you can go on with your war but do stay away from the chemical weapons”? And what is the moral weight of the condemnation by nuclear weapons states of the use of gas as a serious war crime when they themselves will not accept a norm that would criminalise any first use of their own nuclear weapons?

It is hard to avoid the impression that the political and military developments now in overdrive stem partly from pressure exerted by the rebel side to trigger an American military intervention – by trying to hold President Obama to an earlier warning to Assad that a use of chemical weapons would alter his calculation. Equally, if not more important, may be a need felt by the Obama administration to avoid criticism for being hesitant and passive – and appearing like a paper tiger to countries such as Iran that have been warned that the US will not allow them to have nuclear weapons. [Continue reading…]

The following comes from the USG unclassified intelligence report released today:

Multiple streams of intelligence indicate that the regime executed a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21. Satellite detections corroborate that attacks from a regime-controlled area struck neighborhoods where the chemical attacks reportedly occurred – including Kafr Batna, Jawbar, ‘Ayn Tarma, Darayya, and Mu’addamiyah. This includes the detection of rocket launches from regime controlled territory early in the morning, approximately 90 minutes before the first report of a chemical attack appeared in social media. The lack of flight activity or missile launches also leads us to conclude that the regime used rockets in the attack.

Local social media reports of a chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs began at 2:30 a.m. local time on August 21. Within the next four hours there were thousands of social media reports on this attack from at least 12 different locations in the Damascus area. Multiple accounts described chemical-filled rockets impacting opposition-controlled areas.

Three hospitals in the Damascus area received approximately 3,600 patients displaying symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure in less than three hours on the morning of August 21, according to a highly credible international humanitarian organization. The reported symptoms, and the epidemiological pattern of events – characterized by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers – were consistent with mass exposure to a nerve agent. We also received reports from international and Syrian medical personnel on the ground.

We have identified one hundred videos attributed to the attack, many of which show large numbers of bodies exhibiting physical signs consistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure. The reported symptoms of victims included unconsciousness, foaming from the nose and mouth, constricted pupils, rapid heartbeat, and difficulty breathing. Several of the videos show what appear to be numerous fatalities with no visible injuries, which is consistent with death from chemical weapons, and inconsistent with death from small-arms, high-explosive munitions or blister agents. At least 12 locations are portrayed in the publicly available videos, and a sampling of those videos confirmed that some were shot at the general times and locations described in the footage.

We assess the Syrian opposition does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos, physical symptoms verified by medical personnel and NGOs, and other information associated with this chemical attack.

We have a body of information, including past Syrian practice, that leads us to conclude that regime officials were witting of and directed the attack on August 21. We intercepted communications involving a senior official intimately familiar with the offensive who confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on August 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence. On the afternoon of August 21, we have intelligence that Syrian chemical weapons personnel were directed to cease operations. At the same time, the regime intensified the artillery barrage targeting many of the neighborhoods where chemical attacks occurred. In the 24 hour period after the attack, we detected indications of artillery and rocket fire at a rate approximately four times higher than the ten preceding days. We continued to see indications of sustained shelling in the neighborhoods up until the morning of August 26.