Charles P. Blair, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, writes: Syria’s weapons, produced beginning in the early 1970s with Egyptian assistance, have been intended to deter Israel’s nuclear capability and to offset Syrian conventional inferiority. It’s unlikely they could have served either purpose, but designed for use in large-scale, state-to-state warfare, Syria’s chemical weapons are particularly unsuited for the urban fights that have characterized the civil war. Close-quarters combat renders chemical weapons not only ineffective but counterproductive; with sarin or VX, a simple wind shift could turn the deadly agent against the Syrian military. Syria’s likely blister agent — so called “mustard gas” — is highly corrosive, remaining a hazard for forces attempting to occupy the affected area.

That doesn’t mean Assad won’t use chemical weapons — in particular, there is the possibility of irrational action if the regime is on the verge of collapse. The more isolated the top leadership becomes, the more likely it is to make unsound decisions based on an altered sense of reality. But the greater threat remains terrorist acquisition of chemical weapons if the military loses control over relevant sites and facilities. The Pentagon estimated earlier this year that it would take more than 75,000 troops to secure Syria’s chemical weapons against theft — and that assumes that U.S. intelligence knows precisely where they all are. After the fall of Baghdad, looters gained access to Iraq’s Al-Qaqaa military installation, and close to 200 tons of military grade explosives vanished, even though there were 200,000 coalition forces available and the International Atomic Energy Agency had specifically warned of the explosives’ vulnerability.

Some commentators have warned that, as with Iraq, intelligence could be faulty: perhaps Syria has no (or few) WMD. Alas, that is unlikely given Syria’s early chemical cooperation with Egypt and its perceived need to deter nuclear-armed Israel. Indeed, following the 2007 destruction of its al-Kibar nuclear facility, Syria may well have doubled down on its reliance on chemical, and possibly, biological weapons to afford the country a perceived deterrent against existential threats. Given all the variables in play, it seems all but certain that in the end an inventory of Syria’s chemical stockpile will reveal significant gaps in the current assessments.

Christian Science Monitor adds: By ordering “activity” at chemical weapons sites, Assad could be reminding the international powers demanding his departure that his fall would likely be followed by chaos – in which radical Islamists could get their hands on Syria’s weapons of mass destruction.

Tony Karon writes: The stern warnings by President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials this week that Syria‘s President Bashar Assad would face “consequences” and be “held accountable” for any use of chemical weapons against his own people, has amplified speculation that the country’s bloody civil war may be entering a terminal phase. After all, the regime is now using air strikes and artillery against insurgent neighborhoods in its own capital, having lost control of vast swathes of northern and eastern Syria. Assad had refrained from using stocks of weapons of mass destruction over the past 22 months, aware that doing so could force reluctant Western powers to intervene — and analysts had assumed that he might take such a risk only if he felt the wall at his back.

NBC News reported Wednesday that U.S. officials now say chemical munitions are being prepared for use by the Syrian military — after reporting a day earlier that a senior Pentagon official had said there was “no evidence yet that the Syrian military has actually begun the process of mixing precursor chemicals to produce deadly Sarin nerve gas.” Wednesday’s report suggested the Syrian military was, in fact, mixing precursor chemicals into bombs, but had not yet been ordered to use them.

Still, just what such reports might signal about the overall arc of events in Syria is unclear. There’s no question that rebel forces have made dramatic territorial gains over the past month, with insurgents boosting their artillery and surface-to-air missile capability as they overrun outlying military bases. Two regime aircraft have been downed by SAMs over the past two weeks, suggesting some rebel formations now had some means to defend against air strikes. And the regime’s increasingly besieged garrison in Aleppo is struggling to hold onto Syria’s second city, while the rebels have now launched what may be a sustained assault on the capital Damascus.

But for all of that writing on the wall, it may yet be premature to suggest that the 22-month civil war that has claimed more than 30,000 lives is near an end. The regime still has an overwhelming advantage in fire-power, analyst Joe Holliday of the Institute for the Study of War told the Washington Post this week, and the limits of rebel arms and organization may mean that their victory remains many months away. “What we’re seeing is a contraction from the regime,” Holliday said. “The rebels have been successful in forcing the regime to give up on outlying outposts.” The territory it has been forced to cede includes much of Syria’s borders with Iraq and Turkey, and oil fields in the east. Indeed, despite remaining the most powerful military player within the country, the Assad regime no longer controls Syria, which no longer functions as a single, centralized nation state. And its failure to destroy the rebellion or reverse its gains after two years of fighting will have signaled the regime’s strategic decision makers that restoring control over all of Syria may be a bridge too far. The decisive question, instead, may be the end-game logic of the “contraction” posited by Holliday.

Different rebel factions — which have yet to be consolidated under a single military or political leadership — control pockets of territory throughout the country, while an autonomous Kurdish zone has emerged along the Turkish border, ceded by the regime to Kurdish militia at odds with the rebellion. And even the major cities, Damascus and Aleppo, now contain internal, ethnic and sectarian “borders” across which mortar and artillery fire blazes. Absent a negotiated political solution, U.N. Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned last weekend, Syria could become a “failed state” where government institutions “whither away” to be replaced by “lawlessness, warlordism, banditry, narcotics, arms smuggling, and worst of all, the ugly face of communal and sectarian strife.”

Yet, such a fracturing of Syria could, in the minds of some of the hard men around Assad, offer the prospect of salvaging more than they might if the regime is defeated and replaced by a strong, Sunni-dominated central state. Assad’s regime is not so much a personality-cult dictatorship as it is a system of Alawite minority rule and privilege, and its core remains a cohesive, heavily armed and highly motivated Alawite-dominated army that believes it is fighting for the survival of its community. Even once it recognizes that it can no longer rule the entire country, its sectarian communal logic may militate against making a desperate last stand in Damascus, a predominantly Sunni city. [Continue reading…]

Rime Allaf writes: In August, when President Obama first stated that Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons would be a “red line,” the message to Assad was loud and clear: Everything else was permissible.

More than three months and many more thousands of Syrian victims later, Obama has inexplicably reiterated this objection. But by warning against the use of chemical weapons, he has once again merely reassured Assad that barrel bombs, missiles, cluster bombs and bullets are acceptable tools to slaughter his people.

What could have been interpreted as political caution in a pre-election climate must be considered in a different context now that Obama has settled comfortably into his second term. In fact, his latest statement sounds rather like a promise: If Assad doesn’t change the current parameters, the U.S. won’t either.

Semantics aside, it is clear that his refusal to increase pressure on the Assad regime, which many had expected would happen in November, means that Obama is encouraging the status quo. Indeed, the only pressure the U.S. seems to have been exerting recently has been on its allies.

The U.S. has done everything it could to impede actions that could have tipped the balance against Assad. From urging its Gulf allies to refrain from arming the resistance, to holding back a fellow NATO member, Turkey, from responding even when the Assad regime shot one of its fighter jets, to refusing to immediately recognize the coalition that the Syrian opposition finally managed to put together, every overt or covert U.S. action has been a protraction of its first response to the uprising, in March 2011. This is when the secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, said members of Congress had described Assad as a reformer, just days after the massacre of dozens of peaceful demonstrators.

Far from being indecisive on Syria, the U.S. has demonstrated that it is consistent, albeit with a questionable rationale, when it comes to letting Syrians fight it out among themselves before deciding to swoop in, perhaps, when the country is at a breaking point. With most cities destroyed beyond recognition, with some five million refugees and displaced Syrians, with hundreds of thousands disappeared in Assad’s jails and well over 40,000 killed by the regime, and with extremist factions fighting their own battles to boot, it seems that we are now close to such a breaking point. [Continue reading…]

NBC News reports: The Syrian military is prepared to use chemical weapons against its own people and is awaiting final orders from President Bashar Assad, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday.

The military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped onto the Syrian people from dozens of fighter-bombers, the officials said.

As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the “precursor” chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded inside the bombs.

Sarin is an extraordinarily lethal agent. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s forces killed 5,000 Kurds with a single sarin attack on Halabja in 1988.

U.S. officials stressed that as of now, the sarin bombs hadn’t been loaded onto planes and that Assad hadn’t issued a final order to use them. But if he does, one of the officials said, “there’s little the outside world can do to stop it.” [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: After nearly two years of fighting, Syria’s vaunted war machine is showing serious cracks as emboldened rebels snap up more bases and airfields and force army units to retrench behind defensive lines in major cities, Western officials and military analysts say.

Bolstered by a steady flow of arms from foreign backers, opposition forces have scored a s eries of tactical victories in the Damascus suburbs in recent days and are advancing steadily toward the city’s airport, adding to what some analysts view as a sense of momentum that has been building since late summer.

Powerful antitank and antiaircraft weapons have helped level what was once a lopsided contest, the officials say, so much so that army commanders have been unable or unwilling to challenge rebel assaults on large military bases on the capital’s outskirts.

“The regime isn’t intervening to defend its positions,” said Jeffrey White, a former Middle East military analyst with the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. “And when it does try to counterattack, it often fails.” [Continue reading…]

Haaretz reports: Syrian President Bashar Assad has been looking into the possibility of claiming political asylum for himself, his family and his associates in Latin America, in case he is forced to flee Damascus.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad held meetings in Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador over the past week, and brought with him classified personal letters from Assad to local leaders.

A source in the Venezuelan capital Caracas who spoke to Haaretz was not able to say what the response to the Syrian request was, but Venezuela’s foreign ministry confirmed to the El Universal newspaper that al-Miqdad did indeed bring a letter for President Hugo Chavez. Chavez received the letter just before he set out to Cuba last Wednesday to undergo further treatment for cancer.

All that the official spokesperson in Caracas could confirm was that Assad’s message touched on “the personal relationship between the two presidents,” and that the deputy foreign minister’s visit defines the close relationship between the two states.

Since the crisis in Syria began in March last year, Chavez has not hidden his support for the Assad regime. A number of times over the past year Venezuela has sent petrol and diesel fuel to Syria, so that the regime’s tanks and armored personnel carriers can continue to operate against what Chavez defines as terrorists. The Venezuelan leader’s close relationship with Iran, and his personal friendship with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, have turned him into a major player in efforts to save Assad.

Although the Syrian Ambassador in Venezuela, Ghassan Abbas, confirmed on Tuesday that al-Miqdad did hold talks with senior officials in Caracas, he claimed that he knows nothing about the content of Assad’s letter to Chavez. The deputy foreign minister had similar meetings last week in the Cuban capital, Havana, and the Ecuadorian capital, Quito.

A report in the New York Times on Monday said: A Russian political analyst with contacts at the [Syrian] Foreign Ministry said that “people sent by the Russian leadership” who had contact with Mr. Assad two weeks ago described a man who has lost all hope of victory or escape.

“His mood is that he will be killed anyway,” Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of a Russian foreign affairs journal and the head of an influential policy group, said in an interview in Moscow, adding that only an “extremely bold” diplomatic proposal could possibly convince Mr. Assad that he could leave power and survive.

“If he will try to go, to leave, to exit, he will be killed by his own people,” Mr. Lukyanov said, speculating that security forces dominated by Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect would not let him depart and leave them to face revenge. “If he stays, he will be killed by his opponents. He is in a trap. It is not about Russia or anybody else. It is about his physical survival.”

Jeffrey White writes: The regime could use chemical weapons in a variety of ways, from a limited or demonstration attack to large-scale offensive or defensive use to fundamentally change the military situation. At present, reports that the regime is weaponizing relatively small quantities of agent suggest the former. Limited CW use could be controlled better in terms of effects and visibility. The regime might also find it easier to explain away small-scale strikes as the work of “terrorists” or as a justifiable response to the military situation and the threat to the country.

One form of limited attack could be a strike against a specific military target, aimed at affecting a local but important tactical situation. Such an attack would also demonstrate that the regime was ready, willing, and able to carry out such actions.

The regime could also conduct small-scale strikes on civilian targets to intimidate the population or punish them for supporting the rebels. This would be an escalation from the regime’s routine use of explosives and incendiary weapons against civilians and could produce substantially greater casualties. It would undoubtedly have profound psychological effects on an essentially defenseless population.

As for broader CW use, the regime could employ such weapons to support ground offensives in key areas where its forces have been unable to achieve success via conventional tactics (e.g., around Maarrat al-Numan in Idlib province; in and around Aleppo city; in Deir al-Zour province, perhaps near Abu Kamal or Mayadin). It could use them to support defensive operations in places where rebel forces are on the offensive (e.g., the relatively remote Raqqa province) or have regime forces surrounded (as happened at the 46th Regiment base near Atareb in Aleppo province and the artillery fire base at Mayadin; in both cases, the positions fell to the rebels after prolonged siege and final assault). Using CW in close proximity to its own forces would be risky, but the military has some chemical defense equipment and training and might be able to provide a measure of protection.

McClatchy reports: In an apparent bid to isolate Islamist extremists and bolster a new Western-backed Syrian opposition alliance, the United States is moving to declare one of the most effective Syrian rebel groups a foreign terrorist organization because of its alleged ties to al Qaida.

The State Department originally planned to add the Nusra Front – Jabhat al Nusra in Arabic – to its list of international terrorist groups this week, McClatchy learned. The announcement was postponed, however, as officials discussed how to get the maximum impact from the designation.

The designation now is likely just before the United States and its European and Arab allies meet with leaders of the new opposition alliance at a conference Dec. 12 in Morocco, where a significant aid package for the new alliance is expected to be announced.

The impact of the terrorist designation for Nusra, whose members have been at the forefront of many of the rebels’ most recent victories, remains unclear. Many rebel sympathizers said they were concerned that the designation would make it impossible for rebel groups to coordinate in their fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. [Continue reading…]

McClatchy reports: When the group Jabhat al Nusra first claimed responsibility for car and suicide bombings in Damascus that killed dozens last January, many of Syria’s revolutionaries claimed that the organization was a creation of the Syrian government, designed to discredit those who opposed the regime of President Bashar Assad and to hide the regime’s own brutal tactics.

Nearly a year later, however, Jabhat al Nusra, which U.S. officials believe has links to al Qaida, has become essential to the frontline operations of the rebels fighting to topple Assad.

Not only does the group still conduct suicide bombings that have killed hundreds, but they’ve proved to be critical to the rebels’ military advance. In battle after battle across the country, Nusra and similar groups do the heaviest frontline fighting. Groups who call themselves the Free Syrian Army and report to military councils led by defected Syrian army officers move into the captured territory afterward.

The prominence of Nusra in the rebel cause worries U.S. and other Western officials, who say its operations rely on the same people and tactics that fueled al Qaida in Iraq – an assertion that is borne out by interviews with Nusra members in Syria.

Among Nusra fighters are many Syrians who say they fought with al Qaida in Iraq, which waged a bloody and violent campaign against the U.S. presence in that country and is still blamed for suicide and car bombings that have killed hundreds of Iraqis since the U.S. troops left a year ago.

According to Nusra members, some of the group’s leaders, including the emir, or top ruler, in Syria’s Deir al Zour province, are Iraqis.

The group’s prominence makes clear the dilemma of Syria’s revolutionaries, as well as those who might provide support to them. Though members of Nusra operate independently of the other rebel groups that have taken up arms — and particularly those that are calling for elections if Assad is deposed — it is increasingly clear that their operations are closely coordinated with more secular rebels. [Continue reading…]

Tareq al-Abed writes: “Beware the jihadists.” This is the phrase that the international community keeps repeating as an excuse to avoid supplying the Syrian opposition with arms. They mean to say that extremist elements are entering Syria and that they should not be given arms. But an examination of the Islamic groups in the Syrian north reveals the true situation.

The jihadists in this area are few, but the effectiveness of the Salafists and the quality of their operations has made society support them more than they do other combat battalions, which follow a more moderate discourse and which sometimes act as exclusive rulers.

“Not everyone with a beard is a Salafist.” This is how a media activist from the town of Bench, near Idlib, begins his discussion about Islamist fighters in the north. He said that calling most groups Salafists is inaccurate, and that this will eventually become clear. Even though most, if not all, battalions in Idlib and Aleppo and their countrysides have a religious bent, it is not accurate to characterize them as jihadists. In fact, they can be classified into three groups:

1. Battalions with a moderate Islamist philosophy. This is the philosophy of most of the north and in fact all of Syria. Many of these are not seeking leadership positions. They are civilians who had to take up arms. They formed military groups based on family or geographic ties. Despite the Islamist discourse which appears in their media declarations, many of those fighters don’t care about the jihadist/Salafist discourse when you get down to it. According to those we have met, many fighters have beards because it is a general symbol among the fighters, who know little about the jihadist doctrine, and even the Salafist ideology. Those military groups often have organizational and financing problems, particularly in Aleppo. They are sometimes joined by criminals, bandits, kidnappers and those who fight on the basis of regional or sectarian hatred. In some cases, these criminals use the banner of revolution to justify kidnapping, theft, killing and even mutilation, as was the case with the “Storm of the North Battalion” in Azaz.
2. Salafist Battalions. These battalions have a declared commitment to the Salafist philosophy. They also plan their operations without coordinating with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). These battalions are more organized and some of their fighters receive a monthly salary, such as the Storm of the North Battalion. Those battalions are wary of minorities. Each one of them has its own “Shariah officer” who issues religious edicts, or fatwas, regarding battles or jihad. Some of those “Shariah officers” have studied Islamic law but others hold that position simply because they are well read. Their fighters consider themselves “newcomers” to religious life but have devoted themselves for “jihad for Allah’s sake and for the establishment of the Islamic state.” The contact of those battalions with the outside are limited to financing by outside individuals or groups. They also have not declared their allegiance to al-Qaeda or any other organization. But there is a glaring contradiction when those groups say to the media that they want a civil state and that they will return to normal life once the conflict ends, while at other times they do not hesitate to assert their support for a religious state as they mount scathing attacks on liberals and other sects.
3. Al-Nusra Front. This battalion is thought to have fewer members than those described above, but it is highly organized. It is hard for volunteers to join it. It does not allow its fighters to smoke cigarettes. Its leaders refuse to talk to the media. It has declared its allegiance to al-Qaeda and its late leader Osama bin Laden. Some of its fighters have fought in Iraq during the American occupation and are therefore familiar with jihadist ideology, which they consider their main calling. Therefore, their uncompromising goal of establishing a religious state and their rejection of all opposition groups is not surprising. The battalion’s members have recently attacked the new opposition coalition for appointing Munther Majos as its ambassador to France on the grounds that he belongs to the Alawi sect. [Continue reading…]

The Cable reports: The Senate voted 92-6 today to require the Pentagon to report on options for using U.S. military assets to degrade Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ability to use air power against his own people.

The amendment, led by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) with Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI), Chris Coons (D-DE), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), gives the Defense Secretary Leon Panetta 90 days after the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act to report back to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on military options in Syria. The principle purpose of the legislation is “to advance the goals of President Obama of stopping the killing of civilians in Syria and creating conditions for a transition to a democratic, pluralistic, political system in Syria.”

The resolution does not explicitly call for the Assad to step down in Syria, a matter of contention when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution on Syria earlier this year. It also explicitly does not authorize the use of military force in Syria.

The legislation does say that any U.S. military activity with regard to Syria should be done in conjunction with allies, should not involve U.S. boots on the ground, and should minimize the risk to U.S. forces as well as financial costs to U.S. taxpayers.