Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid write: The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America’s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein’s government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.

“The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn’t have to. We already knew,” he told Foreign Policy.

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.

In contrast to today’s wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein’s widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted. [Continue reading…]

The National reports: United Nations weapons inspectors will today examine the site of a chemical weapons attack in Damascus that killed hundreds, as the first signs of finger-pointing inside the Assad regime began to emerge.

The Syrian government agreed yesterday to cease hostilities in the area while the team goes in and the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said inspectors were “preparing to conduct on-site fact-finding activities” on the outskirts of the capital.

The attack on Wednesday has galvanised international calls for action against the government of President Bashar Al Assad. Rebels say as many as 1,300 people were killed. One aid agency says thousands were affected and 355 died.

Amid universal acceptance that a chemical nerve agent has been used but disagreement over who used it, there were indications from Damascus that some of the army officers involved had tried to distance themselves from what happened, and insisted they were not told the rockets they were firing were loaded with toxins.

“We have heard from people close to the regime that the chemical missiles were handed out a few hours before the attacks,” said a source from a well-connected family, who has contacts with both the opposition and regime loyalists.

“They didn’t come from the ministry of defence but from air force intelligence, under orders from Hafez Maklouf . The army officers are saying they did not know there were chemical weapons. Even some of the people transporting them are saying they had no idea what was in the rockets – they thought they were conventional explosives.”

Hafez Maklouf, Mr Al Assad’s cousin, commands Syria’s air force intelligence, the most feared of all its secret police branches. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Moving a step closer to possible American military action in Syria, a senior Obama administration official said on Sunday that there was “very little doubt” that President Bashar al-Assad’s military forces had used chemical weapons against civilians last week and that a Syrian promise to allow United Nations inspectors access to the site was “too late to be credible.”

The official, in a carefully worded written statement, said that “based on the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, witness accounts and other facts gathered by open sources, the U.S. intelligence community, and international partners, there is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident.”

The statement, released on Sunday morning on the condition that the official not be named, reflected a marked shift in tone after President Obama’s meeting at the White House on Saturday with his national security team, during which advisers discussed options for military action.

The president, who warned a year ago that the use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces would be a “red line,” has faced criticism from Congressional Republicans and others for failing to respond more forcefully to evidence of earlier, smaller-scale chemical attacks. Mr. Obama, who inherited two costly wars — in Iraq and Afghanistan — has been extremely reluctant to commit American military forces, even in the form of missile strikes, to another tangled conflict in the Middle East.

But on Sunday, the White House seemed to take a harder line, dismissing the Syrian promise of possible access by United Nations inspectors. That raised at least the possibility that a strike on Syrian targets would come soon, perhaps using cruise missiles fired from ships off shore.

Early Sunday, the White House said Syrian officials had refused to let the inspectors see the site of the attack. But Syrian television subsequently reported that there was an agreement to allow access beginning on Monday. The administration official who released the statement said the offer, even if sincere, might be meaningless because of the time that had already passed since the attack.

“The evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of the regime’s persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the last five days,” the official said.

The official, however, did not suggest that Mr. Obama had decided to take action. “We are continuing to assess the facts so the president can make an informed decision about how to respond to this indiscriminate use of chemical weapons,” the official said.

But by labeling as “indiscriminate” the attack on Wednesday in a Damascus suburb, which reportedly killed hundreds of civilians, the official suggested that the United States viewed the latest assault as different from the smaller suspected chemical attacks that had not provoked American military action. [Continue reading…]

The Hill: If the U.S. takes military action against Syria, it will be focused on preventing President Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons and not on regime change, a senior Democrat said Sunday.

“This is not designed to bring the regime down,” House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Schiff, who has been a staunch opponent of American action in Syria, added that Congress would only back a limited U.S. mission to target Syria’s chemical weapons.

Anything further than that, would face harsh opposition on Capitol Hill, Schiff said.

In a separate appearance on Fox News, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said he believed U.S. military action would take place soon and would be limited to surgical missile strikes inside the country.

U.S. warships, armed with long-range cruise missiles, are already on station off the coast of Syria.

Missile strikes, according to Schiff, would not be harsh enough to completely destabilize the regime, but “it would be very punishing” to Assad’s ability to carry out chemical weapon attacks.

Reuters reports: Days after a suspected poison gas attack killed hundreds of people in crop-growing suburbs, residents of the Syrian capital say they are afraid their food and water supplies may be contaminated.

Western countries believe President Bashar al-Assad’s forces carried out the worst chemical weapons attack since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in 1988. Syria’s government denies any role in the deaths and blames rebels.

Whoever is to blame, grandmother Hana said her three daughters were now fretting about what to feed their children.

“They keep calling me throughout the day, and they are frantic. They ask: ‘Mum, what about the watermelon? Does it absorb the chemicals? What about the milk?’ I try to calm them down, but I’m very worried myself. What if it takes years for any effects to show up in the children?” she said.

The poison gas hit the Ghouta area, where acres upon acres of agricultural land supply the capital of 3 million people with fresh vegetables, meat and dairy.

“I hope God will protect us. Because I would really rather plant my own tomatoes and vegetables, but how will they grow in my third floor apartment? I don’t even have a balcony,” said Um Hassan, another grandmother.

She it was the first time she was seriously worried about food contamination since the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Iraq made Syrians fear contamination of imported food.

The Syrian authorities have yet to respond with any clarity about whether people need to take special precautions to protect themselves from possible contamination.

It is not yet clear what poison or mixture of poisons were responsible for the killings.

Sarin, which the United States and France believe was used in previous, smaller incidents in Syria, mixes with water. People can be exposed to it by touching or drinking contaminated water, according to the website of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People can also be exposed by eating contaminated food.

“Do we have to keep our windows closed? How long does the poison stay in the air? I hear different things from people,” said 40-year-old man who works as a physical therapist and lives less than a 15-minute drive from one attack.

“Do we have to worry now about leaving the city? Are we considered contagious?” he said.

AFP reports: French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Sunday there was “no doubt” the Damascus regime was behind a suspected chemical weapons attack near the capital last week.

“The indications are totally convergent on the scale of the massacre and the overwhelming responsibility of the regime… As far as we are concerned, there is no doubt concerning the substance of the facts and their origin,” Fabius told a Jerusalem press conference.

Asked about the Syrian regime’s decision on Sunday to grant UN inspectors permission to inspect the sites of the suspected chemical strikes, Fabius replied that “this request was already made several days ago”.

“The site has been bombed since,” he said.

The Los Angeles Times reports: The Syrian government agreed Sunday to allow United Nations inspectors to visit the sites of suspected chemical-weapon attacks outside Damascus, the official Syrian news agency said.

Syrian officials and the U.N. “have agreed to a mutual understanding that enters into force immediately allowing the U.N. inspection team to investigate” the sites of the recent alleged attacks, the state media outlet said in a statement.

The reported accord comes as U.S. officials were said to be preparing for a possible military strike on Syria in retaliation for the government’s alleged use of chemical weapons. President Obama met with his top security advisers this weekend about the Syria crisis.

A 20-member contingent of U.N. inspectors is already on the ground in Damascus, but the team’s official mandate was limited to looking into three previous allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria. Sunday’s agreement would seem to open the way for the experts to visit several areas near the capital where chemical weapons allegedly struck last week.

Just to be clear: the headline sums up Edward Luttwak’s views — not mine. What’s interesting is the extent to which his views seem to overlap with sentiments that prevail among opponents of war. Syria’s got nothing to do with us. We shouldn’t be involved in any way whatsoever. Search for some articulation of a desirable outcome to the conflict other than a peace that no one expects to materialize, and nothing can be found. Should we be concerned about the victims of chemical attacks? Only in as much as that their deaths not be used as a pretext for military intervention.

There’s a strange symmetry in the callousness that unites proponents and opponents of war along with the cold realism of someone like Luttwak who sees continued stalemate in Syria as being most desirable. What unites each of these positions is that none questions the preeminence of American interests. What might serve American interests can be disputed, but that those interests should be served goes without saying.

Another perspective starts from a different premise which is that in relation to Syria, the interests of Syrians are preeminent. It might well be the case that the United States lacks the knowledge, resources, and political leverage required for it to exercise a constructive role in ending the war in Syria, but there’s a big difference between saying we lack the capacity to help and saying, our sole responsibility is to take care of ourselves.

Here is Luttwak’s ugly dose of “realism”:

On Wednesday, reports surfaced of a mass chemical-weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs that human rights activists claim killed hundreds of civilians, bringing Syria’s continuing civil war back onto the White House’s foreign policy radar, even as the crisis in Egypt worsens.

But the Obama administration should resist the temptation to intervene more forcefully in Syria’s civil war. A victory by either side would be equally undesirable for the United States.

At this point, a prolonged stalemate is the only outcome that would not be damaging to American interests.

Indeed, it would be disastrous if President Bashar al-Assad’s regime were to emerge victorious after fully suppressing the rebellion and restoring its control over the entire country. Iranian money, weapons and operatives and Hezbollah troops have become key factors in the fighting, and Mr. Assad’s triumph would dramatically affirm the power and prestige of Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanon-based proxy — posing a direct threat both to the Sunni Arab states and to Israel.

But a rebel victory would also be extremely dangerous for the United States and for many of its allies in Europe and the Middle East. That’s because extremist groups, some identified with Al Qaeda, have become the most effective fighting force in Syria. If those rebel groups manage to win, they would almost certainly try to form a government hostile to the United States. Moreover, Israel could not expect tranquillity on its northern border if the jihadis were to triumph in Syria.

Things looked far less gloomy when the rebellion began two years ago. At the time, it seemed that Syrian society as a whole had emerged from the grip of fear to demand an end to Mr. Assad’s dictatorship. Back then, it was realistic to hope that moderates of one sort or another would replace the Assad regime, because they make up a large share of the population. It was also reasonable to expect that the fighting would not last long, because neighboring Turkey, a much larger country with a powerful army and a long border with Syria, would exert its power to end the war.

As soon as the violence began in Syria in mid-2011, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, loudly demanded that it end. But instead of being intimidated into surrender, Mr. Assad’s spokesmen publicly ridiculed Mr. Erdogan, while his armed forces proceeded to shoot down a Turkish fighter jet, before repeatedly firing artillery rounds into Turkish territory and setting off lethal car bombs at a Turkish border crossing. To everyone’s surprise, there was no significant retaliation. The reason is that Turkey has large and restless minority populations that don’t trust their own government, which itself does not trust its own army. The result has been paralysis instead of power, leaving Mr. Erdogan an impotent spectator of the civil war on his doorstep.

Consequently, instead of a Turkey-based and Turkish-supervised rebellion that the United States could have supported with weapons, intelligence and advice, Syria is plagued by anarchic violence.

The war is now being waged by petty warlords and dangerous extremists of every sort: Taliban-style Salafist fanatics who beat and kill even devout Sunnis because they fail to ape their alien ways; Sunni extremists who have been murdering innocent Alawites and Christians merely because of their religion; and jihadis from Iraq and all over the world who have advertised their intention to turn Syria into a base for global jihad aimed at Europe and the United States.

Given this depressing state of affairs, a decisive outcome for either side would be unacceptable for the United States. An Iranian-backed restoration of the Assad regime would increase Iran’s power and status across the entire Middle East, while a victory by the extremist-dominated rebels would inaugurate another wave of Al Qaeda terrorism.

There is only one outcome that the United States can possibly favor: an indefinite draw.

By tying down Mr. Assad’s army and its Iranian and Hezbollah allies in a war against Al Qaeda-aligned extremist fighters, four of Washington’s enemies will be engaged in war among themselves and prevented from attacking Americans or America’s allies.

That this is now the best option is unfortunate, indeed tragic, but favoring it is not a cruel imposition on the people of Syria, because a great majority of them are facing exactly the same predicament.

Non-Sunni Syrians can expect only social exclusion or even outright massacre if the rebels win, while the nonfundamentalist Sunni majority would face renewed political oppression if Mr. Assad wins. And if the rebels win, moderate Sunnis would be politically marginalized under fundamentalist rulers, who would also impose draconian prohibitions.

Maintaining a stalemate should be America’s objective. And the only possible method for achieving this is to arm the rebels when it seems that Mr. Assad’s forces are ascendant and to stop supplying the rebels if they actually seem to be winning.

This strategy actually approximates the Obama administration’s policy so far. Those who condemn the president’s prudent restraint as cynical passivity must come clean with the only possible alternative: a full-scale American invasion to defeat both Mr. Assad and the extremists fighting against his regime.

That could lead to a Syria under American occupation. And very few Americans today are likely to support another costly military adventure in the Middle East.

A decisive move in any direction would endanger America; at this stage, stalemate is the only viable policy option left.

Médecins Sans Frontières: Three hospitals in Syria’s Damascus governorate that are supported by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have reported to MSF that they received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less than three hours on the morning of Wednesday, August 21, 2013. Of those patients, 355 reportedly died.

Since 2012, MSF has built a strong and reliable collaboration with medical networks, hospitals and medical points in the Damascus governorate, and has been providing them with drugs, medical equipment and technical support. Due to significant security risks, MSF staff members have not been able to access the facilities.

“Medical staff working in these facilities provided detailed information to MSF doctors regarding large numbers of patients arriving with symptoms including convulsions, excess saliva, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress,” said Dr. Bart Janssens, MSF director of operations.

Patients were treated using MSF-supplied atropine, a drug used to treat neurotoxic symptoms. MSF is now trying to replenish the facilities’ empty stocks and provide additional medical supplies and guidance.

“MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack,” said Dr. Janssens. “However, the reported symptoms of the patients, in addition to the epidemiological pattern of the 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—strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent. This would constitute a violation of international humanitarian law, which absolutely prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons.” [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria’s government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll says.

About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria’s civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act.

More Americans would back intervention if it is established that chemical weapons have been used, but even that support has dipped in recent days – just as Syria’s civil war has escalated and the images of hundreds of civilians allegedly killed by chemicals appeared on television screens and the Internet.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, taken August 19-23, found that 25 percent of Americans would support U.S. intervention if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces used chemicals to attack civilians, while 46 percent would oppose it. That represented a decline in backing for U.S. action since August 13, when Reuters/Ipsos tracking polls found that 30.2 percent of Americans supported intervention in Syria if chemicals had been used, while 41.6 percent did not.

Taken together, the polls suggest that so far, the growing crisis in Syria, and the emotionally wrenching pictures from an alleged chemical attack in a Damascus suburb this week, may actually be hardening many Americans’ resolve not to get involved in another conflict in the Middle East.

One detail in the following report that I regard as suspect is that a U.S.-led training operation for FSA rebels would involve Israelis. I don’t think the Israelis would want to be involved and I don’t think the U.S. or Jordanians would welcome their presence. Why provide fodder for the Assad regime and those outside Syria who only too gladly swallow the propaganda that Syria is being threatened by a Zionist conspiracy?

If, as the report suggests, Assad’s use of chemical weapons came as a result of his pledge to use them only in response to “external aggression,” then there would be some strategic logic in what he did. He basically called Obama’s bluff, showing that when Syria lays down a red line it backs it up.

IB Times reports: A West-backed rebel military operation to topple Syrian president Bashar al-Assad under the supervision of Jordanian, Israeli and American forces has already begun according to French newspaper Le Figaro. [See Google translation below.]

Citing unnamed military sources, the daily reported that the first troops trained by Washington and Amman officials were deployed in mid-August in the Deraa region.

A 300-strong group of Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters crossed the border with Syria on 17 August, and were joined by another group two days later.

“According to military sources, the Americans, who don’t want to put troops on Syrian soil or arm rebels who are in part controlled by radical Islamists, have quietly trained a bunch of handpicked FSA fighters in training camps set up at the Jordanian-Syrian border,” the paper said.

Le Figaro believes the pressure mounted by the specially-trained FSA fighters prompted Assad to launch an alleged attack on the rebels on Wednesday, using toxic gas. In July, the Syrian president said in a public speech that the regime would never use those weapons “except for external aggression”. [Continue reading…]

Google translation of French report appearing in Le Figaro: According to our information, the regime’s opponents, supervised by Jordanian, Israeli and American commandos moving towards Damascus since mid-August. This attack could explain the possible use of the Syrian president to chemical weapons.

While it is too early to rule out categorically the argument put forward by Damascus and Moscow, who blame the massacre on the Syrian opposition, it is already possible to provide answers to a troubling question. What benefit would have Assad to launch an unconventional attack at the precise moment when he had to allow UN inspectors – after being stranded for several months – to investigate the use of chemical weapons?

Operational logic first. According to information obtained by Le Figaro, the first trained in guerrilla warfare by the Americans in Jordan Syrian troops reportedly entered into action since mid-August in southern Syria, in the region of Deraa. A first group of 300 men, probably supported by Israeli and Jordanian commandos, as well as men of the CIA, had crossed the border on August 17. A second would have joined the 19. According to military sources, the Americans, who do not want to put troops on the Syrian soil or arming rebels in part controlled by radical Islamists form quietly for several months in a training camp set up at the border Jordanian- Syrian fighters ASL, the Free Syrian Army, handpicked.

Sense of impunity

As for the summer, their protection have begun to shake Syrian battalions in the south, approaching the capital. “Their thrust would now feel into the Ghouta, where formations of ASL were already at work, but really can make a difference on the outskirts of Damascus fortress,” says David Rigoulet-Roze, a researcher at the French Institute for Strategic Analysis (IFAS).

According to this expert on the region, the idea proposed by Washington would be the possible establishment of a buffer zone from the south of Syria, or even a no-fly zone, which would cause opponents safely until the balance of power changes. This is the reason why the United States has deployed Patriot batteries and F16 in late June Jordan.

Military recent pressure against al-Ghouta threatens the capital Damascus, the heart of the Syrian regime. In July, the spokesman of President al-Assad had publicly stated that the scheme would not use chemical weapons in Syria “except in case of external aggression.” The intrusion of foreign agents in the south, for example …

The other reason, if the army has actually committed a massacre in Damascus chemical is more diplomatic. Since August, 2012, when Barack Obama warned that the use of chemical weapons was a “red line” that, once crossed, could trigger a military intervention, thirteen smaller chemical attack have been identified without causing American reaction. Admittedly, the evidence is difficult to obtain, since Damascus routinely blocks the work of UN investigators. The sense of impunity felt by the Syrian regime is reinforced by the Russian protection afforded to the Security Council of the UN. Barack Obama, when he arrived at the White House, the Kremlin had proposed a “reset” of relations, not to break the link with Moscow. U.S. Chief of Staff, Martin Dempsey, the principal military adviser, justifies his opposition to intervention, even limited by the fragmentation of the Syrian opposition and the weight exerted by extremist groups.

What are the options?

If the Syrian regime is actually behind the chemical bombardment of Damascus, it will take a further degree is a conflict that has claimed more than 100,000 lives. “There is more of a small-scale test as before. Chemical weapons are now part of the war, where they play a deterrent role. This is a message to the Americans. It is also a challenge to Barack Obama, who risks losing its legitimacy with its allies in the world, “an expert analysis of the case.

Along with clandestine operations from Jordanian soil, the international community, as each time the crisis is reaching a peak, reconsider the various military options. Arming the rebels? “If we do one day we will not say,” said a diplomatic source. Surgical air strikes? Possible, but the solution involves risk regionalization of the conflict. Special forces to secure and neutralize chemical weapons sites? Israel hit neighboring Syria repeatedly. But Western intelligence services did not want to risk that stocks of chemical weapons falling into the hands of jihadist groups. Last option, inaction. It is that which seems to have bet on Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.

Reuters reports: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday acknowledged for the first time chemical weapons had killed people in ally Syria and called for the international community to prevent their use.

Rouhani stopped short of saying who had used the arms – Tehran has previously accused Syrian rebels of being behind what it called suspected chemical attacks.

He also did not mention the international furore around Syrian opposition reports that forces loyal to the Damascus government killed as many as 1,000 civilians with poison gas in suburbs of Damascus on Wednesday.

“Many of the innocent people of Syria have been injured and martyred by chemical agents and this is unfortunate,” recently elected Rouhani was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

“We completely and strongly condemn the use of chemical weapons,” he said, according to the agency.

“The Islamic Republic gives notice to the international community to use all its might to prevent the use of these weapons anywhere in the world, especially in Syria,” he added, according to the Mehr news agency.

The Associated Press reports: President Barack Obama on Friday played down the prospect of speedy U.S. intervention in Syria, stressing the difficulty of ordering military action against the Assad government without a strong international coalition and a legal mandate from the United Nations.

While his administration weighed military responses to this week’s claims of a large-scale chemical weapons attack near Damascus, Obama spoke as cautiously as ever about getting involved in a war that has killed more than 100,000 people and now includes Hezbollah and al-Qaida.

He made no mention of the “red line” of chemical weapons use which he marked out for Syrian President Bashar Assad a year ago and which U.S. intelligence says has been breached at least on a small scale several times since.

“If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it — do we have the coalition to make it work?” Obama said Friday. “Those are considerations that we have to take into account.”

“As difficult as the problem is, this is something that is going to require America’s attention and hopefully the whole international community’s attention.”

“America’s attention” — these are not fighting words. The use of chemical weapons on a large scale — an event that would breach the “red line” Obama drew a year ago — would now (if confirmed) be “troublesome.”

The war-fearmongers need to step down. The United States is not about to enter another war.

As for the false-flag conspiracy theorists, you seem to have a feedback loop stuck in your brains that won’t stop running. The U.S. and its allies have been itching for military intervention in Syria for over two years — they just needed to find that perennially elusive pretext. We’ve had one false flag after another, and another, and another, and another.

If the West was looking for a pretext to invade Syria, wouldn’t 130,000 people killed, four million internally displaced, 1.7 million refugees having fled Syria including one million children, many cities reduced to rubble, and the long-reported existence of chemical weapons stockpiles — wouldn’t all of that add up to a pretext?

Apparently not. And given that human misery on such a vast scale has thus far not led to Western military intervention, what reason is there to believe that the latest in so many events that have swiftly been trumpeted as triggers of war will turn out to be the real thing? How many times can this story keep re-running?

(1 minute 34 second clip preceded by 30 second commercial.)

The Guardian reports: Expert opinion is hardening behind attributing the deaths on Wednesday of hundreds of people in Damascus to a nerve agent such as sarin, with regional and western governments expecting to receive smuggled biological samples from the site in the coming days.

Chemical weapons specialists, who have studied footage showing the dead and dying victims of the attack, said several symptoms offered strong evidence that a nerve agent was used; it would be the worst such attack anywhere in the world in the past 25 years.

Stefan Mogl, a Swiss chemical weapons expert and former arms inspector, said: “There’s a significant number of videos of children’s faces and of adults who seem to have been exposed, that show typical symptoms of acetylcholinesterase inhibition poisoning, which coincides with a nerve agent.”

Mogl told the Guardian it was very likely the agent used was sarin. “The significance is, it’s not a single case. One person with constricting of the pupils, or with excessive salivation, or with spasms, or gasping for air, one single incident is not very significant, but … I came to the conclusion that there is a likelihood of nerve agent poisoning and this should be thoroughly investigated. You see children dying, people with very severe effects. I’ve seen a lot of people with uncontrolled muscle movement.”

Alastair Hay, another former weapons expert, who investigated the aftermath of the Halabja attack, when up to 5,000 people were gassed in Iraqi Kurdistan by Saddam Hussein’s forces in 1988, said: “I’m struck by the appearance of the victims and the absence of any signs of trauma. This suggests some powerful asphyxiant. Many of the victims have individual signs suggestive of exposure to an organophosphate agent. Nasal and lung secretions are very evident in many of the victims. These are just some of the signs consistent with [such] exposure.” [Continue reading…]

EA WorldView: One million Syrian children are now registered as refugees, the United Nations said Friday.

UN latest figures show that of the one million Syrian refugees under the age of 18, around 740,000 are under 11.

Children now make up half of all refugees from the Syrian conflict. Syrians have sought refuge in neighboring Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon as well as in Egypt. Others have fled to Europe and North Africa.

UNHCR High Commissioner António Guterres expressed the situation in stark terms: “What is at stake is nothing less than the survival and wellbeing of a generation of innocents. The youth of Syria are losing their homes, their family members and their futures. Even after they have crossed a border to safety, they are traumatized, depressed and in need of a reason for hope.”

The Wall Street Journal reports: Officers at the Pentagon on Thursday were updating target lists for possible airstrikes on a range of Syrian government and military installations, officials said, as part of contingency planning should President Barack Obama decide to act after what experts said may be the worst chemical-weapons massacre in more than two decades.

As the Pentagon worked on its options, Secretary of State John Kerry talked by telephone with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and the foreign-policy chiefs of Turkey, Jordan and the European Union, as well as with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, officials said.

The Syrian government denied allegations it gassed its own people, backed by new statements from regime allies Iran and Russia accusing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s international foes of conspiring against him. U.S. officials said they have seen “strong indications” that chemical weapons were used but that more work was needed to evaluate and collect evidence.

The regime gave no indication, however, that it would agree to Mr. Ban’s plea to let U.N. inspectors investigate the chemical-weapons allegations, as Syrian forces pressed on with an offensive in the towns around the capital where the attacks were alleged to have occurred.

U.S. officials who described the military options being revised at the Pentagon stressed that their purpose wouldn’t be to topple the regime, but to punish Mr. Assad if there is conclusive evidence that the government was behind poison-gas attacks on Wednesday.

Making its options known could constitute a U.S. warning to Mr. Assad and his backers. It was unclear if Mr. Obama would be prepared to use the options; he has resisted getting entangled militarily in the conflict since the start.