Yaakov Lappin
Special to IPT News
August 27, 2013
http://www.investigativeproject.org/4139/analysis-the-regional-implications-of-a-us-strike
At the time of this writing, the United States appears to be making final preparations
for a military strike on Syria in response to a chemical massacre
perpetrated by the Assad regime against hundreds of civilians living in
rebel-held suburbs of Damascus.
U.S.-led military action in Syria would represent a shift in the
willingness by the Washington-led bloc of the international community to
confront Bashar al-Assad's regime, though the planned strikes are
highly unlikely to topple it.
Instead, it is reasonable to expect a painful slap to the regime, to
serve as a punishment and a deterrent against future use of weapons of
mass destruction.
A failure by the international community to respond to last week's
atrocities would be interpreted by the Iran-led Shi'ite axis – of which
Syria is a central part – as a green light for further WMD attacks.
That would be a highly dangerous development, due to the increasingly
radical and erratic actions of Syria, and its willingness to use
unconventional weapons.
Furthermore, Iran, which sees Syria as a strategic forward province,
is helping to orchestrate Assad's war, and would be encouraged by
Western inaction to continue sponsoring and arming terrorists all over
the Middle East, while developing its nuclear program.
Military action will send an important message of deterrence to
Assad's backers in Tehran, as well as to Hizballah in Lebanon, whose
fighters have helped keep the Syrian regime alive.
In recent days, Syrian and Iranian officials have issued a series of
threats designed to deter a punitive strike, asserting, for example, a
U.S. attack will create "a ball of fire that would burn not only Syria but the whole Middle East." One Syrian spokesman claimed Israel would be the "first victim" of a U.S. attack on Syria, and that Israel will "come under fire" in the event of a strike. Such statements have been routinely issued by Iran and Syria in the past.
Although they can't be entirely dismissed, these threats stand little
chance of materializing. Any direct Syrian retribution attack on Israel
will jeopardize the Assad regime's very existence.
In light of the fact that Assad is likely to survive an American
military move, it would make no sense for him to take a step that will
all but ensure his demise by provoking an Israeli response.
Nevertheless, in the Middle East, irrational steps can never be ruled out.
Some Israeli defense observers say Assad's willingness to use chemical weapons on the scale of last week's attack is a sign of existential distress.
The rebels have been making gains in the Damascus region, in Allepo,
and the northern Allawite region of Latakia, the latter being an area
slated to form a Tehran-backed, Hizballah-protected Allawite state in
the event of a regime collapse.
According to reports by the Syrian National Opposition Council, the 155th
Brigade of the Syrian army's elite Fourth Armored Division – commanded
by the notoriously ruthless Maher Assad, brother of the Syrian president
– fired dozens of chemical rockets from its base on Mount Qalamoun,
north of Damascus.
The rockets exploded in multiple residential areas, resulting in the
now notorious video images of children, women, and men dying a slow and
painful death, and lined-up corpses in makeshift morgues that lack any
apparent physical injury – a telltale sign of a chemical attack.
It was the largest chemical attack in Syria since the civil war broke
out in 2011 (and the largest in the world since Saddam Hussein's
chemical attack on Kurds in 1988), but by no means the first, according
to Israeli intelligence assessments.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon noted
that chemical weapons attacks in Syria have "become a matter of
routine," and described Syria as an "unconventional regime using
unconventional weapons."
On the other side of the divide, radical al-Qaida-affiliated Sunni
organizations are mushrooming in Syria, and are spreading their ideology
and reach to other regions such as Lebanon.
The longer the Syrian war drags out, the greater the regional network
of radical jihadi organizations, centered in Syria and spreading
outwards to neighboring states, will be.
Assad's use of chemical weapons led the al-Qaida linked Jubhat Al-Nusra organization
– one of the largest rebel groups in Syria – to vow an escalation in
sectarian attacks. Other rebel groups said they would launch raids of
Syria's chemical weapons caches in response.
The threat posed to regional and global security by chemical weapons in the hands of al-Qaida would be intolerable.
Radical Sunni groups are not only growing strong in Syria – they've
moved into Lebanon, and are engaging the Shi'ite Hizballah in an
escalating tit-for-tat war of car bombs and rockets. More than 60 Lebanese have been murdered in sectarian car bombings this month.
The newly established al-Qaida-inspired presence in Lebanon includes a
group that fired four rockets at Israel's north last week, prompting an
Israeli retaliatory strike in Lebanese territory.
All of these developments point to the growing destabilization of the
region, due to the war raging in Syria. The destabilization effect is
fuelled further by the use of unconventional weapons.
Just as terrorism and extremism are seeping out of Syria, chemical
arms and their use, if left unchecked, can spread beyond Syria's borders
and wreak havoc.
Yaakov Lappin is the Jerusalem Post's military and national security affairs correspondent, and author of The Virtual Caliphate (Potomac Books), which proposes that jihadis on the internet have established a virtual Islamist state.
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