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DESPITE O.’S “RED LINES” SYRIA RETAINS CHEMICAL WEAPONS, WHILE REFUGEES FLEE FOR EUROPE

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The Syria Sham and the Iran Deal: Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2015— Once upon a time Barack Obama chose multilateral diplomacy over military action for the sake of ridding a dangerous Middle Eastern regime of its weapons of mass destruction.

Syria’s Chemical Weapon Obfuscations: Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham, BESA, Aug. 7, 2015 — While nearly all of the chemical weapons (CW) capabilities declared by Syria have been destroyed – certainly an appreciable achievement – it has become increasingly clear that the declared quantities, components, and facilities constitute but part of the full picture.

Syria's War Between Anti-Israel Forces Leaves Jerusalem With Difficult Choices: Moshe Maoz, Jerusalem Post, July 25, 2015 — For some time now two major Muslim forces have been fighting for control over the Fertile Crescent.

On Greek Island, Migrants Find That Paradise Quickly Turns Into Purgatory: Griff Witte, Washington Post, Aug. 4, 2015— The heaving rubber raft, packed with 49 people, had motored more than halfway across the narrow strait that separates Turkey from Greece when it began to rapidly fill with water.

 

On Topic Links

 

Syrian Rebels Make Fresh Gains: Sam Dagher, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2015

What Turkey Wants in Syria: Burak Bekdil, Gatestone Institute, July 31, 2015

Tend to Syria: Kenneth Bandler, Jerusalem Post, July 21, 2015

As Conditions Worsen, Greece Promises Ship to House Refugees: New York Times, Aug. 12, 2015

                            

                             

THE SYRIA SHAM AND THE IRAN DEAL                                                                                

Bret Stephens

Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2015

 

Once upon a time Barack Obama chose multilateral diplomacy over military action for the sake of ridding a dangerous Middle Eastern regime of its weapons of mass destruction. The critics mocked and raged and muttered, but everything worked out well and now the only thing that’s missing is someone who will give the president credit. Or so Mr. Obama would like you to believe.

 

“You’ll recall that that was the previous end of my presidency,” Mr. Obama told the New Yorker’s David Remnick of his September 2013 deal to get Syria’s Bashar Assad to hand over his WMD stockpile, “until it turned out that we are actually getting all the chemical weapons. And no one reports on that anymore.” Nor were these the only hosannas the president and his advisers sang to themselves for the Syria deal. “With 92.5% of the declared chemical weapons out of the country,” said Susan Rice in May 2014, the U.S. had achieved more than any “number of airstrikes that might have been contemplated would have done.” John Kerry also boasted of his diplomatic prowess in a March 2015 speech: “We cut a deal and were able to get all the chemical weapons out of Syria in the middle of the conflict.”

 

And there was Mr. Obama again, at a Camp David press conference in May: “Assad gave up his chemical weapons. That’s not speculation on our part. That, in fact, has been confirmed by the organization internationally that is charged with eliminating chemical weapons.” Note the certitude of these pronouncements, the lordly swagger. Now note the facts. “One year after the West celebrated the removal of Syria’s arsenal as a foreign policy success, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the regime didn’t give up all of the chemical weapons it was supposed to.” So note the Journal’s Adam Entous and Naftali Bendavid in a deeply reported July 23 exposé that reveals as much about the sham disarmament process in Syria as it foretells about the sham we are getting with Iran.

 

Start with the formal terms under which inspectors were forced to operate. The deal specified that Syria would give inspectors access to its “declared” chemical-weapons sites, much as Iran is expected to give U.N. inspectors unfettered access to its own declared sites. As for any undeclared sites, inspectors could request access provided they furnish evidence of their suspicions, giving the regime plenty of time to move, hide and deceive—yet another similarity with the Iran deal.

 

The agreement meant that inspectors were always playing by the regime’s rules, even as Washington pretended to dictate terms. Practical considerations tilted the game even further. “Because the regime was responsible for providing security, it had an effective veto over inspectors’ movements,” the Journal reported. “The team decided it couldn’t afford to antagonize its hosts, explains one of the inspectors, or it ‘would lose all access to all sites.’ ” In other words, the political need to get Mr. Assad to hand over his declared stockpile took precedence over keeping the regime honest. It helped Mr. Assad that he had an unwitting accomplice in the CIA, whose analysts certified that his chemical declaration “matched what they believed the regime had.” Intelligence analysts at the Pentagon were more skeptical. But their doubts were less congenial to a White House eager to claim a win, and hence not so widely advertised.

 

You can expect a similar pattern to emerge in the wake of the Iran deal. Western intelligence agencies will furnish policy makers with varying assessments; policy makers will choose which ones to believe according to their political preferences. Tehran will cheat in ambiguous and incremental ways; the administration will play down the violations for the sake of preserving the broader deal. Over time, defending the deal will become a matter of rationalizing it. As in: At least we destroyed Syria’s declared chemical stockpile. Or: At least we’ve got eyes on Iran’s declared nuclear sites.

 

Perhaps the most interesting details in the Journal story concerned the sophistication of the Syrian program. Chemical weapons-production facilities were hidden in the trailers of 18-wheel trucks—exactly of the kind that were rumored to have been moved to Syria from Iraq in 2003. Inspectors were impressed by the quality of Syrian-made munitions. The regime was also able elaborately to disguise its chemical research facilities, even during site visits by inspectors.

 

The CIA now admits that Syria retains significant quantities of its deadliest chemical weapons. When Mr. Obama announced the Syria deal, he warned that he would use military force in the event that Mr. Assad failed to honor his promises. The threat was hollow then. It is laughable now. What ties the Syrian sham to the Iranian one is an American president bent on conjuring political illusions at home at the expense of strategic facts abroad, his weakness apparent to everyone but himself.

                                                                       

Contents                                                                                      

   

SYRIA’S CHEMICAL WEAPON OBFUSCATIONS                                                                                        

Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham                                                                                            

BESA, Aug. 7, 2015

 

While nearly all of the chemical weapons (CW) capabilities declared by Syria have been destroyed – certainly an appreciable achievement – it has become increasingly clear that the declared quantities, components, and facilities constitute but part of the full picture. The operation to chemically disarm Syria, conducted by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (led by the US but also involving Britain, Germany and Finland), has apparently reached a crossroads. The US Central Intelligence Agency initially accepted and trusted the Syrian declarations, whereas the US Defense Intelligence Agency doubted their reliability, to say the least. Recently, however, a shift has occurred, and the CIA is now fully convinced that the list of assets disclosed by the Syrian regime was incomplete.

 

Over the past year, after the elimination of its CW arsenal was supposed to have been completed, Syria has unveiled the existence of additional facilities. Further facilities were discovered by the inspectors; significant (and occasionally farcical) gaps and inconsistencies remained unexplained regarding the coherence of the data provided by Syria; and access by inspectors to certain installations and to several production plants was obstructed. Syria’s conduct has even included the concealment of highly-valued equipment within “large goods vehicles” (a tactic highly reminiscent of an Iraqi modus operandi).

 

The Syrian regime clearly intended to hide a series of facilities. The regime probably assumed that there was a low probability of these facilities being discovered by the West or seized by ISIS or rebels forces. Perhaps the regime had a planned timetable for rescuing the contents of these facilities (extraordinarily classified capabilities in particular), or considered them essential for the regime’s survival. These considerations could have been influenced by Russia and Iran, taking into account the fact that Russia joined, at least outwardly, the American effort to disarm Syria, and that Iran (together with Hezbollah) is the main foreign element fighting ISIS in Syria. Russia and Iran are most likely much more familiar with the real remaining Syrian CW capabilities – as well as with the related past and ongoing Syrian maneuvers – than Western intelligence organizations.

 

The last mentioned consideration – strategic essentiality for the survival of the regime – might be a crucial factor. Increasingly worried about his military position, Assad could expand the employment of CW (chiefly chlorine, during the last year) in order to aggressively defend his core territory. VX, in addition to sarin, could also be very useful for that purpose. Assad may resort to such an option, despite the fact that the international community would almost certainly not tolerate it. If this option becomes necessary for his survival, and is the only option open to him, he will expectedly exercise it – and international opinion be damned.

The full chemical disarming of Syria remains highly desirable for a number of reasons: To completely terminate Assad’s CW capacities; to prevent Assad from transferring such capacities to other parties (either inside or outside Syria), particularly Hezbollah; and to prevent the capture of CW by ISIS, an extremely fanatic and brutal organization.

 

However, the Syrian regime has repeatedly exploited, time and again, the civil war and the confrontations with ISIS and the rebels as an excuse for impeding inspections activities. Regime representatives have been able to prevent the inspectors reaching a specific location by simply stating that it is too dangerous. If an inspection team ignores this advice, there are a number of options to ensure it does not reach its destination, the ultimate one being a physical attack, deniable under the “fog” of the civil war.

 

In addition, The Wall Street Journal reports that inspectors admit they have methodically avoided challenging the regime, although challenging should be an integral part of their mission. They feared a deterioration of the security provided to them (by the regime, as against ISIS and the rebels); and, moreover, their mission has throughout been strictly oriented to the elimination of the declared CW capabilities, rather than concomitantly conducting a demanding search for undeclared ones. That is precisely what Damascus was expecting…                                                                                                                                            

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]                                                                          

                                                         

Contents                                                                                      

                       

SYRIA'S WAR BETWEEN ANTI-ISRAEL FORCES

LEAVES JERUSALEM WITH DIFFICULT CHOICES                     

Moshe Maoz                                     

Jerusalem Post, July 25, 2015

 

For some time now two major Muslim forces have been fighting for control over the Fertile Crescent. On the one hand, the radical Sunni ISIS wants to set up an Islamic Caliphate in Iraq, Syria and beyond; on the other, Shi’ite Iran aims to establish a “Shi’ite Crescent” in much the same space that would include a Shi’ite regime in Baghdad, a pseudo-Shi’ite Alawite regime in Damascus and the Shi’ite militia Hezbollah ever more prominent in Lebanon. These two rival forces are both hostile toward Israel and strongly supportive of the Palestinians.

 

After the capture of the cities of Ramadi west of Baghdad and Tadmur (Palmyra) northeast of Damascus in mid-May, it seems that ISIS is closing in on its territorial and ideological goals. It controls around 40 percent of Iraq and Syria in a contiguous swath that includes oil and gas fields and a number of small cities.

 

The ISIS fighters are highly motivated. Their fighting spirit and capacity for rapid movement in open pickup trucks enabled them to capture large unpopulated desert expanses and less densely populated rural and urban areas. But they have only limited access to heavy weapons and the composition of their fighting reserves is also problematic. Many are not Iraqis or Syrians but rather nationals of other Arab, Muslim or European countries. In the eyes of most Muslims in the region, especially the religious leaders, they are considered apostates who give Islam a bad name through the callousness and cruelty of their public executions, massacres, raping, pillaging and devastation of archaeological treasures.

 

Facing them is Iran, a full-fledged regional power determined to reinforce its Shi’ite-led axis. It provides its allies with arms, money and men in the struggle against ISIS and other Sunni groups. It backs local and outside Shi’ite militias like Hezbollah and deploys its own al-Quds and Revolutionary Guard forces in Iraq and Syria. In an emergency, the possibility that Iran might send in regular troops in the framework of “mutual defense treaties” with Iraq or Syria cannot be ruled out. Iran will undoubtedly make a supreme military effort to prevent the fall of Karbala and Najaf, cities holy to Shi’a, into radical Sunni hands or the collapse of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria, a key link in the Tehran-Baghdad-Damascus-Beirut axis.

 

One shouldn’t expect great power opposition to Iran’s fight against ISIS. On the contrary, Washington mistakenly considers ISIS the more dangerous foe and even coordinates its aerial attacks against the radical Sunni group with Tehran and Baghdad, and probably with Damascus as well. Russia, too, even if it withdraws its support for Assad, will continue to help Iran through the supply of sophisticated weaponry.

 

Therefore, there is a reasonable chance that Iran will gradually be able to defeat and marginalize ISIS, especially in Iraq where around 60 percent of the population is Shi’ite. Moreover, among the Sunni supporters of ISIS, there are tribal heads and former Ba’ath party loyalists and officers forced out of positions of power by the previous Shi’ite government in Baghdad; they could well be prized away from ISIS by reintegrating them in the Iraqi state.

 

The Kurds in northern Iraq, about 20 percent of the population, are mainly Sunni but oppose both ISIS and direct Iraqi- Shi’ite rule. Therefore in the short term, given the weakness of the Iraqi army, Iraq will probably remain divided into three rival regions: the Kurds in the north, ISIS in the northwest, and the Shi’ite government around Baghdad and in the south. In the longer term, there could be a Shi’ite-Kurdish agreement on a new Iraqi federation, after jointly expelling ISIS from its strongholds. An alternative scenario might see Iraq breaking up and Iran taking over the southern part of the country.

 

In Syria, the balance of power is more complex. About 70 percent of the population is Sunni, including 10 percent Kurds, who in the main oppose the Alawite regime and its Shi’ite-Iranian patron. But many Sunnis, as well as Christians, Druse and Alawites, are opposed to ISIS because of its religious fanaticism and cruelty toward secular Muslims and non-Muslim minorities. Recent reports on tactical cooperation between ISIS and Assad are likely to further strengthen mainstream Sunni opposition to both.

 

For much of the fighting, the Sunni opposition has been fragmented into scores, even hundreds of uncoordinated and sometimes rival groups. Similarly, the aid they received from the region and the West was ineffectually disbursed. Recently, however, important Sunni opposition groups have developed an impressive degree of military cooperation and coordination. This includes moderate secular forces like the Free Syrian Army and various Islamic Fronts, the Muslim Brothers and even al-Qaedalinked Jabhat al-Nusra…

[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]   

                                                                       

Contents                                                                                      

   

ON GREEK ISLAND, MIGRANTS FIND THAT PARADISE                                                                          

QUICKLY TURNS INTO PURGATORY                                                                                                

Griff Witte                                                                                                                          

Washington Post, Aug. 4, 2015

 

The heaving rubber raft, packed with 49 people, had motored more than halfway across the narrow strait that separates Turkey from Greece when it began to rapidly fill with water. “Whoever can swim, get out or we will all die!” yelled an Iraqi woman near the front, her belly swollen with an unborn child conceived amid war and now facing mortal peril at sea. Dutifully, four men jumped overboard into the wind-whipped waves as others blew whistles, flailed their arms and shouted prayers into the cloud-covered sky. Minutes later, the raft careered into the rocky shoreline. It was followed soon after by the four men, who had been plucked from the water by a passing fishing boat. “Union!” the refugees cheered as they set wobbly foot in this staggeringly beautiful new land.

 

Their crash landing on the Greek island of Lesbos, witnessed by a Washington Post reporter, had given the refugees from Iraq and Syria an all-important toehold in the European Union. With its aqua-green shoals, olive-tree-studded mountains and five-star resorts, it looks every bit the paradise they had dreamed Europe would be. But within hours, paradise for the new arrivals turned into purgatory. For it is here on this enchanting island that two of the continent’s great crises converge — an unparalleled flow of migrants from the war-saturated regions that ring the continent, and the struggle of an E.U. member that can barely support its own citizens, much less tens of thousands of desperate foreigners.

 

Having escaped failed states, the migrants find themselves in a failing one. Once they make their way off the beach, they are welcomed to Europe with a long, hot trek through the island’s mountainous interior followed by days and nights in fetid, crowded refugee camps that veteran international aid workers say are among the worst they have seen. “We ran away from war. We ran away from violence. We came to Europe because we want to live like human beings,” Zahra Jafari, an almond-eyed 30-year-old Afghan, said as she prepared for a night’s sleep amid the sand fleas and pervasive whiffs of excrement that mark life in the camps. “But here it smells so bad. There’s no water here. There’s no food here.” “This is the opposite of what we thought Europe would be,” she said. “It’s a disaster — just like my country.”

 

Local officials do not dispute that conditions in the camps are poor. They acknowledge being unprepared and overwhelmed by the scale of arrivals after years of managing much smaller flows. As the migrant numbers have surged this spring and summer, the island’s mayor, Spyros Galinos, has fired off letter after letter to E.U. officials, the Greek government in Athens and international aid organizations seeking urgent assistance. Only the aid groups have come through with meaningful help, according to his spokesman. “The minister of interior visited, said ‘Keep up the good work,’ and he left,” said the spokesman, Marios Andriotios. But the Greek government, of course, is broke.

 

Europe’s absence has been more difficult for local officials and aid workers here to fathom. And yet it reflects the often dysfunctional and slow-footed way that the E.U. has responded to the migrant crisis, with many Northern European governments reluctant to share a burden that has been felt disproportionately along the continent’s southern flank among countries that are already deeply in debt. Until this year, Italy was the top destination for migrants seeking to enter Europe by sea. But now that dubious distinction is held by Greece — the E.U. country that can least afford the strain — with an increasing number of migrants forgoing the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean aboard rickety ships in favor of the quicker yet still perilous route through the Aegean in an overstuffed dinghy.

 

Nowhere has that shift been felt more acutely than here in Lesbos, where the number of arrivals in July alone was nearly three times the total from all of last year. Separated by just eight nautical miles from the Turkish coast, the island’s shores have become the landing spot for 20 or more rafts a day, each packed with dozens of men, women and children. The majority of the new arrivals are fleeing the war in Syria; Iraqis and Afghans make up most of the rest.

 

Lesbos has nothing to offer the migrants — a fact they know well. This is just the first stop in a far longer odyssey that they hope will take them to countries such as Germany, Sweden or Denmark, where they believe they will be able to receive asylum and find work. But first they must stay in the camps for up to a week to obtain the registration needed to travel through Greece legally.

 

For many, it is an unexpectedly grim welcome. The toilets — just five of them in one camp for a population of hundreds — are typically out of order. The men shower in the open for all to see. The women have no place to shower at all. With the tents often full, the only protection from the searing midday heat is thin mesh netting or the sparse shade of an olive tree. “At least there’s no violence here. No bombs exploding. No kidnappings,” said Haydar Majid, a 32-year-old Iraqi who said he had worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army. “But this place isn’t for humans. It’s for animals.”

 

Until several weeks ago, it was far worse. International aid groups such as the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Doctors Without Borders, which normally focus their work in the world’s poorest countries, have had to set up emergency operations in Lesbos because the conditions were so appalling and the E.U. was doing little to help. “The camps here don’t reach the minimum standard,” said Elisabetta Faga, emergency field coordinator for Doctors Without Borders. “I’ve worked in camps in Congo, Mauritania, South Sudan. But here we are in Europe. I expect something better.”

 

Emily David, a senior official with the IRC’s emergency response team, said the deplorable situation in Lesbos and the perilous sea crossings point to the need for a shared European solution, including safer routes to the continent for those fleeing war and persecution. “Many of these people will qualify as refugees. So why aren’t there legal routes?” she asked as she surveyed an expanse of trash-strewn dirt and asphalt that has become home to as many as several thousand men, women and children at a time.

 

Yet such is the level of desperation among those uprooted from their homes that neither the abysmal camp conditions nor the death-defying crossings have been a deterrent. The tens of thousands who have already landed on Lesbos this year are probably only the beginning, with an even bigger wave predicted before winter weather makes the crossing more arduous. “Everyone’s expecting the numbers to increase radically in August, September and October,” said Andriotios. “We’re predicting mass arrivals.”…

 [To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]              

 

Contents                                                                                     

                                                                                       

On Topic

                                                                                                        

Syrian Rebels Make Fresh Gains: Sam Dagher, Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2015—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lost more territory on Tuesday to Islamist insurgents and Kurdish militias, bolstering Turkey’s push to create a rebel-controlled buffer zone along the two countries’ shared border.

What Turkey Wants in Syria: Burak Bekdil, Gatestone Institute, July 31, 2015 —After several months of reluctant negotiations, Turkey has anxiously decided to join the allied battle against the radical Islamists who fight under the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or Islamic State, ISIS, IS).

Tend to Syria: Kenneth Bandler, Jerusalem Post, July 21, 2015—Syrian President Bashar Assad, the only Arab leader to have weathered the Arab Spring popular uprisings and so far still not dislodged by civil war, is a survivor.

As Conditions Worsen, Greece Promises Ship to House Refugees: New York Times, Aug. 12, 2015 —Locked in a sunbaked football stadium without food, drinking water or sanitation, about 1,000 refugees queued for hours on Wednesday to register with Greek authorities on the island of Kos, which is now at the forefront of a humanitarian crisis sweeping the financially broken country.

 

                                                                      

 

              

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