WarSclerotic

Fears grow over Syria’s chemical arms – FT.com.

©AP

How concerned should the world be about President Bashar al-Assad’s possession of chemical and biological weapons?

As the civil war between the regime and rebel groups inside Syria intensifies, the question is one that is increasingly on the minds of senior government officials in the US, Europe and the Middle East.

Any discussion of the chemical and biological stocks Syria possesses – and where they are located – presents difficulties. Syria is not a signatory to the international Chemical Weapons Convention and has never declared what its stocks might be. Nine years after the 2003 Iraq war – in which the US and Britain wrongly claimed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction – many will want to scrutinise any claim made by western intelligence agencies about WMD stocks in Arab states.

Still, independent experts say there is no doubt that, in the 1980s, the Soviet Union helped Syria develop a chemical weapons arsenal as a strategic counter weight against Israel. Russia has never denied its role in this. Intelligence agencies now believe Mr Assad possesses one of the largest chemical weapons stockpiles in the world, including mustard gas as well as VX and sarin nerve agents.

Last Friday, worries about the fate of the arsenal intensified, with the US stating that the regime has started moving its chemical weapons stocks. Western officials are unclear why the regime is doing this. It may be that the Assad regime is seeking to safeguard the arsenal and move it away from the scene of fighting. Even so, as the death toll in the conflict grows, few can guarantee what the ultimate fate of the arsenal will be.

As they work through scenarios in this conflict, western governments have three fundamental concerns. The first is that the Assad regime might use chemical weapons against the rebels. Given the pressures the regime is under, such desperation is not inconceivable. But it has risks. In 2007, an accident at a chemical weapons facility involving mustard gas killed several Syrians. More significantly, any use of chemical weapons would almost certainly unite the international community behind the need for immediate military intervention.

The second fear is that the Assad regime loses its grip on the weapons and they fall into the hands of militant Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah. The possibility that this could happen – and that Hezbollah acquires the Scud missiles that can launch them – is of significant concern to Israel. No less worrying is the risk that the stocks fall into the hands of the growing number of foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda who are now operating against the regime on Syrian territory.

The third concern is that as fighting intensifies there could be an explosion where chemical weapons are based, releasing them into the atmosphere. Syria is thought to have five manufacturing plants and about 20 more storage sites. The question of what would happen if there were an explosion at one of these sites will have been examined by plumologists – scientists who study the likely effects of the release of dangerous chemicals under a range of wind conditions.

Given this situation, the options for action by western governments are small. There have been many news articles suggesting that the US and Israel have contingency plans to enter Syria and secure the chemical weapons, with Jordanian troops braced to play a role.

There is no doubt that such contingency plans are being thought through in the Pentagon and in Israeli military establishment. But some western government officials say such an operation is only likely to be carried out in extremis. “Syria’s air defences will always be a huge obstacle to such an external intervention,” says one. In western capitals, therefore, the hope is that the Syrian crisis results in a transition where some kind of executive grip on these chemical weapons stocks can be maintained.

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