Syrius

As Philippine traditional and social media continue to indulge in pork-laden news fare, an equally serious issue has been hogging the international headlines. The United States of America led by President Barack Obama is convinced that the Syrian leadership under President Bashir Al-Assad used sarin-laced chemical weapons against a rebel controlled community last August 21, claiming the lives of 1,429 Syrians including at least 426 children. Other countries are awaiting the report of a UN inspection team which conducted an analysis of tissue and soil samples in the area. (Parenthetically, since the civil war began in 2011, another UN report estimates that approximately 100,000 have been killed. To be fair, both the Syrian government and the rebel forces have been accused of human rights violations.)

Sarin is one of the deadliest nerve agents due to its extreme potency even at very low concentrations. Within a minute, someone exposed to sarin gas will suffocate due to lung muscle paralysis. Even those who miraculously survive stand to suffer permanent neurological damage. The creation and stockpiling of sarin has been outlawed since 1993 by the Chemical Weapons Convention. Moreover, UN Resolution 687 has officially classified it as a weapon of mass destruction.

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The current Syrian crisis can be traced to the Arab spring movements that sprung in neighboring countries such Egypt and Tunisia. In 2011, protesters took to the streets to oppose the Baathist party which has ruled Syria for the past five decades, dating back almost to the country’s independence from France in 1946. Alleged heavy handed and oppressive leadership led to a rising call for change which snowballed into a full-on protest movement. Needless to say, these protests did not please the Baathists who supposedly responded by first kidnapping, torturing, and killing opposition leaders, and then — perhaps feeling this method was ineffective, started to open fire on the throngs of civilian protesters on the streets. The latter started arming themselves and with help from sympathetic countries such as the US (e.g., the latter has provided $25 million in non-lethal aid in the form of hardware and software to help the rebels communicate more effectively and evade government censorship) mounted counter attacks. This led the Syrian government to begin bombing entire neighborhoods and towns. Now, reports of sarin gas being used have surfaced and prompted outrage across the international community.

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“To bomb or not to bomb” Syria is the question currently being debated in the United States Congress. And at this juncture, unless either of the protagonists experiences a “Road to Damascus metanoia” moment, it appears that a limited airstrike is the Americans’ most likely response. In advocating the latter, US Secretary of State John Kerry argued that “this is not the time for armchair isolationism nor the time to be spectators to slaughter” yet assured the American people that no boots will be committed on the ground.

There are several pros and cons in connection with the proposed action (or inaction as the case may be). As the world’s leading superpower and de facto policeman, the US believes that the use of chemical weapons is mala per se and squarely against international law New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendrez who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee argues: “In my view the world cannot ignore the inhumanity and horror of this act.” And while recognizing the risks to action, he argues that “the consequences of inaction are greater and graver: still further humanitarian disaster in Syria; regional instability and the loss of American credibility around the world.” He further believes that inaction may embolden the commission of bad behavior in the future from other rogue state such as Iran and North Korea.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner supports this view saying that the “United States has enemies around the world that need to understand that we we’re not going to tolerate this type of behavior. We have allies around the world who need to know that America will be there and stand up when necessary.”

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Doubts have been expressed as to the practicality of a limited strike. Obama has set the goal of any military strike against Syria as being “to hold the Assad regime accountable for their use of chemical weapons, [to] deter this kind of behavior, and to degrade their capacity to carry it out”. Yet some have questioned exactly how the President plans to target chemical weapons facilities directly. Certain elements of the Syrian chemical weapons complex may be buried underground. Many of them are stationed close to populated areas and the risk that substantial numbers of civilians will die because of a US bomb is very real. The possible alternative would be to avoid these sites altogether and perhaps target other elements of these installations such as power supplies or delivery systems. Yet this is easier said than done.

There is also the argument that such a limited airstrike will be symbolic, at best. Without a ground force invasion, Assad’s regime will survive and the civil war will continue. Surviving the strikes also permits the Syrian government to boast that they were able to withstand the best that the US had to offer. There will probably be a need to strike artillery and rocket systems, and other military production facilities. But this may have the effect of tilting the balance of conflict in favor of the rebels which may irk members of the international community including Russia who are arguing against foreign intervention in a domestic matter. Either way, there are some tough decisions that need to be made down the road to Damascus. Meanwhile, with each passing day, the death toll rises and more innocent casualties of war are laid to rest.

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Congratulations: Best wishes to former colleagues from the Philippine Association of Law Schools (PALS), Deans Amado Valdez and Artemio Tuquero, who were elected as chairman and president, respectively, of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila.

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“Intervention only works when people concerned seem to be keen for peace.”                – Nelson Mandela

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Email: [email protected]

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