A few additional points on Syria

As a follow up to my post on Syria I thought this might be worth posting, summarising some important points. It was originally a comment I tried to post on Think Defence, but one that appears at the minute to have been eaten by the Internet goblins. It's worth keeping that in mind, as the tone and character of the post is one of responding to other comments on a forum:

A few points:

1 - Why are people talking about boots on the ground? There is absolutely no suggestion that boots will be put on the ground, other than the sort of boots that we neither confirm nor deny have set foot anywhere. We're unlikely to even see something along the lines of Libya. The government has done an exceptionally poor job of making this point, as evidenced by the number of people I've seen just this evening on Facebook making comments along the lines of "Syria. One word: Iraq!" etc.

2 - The point of missile strikes (likely to be a combination of TLAM, Storm Shadow and Yank Air launched missiles) is to i) punish the regime and send it a warning about chemical weapons use and ii) send a warning to other nations/dictators about chemical weapons use. There are ways of selecting targets such that we inflict a significant amount of damage on Syria without hampering too greatly Assad's ability to fight the civil war.

3 - The idea that the rebels did all this is almost laughable. The sheer scale of what we're talking about is likely beyond them. The areas hit are areas held by rebels, that have been holding out against conventional attacks for a while. The fact that the chemical weapons went off in the middle of a regime bombardment and preceded a limited ground offensive by regime forces means that while we have no 100% answer, it's very, very unlikely at this point that the weapons were employed by anyone other than the Assad regime.

4 - Note that reports are coming out tonight that the Assad regime has now switched to using Napalm (some has been dropped on a school), perhaps as a way of maximising casualties while avoiding stirring the pot further with chemical weapons. If that's true, then the mere threat of airstrikes has already put the willies up Assad.

5 - Just out of interest I spoke to a friend who is in the legal profession, though granted International law is not his speciality so take this for what it's worth, but his opinion concurs with that laid forth earlier by Phil, that the use of chemical weapons is the responsibility of the government, regardless of whether or not Assad personally ordered their use. He is the sole authority of that Regime, he would likely be held accountable. On a more interesting note, even in the unlikely event that it turns out to be the rebels who used the weapons, Assad and his regime could still be held legally accountable for that use on the basis that they have a duty of care to look after and monitor chemical weapons in their possession.

6 - People keep talking about the Rebels and Jihadists as if the two are interchangeable, which they are not. The Jihadists are just one chunk of the opposition. One of the grand ironies about the fear over supplying weapons to the opposition lest they end up in the hands of Jihadists is that the more secular groups are finding it hard to keep their people (and those that would like to join them) equipped... which is causing many to defect to the Jihadist groups that have more spare equipment.

7 - Assad ceased to be the better option a few months ago. He's now bringing groups like Hezbollah into help fight for him. If he wins, he will make Saddam Husseins retaliation against Iraqi rebels in 91/92 look like a mild disturbance. The fact that he's already gassing and dropping napalm on civilians in an indiscriminate manner does not bode well for those towns and cities that might find themselves on the losing side if the Regime wins.

8 - On that note, if you're worried about Jihadists gaining power and sponsoring International terrorist groups, then how is that really any worse than what Assad and his family have been doing for decades now? Hezbollah anyone? Hamas? Look up a chap called Nezar Hindawi, nice old fellow, who put his pregnant wife on a flight from Heathrow to Israel carrying 2 kilos of Semtex and a digital timer. Sponsored, trained and supplied by Syria. Then when it went tits up, they tried to help him escape detection and flee the country.