Syria continues to be off the measuring scale for centers of treachery. Everywhere one looks it is a downhill slide. And there’s no end in sight.
The Assad regime has made it clear that there is no end to how far they will go to stay in power. Far from having won the war, the entry of Hezbollah has tipped the balance of power in their direction today. However, the use of chemical weapons still expresses desperation on the part of the government.
By the way, the chemical attack was not part of a new rationale for Assad. The Syrian government is not recovering vast swathes of rebel held territory. Assad’s forces particularly had trouble in recovering the eastern Ghouta territory that is part of the suburbs of Damascus city. Both the rebels and Assad’s force refer to the Jobar area as the key to Damascus. Jobar is where the last chemical attack occurred.
If Assad could drive the rebels out of Jobar and eastern Ghouta, it would offer the government renewed control in this section of Damascus. The chemical attack on Jobar was the first step in an offensive to recover this area. This is not the first time Assad has tried chemical attacks in this area. While President Obama has been reluctant to admit it, Assad has used chemicals for tactical reasons during the past year. Britain drew this conclusion much earlier. Their government’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down confirmed Syria’s use of sarin month’s back.
Apparently, the latest attack that finally got Washington’s ire up was a miscalculation that killed more civilians than was intended. A slight miscalculation that added over a thousand women and children to the death toll of more than 100,000 casualties.
Chemical attacks aren’t the only slippery slope inside Syria. One of the reasons the rebels have not made more process has come from the growing number of jihadis entering the country. These Muslim forces related to Al-Qaeda have a similar fascination with death and are increasingly killing other more moderate rebels. One of the reasons the United States has been reluctant to supply arms to the rebellion is the existence of this element. These radical groups have been some of the most effective forces on the battlefield. Nevertheless, turf wars and retaliatory killings have evolved into ferocious battles that are increasingly becoming a war within a war. Of course, the winner in these rebel battles with themselves is Assad. The big losers are the moderates as territory slips away into the hands of the Islamists and jihadist fighters.
The reluctance of America to make any sort of decisive stand has allowed Russia to conceal much of this action or offer lame excuses for what has occurred. Time is on no one’s side in this mayhem –except death’s.
Remember that old folk song from America’s anti-war movement days? “Where Have All The Flower’s Gone.” The last stanza was “gone to graveyards every one.” That’s where the slippery slope ends in Syria.
Dr. Robert L. Wise 