Huffington Magazine Issue 66 | Page 35

Voices is serious, and that he will do his part to make the decommissioning of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal a reality. But a number of things stand in the way of making this proposal meaningful. First, the international community cannot be certain that it knows where all the weapons are. Mr. Assad has changed the location of part of his arsenal in recent weeks and months, and while these movements have been monitored — to the extent possible — by s atellites, there is no real way for anyone outside the Syrian government to know exactly where all the weapons are. By all accounts, Mr. Assad possesses thousands of chemical agents, and the rockets to deliver them. So it is indeed a leap of faith to presume that, a) Mr. Assad will declare every single agent, and b) that the international community will be able to detect every single agent. After all, chemical weapons are Mr. Assad’s real trump card and bargaining chip. Without them, he has no way to apply real leverage to his enemies and the international community. Second, even if “all” the agents are identified and the international community assumes con- DANIEL WAGNER HUFFINGTON 09.15.13 trol of them in the short term, it will take years to destroy them, and their destruction needs to be done on site. The weapons are too dangerous and too numerous to move, and the destruction of such weapons has never been done in a war zone. The idea of moving them is out of the question. So how can the destruction of the agents be done safely and securely in the middle of a war? Only when backed into a corner, faced with the threat of overwhelming attack, and with no other feasible option at his disposal, is Mr. Assad agreeing to the proposal brokered by Russia.” The likely answer is that they cannot be destroyed with the kind of safety and security required to have any degree of confidence that a breach, accident, or sabotage may not occur. That is a problem. Third, given Mr. Obama’s stated objective of wanting to do something to end the terrible bloodshed that has befallen the Syrian people, destroying these