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