Remember when Obama assured us that Russia had promised that Syria’s chemical weapons were no more? They weren’t. Assad used them on his own people. Collusion! (That’s a Russsssia Joke, get it?)
But Syriaously, folks. Chemical weapons in Syria were this big deal. Chemical Weapons everywhere are a big deal but mostly in places where leaders-for-life and their strong-men like to dispose of them on the locals as a lesson. The Bamster told us about this Red Line thing (don’t you dare use chemical weapons), which Assad repeatedly crossed without consequence.
Well, not entirely.
Obama-Baby tortured the rest of us with endless empty talk until at one point or other until the announcement regarding Syrian ally (Russia) removing and disposing of 600 metric tons from Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile (wink-wink).
Obama and his second secretary of state, John Kerry, hailed the accord as a historic way to end Assad’s chemical weapons program without firing a single shot. “It turns out we’re getting chemical weapons out of Syria without having initiated a strike,” Obama told an audience in the Philippines four years ago. “With respect to Syria, we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out,” Kerry stated during a July 2014 appearance on Meet the Press.
Nice “work” Mr. Redline. Nice job reporting that Mr. and Ms. Media.
I’m sure someone somewhere (certainly not the Obama’s or the Kerry’s) is wondering about what Russia actually did, if anything, with the 600 Metric tons of chemicals the “took” from Syria?
Human Rights Watch has cataloged about 85 chemical weapons attacks in Syria since the August 21, 2013, strike, most of them perpetrated by the regime.
That many? It looks like it. All of them after Mr. Obama drew his red line and Russia ‘removed’ the chemical weapons stockpile. This suggests that not much of anything was taken except the inspectors “out to dinner and a movie” with some of the best “escorts” a Syrian dictator could provide.
No one appears to have done much of anything to stop Assad if there were 85 chemical attacks in Syria after 2013. And while most of them appear to be military and related to the civil war if you draw a line about the use of a thing isn’t any use of said thing (seeing as it wasn’t even supposed to be there) crossing the line?
And close to half of those attacks happened after Mr. Kerry said, “we struck a deal where we got 100 percent of the chemical weapons out.” So, that worked as well as the red line the year previous?
Mr. Trump appears to have 13 red dots on his watch, the most recent (only civilians, apparently) serving as the catalyst for this recent reprisal.
Why not sooner? And what are the conspiracy theorists who think the US and Israel staged this to justify bombing Syria going to do? Why not bomb sooner? Why not after every attack? Did Israel and the US perpetrate all 85 or just the 13 since Trump took office? Is Human Rights Watch just a puppet of some geopolitical mastermind?
On some level, I’m still wedded to the idea that geopolitics and natural gas are involved, but this is starting to change my mind. I’ve also heard tell that Trump wants out of Syria, period, and that doesn’t sound like a guy who gives a damn about pipelines or Middle Eastern Energy hegemony. And why should he? We have lots of gas and the means to get it. And while Obama opposed fracking Trump is all for it.
Obama, not bombing Syria makes more sense in that context because Russia has a geopolitical interest in Assad’s Syria and Natural gas, in which any new pipeline might ferret its way to Europe without Russia. Putin has a monopoly on the stuff when it comes to its western neighbors. But as I said, I’m beginning to lose interest in that thinking.
We’re left with something of a Trump said Assad would pay the price and the recent reaction id keeping that promise.
Several folks believe it will make no difference. Assad, they say, pays no attention to this because in real terms it presents no actual threat to his hold on power. He will continue to do what he does without regard to international response.
Which means there will be more chemical attacks and more reprisals and if nothing else changes it will continue like that for a long time.
Alternately, what does Syria look like in the vacuum created by the absence of Assad? It might be worse.
I hope Mr. Trump is serious about getting the heck out of Syria, period.
