Assad uses chemical weapons again: Obama's diplomacy is killing Syria

Would you believe it? I certainly would. Hours after giving Assad the green light to kill people by any other means but chemical weapons, and hours after abandoning any plans to strike his regime, Assad kills people using chemical weapons... Again. This time gassing another suburb of his capital.

In the early hours of this morning, chemical weapon strikes were reported across the Jobar district, of a very similar nature to the previous chemical massacre in Ghouta, which claimed the lives of over 1400 people and wounded and injured thousands more. Early footage which has emerged shows people on oxygen machines, clearly injured and fighting for their lives - Ghouta seems to be being repeated all over again, with civilians choking to death, people suffocating on the streets, and other such horrific events. 

One of the innocent young victims who's lives were so
tragically taken in the Assad regime's genocidal chemical
weapons attack in Ghouta, August 21st 2013. The victims
the world has abandoned in favor of the genocidal monster
who is slaughtering them.

Coincidentally (there are no coincidences in Assad's genocide) the location of the attacks is an area which government forces have determinedly been trying to enter for some time (the Jobar district of Damascus), without success. heavy fighting has flared for months. Now, it seems that the government has decided to punish the people in Jobar, armed or unarmed, for defying their authority and standing for their freedom.

What is abundantly clear is that Obama's bluff has been called by both Putin and Assad. His talk of a strike was boisterous enough, and seemed to cause Assad a lot of worry - to the extent that he relocated troops and weapons, frantically preparing for the alleged strikes. Many thought that the strikes would actually happen, and the selectively anti-war crew (who fume at the prospect of a possible US intervention, yet have nothing to say in the face of three years of Iranian, Russian, Iraqi, Hezbollah and Russian intervention in Syria) went into a frenzy.

However, during John Kerry's speech, he claimed, in a moment of bravado, that Assad could hand over all his chemical weapons to the international community within a week, to avoid being attacked. Cynically, Putin and Assad called his bluff; Assad agreed to the plan, and Putin volunteered to help him implement it. Obama being Obama, he immediately took them at their word and called off the planned strikes.

What happened, in the words of Lee Smith, was nothing short of an utter surrender to Putin by Obama:

Reset with Russia was originally a strategic priority for the Obama administration because it saw Moscow as the key to getting Iran to come to the negotiating table. Putin, from the White House’s perspective, was destined for the role of junior partner. Now Putin has turned “Reset” upside down. By helping Obama out of a jam with Syria, Putin has made himself the senior partner to whom the White House is now beholden. Accordingly, when Putin proposes the same sort of deal with Iran, with Russia having established its bona fides as an interlocutor for Syria, Obama is almost certain to jump at it.

What’s unclear is whether Obama understands that his foreign policy legacy will be to have ruined the American position in the Middle East, our patrimony of the last seven decades. If the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran signaled weakness, the Russian deal screams surrender.

In a single move, Putin has accurately noticed Obama's well-meaning, dithering nature, capitalised on it, and thus given himself the upper hand in every single key negotiating table in the future - he has made himself seem indispensable to Obama as a partner in negotiating in difficult situations (when his support for these regimes is actually the fundamental problem), and Obama will now, naively and gratefully, jump at the chance to involve him at every point in the future. He will think that he has no choice. In other words, Obama is willingly asking Putin to hamstring him. Putin has effectively undercut the United States' entire foreign policy in the region, with a simple gesture.

Hitler getting his brownshirt thugs to sow chaos on Germany's streets, and then claiming that he was the only solution to restore Germany's stability, immediately comes to mind.

Does nobody else see Putin's disgusting hypocrisy?

What's more, in regard to Assad's plan to give up his chemical weapons in return for not being attacked, Lee accurately summed up Assad's hollow promises in a single paragraph:

The Syrian government has accepted the proposal because they understand it is an empty formalism. As everyone knows, as even all but the most obtuse White House officials must also understand, Assad will not give up his unconventional arsenal because he cannot. The use of chemical weapons in a Damascus suburb August 21 is evidence that, contrary to the regime’s narrative, Assad and his allies are not routing the rebels. The district that was targeted is a strategically significant node that, among other things, is close to the Dumayr airstrip where the regime is supplied with direct flights from Iran. The rebels had held the territory for over a year, thwarting repeated attempts by Assad’s forces to retake it. Presumably, Assad calculated that given the importance of the area it was worth testing Obama’s red line to take it. Without chemical weapons, Assad fears he may lose the war.

Obama is the type of man, and leader, who believes that everyone shares his fundamental beliefs in peace, freedom, security and stability. He believes they speak his language, and will gladly engage with him. In his own way, Obama wants to believe that Assad is somehow terribly misguided and will see reason.

More young victims of the August 2013 Ghouta attacks. This is the regime
which Obama has given the green light to. It can kill civilians in any way it
likes, but chemical weapons are a red line. Why? Because they make him look
bad. It really is that simple.

 His administration's plan is to somehow remove Assad the figurehead, and keep the brutal, murderous, totalitarian regime which he relies upon, under the facade of a "transitional government". Why? Because this regime is the best regime for safeguarding the interests of the US (which has long renditioned prisoners for torture in Syria, during the war on terror) and Israel, which has, ironically, long had its borders guarded by Assad. His regime is the devil they both know, and the US government would no doubt agree to drop Assad if they could keep the men behind him in place. What is in the interests of Israel, is in the interests of the United States. They worry more about chemical weapons falling into the hands of a minority of extremists with limited means, than they are about a genocidal regime (which kills hundreds of thousands of its own citizens) keeping them. Strange, isn't it?

Right now, Obama may as well turn over the keys of the White House to Vlad. The leader of the free world is seemingly too plodding and indecisive to lead anything, and somehow desperately feels the need to have the backing of a totalitarian dictator (who's ironically on the side of the dictatorship Obama claims to be against) before he will do anything. He simply cannot see that Putin wants to protect Assad to safeguard Russia's interests (a naval base in Tartous and millions in arms deals), and so has no interest in working with him, and every interest in hindering him. He seemingly also cannot see that Assad is simply out to protect Assad and *brutal* family, and he will do it at any cost - even if it means destroying the entire nation, so he can be president of a bombed-out shell that was once a beautiful nation.

People of all ages (400 of them children) killed in the Assad
regime's chemical massacre in Ghouta, August 2013. Some
conspiracy theorists would have you believe that these people
were gassed by the FSA (many of them are FSA family members)
to put the blame on Assad and give the US an excuse to
intervene - they forget that the US is coming up with every
excuse possible NOT to intervene, and isn't exactly unfriendly
with the Assad regime.

When will he realise that Assad, Putin and their ilk don't give a toss for diplomacy and live by the law of the jungle? Obama respects words, signatures on pieces of paper, treaties, and rhetoric, albeit naively. The only thing that totalitarian basket-cases like Assad, Putin and dictators the world over respect is the use of force, and actions - not words. Obama's extensive talking has enabled Assad to kill, maim and terrorise millions - with every false promise from the (alleged) leader of the free world, Assad becomes that little bit bolder.

More children massacred by the regime's brutal chemical
massacre in Ghouta, August 21st 2013.

People ask why he risks using those weapons when he is "winning" the "war"? I was in Syria. I saw his crimes, and stayed with the revolutionaries there. The answer is that he is not winning the GENOCIDE at all - in fact, the rumor that he is winning is based on the fact that he re-took a small town on the Lebanese border called Qusayr... It took him over a month and the losses of hundreds of his men, and the intervention of thousands of Hezbollah terrorists from Lebanon just for him to take back a single town, too small to be called a city. Not really winning, is it?

He risks using the weapons because he knows that nobody will stop him, and that Obama is foolish enough to carry on talking, but will always balk at the thought of  actually acting on what he says. 

His message is also so confusing, that the American people, already ill-informed, have gone off the idea of a strike even more (not that it will probably happen now) - they know Obama wants to intervene, but he doesn't want to use boots on the ground, but he does want to strike the regime, but only to stop the use of chemical weapons, not end the regime (murder by bullets, bombs, napalm, phosphorous, artillery and jets bombing civilian areas are apparently all alright, however).

Assad, Putin and Obama are playing geopolitical chess games to keep the Assad regime in power. Everyone has a reason to keep him on his throne.Apart from Syrian people themselves. They are the only losers in this game.

Please, do not be inactive. Contact your government representatives (either at their office or via email), contact the media and humanitarian organisations), tweet extensively with hashtags (such as #Syria or #Assad, #Jobar, etc), write articles and post them on Twitter and Facebook, etc. It may not seem like much, but it is something to help, and lots of awareness can be raised. Maybe someone influential could even be encouraged to take greater steps towards intervening to end this genocide by the Assad regime.

Ben Allinson-Davies is a worker for Radio Free Syria, blogger, and film-maker, who spent over a week in Syria with the people there, including rebel forces. He is currently working on a documentary, with the aim of raising money for people affected by the genocide.