Syrian government officials have stated that they do not intend to use chemical weapons inside the country. However, one statement hinted that Syria reserves the right to use chemical weapons against external aggression. When the George Herbert Walker Bush ( or Bush Sr. ) administration led the attack against Iraq in the early 1990s, it was in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The alleged use of chemical weapons by Saddam Hussain against Kurds in the late 1980s did not lead to any military action against Iraq. When the George W. Bush ( son of George Herbert Walker Bush ) administration attacked Iraq for allegedly possessing weapons of mass destruction ( later proved to be false ) and for allegedly having contacts with al-Qaeda , the use of chemical weapons in the late 1980s against the Kurds was used as an additional justification by some commentators and analysts. But the fact is that in the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein was in the good books of the Reagan administration, the alleged use of chemical weapons by Saddam Hussein against Kurds in Iraq did not lead to any military response against Iraq by the Reagan administration. Of course, more than twenty years have passed since then. New Democratic foreign policy and neo-conservative foreign policy have tried to sell the idea of " nation-building " to the world, with questionable results. While the current White House is trying to continue the New Democrat-neocon flavor of foreign policy when it comes to internal conflicts in other countries, the US administration would do well to clarify its exact intended policy on chemical weapons use by Syria, internal or external. Will an internal use of chemical weapons in Syria ( the Syrian administration seems to have vehemently denied intending to use chemical weapons for internal conflicts ) lead to unilalteral non-UN-sanctioned US military action or non-UN-sanctioned NATO military action against Syria ? As for Syria's not ruling out the use of chemical weapons against external aggressors, the legality and the morality become very murky. Syria is not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention. While the US has ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, there is confusion about whether US foreign policy has been made consistent with this ratification, at least based on the information that this writer has been able to gather. It seems that technically, Syria is right when it reserves the right to chemical weapons use against external aggression.
The morality of chemical weapons use is complicated. The use of chemical weapons by the US in Vietnam, the continuation of the use of other deadly forms of weapons etc mean that chemical weapon use becomes a difficult moral subject. It would be nice to rid the world of chemical weapons, but then it would be nice to rid the world of other deadly weapons as well. And of tyrannical governments and insensitive governments and of dangerous warmongers and war criminals. Using UN frameworks seems to be the safest option for such cases. The lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and allegations of criminality against some western leaders are examples of how hasty military action in such cases leads to a tangle of moral and legal complications. The " policing " actions of the US become that much more difficult to justify given the lack of due diligence and a tendency to disregard UN mechanisms.
by C. Jayant Praharaj ( send comments to [email protected] )
The morality of chemical weapons use is complicated. The use of chemical weapons by the US in Vietnam, the continuation of the use of other deadly forms of weapons etc mean that chemical weapon use becomes a difficult moral subject. It would be nice to rid the world of chemical weapons, but then it would be nice to rid the world of other deadly weapons as well. And of tyrannical governments and insensitive governments and of dangerous warmongers and war criminals. Using UN frameworks seems to be the safest option for such cases. The lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and allegations of criminality against some western leaders are examples of how hasty military action in such cases leads to a tangle of moral and legal complications. The " policing " actions of the US become that much more difficult to justify given the lack of due diligence and a tendency to disregard UN mechanisms.
by C. Jayant Praharaj ( send comments to [email protected] )