The United States and Russia reached an agreement Saturday that calls for Syria to surrender its arsenal of chemical weapons. If the Arab nation complies, the threat of American military involvement in the region appears less likely.
After heated negotiations over whether to engage Syria militarily, an agreement on a plan to bring the nation’s chemical weapons under international control was reached between Russia and the United States Saturday. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the plan includes international inspections of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile set to begin sometime in November, according to a recent Washington Post article. The destruction of Syria’s entire chemical weapons arsenal is to be completed by mid 2014.
“The world will now expect the Assad regime to live up to its public commitments,” said Kerry in a speech from Geneva Saturday. “As I said at the outset of these negotiations, there can be no games, no room for avoidance or anything less than full compliance by the Assad regime.
The U.S. government seemed divided over what to do after Syrian President Bashar al- Assad’s forces used nerve gas to kill hundreds of Syrian civilians near the capital city of Damascus on the morning of Aug. 21.
Graphic images of the dead and dying shocked the world as they witnessed the aftermath of what is said to be the most significant use of the internationally outlawed chemical weapons since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of civilian Kurds in the city of Halabja 25 years ago.
The international response to the attacks in Syria was quick as the U.N. called an emergency meeting and the White House formally requested an investigation. The Obama administration contemplated the use of military force against Syria in order to hold Assad’s regime accountable for using chemical weapons and prevent it from happening again.
President Obama asked Americans and Congress to support military action in a highly anticipated speech Tuesday evening, saying the attack was not only a violation of international law but also a threat to U.S. national security. He said failure to retaliate against the use of chemical weapons would open the door to the use of more weapons of mass destruction.
“On that terrible night, the world saw in gruesome detail the terrible nature of chemical weapons, and why the overwhelming majority of humanity has declared them off-limits — a crime against humanity, and a violation of the laws of war, Obama said in his speech.
“I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike.”
Obama said the targeted strike would prevent the use of more chemical weapons in Syria and show the rest of the world the United States’ intolerance for the use of such weapons while avoiding putting American boots on Syrian soil. However, Obama asked Congress to postpone the vote in efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement with one of Assad’s largest supporters, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Saturday, the Assad regime agreed to surrender their chemical weapons and join the Chemical Weapons Convention. The convention, established in 1997, consists of 98 percent of the world’s nations and aims to eliminate chemical weapons of mass destruction by prohibiting the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons website. Only seven nations are not members of the convention. Syria took its first steps to joining the convention Thursday.
President Putin wrote a letter to Americans Wednesday expressing the importance of the U.N. and imploring the U.S. not to take military action without Security Council authorization. He warned that an American attack against Syria “could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance.”
Many Americans are reluctant to support the idea of military intervention in the region after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Unlike the Iraq War, this actually seems like someone has used weapons of mass destruction so the information is accurate but the will to go to war is not there,” said Political Science Professor Kenneth White. “I wonder if that’s in part because of the Iraq War.”
White said he thinks the consensus of the nation is that the Iraq War was unnecessary and unwise and that it started when President Bush called for war on the basis of the alleged use of weapons of mass destruction.
“I do not believe that Obama has the authority to go to war without Congress unless he can show clearly that there’s an objective threat to the people of the United States,” White said. “Only in a defensive situation could you use force as the president without Congressional authorization.”
Politcal Science Professor Kerwin Swint said he would support military action only if the U.N. reports indicate that Assad’s government was responsible. “It’s hard for America right now because we have such a bad image in that part of the world, and in a lot of parts in the world, for what they see as our interference.
I think it’s important for us to act as much as possible under international law,” Swint said.
Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies Maia Hallward said the agreement addresses the immediate issue of chemical weapons but does little to curb the broader regional conflict and the civil war itself. She said the Obama administration pushed for military action to show they were standing behind the red line that they drew when they warned against Syria’s use of chemical weapons last year.
“That’s the danger of drawing red lines,” Hallward said. “If you draw them and then they’re crossed, you have to do something or you look weak.”
