John J. Metzler

UNITED NATIONS — Has Syria crossed the “red line” which the Obama administration warned about should there be any use of chemical weapons in the conflict?

Yes, No, Maybe so. But even if there was an apparently limited albeit brutal use of the nerve agents, does this automatically justify the “game changer” of wider American involvement in a yet another MidEast conflict?

In any civil war, accusations fly. Given the political pedigree of the Assad family dictatorship, and the fact that their security forces possess large quantities of chemical weapons, (stockpiles with Soviet origin), this comes as no surprise.

Since Assad’s forces appear locked in a stalemate with entrenched rebel factions going into the third year of conflict, it’s possible the regime used these proscribed chemical agents.

Equally, there’s also the possibility that Al Qaida-linked rebel factions used relatively small chemical quantities as a provocation precisely to trigger both international revulsion and more importantly a deeper U.S. involvement in the widening conflict. The logic would be that American military power would weigh in, tip the scales and topple Assad, and then the fundamentalists would ultimately gain from the power vacuum.

Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari told correspondents that his government had requested the UN more than a month ago to carry out an independent investigation into possible chemical weapons use in March. Nothing has transpired.

Despite the carnage where over 70,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, and millions more displaced, this is not America’s fight nor is it in the national interest of the United States to become militarily entangled in this sectarian civil war.

Here’s why. Despite being a dictatorship, Syria remains a secular country where the Muslim majority (factions of which are fighting each other) have coexisted alongside a sizable Christian minority. The Alawite minority sect, Assad’s clan, forms one of many communal groups in Syria’s ethnic patchwork. The Sunni Muslim majority forms the bedrock of the political opposition.

Though the United Nations Security Council has tried to pass a number of resolutions on Syria since the conflict began in 2011 during the fateful Arab Spring, the fact remains that Russia and Mainland China have provided diplomatic cover fire to Damascus regime and have used their rare double veto to shoot down Western resolutions. Moscow’s support of Syria is viewed as a core national interest.

Thus, while Russia and Iran have supplied the Syrian rulers with weapons, any widening of the conflict by the USA or NATO would needlessly confront Russia.

Given that NATO countries such as Britain and the USA seems to be edging towards a more formal military engagement in the conflict, we ask is it in our national interest to “topple the devil we know” replacing him with a gaggle of Islamic fundamentalist groups who could create a more unstable state on the borders of Israel, Iraq, Turkey and helpless Lebanon?

Syria’s civil war has proven a magnet for a militant “International” of foreign fighters from Britain, France, Germany and even Canada. Others have migrated from Iraq and Chechnya. Syria’s conflict emerged as a new cause celebre for global jihadi Islam.

So we have to be a bit creative here. Though an ancient land, Syria as defined by its current borders is basically a post-WWI creation. Once an Ottoman Turkish province, Syria came under French control following the defeat of Turkey in the First World War. France controlled Syria until the country’s independence in 1946. The Syrians have posed the hard-line face of leftist Arab nationalism, but not religious fundamentalism.

France would be a logical player here but the domestic political malaise in Paris as well as the fact that France led and toppled an Islamic militant regime in the ex-colony Mali earlier in the year has stretched its limits. Would there be a UN intervention force?

Highly unlikely, as Russia would veto the proposal. Even if somehow a UN blue helmet mission passed through the Security Council, the system is overstretched and overwhelmed with a score of draining peacekeeping operations and mission fatigue.

Then there’s Turkey. A neighboring state who’s opened its frontiers to large numbers of fleeing refugees. Turkey shares Sunni Islam with the Syrian majority, and has been keenly concerned over the outcome. Turkey has a well-trained and tough military which could prove decisive in the current conflict. Turkey would not want nor allow an Islamic fundamentalist regime on its southern frontier.

There’s a wide spectrum of political and military opposition forces. While the Free Syrian Army is probably the most “Western oriented” of the militants, the Al Qaida- linked Al Nusra front and others are doing most of the fighting and influencing.

The Obama administration whose feckless foreign policy team could not find Syria on a map three years ago, now seems politically bent to “solving” yet another sectarian MidEast troublespot. Washington does not need involvement in another proxy war.

And so Obama the “peace candidate” in 2008, let’s get out of Iraq and Afghanistan damn the consequences, now ponders a military entanglement in Syria’s turmoil? Do we cross the thin red line?

John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for WorldTribune.com.

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