Doomed to Fail: The Baathist Dictatorship Offers its Untrustworthy Hand to the West

In order to prevent a US-led punitive operation against the chemical weapons (CW) use against civilians on Aug. 21, the Baathist dictatorship strives to play on US Secretary of State John Kerry's statement that Syria could avert a military stike if it turns over its chemical arsenals.
 
However, trusting Bashar al-Assad in a CW disposal deal would mean relying on a dictatorship that had no intention to join the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) until it saw missile cruisers at its doorstep, that did not ratify the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and has already employed tactical-level weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) on its civilian population. This formulation itself, which depends on solid facts, summarizes the deal's problematic viability. The critical caveats of the CW deal in three categories are as follows:
 
Problem 1: The narrow CW debate instead of a comprehensive focus on the WMD program
 
In July last year, the former spokesperson for the Syrian Foreign Office, Jihad Maqdisi, admitted that the regime has chemical and biological weapons. While other Syrian officials had alluded to Syrian chemical weapons in the past, Maqdisi's statement was the first overt reference to Syria's chemical and biological arsenal. In addition to its possession of chemical weapons, the Baathist dictatorship has developed most capable ballistic missile forces in the Middle East. The regime has used its shorter range Scud-B's during the civil war and has longer range Scud-Cs and Scud-Ds capable of striking regional targets up to some 700 kilometers.
 
Therefore, even if the United States, its Western allies and the Russian Federation reached an agreement to eliminate the regime's chemical weapons via diplomatic means, the threat to Turkey and the region would still persist. The essence of the problem is that, without total disarmament, the Syrian dictator would still possess strategic weapons and even could retain his biological weapons.
 
The regime's biological weapons (BW) program is thought to be less developed than the CW arsenal. However, as of 2010, the Nuclear Threat Initiative indicates that Syria has hosted more pharmaceutical companies than any other Arab state. Under the Baath regime, it would be naive to think that a dual-use industry would not be under control of the state and the state's security apparatus. The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center oversees the regime's covert WMD activities, and it is known that the center has a bio-research department. According to the Israeli microbiologist and WMD expert Dany Shoham, Syria has already developed a BW inventory mainly consisting of anthrax and cholera bacteria as well as botulinum and ricin toxins. From a military standpoint, if employed properly, such a bio-arsenal could be as destructive as a tactical nuclear weapon.
 
Syria's ballistic missile arsenal is another problem. Above all, it gives the Baathist regime an effective means of delivery for its biological and chemical agents. Military surveys suggest that the regime is capable of targeting Jordan, Israel, the island of Cyprus and a considerable proportion of Turkey including the capital, Ankara.
 
Thus, a diplomatic solution to the “Syrian problem” should not be limited to the handover of the CW arsenal. In a more complicated context, the regime has to pledge full commitment to CWC and BWC and abandon all WMD activities. Moreover, a UN Security Council ban with regard to any activities related to ballistic missiles, like the United Nations Security Council
 
(UNSC) resolution 1929 on Iran, should be applied to Syria as well. Furthermore, there is a difference between a WMD program and a WMD arsenal. A WMD program, in a broader sense, includes all research and development activities, critical know-how and personnel, key institutions and open or covert doctrine on this formidable aspect of warfare.
 
Therefore, a “diplomatic solution” has to enforce the Baathist dictatorship to open all records of its WMD programs to full investigation, not only making an inventory of its CW assets. Unless, all these assurance are given and implemented, the current CW handover discussions would be meaningless.
 
Problem 2: Feasibility of the CW arsenal disposal in a reasonable period of time
 
The first and foremost problem with the Baathist dictatorship's promise is the ongoing civil war itself. Put simply, the world's fourth-largest CW arsenal cannot be secured under the current circumstances that plagued the country with endless clashes and violence. At this point, it is important to mention that neither the regime nor its foreign supporters called for a permanent cease-fire or a halt to the operations. The Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies' (EDAM) open-source monitoring efforts suggest that since the beginning of September, Assad's forces have been active both in the northern axis of the civil war, the Aleppo-Idlib region, and in the southern axis, namely, Damascus' suburbs -- the Jordanian border areas as well as Hamah and Homs.
 
Another significant problem with the proposed CW disposal is technical feasibility. For starters, securing and then destroying the formidable WMD arsenal can take even a decade. Thus, Assad may have calculated that an open-ended process would prevent American military action and therefore guarantee that he remains in power for the foreseeable future.
 
The first step in the process of securing and destroying chemical weapons would depend on the Assad regime's declaration. Thus, before inspectors could be deployed, Assad must publicly declare the type of CWs it possesses, the number of munitions, the amount of chemical precursors and the location of storage facilities and deployments. In turn, inspectors would then have to verify this list through inspections and interviews with key figures in Syria's CW program. At this point, we should recall that “transparency” could be the last word when depicting the Baathist military machine.
 
Therefore, a CW disposal initiative cannot rely solely on the inventory records provided by Assad. Second, even if military intelligence locates all military installments related to the regime's CW arsenal, all the securing efforts would have to be done under a constant threat of contamination, and moreover, in a very tense and hostile environment that poisoned by a prolonged, sectarian civil war. Protecting all inspectors and disposal and destruction experts, would eventually necessitate a sufficient number of boots on the ground.
 
As of now, it is unclear who will provide the inspectors. In Libya in 2003 and 2004, the United States and the United Kingdom negotiated a secret agreement with Muammar Gaddafi that permitted American and British experts to oversee the initial process of verifying Libya's CW declaration. Libya declared close to 25 metric tons (MT) of sulfur mustard, 1,390 MT of precursor chemicals, 3,563 aerial bombs and three chemical production sites. After their initial contact with the Libyan government, the US and the UK, with Libya's permissions, began to engage with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons -- the enforcement arm of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) -- to assist with the inspections and to oversee the dismantlement and destruction process. Moreover, as part of this process, Libya signed the CWC in 2004. Currently, efforts to destroy Libya's precursors chemical and sulfur mustard continue. Syria is likely to be far more complicated than the Libyan case.
 
Even assuming that all the aforementioned stages would go as expected, destroying chemical precursors, agents and weapons is not a piece of cake. As EDAM's non-proliferation expert Aaron Stein draws attention to the fact in his co-authored work for the Globe and Mail, CW-related materials can only be destroyed in specially designed facilities. Thus, if the international community were to decide to destroy Syria's CWs outside of the country, components of the regime's arsenal would have to be air-lifted probably to Russia. It is far more likely that the destruction facilities themselves would have to be built inside Syria. Such an effort could take a considerably long time.
 
In addition, under the constant civil war conditions, the prolonged construction time would not be the only threat to operational security. One should keep in mind that what we are talking about is a country that hosts a wide range of “men-at-arms” from Hezbollah militiamen to Quds Forces, and al-Qaeda affiliates. Moreover, during such a CW disposal mission, anything like a “government guarantee” could ostensibly be provided by the Baathist dictatorship that has already used CWs and claimed innocent civilian lives. Relying on Assad's forces to protect a disposal mission would be tantamount to let the “fox guard the hen house.”
 
In a more complicated fashion, one could ask a thought-provocative question about who would protect the disposal mission in al-Safira Base near Aleppo of which surrounding outpost areas have been exposed to the opposition siege several times up till now. Could anyone embarrass himself that
 
much by naively expecting the Free Syrian Army (FSA) elements and the regime's forces to take the responsibility for protecting the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' (OPCW) al-Safira mission on a rotation basis? Yet, if the possible OPCW mission is to be safeguarded by an international military mission, then we can start guessing which enthusiastic nations would be willing to send their land units to Syria while the British parliament already rejected a limited strike that would be conducted hundreds of miles away from the Syrian defense systems' engagement ranges.
 
Just to carry on our journey in the “dream world,” let's assume all the aforementioned issues would go peacefully, although the Baathist dictatorship has managed to turn the country into the antithesis of peace in recent times, one should explain how to destroy weapon-ready chemical agents. Technically, the weaponization of deadly chemicals could be done via binary and unitary munitions, which would make a big difference in a possible CW securing mission in Syria. Especially, weapon-ready munitions would be the riskiest part of any disposal work. Briefly, binary munitions include precursors in separate containers that are designed to mix to form the lethal nerve agent. For instance, sarin (GB), which represents the bulk of the Syrian CW stockpile, and is the suspected agent for the Aug. 21 attacks, can be used in binary munitions form by two separate canisters of methylphosponic difluoride, and isopropyl alcohol and isopropylamine solution. The canisters break by the launch of the delivery means and the sarin is produced during the projectile's flight pattern. On the other hand, unitary warheads pose more risks to an operator, and therefore for a securing mission, as they contain the most lethal forms of agent in the delivery vehicle (aerial bombs, artillery rockets, shells, etc.). Unitary warheads are more prone to hazardous leakage. Given the fact that even technologically advanced military world powers faced leakages in the past, the Syrian case offers more pessimism for any international or OPCW effort. Clearly, at least a double-digit number of leakages should be expected.
 
Problem 3: The Baathist dictatorship's unreliability
 
The third caveat is the Baathist regime's reliability itself when it comes to honoring its commitments to international community during the civil war. Recently, Azmat Khan, a digital producer with Al Jazeera America, pointed the Assad regime's broken promises. Ms Khan points out the very fact that it was the regime that deceived the Arab League when Assad promised to withdraw his armored units from the streets in November of 2011, and again, it was the regime itself that has broken the cease-fire brokered by Kofi Annan in April last year.
 
In addition, what we are talking about is an administration that did not refrain from using CW on urban areas at the doorstep of its capital. Let alone the anti-Assad governmental agencies and nongovernmental groups, in its recent report, Attacks on Ghouta, Human Rights Watch openly concludes that “Syrian government forces were almost certainly responsible for the Aug. 21 attacks, and a weapons-grade nerve agent was delivered during the attack using specially designed rocket delivery systems”.
 
Besides, the international community needs to remember how it all started. The story was not a major campaign to secure the regime's CW arsenal before it was too late. On the contrary, it was too late on Aug. 21, if not before, thus the whole deployment's profile reflects a military muscle flexing for a punitive operation against a massacre that claimed hundreds of lives as a result of a CW strike. Therefore, a handover of the entire CW stocks would not solve what lies at the heart of the issue. Would the Assad regime clarify units, commanders and political figures that were responsible for the Aug. 21 attacks? If the regime's praetorian units, such as the 4th Armored Division, were involved in this crime against humanity as voiced by many so far, would the regime explain the responsible chain of command? Especially, given the praetorian units' unique and privileged positions in the Syrian Arab army's doctrinal order of battle, was the president himself involved in the attacks?
 
Conclusion
 
In sum, the CW signal of the Baathist regime seems doomed to fail. First, the West has embraced a limited scope by emphasizing chemical weapons. Second, the international community should focus not only on the Baathist regime's promises, but also on its record of reliability. Third, the core problem that necessitated a strong response was not the presence of Syria's CW arsenal, but the use of this notorious arsenal by the regime. Finally, we should see that the very fact that this is not solely about Ghouta, even not solely about Syria. This is about drawing a red line against WMD use by a rogue regime. If the West fails to draw that red line decisively and sends the wrong signals about the determination of the US and its allies, then the undesirable repercussions could surface in anywhere in the world, be it Iran or North Korea…