Syria’s war got more messy yesterday with the latest allegations of a chemical attack against civilians in Douma, the last remaining anti-Syrian stronghold near Damascus. With at least 42 dead from asphyxiation, including women and children, all fingers point toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. With the U.N. weapons inspectors attributing multiple poison gas attack in Syria since 2013, President Donald Trump blamed Moscow for making more excuses for al-Assad. Trump ordered Cruise missile attacks on Shayrat Syrian airbase April 7, 2017, after another alleged chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun. Syrian government officials denied any attack on Douma, blaming any chemical attack on Saudi-funded anti-al-Assad rebels. Syrian officials blame whatever happened on The Army of Islam, the Saudi-backed rebel group occupying Douma.
Responding harshly to images of suffocated children, Trump blamed al-Assad for yet another atrocity, criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin for backing the Damascus regime. Trump not only blamed al-Assad, he held Putin equally culpable for backing the regime. “Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in location and encircled by Syrian Army, making completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putn, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big Price,” Trump tweeted this morning. While Trump has every right to be disgusted with another chemical attack, he can’t rule out that rebels staged the attack to galvanize international outrage. Saudi Arabia-backed rebel group have refused to concede that they’ve lost the seven-year-old proxy war to topple al-Assad’s Shiite government.
Reporting on missile strike at a Syrian airbase in Homs, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA accused the U.S. of retaliatory strikes, like the one in last year in Khan Sheikhoun. Whatever the missile attacks, they don’t have marks of a U.S.-style missile attack. Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned the U.S. against any attacks in Syria regarding unproven chemical attacks. “We once more warn that a military intervention under far-fetched and fabricated pretexts in Syria, where there are Russian soldiers at the request of the legitimate Syrian government, is absolutely unacceptable and would have the most dire consequences,” stated the Russian Foreign Ministry. Warning of “dire consequences” indicates that Putin might consider retaliatory military action against the United States, setting up, what many foreign policy experts have warned about, is U.S.-Russia military confrontation in Syria.
Putin’s right that his military and Iran’s are in Syria at the request of the al-Assad government. Putin’s intervention in Syria starting Sept. 30, 2015 helped defeat a determined Saudi-funded proxy war. Whether admitted to or not by 33-year-old Saudi Defense Minister Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has lost its proxy war with al-Assad. Saudi-backed rebels are so desperate after losing strongholds in Eastern Ghouta and Aleppo, they’re willing to do anything to marshal international outrage, especially U.S. backing. Trump said April 5 that he wanted U.S. troops out of Syria, prompting criticism for blindsiding the Pentagon, but, more importantly, leaving a power vacuum for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to regroup. But when you consider the current mess with chemical weapons, it shows that there’s no clarity, only confusion, in Syrian battlefield.
Russian officials accused the U.S. of muddying the battlefield, accusing the regime of using chemical weapons. Whether the Syrian government used chemical weapons yesterday in Douma is anyone’s guess. There’s nothing Saudi-backed Syrian rebels would do, including using chemical weapons, to advance their cause. Saudi’s Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir has stated publicly that his government would never give up the fight to oust al-Assad. Trump’s instincts to get out of Syria are probably correct, given you don’t really what’s happening. “The goal of this speculation,” said Russia’s Foreign Ministry, “is to cover for the terrorist and radical opposition who are rejecting a political settlement,” referring to Saudi Arabia’s rejection of Geneva peace talks led by U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura. Saudi Arabia insists that al-Assad must go in any political settlement.
When the British government speaks confidently about Russia’s Marc. 4 nerve agent attack in Salisbury, there’s far more certainty than the alleged chemical attack in Douma. With Saudi-backed Syria rebels utterly desperate, there’s nothing they wouldn’t doe, including gassing women and children, to galvanize help for their losing cause. After seven years of proxy war, it’s time to let al-Assad reassert its sovereignty over Syrian territory. Whether al-Assad’s an animal or not, as Trump calls him, there’s a lot more “animals” in the world with whom foreign governments must tolerate. Getting into a military confrontation with Russia over an alleged chemical attack puts global security at more risk. Syria’s murky battlefield is no place for U.S. forces unless they’re involved with eradicating ISIS and al-Qaeda.
