President
Obama recently speaking from the White House said that Syria’s actions
represented a “challenge to the world” as also to American national security.
He added that he had not made a final decision and was considering only a
“limited, narrow act.” Obama emphasized: “We’re not considering any open ended
commitment. We’re not considering any boots on the ground approach.” He added,
however, that the US has an obligation “as a leader in the world” to hold
countries accountable if they violate “international norms.”
At the State
Department, the Secretary of State, John Kerry, argued in even more passionate
language that the Syrian regime had committed a “crime against humanity” that
could not go unpunished. Kerry further added “history will judge us
extraordinarily harshly if we turn a blind eye,” adding that there were 426
children among the dead. And finally the punch-line: “This is the
indiscriminate, inconceivable horror of chemical weapons. This is what Assad
did to his own people.”
What Kerry
said was enough to warm the hearts of every human rights campaigner. But like
most self-righteous politicians there seems to be a convenient gloss over
history; even though military action does appear imminent.
Actually the
first to use chemical weapons [gas] in the Middle-East were the British. Soon
after the First World War when the British created the state of Iraq consisting
of the three former Turkish Vilayats [provinces] of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul;
the southern Kurds much to their dislike had been added to the new state of
Iraq and in protest broke out in open rebellion. Faced with the prospects of a
prolonged conflict, with added financial costs and loss of British life; the
British decided that the ‘best method’ for putting down the revolt was to use
gas. As the then Colonial Secretary, Sir Winston Churchill had remarked, “I do
not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas.” The then RAF Chief Sir
Hugh Trenchard in a report to the British Cabinet admitted that this was a
“cheaper form of control.” Even the redoubtable Lawrence of Arabia wrote to the
London Observer that “it is odd we do not use poison gas on these occasions.”
The poor Kurds were the first to receive the ‘gas’ treatment and as history
would prove not the last time!
Let us move
ahead in time and come to Saddam Hussein. Iranian official history records that
Iraq first used chemical weapons against its soldiers on January 13, 1981. It
is reported that between December 28, 1980 and March 20, 1984 Iranians list 63
separate gas attacks by the Iraqis. There is no doubt that the US was acutely
aware of what was going on. In a Memorandum on November 1, 1983, officials of
the State Department warned the then Secretary of State George Shultz that they
had information that the Iraqis were using chemical weapons on an ‘almost
daily’ basis. Equally blunt was the warning that Iraq had acquired chemical
weapons capability from Western firms, including possibly from a US subsidiary.
The US was also aware that chemical weapons were being used against ‘Kurdish
insurgents’. At the same time the US, according to a media report, continued to
provide Iraq with critical battle planning assistance and satellite data on
Iranian military movements, knowing very well that Iraq was using chemical
weapons against Iran as also Kurdish insurgents.
No concrete
action was taken. Saddam was a friend fighting to ‘weaken the ambitions of
Iran’ and, therefore, President Reagan’s Special Representative the redoubtable
Donald Rumsfeld, who was to gain much fame later in 2003 as Saddam’s nemesis,
turned up in Baghdad [20 December 1983] with a letter from the President which
the State Department later was to describe as ‘a milestone’ in US-Iraqi
relations. To be fair, however, on March 6, 1984 the State Department announced
that, based on available evidence, it
‘concluded’ that Iraq had used lethal chemical weapons in the fighting with
Iran [emphasis added].
However the
Iranians were one step ahead, for by then Iran had even produced photographs,
in every gory detail, of the casualties caused by chemical weapons. By March
1984, Iran had sent about 50 soldiers suffering from chemical weapons attacks
to hospitals in some Europeans countries in order to graphically display the
results of Iraqi chemical weapons use and to arouse public opinion around the
world. After Iran’s repeated request the UN sent an investigation team to the
region beginning March 1984. In its report of March 26, 1984, the UN team
confirmed the use of chemical weapons by Iraq. But the UN Security Council
apart from routine admonitions took no action against Iraq.The then Iranian
Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati could only bitterly complain, “…this
irresponsible and indifferent attitude of the Security Council has indeed
encouraged and emboldened Iraq….What is the effect of these crimes on the one
hand and the silence of the UN on the other?”
In 1988 an
awful massacre took place at Halabja [Kurdish Iraq] where thousands of innocent
Kurds were ‘gassed’ by the Iraqis and Saddam Hussein during Operation Anfal. At
that point in time Saddam Hussein was still a friend. The US knew what had
happened but still no tangible action was taken against Iraq or Saddam Hussein.
There were even reports that absolved him of the atrocity. But all that changed
after Saddam invaded Kuwait. He was now a ‘rogue,’ a ‘bully’ and a
‘megalomaniac’ and one who gassed his own people!
In a
celebrated aside to an aide, Kissinger while testifying before the Pike
Commission in 1975 is reported to have admonished him “not to confuse foreign
policy with missionary work.” Therefore, there is high probability that some
‘action’ will be taken by the US in conjunction with the ‘oldest ally’ [France;
a reference to the US War of Independence in which France allied against
Britain]. How galling this phrase, used by Kerry, is going to sound to British
PM David Cameron! It is not so much because of the use of chemical weapons that
will unleash US fire-power, but the fact that the Assad regime might be winning
the civil war in conjunction with its Iranian and Hezbollah allies. A victory
would be hard to swallow, particularly if Israel is considered as the next
target. Therefore, the military strike may just be intended to show that
victory for Assad and his Iranian allies is not as yet assured and that it may
persuade them to come to the negotiating table. For the US that would be the
most suitable outcome
R.K. Kalha
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