Syria: A catastrophic war in which criminality has no limits

On Tuesday, the world awoke — again — to images of dead and dying Syrian children, their pale, listless bodies bearing no marks of traumatic injury. These were the innocent victims of a chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria's Idlib Province — which, according to recent estimates, left at least 70 people dead and constituted the worst attack since that in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta in August 2013, which claimed more than 1,200 lives.

Thursday night, President Trump ordered a cruise missle attack against the airbase from which the chemical attack was launched.

Tuesday's outrage was This is only the latest in scores of chemical munitions attacks either alleged or verified to have been conducted by the Syrian regime since 2014. Last year, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the U.N. Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) officially concluded that the Syrian Arab Armed Forces were responsible for three chemical weapons attacks in 2014 and 2015, in part because these attacks involved the use of helicopters to deliver chlorine-laden munitions. Human Rights Watch documented at least eight other chemical attacks in 2016 associated with the Syrian government's assault on Aleppo. Since January, the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) in Syria has recorded eight alleged uses of chemical weapons.

Even so, on Feb. 28, Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council Resolution designed to sanction parties verifiably assessed by the OPCW-JIM to have carried out chemical attacks. So is it any surprise that the Assad regime felt emboldened to continue using chemical weapons? Or that it has perhaps escalated to the use of even more toxic substances than chlorine, which has been its "go-to" chemical since the international community removed and destroyed its traditional military chemical arsenal in 2014?

This escalation in chemical weapons use fits a pattern observed during the past several years. When the international community, particularly the United States, seems distracted, the Syrian regime feels emboldened to seek battlefield gains through chemical attacks, particularly in areas where the regime's military progress through more conventional means has stalled.

Why does the Assad regime do this? Because it works.

It is insufficient to frame the casualties in these attacks solely in terms of those affected by chemical agents. The psychological effects of these chemical attacks, and the added risks they pose to children and the elderly, are devastating. Moreover, like many previous episodes, this one reportedly involved conventional targeting after the chemical attacks, which flush civilians out of sheltered areas and makes them vulnerable to conventional bombing. To then target hospitals receiving the injured compounds the psychological effects.

Much has been made of the symptomology and increased lethality of the Khan Sheikhoun attack, raising questions about a possible secret production capability or stockpile of undeclared chemical weapons — notably sarin. We should not engage in armchair diagnoses from YouTube videos. On-the-ground investigators can return a definitive assessment, and they need to be empowered to do their jobs.

The use of sarin or other traditional warfare agents would signal that Assad believes he can operate with impunity. Chlorine — or any weaponized chemical — is just as heinous and legally prohibited. But nerve agents are more deadly and, unlike chlorine, require precursors that were supposed to have been removed and destroyed in 2014. That process eliminated the majority of Syria's military-scale chemical weapons program, but we can never know if everything was removed — as Syria, with Russian cover, continues to stall, obfuscate, mislead, and otherwise violate international obligations.

The Syrians, with extensive military and scientific expertise in chemical weapons, are perfectly capable of developing improvised munitions and agents if they believe chlorine isn't getting the job done. If it turns out that traditional military or improvised agents were used in these attacks, the implications are broader, and the audacity of the Syrian regime even more flagrant, but the crime is no more egregious.

We can debate what should have been done in the past — but it's far more important to act now. The most important question following the U.S. strike may be whether it will be the beginning of cleavages between Assad and the regime's patron, Russia. Then, perhaps, such chemical use will again temporarily recede. The international community must increase and sustain the pressure so that Assad is unwilling or unable to resume the attacks.

The United States must push for action in the Security Council and hold Russia to account for shielding Assad's atrocities. The Trump administration should insist on the immediate insertion of investigators on the ground to gather critical physical evidence, interview witnesses and victims, and ensure that the full record of these crimes is not lost.

Finally, the international community must develop a robust evidence repository and victim registration to ensure that these crimes are fully documented and evidence preserved in hopes that the arms of justice can reach these war criminals in the months and years to come.

Presidents inherit problems and unfinished business. Former President Barack Obama inherited two Middle East wars and an economic crisis of proportions not seen in decades.

President Trump has inherited a North Korean regime undaunted by international pressure and hell-bent on acquiring missile and nuclear capabilities to threaten the United States. He has also inherited a catastrophic war in Syria in which atrocity and criminality seemingly have no limits.

Casting blame and pointing fingers won't save a single child's life or return a single refugee to his home. Nor will it convince adversaries that the price to be paid for resorting to chemical weapons, or biological or nuclear weapons, will exceed any benefits.