WE live in interesting times. Last week’s decision to bomb three chemical weapons facilities in Syria was not an easy one for the UK, the US and France.
Many of us were torn between the need to respond to the inhumane slaughter of nearly 100 men, women and children in Douma, using gas bombs dropped from regime helicopters, and the uncomfortable knowledge that Assad’s Russian backers could exact revenge for any Russian casualty.
The judgement was made, and the strike went according to plan, with the vast majority of the targets destroyed and no Russian assets damaged.
This was partly due to the US and Russia communicating behind the scenes, which clearly makes sense when so much is at stake.
Jaw, jaw also reduces the risk of aerial conflict when we bomb ISIS positions.
It is important that we have taken a stand against the use of chemical weapons, while avoiding, as best we can, a larger conflagration.
Since the horrors of the First World War, their use has been increasingly proscribed, eventually culminating in the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, which prohibits them.
Despite this, they have been used repeatedly, most notably during the Iran-Iraq war, which left 30,000 casualties, as well as Saddam’s later attacks on Kurdish villages. The actual chemical weapons used by Assad’s Government forces in the Syrian civil war to date are far more numerous than the few instances we in the West are aware of.
They are documented in detail on the Arms Control Association website and make grim reading.
While Russia may yet strike back in an asymmetric way at the West – for example, the use of cyber-attacks – there is little doubt that the our message has registered with their Syrian allies.
The use of chemical weapons cannot be tolerated.