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Syrian warplanes and artillery bombarded rebel suburbs of the capital today after the United States agreed to call off military action in a deal with Russia to remove president Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons.
US president Barack Obama said he may still launch US strikes if Damascus fails to follow a nine-month UN disarmament plan drawn up by Washington and Assad’s ally Moscow.
But a reluctance among US voters and Western allies to engage in a new Middle East war, and Russian opposition, has put any attacks on hold.
Syrian rebels, calling the international focus on poison gas a sideshow, dismissed talk the arms pact might herald peace talks and said Assad had stepped up an offensive with ordinary weaponry now that the threat of US air strikes had receded.
International responses to yesterday’s accord were guarded. Western governments, wary of Assad and familiar with the years frustrated UN weapons inspectors spent in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, noted the huge technical difficulties in destroying one of the world’s biggest chemical arsenals in the midst of civil war.
Assad’s key sponsor Iran hailed a US retreat from “extremist behaviour” and welcomed its “rationality”. Israel, worried that US leniency toward Assad may encourage Tehran to develop nuclear arms, said the deal would be judged on results. China, which like Russia opposes US readiness to use force in other sovereign states, was glad of the renewed role for the United Nations Security Council, where Beijing too has a veto.
The Syrian government has formally told the United Nations it will adhere to a treaty banning chemical weapons but made no comment in the day since US secretary of state John Kerry and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov patched over bitter differences between Washington and Moscow to set a framework for the United Nations to remove Assad’s banned arsenal by mid-2014.
Air strikes, shelling and infantry attacks on suburbs of Damascus through today offered evidence in support of opinions from both Assad’s Syrian opponents and supporters that he is again taking the fight to rebels after a lull following the August 21st gas attack that provoked the threat of US action. “It’s a clever proposal from Russia to prevent the attacks,” one Assad supporter said from the port of Tartous, site of a Russian naval base. “Russia will give us new weapons that are better than chemical weapons,” he added. “We are strong enough to save our power and fight the terrorists.”
An opposition activist in Damascus echoed disappointment among rebel leaders: “Helping Syrians would mean stopping the bloodshed,” he said. Poison gas is estimated to have killed only hundreds of the more than 100,000 dead in a war that has also forced a third of the population to flee their homes since 2011.
The deal, suggested by Russian president Vladimir Putin, resolved a dilemma for Mr Obama, who found Congress unwilling to back the military response he prepared following the release of sarin gas in rebel suburbs of Damascus.
Mr Obama blames Assad for some 1,400 dead civilians; Assad and Mr Putin accuse the rebels. Russia says it is not specifically supporting Assad - though it has provided much of his weaponry in the past. Its concern, it says, is to prevent Assad’s Western and Arab enemies from imposing their will on Syria.
