Matt Johnson

*Originally published in Political Fiber, December 7, 2012 

The United States is currently considering whether or not it will recognize the Syrian opposition as the legitimate government of Syria – a dash of makeup on the ugly face of our Syria policy.

What will it take to awake the world from its torpor? As the death toll climbs above 40,000, the grisly images of brutality and squalor continue to multiply. Meanwhile, new intelligence suggests Bashar al-Assad’s increasingly frantic government is now contemplating the use of chemical weapons. The United Nations is evacuating its remaining personnel as children are massacred and entire city blocks are being incinerated from the sky.

But the United States has a “red line” for the Syrian government.

Apparently, Assad can kill as many innocent Syrians as he wants to – he just has to do so with conventional weaponry. Last Monday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said:

We are concerned that an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. And as the president has said, any use or proliferation of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would cross a red line for the United States.

The Obama administration has been repeating this threat for months – it’s merely evasive political rhetoric meant to produce the illusion of severity and action.

It’s nice to know that the United States won’t tolerate the use of “mustard gas, sarin nerve gas and possibly VX” against civilian populations. It seems the bloodcurdling lessons of the Anfal campaign in Iraq haven’t completely escaped us. On the other hand, there are a few colossal holes in the logic of Obama’s ultimatum.

We’re confronting a man who knows what’s waiting for him at the other end of this war. When the bombs stop falling and the guns go silent, Assad and his henchmen will have a stubby list of disagreeable options: Live in exile, languish in prison or dangle from the gallows. They’ve displayed a dogged reluctance to surrender power because doing so would be all but suicidal. And in their case, a fight to the death doesn’t entail a final stand in a secret bunker with a few last rounds of ammunition – at least not yet.

No, the Syrian government is a little better equipped than that – Migs, tanks, soldiers and chemical weapons, controlled by a desperate band of murderers. The revolting realities of chemical warfare certainly deserve special attention, but the Obama administration’s “red line” makes far less sense after a year and eight months of ceaseless fighting.

The real red line is old and wide. Assad has trampled dissent and marched across it since he seized his father’s mantle (held for the preceding 29 years) in 2000. When tanks first lined up in Deraa, Banyas, Homs and Damascus, his pace quickened. When people started dying by the thousands, he was sprinting.

And now, as 40,000 Syrians lay slain and chemical weapons are being mobilized across the country, the red line has finally been crossed.

Why should we wait for canisters of poisonous gas to start exploding in villages and neighborhoods? Why should more people have to endure this gruesome sadism? Syrian soil is already saturated with blood. There’s no reason to let Assad soak it with the evil residue of chemical weapons as well.