Syria's chemical weapons pose a grave dilemma

Tensions continue to mount over Syria's chemical weapons (CW), with a report by NBC News in the US alleging that troops have been readying chemical stocks for use. Last week the US government repeated a warning that any use of CW by Syria would be crossing a "red line", a warning echoed by a wide spectrum of other governments. We examine what is known about Syria's stockpiles and what options all sides have.

Why is the Syrian government being warned again about CW?
Chemical weapons are banned by international treaty, one that Syria has not signed. They are classified as weapons of mass destruction, although they disperse rapidly in the air and do not really have the mass killing power of other WMD such as nuclear or biological. But as demonstrated in Iraq, they are good at killing in a crowded, confined area. That could make them useful against the urban insurgency Syrian president Bashar al-Assad now faces.

It also makes them frightening potential terrorist weapons. Foreign governments would undoubtedly be appalled at any use of CW against Syrians. But their main concern seems to be that CW could be smuggled out of Syria and fall into the hands of insurgents in neighbouring countries. Earlier this year the US, Jordan and other countries conducted exercises aimed at sealing Syria's borders if this seems likely.

Obama called CW "a red line" in August this year. What has changed since?
According to NBC News, US intelligence has evidence that CW are being "loaded into aerial bombs" at a known storage depot for CW 4 kilometres northeast of Al-Furqlus, near Homs. "My information is that the chemicals are not yet being mixed," says Bilal Saad of the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Washington DC.

This could mean that the Syrians are using binary weapons, probably for delivering the organophosphorus nerve agent sarin as its straightforward synthesis lends itself well to binaries. In the US's now abandoned binary sarin weapon, the M687 shell, stockpiled in the 1980s, the two harmless chemical precursors of sarin were put in separate canisters to avoid having to store the toxic gas. One was kept in the shell, the other loaded just before use. The post-launch acceleration ruptured the canisters, mixing their contents inside the spinning projectile to create sarin.

Does Syria indeed have sarin, and what else might it have?
According to data from open sources compiled by researchers at the Monterey Institute, Syria has dozens of storage facilities where sarin is kept in deliverable weapons, including Scud missiles, air-dropped bombs and artillery shells. It also has several hundred tons of blister agents such as the mustard gas used in the first world war, plus possibly the even more toxic nerve agent VX. This is why destroying Syrian CW dumps with bombing raids may not be a viable option, says Joe Cirincione of the security think tank the Ploughshares Fund in Washington DC: there are many depots and no one knows what all is in each. Moreover bombing could simply expose people to the gas, as US bombing of Iraqi sarin dumps did after the first Gulf war in 1991.

What can the rest of the world do in response?
It is not clear what happens if Assad, or someone else in his regime, crosses the CW "red line". No country has explicitly talked about military intervention, says Saad. The use of CW might make it easier to invoke the emerging international principle of "responsibility to protect" to justify intervening. No-fly zones and surgical strikes on presidential residences have been mooted. But so far the only action has been, again, to try to keep any chemicals within Syria: NATO approval to install Patriot anti-missile batteries along Turkey's border with Syria.

What happens next?
The Chemical Weapons Convention, unlike the ban on biological weapons, includes stringent protocols for policing countries for banned chemical agents. Whether or not Assad ever uses his stockpiled CW, whatever government succeeds him will be under massive pressure to join the treaty, which would be a step forward. US recognition of the main Syrian opposition group, expected this week, could be aimed partly at initiating such future cooperation, and at securing Assad's CW legacy under any successor government.

In the shorter term, Saad fears that Assad, with few other ways out, might use CW to call the bluff of those who talk of red lines and force them to react, which in turn might force allies such as Iran to become more actively engaged in the conflict, thereby regionalising it. The US and its allies might be able to keep the sarin inside Syria, but they may struggle to do the same with the political repercussions should Syria use any.

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