Proliferating Thoughts

Its that time again. Pressure for negotiations between Syria and Israel, or Presidents looking for solutions to the problems that Israel has with its various neighbors often seems to result in new revelations about Syrian WMD activity.

This time we have a double barreled effort.

The first report is a little older, April 3rd, but I believe it is still part of the same process.

Well-placed Lebanese sources have told Jane’s that Iran has proposed a contingency plan to supply the south Lebanon-based Party of God (Hizbullah) with chemical weapons via Syria. (subscription only)

Secondly, May 12th:

Syria has reportedly rebuilt the structure bombed that housed the reactor bombed by Israel last year and has turned it into a facility for manufacturing chemical and biological weapons. Official sources sad that Syria had significantly expanded its biological and chemical weapons program by doing so.

This more recent article is actually a pretty impressive effort successfully combining concerns about nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in a single package.

Taking these two articles together we can easily come to the conclusion that Syria is a very dangerous country, certainly not one with which Israel can negotiate. After all, in addition to actively expanding its CBW programs Syria is working with the Iranians to supply CW to Hizbullah. Given the narrative in the West that frames Hizbullah as a terrorist organization we now have “substantive” support for the idea that Syria and Iran are supplying WMD to terrorists.

Where is this going? That is not clear. These “leaks” and statements could be intended to make it more difficult to pressure Israel to undertake negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians, or they might have a broader intent of undermining the Obama administrations middle-east plans including settlements with Syria and Iran. They might be tied to the upcoming Lebanese elections that the March 8 coalition, which features Hizbullah as a prominent member, has a significant chance of winning. Or in a worst case scenario they may part of a program intended to demonize Syria and Iran prior to Israeli military action directed at one or even both of them.

For any or all of these possibilities the accuracy of the assertions made in the reports highlighted above are not all that important. There is very little likeliood that any equivalent of the Iraq Survey Group will be investigating Iranian or Syrian activities in the near future so the accusations can do their work while remaining effectively unchallenged. Denials from Hizbullah, Iran or Syria will not have any significant impact given the difficulty of proving a negative and their unwillingness to allow any outsiders the kind of access that would be required to substantiate their statements.

In the short term these reports get added to the pile of unsupported public assertions to the effect that Syria is continuing to expand its CW program and that Iran is in substantive breach of its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The matter is not anymore likely to be formally raised by the US or any of its allies at the OPCW than the previous allegations that Iran was maintaining a secret CW stockpile and production capacity.

Ultimately the extent to which the NGO or private-sector analyst gives these allegations credence, given that they will not see any of the secret source material that underpins the public statements, will be determined by their existing assessments of Syria, Iran and the WMD relationship between the two countries.