{"id":25108,"date":"2017-11-06T20:06:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T01:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=25108"},"modified":"2017-11-06T20:06:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T01:06:28","slug":"no-justice-for-khan-sheikhoun-by-aron-lund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/no-justice-for-khan-sheikhoun-by-aron-lund\/","title":{"rendered":"“No Justice for Khan Sheikhoun,” by Aron Lund"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n

On November 7<\/strong>\u2014that’s tomorrow or tonight, depending on where you are\u2014the UN Security Council will get together for a shouting match about the nerve gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun last April. A new UN-OPCW report<\/a> has blamed that attack on Bashar al-Assad’s government, but, as you might expect, Russia does not agree.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Century Foundation has just published my new report on what the UN says happened in Khan Sheikhoun and on Syria’s chemical weapons diplomacy, No Justice for Khan Sheikhoun<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this report, I try to walk you through the main conclusions of the UN-OPCW’s Joint Investigative Mechanism, or JIM, which are quite explosive. In a fascinating feat of investigative chemistry, OPCW scientists were in fact able to reverse-engineer the sarin nerve gas used in the attack, tracing the ingredients back to stockpiles held by the Syrian government in 2013\u2014you know, the stockpiles that Americans and Russians agreed that Assad had to destroy.<\/p>\n

To Western governments<\/a>, this is as close to ironclad proof as you’re ever going to get that the Syrian government has both used chemical weapons, which is a war crime, and consistently broken its 2013 promises to disarm<\/a>, and, also, that Russia is either actively complicit or completely useless in following up on its ally’s behavior.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

To no one’s surprise, Russia doesn’t quite agree<\/a> with that conclusion. Russian officials insinuate (and Syrian officials say<\/a>) that it is a false flag operation, and Moscow has refused to change its mind even after the UN-OPCW investigation shot down most of the claims made by Russian and Syrian officials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

These disagreements<\/strong> now move into the UN Security Council, where Western nations seek some form of recognition of the report. They may also be looking for a punishment through sanctions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which would be in line with the agreement<\/a> between the United States and Russia in 2013 and UN Security Resolution 2118<\/a>, which stipulates that anyone who stores or uses chemical weapons in Syria will be hit with Chapter VII measures. Of course, Russia will accept nothing of the sort, dismissing the report completely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As things stand, Moscow is threatening to shut down the UN investigations by vetoing a renewal of the investigators’ mandate when it expires on November 16. The Russians have already vetoed such an extension once (on October 24<\/a>) but an extension proposal may of course come up again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

On the other side of the table, the United States and its allies are scrambling to figure out a way to save the UN-OPCW investigation while also pushing back against what they view as the abhorrent behavior of Moscow and Damascus. As a Plan B, they’re looking at ways to conjure up an alternative UN or OPCW body that could replace the current one and continue working to hold perpetrators of chemical attacks accountable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

They may find<\/strong> both of those things to be impossible. With its veto rights and a Syrian ally whose position is steadily improving, the Russians simply hold better cards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In fact, Western priorities may also be changing subtly. Accountability remains the goal, but there seems to be a growing realization<\/a> among American and European policymakers<\/a> that Assad may still be in Damascus five, ten, or even twenty years from now. If he has in fact kept a stockpile of nerve gas, they need to figure out a practical way to deal with that.<\/p>\n

Faced with this dilemma, many seem to want to continue down the current road of talks and inspections, even as they fume over Assad’s apparent noncompliance and hope for some form of accountability for the Khan Sheikhoun massacre and other attacks. Nonproliferation and disarmament tend to take precedence, however, and Western governments still want to keep Syria embedded in the OPCW’s system of inspections, because they see no other practical ways of keeping an eye on regime behavior, obstructing a restoration of old chemical weapons production lines, and preserving some faint hope of a full future disarmament.<\/p>\n

It’s a tricky question, but it may also be an issue where new diplomatic options can open up as the war winds down. Yet for the victims in Khan Sheikhoun, justice is as far away as ever\u2014and new attacks may follow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Check out the report here<\/b><\/a>, and for further reading, these links may also be of interest:<\/p>\n