US Congress to Decide on Syria.

Yesterday (31/8/13) US President Barack Obama announced that he will ask the US Congress (the Senate and the House of Representatives) for approval to take military action against Syria. If approval is granted the decision will not be taken until Congress reconvenes after its summer recess on September 9th (9/9/13). The decision to seek Congressional approval has clearly been taken for two main reasons.

Firstly while they've happily been criticising Obama for not taking military action the Republican Party has actually been looking forward to criticising Obama for taking military action without seeking Congressional approval. This clearly robs them of that opportunity. Secondly the G20 Summit takes place in Saint Petersburg, Russia on Thursday (5/9/13) and Friday (6/9/13). If the US were to attack Syria without United Nations approval and against the express wishes of Russia it would plunge the entire summit into crisis meaning that all the preparation work on issues such as global trade and global security would be lost. This would make the US deeply unpopular amongst the 19 other most powerful nations on earth.

The decision to go to Congress though is not with out its risks. Despite claims to the contrary the US does not have any authority under international law to attack Syria without a Chapter 7 resolution from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The UNSC will not be passing such as resolution because the criteria for doing so simply have not been met. There is nothing about the Syrian government's conduct during this three year conduct that indicates that it intends to violate the sovereignty of any other nation by attacking it. Nor does any aspect of the Syrian government's conduct constitute either a crime against humanity as defined by the 1998 Rome Statute or a war crime as defined by the Geneva Conventions and associated 1925 Geneva Protocol which would be needed for a resolution under the doctrine of "Responsibility to Protect (R2P)."

Also if military action were to be taken under R2P it would need to be both "proportionate and necessary." That means it would have to use only the force required to eliminate specified targets and the elimination of those targets would have to achieve a demonstrable reduction in the Syrian governments ability to use chemical weapons. The US President's own statements indicate that the military action the US is considering would a sort of 'shot across the bow' intended to send a message to the Syrian government. That sort of military action does not fulfil the criteria of "proportionate and necessary" and actually seems likely to provoke the Syrian government into increasing and escalating its use of chemical weapons.

Finally the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) have indicated that they would use any foreign military action as an opportunity to gain an advantage on the battlefield. The SQIA are considered "unlawful combatants" under the Geneva Conventions so their mere presence represents a war crime. Any action in support of the SQIA would also constitute a war crime.

Although there is likely to be a large rebellion Democrats in Congress will be expected to vote in support of the Democrat President. Republicans in Congress seem likely to vote in favour of military action simply to put President Obama in the difficult position on either defying the wishes of Congress of committing war crime by ordering military action against Syria.

Another thing that will be making Obama's position particularly difficult is the role being played by the head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence services Prince Bandar bin Sultan. With the overthrow of the Syrian government now being considered Saudi Arabia's number one foreign policy objective Prince Bandar is said to be personally handling the setting up of secret operation centres in Jordan and Turkey in order to supply the SQIA with money, training and weapons including heavy weapons such as rocket launchers. Also according to the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper which is very much part of the old, colonial British establishment Prince Bandar recently met with senior Russian officials. As part of that meeting Prince Bandar is said to have promised that if Russia dropped its support for the Syrian government Saudi Arabia would cut its oil output in order to keep the global oil price above the USD100p/b that Russia needs to fund its national budget. More alarmingly it is reported that at the same meeting Prince Bandar also strongly implied that if Russia continued to block a UNSC Chapter 7 resolution Saudi Arabia would instruct Chechen Islamists to carry out terrorist attacks against the 2014 Winter Olympic Games being held in Sochi, Russia.

Saudi Arabia's apparently very sinister role in the Syria conflict was further called into question by an article published last Thursday (29/8/13) on the not exactly mainstream Mintpress News that can be read here; http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-saudis-supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/  Based on interviews with local residents and SQIA fighters in the Damascus suburb the article claims that Prince Bandar had, for a period of months, been supplying the SQIA with Sarin gas that they were storing in underground tunnels. During the bombardment by the Syrian government some of these canisters of Sarin gas were accidentally opened by poorly trained SQIA fighters leading to the deaths on August 21st (21/8/13).

This article has been written by Yahya Ababneh a journalism student and amateur reporter. Ababneh's inexperience has clearly caused them to wildly extrapolate their conclusion from the source evidence. For example it is highly unlikely that a low-level SQIA fighter would know the exact source of a weapons shipment. Also while it is possible that the same accident occurred at several locations in and around Damascus at the same time it is highly unlikely. However the accounts of local residents and SQIA fighters corroborate the Syrian governments claims that it seized canisters of Sarin gas from the SQIA who were storing them in underground tunnels. This places serious doubt on the UK and US' claim that the Sarin gas arrived in the area in rockets fired by the Syrian government rather than the government bombardment prompting SQIA commanders to unleash their Sarin gas from canisters on the ground in order to smear the Syrian government.

Also if it can be demonstrated that Saudi Arabia supplied let alone produced Sarin gas it would represent a clear violation of the 1992 UN Chemical Weapons Convention which Saudi Arabia has signed up to but Syria has not. That is the type of violation of international law that should be referred to the UNSC for consideration of a possible Chapter 7 resolution.

(Originally Posted) 16:30 on 1/9/13.