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No evidence I used CW on my people

That’s Bashar al Asad’s defense, according to Charlie Rose:

The full interview will be broadcast tomorrow. All we’ve got so far is Charlie Rose’s account, in which he typically spends more time reciting what he asked than what Bashar al Asad said.

But the defense is worth parsing. It is not a categorical denial, which would have read something like this:

Neither I nor anyone under my command has used chemical weapons in Syria against anyone.

Instead Bashar has left lots of loopholes:

• Someone under his command may have used them
• No evidence has been presented connecting him to their use
• The opposition might have done it
• They were used against terrorists, not loyal Syrians

Charlie Rose being the worst interviewer with a good name on TV, I don’t expect him to have explored any of these loopholes in the interview, but we’ll have to wait to be certain.

The purpose of this interview is to make it harder for President Obama to gather the votes needed in the House of Representatives in favor of a resolution approving the use of force.  I don’t expect it to make things much harder than they are already proving to be.  No one in the US really doubts the facts, or Bashar al Asad’s responsibility.  Even if he did not know about this specific attack, he is the responsible commander.

The issue for Americans is not what happened but rather “why us?”  Why do we have to take on a burden that more properly belongs to the international community as a whole, or to parts of its like the Arab League that have so far ducked taking action.  It does little good for John Kerry to be coming out of meetings with the Arabs and announcing that he has support from the Saudis or others.  It is time we heard directly and forcefully from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, Jordan and others involved or threatened by what is going on in Syria.  And our diplomats should be trying to get all of them to put skin in the game:  don’t all those nice warplanes we’ve sold them deserve a test in battle?

Even if they say “yes,” the primary responsibility for any military intervention will rest with the US.  We cannot be the world’s policeman, but we do have to be the world’s fireman.  The conflagration in Syria threatens to spread throughout a good part of the Middle East.  Present policy–humanitarian assistance in unprecedented quantities, arms to the rebels from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, pushing for greater unity and coherence among the moderate opposition, support to governance efforts in liberated areas–has proved insufficient.  Not useless, but unequal to the goal of getting Syria to a negotiated political settlement.

That goal drops farther and farther out of reach with every attack and every death in Syria.  The opposition, which at one time wanted the Syrian state preserved, is increasingly focused on destroying it.  Sectarian and ethnic divisions are widening.  Resentments are growing.  Syria is becoming a collapsed state, even if the center of its capital remains, as Charlie Rose reports, relatively calm.  Only kilometers away there are large portions of the countryside already under opposition control.

The longer this persists, the worse it gets.  I would favor one more diplomatic effort in the UN Security Council, something I expect the House of Representatives will insist on.    But the time is coming for the United States to try to put out the fire, with difficult to predict consequences, or allow it to continue to burn, with consequences that are all to easy to predict.