Syria

[s_stabeler]

Looking at the Powell Doctrine on your provided link:



1 - No.
2 - Maybe
3 - No.
4 - No.
5 - No.
6 - No.
7 - No.
8 - No.

Sounds like a no go. How would any of you answer the questions?

1- arguable- Syria definitely arms Hezbollah, and may well arm other terrorist groups. Which could then use the arms against the US.
2. debatable- objectie is clear ( get syria to stop using chemical weapons), attainable is unclear
3. unknown- the information the US government has on Syria hasn't been made piblic.
4. probably- we have been trying diplomacy for 2 years now, with no sign that the syrian government is even interested.
5. no
6. unknown, but since consequences are unclear, assumed no
7. I'm not sure.
8- um, depends. AFAIK, it's only Russia, China and Iran that support Syria, so there might be broader international support than you think.

so it's a no go, but not by as much as you think.

[s_stabeler]

Why would one dictator give weapons like that to another dictator that may be a potential rival at some point? Besides...chemical weapons have a shelf life...

it depends on WHEN the weapons were transferred, if they were. He could have transferred them when the US invaded, realizing his defeat was imminent. ( I don't actually believe there were chemical weapons, but the transferred weapons theory isn't as wild as it seems)

[mikoyan29]

it depends on WHEN the weapons were transferred, if they were. He could have transferred them when the US invaded, realizing his defeat was imminent. ( I don't actually believe there were chemical weapons, but the transferred weapons theory isn't as wild as it seems)

It seems to me that if we were invading a country for chemical or nuclear weapons, that we would watch traffic on the borders to make sure said weapons don't end up elsewhere. But then again, I'm not so sure how serious the political leadership was about securing the country in the first place.

[Daskinor]

it depends on WHEN the weapons were transferred, if they were. He could have transferred them when the US invaded, realizing his defeat was imminent. ( I don't actually believe there were chemical weapons, but the transferred weapons theory isn't as wild as it seems)

The chemical analysis points to Sarin. The shelf life for sarin is about 30 days. I don't want to get into details about how its made. But some of the chemical components break down over time, and they need to be remarkably pure or else the sarin will break down into phosphoric acid in hours.

Most likely they acquired the components recently and made up a batch. Not hard to do as long as you are a government and don't make it dead obvious what you are going to do.