Netanyahu’s speech at the UN on 27 September about a “red line” on Iran has found resonance in America even if Obama has been somewhat standoffish about the Israeli-Iranian threat. News has emerged that Syria is moving its chemical weapons, having threatened to give them to Hezbollah mounted in warheads, if the Assad regime loses control of its country.
The US government has said Syria is crossing a “red line.” Officials in the Statse have described the developments as “troubling.” The UN has decided to pull staff out of Syria and restrict a skeleton crew to the capital Damascus.
Both Secretary of State Clinton and White House Press Sec. Carney issued fresh warnings to the Syrian regime.
Press Sec. Carney said, “As the opposition makes strategic advances and grows in strength, the Assad regime has been unable to halt the opposition’s progress through conventional means,” he said yesterday. “And we are concerned that an increasingly beleaguered regime — having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate — might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people.”
Just what exactly the red line is, is unclear, and in respect of Iran, Netanyahu has said the world has to spell it out clearly to Iran so they know at what point exactly the world would take action. In Syria, does this mean if they use their chemical weapons? against rebels? or civilians? to what extent? if they move them to which location? If they use the weapons to advance a Shite Sunni civil war? or to attack the Kurds in the north? Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons to subjugate his Kurdish population.
The US Administration said “[we're] not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons…” but the US is certainly “planing to take action.”
This is obviously an escalation in the tensions with Iran, as the latter supplies weapons to and supports Syria as a surrogate against Israel. Isreal finds itself sandwiched between increasingly belligerent neighbours, potentially armed with chemical, and shortly nuclear, weapons.
See also: Iranian Nuke within a year
