DNA Edit: After chemical attack, Assad must go. But can Trump take on Putin?

After the deadly chemical weapon attack in rebel-held northwestern Syria, which killed 58 civilians, many of them women and children, the international community can no longer remain indifferent to the gruesome human rights violations in the ongoing civil war. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must go. The time for half measures is over. A head of state who allegedly uses chemical weapons to gas his own people, even if they sympathise with rebels, is a war criminal and must be tried under international law by a war crimes tribunal. Assad is no less an enemy of humanity than the Islamic State (ISIS) whose medieval barbarity and caliphate ambitions eclipsed the brutal repression that government forces and agents unleashed on Assad’s political opponents. It can be argued that it is Assad’s brutality that radicalised the Syrian opposition, turned nationalists into hardline Islamists, and ultimately fuelled the rise of the ISIS.

Assad’s main patron Russia must hang its head in shame. It has singlehandedly opposed the efforts to replace Assad with a more acceptable figure and unite the disparate groups like the nationalist Free Syrian Army, al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front and the Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra into an anti-ISIS front. This is not the first time that chemical weapons have been used against the Syrian populace. In March and August 2013, chemical weapons like sarin gas were used in rebel strongholds. For a long time, world powers have known of Assad’s chemical stockpile. In 2012, then US president Barack Obama had warned that the use of chemical weapons was a “red line”, which if crossed, would prompt him to intervene in the civil war. In September 2013, the UN Security Council ordered Syria to account for any destruction of its stockpile of chemical weapons, following a short-lived agreement between Russia and the US, which authorised the use of force in the event of non-compliance.

Syria promptly became a signatory to the Chemical WeaponsConvention in October 2013, which prohibited it from producing, stocking or using chemical weapons. Subsequently, it was reported that Syria had eliminated its chemical weapon stocks, though the opposition has claimed that government forces sporadically resorted to their use in rebel territories. Two months ago, Russia and China vetoed a Security Council resolution authorising sanctions against Syria for chemical weapons use. Under Donald Trump, there appears to be a reversal of the Obama administration’s stated, if ineffectual, policy of replacing Assad for a more pronounced strategy to oust ISIS from its “capital” Raqqa. Trump must accept the reality that the ISIS and Assad are not fundamentally different in their terrorism of unarmed civilians.

The irony of the US, which used chemical weapons like Agent Orange in Vietnam and has shied away from a comprehensive apology for the crime, demanding compliance by Assad will be lost on no one. Rather than being held hostage by history and geopolitical strategy, it is never too late to assume the moral high ground. Unfortunately, Russia continues to defend Assad. The incident will test Trump’s ability to lead the world. As has become his wont, Trump has blamed Obama for failing to unseat Assad. 

No doubt, Obama was unnerved by the prospect of countering Russian President Vadimir Putin. The misery of the people of Syria is Trump’s moment to take the lead. But will he?