Reassessing Obama's Syria Red Line Ten Years Later | Opinion

For most Syrians, Aug. 21, 2013, will forever be remembered with anguish, dread, and tears. On that night, the Syrian army sent missiles laced with sarin gas into opposition-held neighborhoods on the outskirts of Syria's capital, Damascus. While we don't know if Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad ordered this specific attack, we do know from various investigations carried out that the Syrian army was responsible for it. According to a U.S. intelligence assessment, more than 1,400 civilians were killed.

Ten years later, the U.S. response to this disgusting episode still hangs over the U.S. foreign policy discourse like an unforgettable nightmare. The weeks-long saga turned out to be one of former President Barack Obama's most tumultuous periods during his two terms in office. The infamous "red line" episode, in which Obama warned Assad not to use chemical weapons lest it trigger a U.S. military response, was blatantly stepped over. In the end, Obama decided not to enforce it, leading many to state that U.S. credibility was undermined. Some analysts remain indignant on this point.

Yet a decade removed from this horrendous event, it's difficult to see how Obama carrying out his red line threat would have made much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. While it's impossible to prove a counterfactual, one could easily envision a scenario where such a strike would have no effect on Assad's calculation at all. The civil war in Syria would have gone on regardless.

First, it's important to put one thing in perspective: those who argue that the Obama administration should have used military force in retaliation for the Syrian government's chemical weapons attack are essentially arguing that the president has the sole power to defy the U.S. Constitution as he or she sees fit.

Congress isn't some unserious body that rubber-stamps the president's decisions—it's the institution responsible for declaring war and authorizing the use of force. The president's status as commander-in-chief doesn't override Congress' status as the arbiter of when, and under what conditions, the U.S. military is deployed into hostilities. The fact that presidents in both parties have frequently waved away congressional prerogatives on matters of war and peace by claiming ridiculously expansive theories of executive deference doesn't make the Constitution any less relevant.

Unlike in Libya, when Obama agreed to lead a multi-national air campaign against dictator Muammar Gaddafi without a vote from Congress, he put the Syria case in the hands of lawmakers by asking them to debate and vote on the issue. Most of them didn't want to have a hand in yet another U.S. military operation in the Middle East and refused to grant their approval. To ignore Congress' lack of action by going it alone, as Obama expressly indicated he wouldn't do, would have effectively nullified his earlier remarks about the legislative branch being an indispensable part of the conversation.

Second, Obama's red line fiasco often overshadowed the good that actually happened in the weeks and months after Washington decided not to intervene. Under intense diplomatic pressure, Syria would eventually hand over its declared chemical weapons stockpiles to international monitors for destruction and sign onto the chemical weapons convention, which Damascus was loathe to do for decades. In a deal conjured up by U.S. and Russian officials in September 2013, and later codified by the U.N. Security Council, Assad allowed the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to go through Syria's vast chemical weapons apparatus unhindered.

The agreement was a major accomplishment. Syria, which possessed the largest chemical weapons arsenal in the Middle East, was now under the watchful eye of the world's foremost chemical weapons watchdog. In October, about two months after the chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs, the OPCW completed the destruction of equipment used to make chemical weapons and rendered Syria's declared facilities "inoperable." Every single ounce of Syria's declared chemical weapons stockpile was removed out of the country by June 2014. Four months later, the agency declared that over 1,300 metric tons of chemicals, or 98 percent of Syria's declared stockpile, was destroyed. While it's true that Damascus didn't disclose everything, the U.S. likely eliminated more of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile through diplomacy than it would have if it initiated a bombing campaign.

Finally, a critical question needs to be asked: Would Assad have been deterred from deploying chemical weapons again after a hypothetical U.S. military campaign? The assumption is yes, he would have been. But that's not at all clear.

The hypothesis was tested during former President Donald Trump's term. In April 2017, the Syrian army killed more than 80 civilians in the town of Khan Sheikhoun with a nerve agent. Days later, Trump authorized U.S. military retaliation, launching 59 cruise missiles against the Al-Shayrat airfield.

If the goal was to scare Assad straight, it didn't work because the entire storyline was played again a year later. In April 2018, the U.S., France, and the U.K. hit three Syrian chemical weapons production targets with over 100 missiles in response to another Assad regime chemical attack in Douma that killed 43. Again, the strikes did nothing to change Assad's behavior. The Syrians continued using chemical weapons; the U.S. documented an alleged May 2019 attack in Idlib by Syrian government forces, this time with weaponized chlorine.

The bottom line: Assad wasn't particularly moved by previous U.S. military action. After all, he was fighting a war of survival for himself and his half century-long family dynasty.

The events of August and September 2013 looked chaotic in real time, not least to those in the Obama administration who were scrambling when news came in about a devastating act of inhumanity. But with time comes greater understanding and better perspective, even if the narrative continues to live on.

Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist at the Chicago Tribune.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.