Syria And Chemical Weapons

Syria and chemical weapons. Where is the red line? What if it’s crossed?

Syria is the nightmare that won’t go away.  Not for Syrians, suffering now into their third year of rebellion and repression.  70,000 dead.  A million refugees.

Not for the neighbors, struggling with those refugees and all kinds of blowback.  Lebanon’s government has just collapsed.  Israel, firing into Syria on Sunday.  Turkey, hosting an airlift to the rebels.  Iraq, under big pressure from the US to stop Iran’s over-flight relief to Syria’s Assad.

And last week, chemical attack talk – and “red line” warnings from President Obama.

This hour, On Point:  the red lines and hard reality in Syria.
-Tom Ashbrook

Clarissa Ward, foreign correspondent for CBS News. (@clarissaward)

Jeffrey White, defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

CNN "The Syrian government has sent U.N. investigators the results of blood and soil testing from a mysterious attack that killed 25 people and injured more than 110 others, CNN affiliate ITN reported Sunday."

The New York Times "Showing solidarity with Israel’s growing concern about chemical weapons in neighboring Syria, President Obama stated bluntly on Wednesday that if an investigation he had ordered found proof that the Syrian military had used such weapons it would be a “game changer” in American involvement in the civil war there."

USA Today "Whether Syria crossed a "red line" by using chemical weapons in its battle against a rebellion appeared murky Wednesday and both sides in the war blamed the other for an attack that Western nations are unsure even happened."