By the end of 2014, the United States will have finally rid itself of its own chemical weapons that have been manufactured since World War 1. Around the same time, the Syrian government must also remove or destroy its own weaponry under a deal that doesn’t seem possible.
The diplomatic decision, made between the United States, Russia, United Nations and Syria, states that Syria must remove or destroy all of its chemical weapons before the end of 2014. The deal brought a halt to the prospect of a possible US military strike against the middle-eastern nation. However, many experts say that it just isn’t that simple for Syria to actually meet the deadline.
The main reason for this is that there just isn’t enough time. Although many nations have not had to face a two year long civil war, it still took over 10 years to destroy Iraq’s stockpile, and Russia is more than 12 years behind on their deadline. Libya, another middle-eastern nation, began to dismantle their own chemical weapons in 1969, and the task was almost complete in 2004, but the nation still missed the deadline for one facility’s conversion and the destruction of a stockpile of mustard agent. The US too has spent years trying to do the same and the end is not in sight, nor has their journey been environmentally safe either.
“Everybody forgets that none of these weapons were designed to be peacefully disassembled,” notes US Army spokesman Miguel E. Monteverde.
History indicates that time isn’t willing to meet such deadlines that were set decades in advance, let alone a year in advance.
Although chemical experts point to a hybrid method that would be time effective and environmentally safe, economically, it’s extremely costly. The US alone has spent 34.5 billion already, and the bill is still increasing to disarm their weapons. In the beginning, they used methods that were not safe for the environment public health.
For the UN to ensure that this disarmament would be a truly safe one, it would take decades. The UN has to depend on the Syrian government for protection throughout the process. Getting to the secret locations that contain thousands of tons of hidden chemical weapons won’t be easy, and there is no way of being 100% sure that all the chemical weapons will truly be destroyed peacefully, or even destroyed at all.
The fact of the matter is that if Syria does safely destroy or remove their chemical weapons, they still have to face opposition from their own people as well as major spending to complete it all.
Although this is the price the Assad regime must pay to avoid a military strike and for crossing international limits of warfare, the deadline is logically impossible to meet.
If the regime does not comply with the agreement, Section 7 of the United Nations Charter would authorize corrective action.
