Allegations of chemical weapons attacks in Syria have made the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) a hot-button issue, initially because their reports were to detail what happened, and not assign blame, and now, because they’re being called on to assign blame.



The first such reports are expected soon, and by all indications will blame the Assad government for chemical weapons attacks in 2017. This is expected to be followed on by another round of Western calls to sanction Syria.



This matches the general policy out of the West, which was always to blame Syria whether they did it or not, and to treat their guilt as self-evident no matter what the evidence really says. The OPCW reports are just an additional step, as rules were changed to allow them to again bring up chemical weapons use from years ago.



The attacks in question were already investigated by the OPCW years ago, the West already proposed sanctions, failed, and moved on. Russia seems no less likely to reject this round of sanctions calls, giving the US another chance to condemn Russia.



Syria disarmed under the OPCW before these attacks happened. There was evidence that ISIS was acquiring its own deliverable chemical agents, but the West has broadly ignored that in favor of blaming Assad.





Author: Jason Ditz Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz