Syrian government attacks Douma (source)

On April 7, reports of another chemical attack were announced in Douma, Syria, complete with photos of corpses, including dozens of children. The mainstream media quickly responded with vast coverage. The story immediately led the New York Times’ weekend newsletter. Early on April 8, the US President Donald Trump tweeted about the topic, blaming the Syrian president Assad for the attack as he stressed that a “big price” will be paid. This post will analyze the situation to determine who is behind the attack.

The first of Trump’s three tweets on the subject on April 8 (source)

Most commentators ignore the fact that this story follows a trend of very similar stories from Syria which are all (1) urgent and take over the news while silencing everything else; (2) horrible, almost always together with a new set of dramatic photos of human corpses; and (3) call to action, urging readers and politicians to do something, often in support of military intervention.

Image grab from a video released by the Syrian Civil Defense (the White Helmets) showing a victim of the chemical attack (source)

The rest of the post will deconstruct this as a story, which is arguably more important than discovering what happened. The number of dead in this most recent tragic attack is negligible within the context of Syria. Attacks with chemical weapons — a horrible weapon — are new neither to the Syrian [proxy] Civil War nor the post-World War II world (where they were used repeatedly by numerous countries e.g. the US, Iraq). Neither of these are news, so to speak, and yet the media coverage treats it as the largest story of the weekend.

As mentioned above, the mainstream media account of the events is clear: the Syrian president, “Animal Assad” in Trump’s terms, bombed and gassed his own people. Yet as so often these days, there are many reasons to doubt the mainstream coverage of these events. Let’s start from a broad overview and zoom into the event itself.

(1) The military context. the battle for Douma (see below for map) is all that’s left from the battle over Ghouta, which I covered previously. The Syrian government’s campaign to retake the area over the past month and a half was successful — most of the Islamist militias agreed to evacuate to Idlib, a city in northwestern Syria, which stopped the mortar shelling of Damascus. The momentum in this battle is clearly on the side of the Syrian government.

A parody or truth? (source)

It is unclear what the Syrian government stands to gain from using chemical weapons at this point. It enjoys superiority in all aspects over the small rebel area and it is clear that Douma will fall soon. Syria can lose from the US entering the war more seriously and has little reason to provoke Trump — who had fired 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian base last year in response to another alleged chemical attack (see also below).

<addition: As of writing this post, reports declare that the rebels in Douma have agreed to evacuate to Idlib as well. Such agreements have been announced (and reached?) in the past, but were not acted upon.>

Control map of Syria as of April 8. Red marks government control, green are rebels, black is ISIS and blue is the area annexed by Israel (since the 1967 war). Douma is the small green circle northeast of Damascus (source)

(2) It has been suggested that after mopping up the remnant forces near Damascus, the Syrian government will move its forces south to reestablish its control over the (de facto) border with Israel (the large green and black areas in the bottom of the map above). This would likely increase tensions further between Israel, who supports several local militia groups, and Iran, who supports Assad. As we saw in the case of the downed Israeli F-16 a couple of months ago, a confrontation in this area has explosive potential. Delaying this (seemingly inevitable) part of the war further serves the interests of the US side since it prolongs the war and ultimately weakens Assad’s position by eroding what is left of his army.

(3) Several days ago Trump declared that he wanted the US to leave Syria. His statement caught his generals and allies unprepared, and after significant pressure, Trump adjusted his comment and ordered to wrap things up and leave in six months. Although this is in line with Trump’s promises before the elections, many domestic interest groups (the military-industrial complex) and international allies (e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia) are very much interested to keep the US in Syria for their various reasons (more war business, blocking Iran, etc.). Inflating this story at this time, as the media is doing, increases the pressure on Trump to stay and provides him with legitimacy of doing so.

For context, it should be noted here that the US presence in Syria is illegal according to international law (since the Syrian government did not invite the US). The US claims it is there to fight ISIS, but recent data suggests that the US is not fighting ISIS to the extent that it previously did (see graph here) and is establishing itself there to prevent Syria from being unified, which would lead to increased Russian or Iranian influence in the region.

(4) On a related topic, the media’s emphasis on Syria draws attention away from the other big story of the Middle East, the demonstrations in Gaza. These demonstrations have resulted in bad PR for the Israeli side, who killed a few dozen unarmed protesters and injured over a thousand. The media response to these demonstrations has been muted and to the best of my knowledge only one US senator (Bernie Sanders) has criticized Israel’s actions. The US has blocked two UN Security Council Resolutions that called for an independent investigation of the events in Gaza in less than 10 days. Moving (or keeping) the domestic and international attention to Syria serves to avoid closer discussion of Gaza.