The Syrian regime cannot use chemical weapons without being punished | Malcolm Rifkind

If, as seems certain, the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons there is no choice but to take military action with or without a UN mandate

The House of Commons will be at its most serious, today, when it debates the proper international response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. MPs will speak with passion and conviction. The whips, in all parties, will struggle to maintain party discipline on what is a matter of conscience not just policy. It will be one of those relatively rare occasions when the house and the country do not already know which side of the argument will win the vote.

Inevitably, comparisons will be made with the debate that led to Britain joining the US in the invasion of Iraq. Such comparisons will be misplaced. I was against the Iraq war. It was about invading a country and overthrowing a government that was, at that time, at peace with its neighbours and whose own people were not in open revolt.

Today’s vote is quite different. It is, quite simply, whether the international community will protest but, otherwise, do nothing in response to a major use of chemical weapons against non-combatant civilians which, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, has already led to the deaths of over 300 men, women and children and injury to a further 3,000.

That chemical weapons, which are banned by UN treaty and are classed as weapons of mass destruction, have been used is not in dispute. The Syrian government accepts this but claims they were used by the Syrian opposition against their own supporters.

However implausible such a claim may be it needs to be tested. The Syrian government does not deny that it is the only country in the region that has massive stocks of chemical weapons. It is not in dispute that their use, last week, in a Damascus suburb was during a military onslaught by Syrian government forces in that same suburb.

Nor does anyone seriously believe that the Assad regime would have any ethical objection to using these weapons. The regime has already been responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Syrian civilians. They will do anything that they think they can get away with to stay in power.

The UN inspectors are in Syria. They have accepted that they are not going to be able to reach a conclusion as to who was responsible for the attack. But their report will, nevertheless be important.

First, they should be able to decide how substantial a chemical weapons attack took place. If only a handful of people were killed or injured that might help Assad claim that a crude chemical device could have been manufactured by the rebels and used to try to discredit his government.

If, as seems certain, however, the inspectors confirm that hundreds were killed and thousands were injured; that would be damning evidence against Assad because only his regime have that chemical weapons capability and the missiles that are …read more