BICOM

The White House yesterday announced that it believes Syria’s President Assad has used chemical weapons, paving the way for the United States to provide military support to opposition groups.

The UK and France have argued for some time that convincing evidence shows Assad has used sarin gas. A statement yesterday by Ben Rhodes, the US Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, made clear that the Obama Administration now concurs with this assessment. Rhodes said, “The Assad regime has used chemical weapons – sarin – on a small scale multiple times over the past year.” Obama warned several months ago that the use of chemical weapons would have serious consequences and Rhodes confirmed “The president has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has.” Rhodes also said that the recent military gains by Assad and his Hezbollah ally has added a “new sense of urgency” to US deliberations.

As a result, said Rhodes, “The president has made a decision on providing more support to Syrian opposition. This includes military support.” Giving some indication of the scale of this shift, he commented “Suffice it to say, it will be different in both scope and scale to what we were providing before.” Nonetheless, it remains unclear exactly what type of military support the US will provide. Rhodes’ statement mentions the provision of “non-lethal” equipment, but some reports suggest that it could include arms, training by US personnel and even the creation of a limited no-fly zone. Foreign Secretary William Hague visited Washington this week to consult on Syria, while support for opposition groups is likely to be a focus during next week’s G8 summit in Northern Ireland.

Earlier this week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasised that “Israel is not a party to the internal conflict in Syria.” However, he warned that “Israel will defend itself if attacked.”