Islamic State Gets Mustard Gas Assad’s Stockpiles Weren’t Destroyed, and the Jihadists Have Them.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-gets-mustard-gas-1439508763
Foreign-policy failures have a way of compounding, and that’s what seems to have happened as U.S. officials said Thursday they believe that Islamic State militants used mustard gas this week against Kurdish forces in Iraq.
The sources told Journal reporter Adam Entous that the mustard gas was probably obtained in Syria. Bashar Assad’s government admitted in 2013 to having stockpiles of mustard gas and other banned poisons. President Obama has since claimed often that his deal that year with Vladimir Putin removed those weapons from Syria. But recently U.S. intelligence has said it believes the government hid some caches from international inspectors. That’s the first U.S. failure.
The second is Mr. Obama’s refusal to act with enough dispatch and force against Islamic State. He promised a year ago to degrade and destroy ISIS. But the jihadists have since been able to expand their writ in Iraq, taking the city of Ramadi in May. It’s hardly surprising that jihadists who drown men in cages would resort to using chemical weapons. They will use whatever they can to hold and expand their caliphate.
As chaos spreads in the Middle East, the boundaries of civilized behavior break down. The last despot who used chemical weapons was Saddam Hussein—also against the Kurds, in northern Iraq in 1988. The U.S. and its allies later established a no-fly zone to protect the Kurds. Mr. Obama should do the same in Iraq and Syria now, while mobilizing a far more aggressive assault on Islamic State.
Meanwhile, don’t expect arms control to stop the spread of WMD in Syria or Iran. The only effective arms control is killing or deposing those who would use the arms.
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