Smudged red lines

Bashar al-Assads government has denied its involvement and has called the footage fake. Western intelligence assessments,however,dont seem to agree that the rebels have access to chemical weapons,which Assads regime has large stockpiles of. Syrias neighbours,particularly Israel,fear these could also already be in the hands of Assads ally,the Lebanese Hezbollah. Any fallout of chemical weapon proliferation would be incalculably worse than the hitherto feared consequences of the conflict breaching Syrias borders.

One million children have been forced to flee Syria and two million have been internally displaced,even as the overall death toll has crossed 100,000. Yet,the international community has stood by. However,if intervention was deemed counter-productive in the beginning,it may be more so now,given the dominance of al-Qaeda affiliates among the rebels. The first option is still diplomacy,to compel Assad to allow the UN investigators to visit Wednesdays alleged attack sites immediately a difficult task,given the months it took the UN to get permission to visit the earlier sites of alleged chemical-weapon use.