Before any action was taken to resolve the controversy regarding the use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun in Syria, the US launched a series of military strikes against the country, possibly signalling a fundamental change in Washington's position on the Syrian crisis. There are two sides to the question of responsibility for the chemical weapons attack. Some argue that the Syrian regime stood to gain by the operation because the target was a large Sunni quarter that supported the opposition, and the regime has a record of the use of excessive force against civilians, including in the chemical weapons attack against Ghouta in 2013 that caused hundreds of casualties. Did Bashar really do it? That attack crossed the “red line” that former US president Barack Obama had set with regard to US military intervention in Syria, but the regime handed over its stocks of chemical weapons to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which oversaw their destruction as stipulated under UN Security Council Resolution 2118. But when the regime again used chemical weapons after that, attempts to explain this varied. Some held that the regime had pulled the wool over the eyes of the US and had not handed over its arsenal of lethal weapons, let alone abided by the international ban on chemical weapons to which Syria is a signatory. Others said that this was merely evidence of Obama's backtracking on the need for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to go and testimony to the rise of the Russian role in Syria. In spite of efforts to bring those responsible for the chemical weapons attacks to account, the lack of any transparent international investigation has meant that the exchange of accusations over the use of chemical weapons has continued. Another argument in support of the idea that the regime has reverted to the use of chemical weapons is that since the battle of Aleppo it has been working to take advantage of its military gains in order to achieve two ends. The first is to eliminate the opposition in the areas under its control, and the second is to carry out demographic engineering operations in anti-regime areas. The use of chemical weapons in Khan Sheikhoun falls into this framework. This is an area that hosts 120,000 refugees from Hama and its environs and is crowded with opposition members and revolutionaries. It is also a strategically located town, the control of which allows those holding it to communicate with other areas. A further argument is that the regime may feel that the political payback it has received has not been commensurate with the military progress it has achieved thanks to Russia's military intervention in Syria since 2015. It appears that the Russians have not been able to turn the military successes into political gains at the negotiating table, as was evident from the stalled negotiations at Astana and Geneva. Thus, the military solution has failed to resolve the conflict, and there has been no political solution available that would achieve the regime's aims. Meanwhile, the international community's failure to punish the regime for its repeated use of chemical weapons has encouraged it to further excesses. So has the Russian protection it has enjoyed in the UN Security Council and other international forums, as well as the current military balance on the ground. Did Bashar really do it? The regime has used chemical weapons against civilians in populated areas, rather than in conflict zones against militant factions. This reflects its strategy of using these weapons as a way of displacing civilians and engineering demographic change in Syria, something it is pursuing particularly in case there is an eventual partition of the country. It is difficult for the regime to use such weapons in conflict zones due to the rules of war and the risk that the regime's own forces could be affected by them. Another reason why the regime benefits from using these weapons is that they may serve to break the will of the opposition fighters and weaken their popular support. Is it possible that the opposition used the chemical weapons? The military successes that the regime has achieved recently, particularly its capture of Aleppo, has strengthened this possibility. Further arguing in its favour is the fact that these victories have been translated into the rehabilitation of the regime in the eyes of some regional and international parties and their acceptance of it as a part of the peace process. The regime has denied its responsibility for the attacks on Khan Sheikhoun and has insisted that it has abided by the agreement it signed in 2013. Moreover, it charges that terrorist organisations introduced the toxic substances into Syria from neighbouring countries, among them Turkey. This is consistent with the Russian Defence Ministry's account of the incident, according to which it occurred after a Syrian jet bombed a weapons depot belonging to extremist groups that housed chemical weapons. Regardless of who was responsible for the chemical weapons incident in Khan Sheikhoun, the US military strikes against one of the regime's military bases had not been foreseen by the parties to the Syrian crisis. The Syrian regime and its allies were taken by surprise because they had thought that the Trump administration had resolved to approach the Syrian crisis through the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group and other terrorist organisations and that it would coordinate with the Russians. Washington had also indicated that it had no objection to letting the Syrian president remain in power as part of the process of determining the country's future. The opposition and its regional allies had not expected the US response either. Throughout the Obama era, the US had been wavering in its approach to the crisis and it had not coordinated with these parties. For both regime and opposition the US strikes marked a reversal in Washington's previous approach to the crisis. The basic message was that this administration intended to play a larger role in the Syrian crisis and one commensurate to the US's weight as a major power. US officials made remarks suggesting that the Trump administration planned to involve itself more closely in Syria. There were also suggestions of creating “safe zones” in the north and south of the country and increasing military cooperation with Turkey. The Trump administration had earlier signalled its intention to alter US policy on Iran and to coordinate more closely with traditional allies in the region. Trump has said that he intends to review the nuclear accord with Tehran, to work to curtail Iranian influence in Syria, and to improve relations with the Gulf. Perhaps the most important signal of the administration's policy shift towards Syria has been its determination to act as the architect of the battle for Raqqa. This has led to direct US military involvement in operations on the ground for the first time in the Syrian conflict and to the US deciding which parties would take part in the battle and how they would be deployed. These signals should have alerted everyone concerned to the fact that the Trump administration had a different conception of how to intervene in the Syrian crisis. The regime had an opportunity to take advantage of the tolerance the Trump administration had begun to show towards it. But it remained too inflexible in the negotiations, ignoring the need to accommodate to realities on the ground, and then came its alleged use of chemical weapons triggering the shift in US policy. But the US strikes were limited, and there has been no suggestion of a possible escalation of military action in a manner that might threaten the survival of the regime. While there has been a shift in US policy, there is thus no sign that it is a radical one, even if the strikes conveyed important messages to the Syrian regime and others involved in the crisis. The purpose was to notify the regime that the US was still a main player in the conflict, and that there were red lines that must not be crossed, including the use of chemical weapons. It also delivered the message to Al-Assad that his role in future would not be determined by Russia alone. The US strikes signalled the US return on the ground and in international forums such as at the UN Security Council. They were a shift away from Obama's policy, based on the principle of non-involvement and limited cooperation with the parties involved and helping the Russians to augment their military and diplomatic role. The strikes revived the confidence of US regional allies that had begun to harbour doubts regarding US strategy in the region and in Syria in particular. It appears that there are now prospects for closer cooperation with these allies, while the Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian supporters have been thrown off balance. The US may now use the strikes as a way of influencing the positions of the major stakeholders in the Syrian conflict. They may mark the beginning of a revival in the relationship between Washington and the armed opposition factions on the ground, something that would be especially true if the strikes marked the beginning of an escalation. The strikes put an end to the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons against civilians. But it is not clear whether they are the prelude to larger military operations against the Syrian regime or even to further military strikes intended to weaken it on the ground. The Russians would not have been able to rehabilitate the Syrian regime without US blessing, and it is likely that the strikes are not the beginning of an existential threat to the regime but instead are a way of setting out its future role. The US is still focussed on the war against terrorism, and it is seeking to maintain the military balance that arose after the battle of Aleppo, possibly wanting to ensure that the regime does not skew the balance and attempt to achieve military victories that would weaken the moderate opposition factions. Washington may see the strikes as an important preparation for the settlement that could occur after the battle of Raqqa and is likely to include the regime, the moderate opposition and the Kurds under a Russian and US consensus.
