Chemical Wild Cards

Within all of the media discussions of the limited engagement that the Israelis have launched in Lebanon there is now a broader dawning of recognition for the Iranian-Syrian nexus of finance and command and control over Hezbollah-Hamas.  But there is one critical issue that seems to have been overlooked. 
 
Chemical weapons in the hands of one or more of the plethora of other Islamist terror groups that have access to Israeli territory (or the West) and what that use could trigger.
 
We already have dependable physical evidence that some lethal chemical weapons have already been in the hands of an Islamist organization as shown by the successfully interdicted attempt by a Syrian-based terror group to deploy them against Jordanian targets a few years back.  If successfully deployed, that attack could have resulted in more than 10,000 casualties and that from just one truckload.  Now apply that same scenario to Israel under the present circumstances.
 
A reasonable working assumption is that these weapons are in the hands of Islamic terror groups, but are probably limited of limited quantity and potential effectiveness, partly because of the dispersal of the stocks once held under Syrian control and the inescapable aging of the weapons themselves.  That dispersal was mandated by the need to prevent capture or compromise of this operational threat by the any in the West, especially after the US removal of Saddam. 
 
Given the known status of loose command and control over the terror groups by their putative masters, this heightens the risk of an unapproved tactical use of a chemical weapon on Israel that can prompt a nuclear exchange, since the Israelis are reliably believed to have nuclear weapons, but no chemical weapons.  It should also be recognized that the Israelis presently have their political backs well up and that has been a historic precursor to them choosing action over rhetoric.
 
Because of the mix of sundry foreign policies to the use of weapons of mass destruction, the incomplete nature of Syrian-Iranian command-control measures over stocks of chemical weapons and US policy of classing the use of biological and chemical weapons as equivalent to a nuclear exchange there is high risk of a sudden achievement of critical mass within preprogrammed international responses. 
 
As with the history of the tangled mix of treaties, policies, miscommunications and knee jerk responses suffered by the European powers in the summer of 1914 that sparked World War One, we could easily find ourselves in a similar circumstance.  As with that long ago assassination in Sarajevo, any successful though small-scale chemical attack by an Islamist group can set us all onto an irretrievable course.
 
Back in 1962, we now know that the Soviets had a number of patrol boats with locally controlled tactical nuclear missiles running around off of Cuba during the standoff over land-based Soviet missiles.  What would the outcome have been had one angry, scared or confused skipper launched one against the US or its naval forces? 
 
History truly does repeat itself and so we are being presented with yet another round of nuclear ‘Russian roulette,’ this time courtesy of the Islamists.
 
It is necessary for all of the world’s nuclear-capable powers to acknowledge this plausible scenario in order to avoid it and perhaps even tacitly agree to allow actions against the burgeoning Islamist movement that could trigger it.  Though this will be seen in historical hindsight as an obvious common-sense remedy, in reality it is very hard for the leaders of the major powers to be seen publicly stepping away from their often conflicting positions in favor of resolving this larger common issue.  The UN is not even in the running as a forum and the G-8 summit is so thoroughly choreographed and spied upon that it will not do either.   The media is an anathema to the frank discussions required and the subjects that must be entertained.
 
Under what pragmatically unobtrusive or perhaps clandestine auspices this meeting of the minds comes to pass matters not.  What matters to humanity is that this initiative is brought to fruition.  Not to do so can become a monumental error of judgment fatal to many millions upon millions on all sides. 

 
Tom Marzullo is a physicist, educator and environmental specialist with experience in both Special Forces and submarine special operations.  He has provided testimony to the US Senate on a variety of issues, including Iraq.  He pioneered the first victory of Internet journalism over manufactured stories within the conventional media in what became known as the Tailwind scandal, developed the early accurate strategic assessments of our current situation in Iraq as well as the prediction of beheadings used as propaganda tools by Islamic terrorists.