The possible use of chemical weapons by the Bashar al Assad regime against its opponents after the start of the Syrian civil war of the 2012 has been one of the most controversial issues of the international debate in recent years. Often the military actions of NATO against Damascus, like the famous bombing of last April, have been justified by the indiscriminate use of gas or chemical agents also against the civilian population (we had already talked about it, v.articolo).
The entire negative judgment on Assad's work in his war against ISIS depended precisely on the illegal means used, at least according to Americans and Europeans, indiscriminately on combat troops as on unarmed Syrian citizens. Given these premises, the little resonance given by the newspapers and the media to the final report on the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the UN Agency on Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is astonishing. In fact, the Agency last 6 July was expressed for the first time on the attacks on Douma that had so much shocked the world public opinion, clarifying that from the on-site inspections there is no evidence of use of chemical weapons or nerve agents, only some traces of chlorine whose reason and origin is unknown.
Deepening the investigations also on other sites, such as Al Hamadaniya or Karm Al Tarrab, not even chlorine was found but we have only gathered evidence on the probable use of some unidentified irritant and light effects (non-persistent, irritating substance).
At this point it would be interesting to understand if there exist, from the US, evidence that somehow justify the specific allegations made to Assad in recent years or less. On the other hand, something could change soon in any case for the Syrian regime. In these hours, on the eve of a NATO summit that promises to be very tense for transatlantic relations, President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The two will most likely speak mainly of Syria and will lay the foundations for a compromise aimed at fostering a new regional stability (using the words of the American president himself)The meeting with Putin could be the easiest among those scheduled in Europe"). In short, the dust on chemical weapons in Syria could soon be lowered, revealing what was true under the storm.
