Syria Chemical Attack Likely Rebel Ploy to Distract UN Inspectors from Khan al-Assal Massacre

A good place to start this morning to understand what's going on with yesterday's claims by the Syrian opposition that the government massacred hundreds of civilians in a Damascus suburb with poison gas is Colum Lynch's Turtle Bay blog. The action at last night's emergency session of the UN Security Council was all about expanding the mandate of the newly-arrived inspection team led by Ake Sellstrom to give them unfettered access to Syria to pursue "all allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria":

The Obama administration's goal was to have a U.N. chemical weapons team, which was already in Syria to investigate other chemical weapons allegations, launch a probe into the new allegations. That team, headed by Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom, arrived in Damascus on Sunday. 

The United States, which was represented by the second highest-ranking American official at the United Nations, Ambassador Rosemary Di Carlo, circulated a draft resolution, which was obtained by Foreign Policy, that called on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to "urgently take the steps necessary for today's attack to be investigated by the U.N. mission on the ground." But it also would have applied pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to grant the inspectors greater latitude. The draft would have called on all combatants in Syria to "allow safe, full and unfettered access to the U.N. mission and to comply with all requests for evidence and information. " It also would have underscored the "importance of a fully independent and impartial [investigation] into all allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria." 

In the end, the most strenuous provisions of the American draft were stripped out during closed-door negotiations with Russia and China. Instead, the 15-nation council issued a milder statement that made no reference to today's alleged chemical weapons attack. The council merely expressed "a strong concern" about "the allegations [of chemical weapons use] and the general sense there must be clarity on what happened." The statement also did little to strengthen the inspector's mandate, but simply "welcomed the determination of the [U.N.] secretary general to ensure a thorough, impartial and prompt investigation." 

Clearly miffed, National Security Advisor Susan Rice took to Twitter to declare that the "Syrian government must allow the UN access to the attack site to investigate. Those responsible will be held accountable."

Unfettered access with a mandate to investigate all claims -- we've been down this road before in Iraq. And we know how that ended up. Inspectors include spooks who accumulate targeting info for future air strikes. And even if the inspectors give the government a clean bill of health, as Hans Blix did in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, it creates a running narrative of de facto criminality for the host country -- guilty until proven innocent -- that is blown up and propagandized by Western media, something we've already seen with past reporting on alleged chemical weapons use in Syria.

The timing of the poison gas attack to coincide with the arrival of the Sellstrom's inspection team immediately raises the suspicion that it was done to upend or alter his mission, which likely would have confirmed Russian findings regarding Khan al-Assal.