Syria and Iran Essay

Iraq and Syria: Two Nuclear States In the midst of the end to the War on Terror, Syria made a very bold move in their own right. A rebellion from many of the state’s citizens caused this attack to eventually be one of the most questionable decisions in years. Many compare the chemical attack to the same one as the previous attack in Iraq some years ago. However, there are some differences along with the comparison. Like Iraq at the time of their chemical genocide, Syria was at a fragile state and the government power was trying to be overthrown. These play factors in to why the attack even occurred. The long process of investigation made it hard for the inspectors to actually allocate the main source from which the attack came from. The use of chemical weapons violates many different international treaties and laws. Most of these are signed by each individual country, however they are not mandatory. Syria exercises this right in almost all laws dealing with weapons or attacks. When the nuclear attacks in Iraq occurred in the 1980’s the world criticized them and even brought about a war. Why did the world not do the same against Syria? During the 1980’s the Middle East continued to have turmoil not only with themselves, but other nations as well. Iraq was a country that had internal issues that was rooted by their leader Suddam Hussein. The last scare of chemical weapons came from the Cold War, and had somewhat died down a bit. This was until Hussein and the Iraq government used chemical weapons on its own people during a time of rebellion in the country. The world knew of the chemical weapons that they possessed and the nations were trying to destroy those as well. This did not caused major uproar in the US due to Hussein and his relationship with the nation at that time. The world and other nations did not feel the same about this problem. Many people were in shock that someone could do this to the people of its own country. The attack occurred at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Hussein ordered the chemical attack on the Kurds or Kurdish soldiers fighting against his army in March of 1998. This attack killed between three thousand and five thousand people. It also injured up to 10,000 making it the worst chemical attack since the Holocaust. The majority of these people were also civilians making the attack even worse. After the attack occurred it was declared genocide against the Kurds. It was given the name Halabja chemical attack after the city where the attack happened. Bombs were dropped and the gas was released on a city were almost 45 thousand Kurds were inhabited. In these bombs were mustard gas and nerve agents sarin, tabun, and Vx. Hussein believed that this was his only possible way of showing the Kurdish people that he did not want them in Iraq. They were allied with Hussein’s enemy the neighboring country of Iran. The war lasted for eight years and this attack occurred the final year. Iran captured this city occupied by the Kurdish people, then Iraq regained power and wanted to punish the Kurds for the help they gave Iran. Sarkhel Hama Khan
A director of the Halabja monument museum stated, “But even before attacking here, Saddam had fired chemical weapons against seven other villages at least, and arrested thousands of Kurds, who were later buried alive. It was a genocidal campaign, named Al-Anfal, which killed 180,000 out of 3 million Iraqi Kurds” (Barbati 2013). Khan was a survivor of these chemical attacks. He now runs this museum to show the tragedy and the affects in which the attacks had on the city and the people that inhabited it. The people who started this attack were not immediately prosecuted, but were eventually. Saddam Hussein was eventually found by the new government of Iraq’s military with help from the UN and the US militaries as well. Saddam Hussein was found in a hole underneath the ground hiding. He was hung in front of the Iraqi people in the midst of the War on Terror. He was not

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