Syria missile strike raises troubling questions for US and its allies

The US cruise missile strikes on Shayrat airbase raise troubling questions for the international system, the US and allies including Australia.

For nearly three years they have been aware of evidence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may not have declared all of his chemical weapons stockpiles, and these strikes have highlighted the dilemma about what to do now.

But under threat of airstrikes by the Obama administration, Syria confirmed the enormous stockpile of chemical weapons it had amassed in a secret program and agreed to dismantle the program and have the chemicals destroyed.

Officials from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons then embarked on a dangerous and difficult mission to do just that and announced they had successfully destroyed all declared stockpiles.

Source: Syria missile strike raises troubling questions for US and its allies – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)