Red Line

Joby Warrick has done an amazingly thorough and efficient expose of the sorry state of Syria since 2011 through the prism of chemical attacks. Went a long way in helping me understand the atrocious maze of different countries and militant organisations including the ruling dispensation eviscerating a once beautiful and peaceful country.

A really fascinating insight into the Syrian weapons of mass destruction and how the rest of the world dealt with the problem. I enjoyed the writing so much I am keen to read other books by the same author. A real eye-opener, some parts had me on the edge of my seat. The many people working behind the scenes were brought to life including a fellow Kiwi - Julian Tangaere.

I worked with the author at the Washington Post some years ago, though I haven't seen him for some years. This is an astonishing book. It is a book about the Syrian use of chemical weapons; the impossibly difficult international efforts to control them; and the ultimate frustration of those efforts by Assad and Putin. An important subject and it may sound like a dense one.Red Line is as exciting, fast-paced and full of heroes and villains as any thriller you may be reading. But it's real. Joby Warrick's mastery of this super-complicated material is amazing. I am not exaggerating how good it is; read it and see.

2021 Book #21 - Red Line: the Unraveling of Syria and America’s Race to Destroy the Most Dangerous Arsenal in the World - by John WarrickWarrick is an exceptional author. In this book he tells the story of Assad’s chemical weapons in three parts - the initial attacks against his own people - the dismantling and destruction of that program - and lastly the use of chemical weapons by ISIS and the proof that the program we thought we destroyed remains an on-going threat to the Syrian people and the world.Part of Warrick’s genius is picking heroes and villains from a cast of thousands and creating a historically accurate page-turner that makes you want to cheer and boo.Part II does do a fabulous job giving the backstory of a very cool operation. Asad claimed to open the doors to his chemical weapons program after getting caught using Sarin to kill 1400 of his own citizens in a horrible war crime. But how do you destroy 600 metric tons of chemical weapons? The answer to that question involved the creation, in only five months, of a field deployable hydrolysis system (breaking down the nerve agents with high pressure high temperature water) and deploying it to accomplish their task AT SEA on a huge ro-ro ship that spent 42 days doing just that!Sadly, the primary takeaway from the book is that we are in a no-win situation. After spending more than a billion dollars on a covert program to arm Syrian rebels to force Asad out of office (Google “Timber Sycamore”) we finally realized that the program was backfiring as most (possibly almost all!) of the advanced weapons we sent to stop Asad were ending up in the hands of Islamic terrorists. The Obama administration came to realize that they may be headed towards “catastrophic success” - IDG Asad was deposed, it would be by Islamist militants allied with Al Qaeda and armed by the US.With Russia and Iran solidly backing Asad, and using the Russian veto power on the UN Security Counsel at every turn, there is no viable solution to the problem this brutal dictator, who has killed 500,000 of his own people and turned another 7 million into refugees, represents.This is the third book I’ve read about Syria and the second by Warrick. His book “Black Flags: the Rise of ISIS” remains one of my top recommended books about terrorism (along with Ali Soufan’s excellent books, Black Banners, and Anatomy of Terror.)The other Syria books I’ve read, Charles Lister’s “The Syrian Jihad” and Sam Dagher’s “Asad or We Burn the Country” are both much more far-reaching in scope and much more difficult to consume. Still, both do a far more comprehensive job of helping expound on the story of the Syrian Civil War and its complexities, but they do so in a way that only a scholar of terror or the Middle East would really appreciate.Warrick’s book does a great job of building a framework that tells the story in very consumer-friendly broad brushstrokes. I recommend it!

This engrossing and detailed account is trapped between the daring-do of spies, military men, some diplomats and Syrians and the sad truth it acknowledges that the removal of most of the sarin did not stop or even slow the slaughter of half a million Syrians. It likely helped safeguard Israel, maybe but Assad continued to use chlorine gas, barrel bombs and later again sarin as he had not relinquished his entire stockpile as promised. I miss in the heroics of the mission a real coming to grips with the tragedy of Bashar's long regime. At times it reads a little like Bush's "Mission Accomplished" without revealing the heart of what was not. Well done overall so 4 stars.

Very interesting and well written book about the Syrian chemical weapons program and the challenges of securing it as the country imploded in civil war. The author discusses the in-depth logistical, diplomatic and military complications involved as well as the successes and failures of the UN and our last two administrations in trying to keep the most dangerous weapons out of the hands of not only al-Qaeda affiliates and offshoots like ISIS but the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian enablers. Good read. Pretty sad but ultimately an eye opening glimpse behind the scenes and through the eyes of UN diplomats and White House national security policy makers.