Why would Assad use chemical weapons?

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad surely knows that the use of chemical weapons is a red line his army cannot cross. Why even risk it? Why tempt the West to invade? Why tempt Israel to more openly aid Syrian rebels?

It's worth saying that we don't know for a fact that the Syrian Army has unleashed these weapons against the rebels, although House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers told CNN that there was a "high probability" that he had done so. How could the U.S. know this? My guess is that Israel's intelligence apparatus, which knows more about Syria's military that most of its commanders, has signals intelligence suggesting that weapons were used, and probably corroborated it with human sources on the ground. Just a guess. Israel knows where Syria keeps its stockpiles of vesicants, blood irritants, and nerve gases.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.