5 - Chemical Weapons

Summary

This chapter explores the foreign policy discourse of the old Anglosphere coalition during the second phase of the crisis and civil war in Syria. First, the chapter analyses Obama’s warning of a ‘red line’ over chemical weapons use. Second, it explores the route out of the rhetorical entrapment enacted by this phrase. Third, it maps out the discursive debates on war and peace that divided the international community and ran through the Anglosphere in 2012 and 2013. The analysis of this second phase establishes the context in which Islamic State would shoot to prominence at the start of 2014, altering the nature of the crisis and civil war, as well as the language and calculations of Anglosphere states.