Dall’ultimo numero dell’Economist:

For all the agonising in Western capitals about whether to channel weapons to “moderate” rebel militias in Syria and the renewed attempts to find a diplomatic solution to the civil war, one issue above all others is dominating the thinking of military planners, intelligence agencies and their political masters: the increasing danger of the regime’s vast stock of chemical weapons getting into the hands of groups with links to al-Qaeda. […]
Though the regime is believed to have tried desperately to consolidate its stocks of chemical weapons in areas it still controls, it has so much of the stuff—around 1,000 tonnes of mustard gas, sarin and the even more lethal VX held at about 12 sites—that in the chaos engulfing the country some will almost inevitably fall into rebel hands sooner rather than later unless something is done. Indeed, Jabhat al-Nusra, the most powerful rebel faction and the one with closest links to al-Qaeda, reportedly came very close to capturing a stockpile near Aleppo earlier this year. A senior NATO official argues that, whereas it is premature to talk about al-Qaeda getting hold of chemical weapons, conditions on the ground make it increasingly likely.
Some analysts question the value of Syria’s chemical weapons to terrorists, because skilled technicians are needed to mix the components into a deadly concoction, and the canisters containing it are designed to be fired from artillery and rockets. In other words, they were intended for military use and not for the clandestine portability that terrorists favour. But al-Qaeda has always said it would use chemical weapons against Western targets if it had them, and regime defectors could well provide the expertise to turn them into effective terrorist weapons. […]
In the absence of UN authorisation to remove those weapons, which would require the acquiescence of Russia and China, no good options are available. Under any plausible scenario, seizing or destroying the chemical weapons would almost certainly require boots on the ground (though not a full-scale invasion) as well as air strikes that could risk spreading some of the poison. Confidence that every site containing the weapons would be quickly found would also not be high.
But the feeling is growing that time is running out. The longer the delay in tackling the problem, the greater the risk of failure. For Mr Obama, who likes to weigh every possibility before taking action, the stakes could not be higher. But as a senior NATO official puts it: “The light has gone on. We can’t not deal with it.”