A year after the U.S. struck Syrian targets as punishment for the regime’s use of sarin gas on its own population, Bashar al-Assad has launched another particularly horrific chemical-weapons attack on Syrian civilians. Thomas Joscelyn explains how support from key allies makes these acts possible:

Assad’s principal international backer, Vladimir Putin, hasn’t stopped him from using [these weapons]. Nor has Iran, which is deeply embedded in Syria alongside Assad’s forces. In fact, the Assad-Putin-Khamenei axis has a legion of online apologists who argue that the high-profile chemical-weapons assaults aren’t really the work of the Syrian “president” at all. This noxious advocacy on behalf of mass murderers is readily available on social media.

It gets even worse, as another rogue state has reportedly facilitated Assad’s acquisition of chemical weapons: North Korea. This facilitation is especially worrisome in light of the two nations’ previous cooperation on a nuclear reactor that was destroyed by the Israelis in 2007.

In March, the UN . . . traced a number of visits by North Korean officials to Syrian soil, finding that “multiple groups of ballistic-missile technicians” have been inside Syria. . . . [T]he UN explained that these “technicians . . . continued to operate at chemical-weapons and missile facilities at Barzah, Adra, and Hama.” . . . In one such transfer, the North Koreans provided the Assad regime with “special resistance valves and thermometers known for use in chemical-weapons” programs. UN member states also interdicted suspicious shipments, including bricks and tiles that may be used as part of a chemical-weapons program. . . .

The U.S. and its allies will continue to face daunting challenges when it comes to restraining rogue nations and their pursuit of banned weapons. As Syria’s ongoing work on chemical weapons shows, such proliferation concerns often involve multiple rogue states. Assad’s chemical-weapons attacks inside Syria are principally his own doing, but not solely. He has friends outside of Syria who are willing to help.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”