Red Line

In August 2012, the Syrian civil war was raging and Bashar al-Assad's grip on power was under strain. Intelligence reports suggested he might turn to chemical arms, and President Obama had publicly said that such use would be a line the United States would not tolerate. Assad went ahead and gassed the Damascus suburb of Ghouta with sarin, killing hundreds of civilians. The attack left Obama weighing whether to pull America into yet another unpopular conflict in the Middle East. When Russia proposed overseeing the removal of Syria's chemical stockpile, the administration seized on the offer.

What followed was a race to locate, extract and destroy roughly 1,300 tons of chemical weapons while fighting continued around them. Joby Warrick follows the weapons hunters, diplomats, doctors, politicians and spies at the center of this little-known operation. Russia, however, was pursuing its own goals, chief among them keeping Assad in power. As American influence over events in Syria weakened, officials discovered that the Islamic State, expanding its caliphate across the country's ravaged territory, was also seeking chemical weapons and had the West in its sights.

Drawing on original reporting, Warrick presents the story as a character-driven narrative of true events. The book examines how the United States set out to prevent one disaster yet could not stop a chain of events that strengthened its adversaries. It will appeal to readers interested in Middle Eastern conflicts, arms control and the limits of American power.