In his interview with Fox News, Syria’s President Assad said it was “no problem, we can do it tomorrow” to provide the inventory of his chemical weapons due this Saturday.
But now Syria admits it won’t make that seven-day deadline, and our State Department is saying “Oh, okay, whenever, Dude.” They now claim “We’ve never said it was a hard and fast deadline,” but that’s how the agreement was presented to the world, as a date certain, not some loosey-goosey goal, if the Syrians were up for it. And it’s tough to do a weapons inventory when you’re still busy laughing your asses off and high-fiving each other.
And of course there are now problems at the UN due to Russian intransigence with the resolution that must be passed before work can begin on securing those weapons.
This BS agreement is never going to become reality. We’ll just move on to other issues and crises and eventually fuhgeddaboudit.
Embattled Farmers 
I have noticed that your number of posts are down, I hope all is well. Mine are also down because we bought a new house and are transitioning slowly while we are trying to sell our other house. But it is a lot of work and has cut into my blogging time.
I also noticed that you haven’t had any follow up posts on Syria since this one. We had quite a back and forth about bombing Assad, and it seems to me that we are making more progress via the diplomatic route than most people anticipated. What really annoys me is that the media has all but dropped the subject. If we had bombed they would be talking about it everyday. But when they actually start destroying the chemical weapons it gets barely a mention.
I have been having health issues (annoying, not life threatening), plus taking care of my sick animals. I have been reading a ton, though, and keeping up with everything. I very much appreciate your concern and your asking.
I hope your other house sells soon. I love your octagonal tower. Is that the old one or the new one? Moving is a ton of work, I am dreading our move to New Hampshire next year, especially getting the house fixed up for sale and going through the showings with all our animals, although I expect we’ll be down to 3 from 5 by then, given the dog and cat with cancer.
I’m not hopeful about Syria and the chemical weapons, I think they’ll cheat, but I hope you’re right.
The one with the octagonal tower is the old one that we are selling. We think we have found our buyer, but their agent went out of the country the day after they saw it. They are newly married, she is 4 month pregnant, they have been looking for a year, and this is the first house she loves. She told my wife (who is our broker) that there isn’t a thing she would change. She even decide which room would be the nursery. So if the husband is a smart man, as soon as their agent is back Sunday night, they will submit an offer. We have more prospect who have set appointments for the weekend. Fingers crossed.
We had to cancel our trip to CA since Yosemite is closed. We were holding out but with everything up in the air it was better to cancel and try another time.
I suspect Syria will try to cheat and had some small portion (10-20%) of their chemical weapons. However, had we bombed I don’t think we god have reduced their capacity by 80-90% so we come out way ahead even if they do cheat. Plus Assad would be a fool to try and use them again even if he did keep a small amount. I think he is evil, but not a fool.
I wish I could buy your house! It sounds as if you’ll get an offer very soon, he’s not going to disappoint his pregnant wife when she’s so clearly moved in psychologically. She’s got the nursery all set up. How can their agent not have someone covering for her?
Sorry about your trip. I went there once, and liked the waterfalls, but I’m not much of a hiker or climber or any of that. We stayed at the Ahwanee, which is as close to camping as I ever hope to get.
I hope you’re right about Syria. I tend to think when things seem too good to be true, especially anything involving Putin and/or Assad, they probably are.