Chemical Weapons Experts Not Optimistic on Syria

From “How Assad Could Twist a Chemical Weapons Treaty to Keep His Poison Gas,” Yochi Dreazen, “The Cable,” Foreign Policy:

“‘The Chemical Weapons Convention was created to deal with a very different type of set of circumstances,’ said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association.  ‘It was designed to deal with a country that was willing to renounce its chemical weapons voluntarily and not under coercion, a country where there was no real chance of them being used again, and a country that was stable enough that they could be destroyed safely.  None of those conditions exist in Syria.

“‘It’s not inconceivable that he adopts the Saddam Hussein playbook from the 1990s — refusing access to facilities, having the inspectors run around the country chasing their own tails — as a way of playing out the clock,’ said Brian Finlay of the Stimson Center.  ‘The more time that passes, the more the shock of the chemical weapons attack will fade away and the more the momentum for a strike will begin to disappear.  It’s clearly in his favor for this [to] stretch out as long as possible.'”

We’ve got nothing, people.

We Are Never, Ever Striking Syria

John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov came up with a four-page agreement that brings peace in our time removes the threat of U. S. missile strikes against Syria.

The agreement gives Syria until the middle of next year to get rid of its chemical weapons.  You know, until just before our mid-term elections.

They side-stepped the issue of the threat of force if Syria fails to live up to the agreement.  The agreement says that the non-compliance would go to the Security Council, where we know Russia would just veto any use of force.  Obama could still use force unilaterally, but we all know that ain’t gonna happen.  If he didn’t do it two weeks ago, before he got his enemies, foreign and domestic all enmeshed in the decision, he’s not doing it.

Syria is supposed to provide a list of its chemical weapons in a week, then outside inspectors are supposed to finish checking out Syria’s sites — in the middle of the civil war! — by November.

One of the Syrian rebel commanders reacted, “Let the Kerry-Lavrov plan go to hell.”  This is how you get to hell, on a road paved with good intentions.

 

With One Foot in the Grave, Mubarak Still Shakes an Iron Fist

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak may have been overthrown, but he’s still exerting power.  He appointed all the current members of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court, and that court has effected a bloodless military coup.

The court dissolved the Parliament that assumed power in January, a Parliament where Islamists had 70% of the seats.  The court also struck down a law prohibiting former Mubarak officials from running for president, so Mubarak’s last Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafik, will run this weekend against the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi.

When Mubarak was overthrown, the U. S. concern was that the young people demonstrating in Tahrir Square for a democratic, secular government weren’t organized enough to actually win elections.  It was believed that the only opposition group that was ready to fill a power vacuum was the Muslim Brotherhood, and that has proven to be the case.  They won about 50% of the seats in Parliament and allied with the even more extreme Islamists, the Salafis, who won 20%.

So Egypt is back to military rule.  While the Obama Administration isn’t publicly celebrating, they have to be relieved.  We’d love to see some Jeffersonian types come to power, but that isn’t about to happen.  It’s like Iran in 1979.  Overthrowing the Shah didn’t lead to democracy, it led to the insane Ayatollahs.  The Shah was a torturing, murdering bastard, but he was “our bastard,” as the CIA liked to say.  We’ve got two sets of bastards in Egypt right now, and the military are much more “our bastards” than the Islamists.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has a point when he says that the U. S. is hypocritical when it criticizes Russia for helping Assad in Syria.  We have supported and continue to support our share of bad guys.  Sometimes, as with the Shah of Iran, we even put them in power.  Lavrov referred to our support for the autocratic regime in Bahrain against its protesters seeking more freedom.

For Egyptians who are voting for president this weekend, the only vote against oppression is “none of the above.”