And So It Begins…

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.

 

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.

 

This Sounds More Like Putin

So now Putin is saying that for Syria to give up its chemical weapons, the U. S. has to renounce the use of force first.  Okay, this makes a little more sense, this sounds more like the Vlad I know.

Aside from that ridiculous, DOA demand, the thing is already falling apart at the U. N.  The Russians have told the French that a Security Council resolution must be toothless — it can’t contain any threat of military action if Syria doesn’t follow through on transferring its chemical weapons to international authorities.

We don’t have a potential solution here, people, just an ever-expanding mess.

What’s Russian for rope-a-dope?