It has been amazing to see the Syria situation change so profoundly in a matter of mere hours. An offhand, dismissive remark by John Kerry on Monday morning had been translated into an actual proposal from the Russians by Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday morning the Syrians had purportedly agreed to surrender their entire chemical weapons arsenal to international authorities.
Indeed, by Tuesday afternoon the Syrian foreign minister was announcing his country’s intention to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention it had long rejected, open its storage sites and cease production of weapons it had officially denied even possessing. “We intend to give up chemical weapons altogether,” Wallid Muallem said point-blank, even as Russia and other U.N. Security Council members wrangled over the very complex logistics of accomplishing that feat.
As a rule, things just don’t happen this quickly in the international arena, and in the rare instances when they do, the sudden and unexpected momentum is almost always pushing nations toward war, not toward peace, as seems to be the case here. So while there is every reason to be skeptical, even suspicious, there is also every reason to push these developments as far as possible, to see just how serious they really are.
Because an outcome in which Syria surrenders its entire chemical weapon stockpiles would almost be too good to be true.
The key question involves the sincerity of Russia’s interest in resolving this mess. As Syria’s prime sponsor, international protector and arms supplier, Russia carries a lot of weight with Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad and his regime. They probably have the power to make this happen, should they choose to make it a priority. And while there are many reasons to doubt how genuine Vladimir Putin is being, let’s play devil’s advocate and explore the reasons why its success might be important to him:
— By taking Kerry’s dismissive remark and appearing to give it life, Russia has made the idea its own. If its client state Syria now balks when the time comes to actually surrender its chemical weapons, Russia will look powerless.
Mr. Putin(STET MR.) does not like to look powerless.
— Conversely, stepping in and peacefully solving a major international problem at the last minute, a problem that had flummoxed Barack Obama and the mighty United States, will boost the reputations of both Russia and Putin. Putin does like to have his ego stroked, especially when it comes at the expense of Obama and the Americans.
— In the Syrian civil war, the nightmare scenario for those outside its borders has always been the capture of its chemical-weapons stockpiles by terrorists. And with its long southern border and its trouble with the rebellious Chechnyans, Russia is considerably more vulnerable to Islamic terrorism than the United States. Taking those weapons out of possible circulation would let hundreds of millions of people, including many at the Kremlin, sleep better at night.
Here at home, folks at the White House are no doubt wondering what hit them and whether they ought to like being hit like this. Absent a sudden and unlikely shift in public opinion, Congress was about to deny Obama the permission he had sought to launch strikes against Syrian military targets. That would have been an embarrassing loss, and for all practical purposes would have taken any military option off the table regarding Syria.
Scrambling to keep pace with events, the White House is now suggesting that if this latest peace initiative proves real and Syria does surrender its chemical weapons, the American threat to use military force should get a great deal of the credit for forcing that decision. To a degree, they’ll be right, but only to a degree.
This was never the plan, and it’s foolish to pretend otherwise — the odds against success were much too high. But if the unlikely does happen and this all pans out, a good portion of the credit should go to Putin, and U.S. officials ought to be fine with that. If you want Russia to show responsible leadership in the international arena, you have to be willing to give it props when it does so. In fact, success in Syria might even embolden Russia to play a similar role regarding Iran and its nuclear program.
I mean, as long as we’re talking miracles….
