The beginning of the beginning of the end?

When laying the groundwork for a negotiated peace, it is vital that all sides can cling to a detail that they can trumpet to their supporters.  It may have been an off-the-cuff remark by John Kerry, but the idea that Assad could give up his chemical weapons to avoid airstrikes inadvertently gave the Secretary of State an independence that Barack Obama has always sought to curtail (notably in the case of Kerry’s predecessor, Hillary Clinton).  Russia seized upon it as a golden opportunity to avoid looking consistently obstructionist, Assad leapt on it to buy himself time (even though he has yet to officially acknowledge his possession of Cold War-era chemical stockpiles) and ultimately Obama grasped it as his mooted airstrikes seemed set to fail in the House from a combined mixture of Tea Party Republicans and isolationist Democrats.  All three (and Iran) would want to avoid seeing jihadists get control of such stocks.  People cite North Korea and Iraq as impossible cases for weapons inspectors and these were not countries gripped by active conflict, but such a move could bring about terms for peace.

It is clear that given Obama’s understandable reluctance to get involved – no new involvement in foreign wars in the Middle East he declared in his victory speech upon being re-elected – given all the perils that his dovish opponents pointed out, means the Syrian civil war will just drag on grimly and remorselessly for at least another year, maybe longer.  He is not the weakest president in living memory as The Telegraph’s usually circumspect American correspondent Peter Foster had the brass neck to declare (weaker than Carter?  Weaker than Dubya?  Obama got through the healthcare bill that eluded Clinton. Give me a break) – he is up against what Woodrow Wilson, in the days when the latter was a political scientist and not a president, ‘Congressional Government’ – that is Congress takes all the major decisions.  This power has increased throughout the twentieth century after the mendacity of the Johnson and Nixon administrations in south-east Asia.  Presidents have to carry senators and representatives with them (by two-thirds in the case of foreign treaties).  Obama has been rendered weak by the most implacable Congress in living memory, his right-wing foes refusal to understand that politics is about compromise – the Republicans failed to prevent his re-election; now they seek to tarnish his legacy as they wallow in intellectual turpitude.

Given that Obama therefore cannot wage war, even if he wanted to (though there is a legal argument that he could lob a few missiles without Congressional approval, in a manner that Reagan used to invade Grenada), it is obvious that to bring the civil war to a conclusion, Russia and Iran will have to be brought in from the cold.  I find their support for Assad distasteful but they will not let him fall, whatever it takes indirectly.  Unlike Dubya, who was committed to war in Iraq (and had a pliant Congress) when he demanded that Saddam Hussein and his family stand down in the days before the invasion, John Kerry may have similarly anticipated that Assad would never have agreed and it would have been an extra screw to tighten in the case against the Syrian dictator.  Yet it was the threat of potential force that induced Assad, under Russian pressure, to buckle.  At the very least, there will be a temporary cessation of the use of chemical weapons so as not to embarrass Moscow.  This is the proper way to deploy a military build-up, in that it need not be used if conditions are met.  I was not a frevent interventionist unlike the 'Middle East Peace Envoy' Blair (he would have us invade Iran as well, though he fails to realise his crebility is shot and his intervention over Syria was counter-productive), I just want Syria to have a productive and relatively happy future.  Hopefully, though the rebels and the refugees will be disappointed, this can lead to a lasting peace because an end to the bloodletting and population displacement is what is needed.