US And Russia Agree Deal Over Syria's Chemical Weapons
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| John Kerry Sergey Lavrov |
The Syrians were not in
Geneva in 2013, in much the same way as the Czechs were not in
Munich in 1938. The resultant “agreement” however has the same
sort of “peace in our time” ring about it as did the sheet of
paper waved in the air at Heston
Aerodrome all those years ago.
John
Kerry and Sergey Lavrov stood behind their respective lecterns
as Kerry presented
the 6 point agreement, (after seemingly to forget that number six
followed number five), outlining
how Syria should produce a list of their chemical weapons within a
week, how inspection should start by mid November and how the weapons
must be handed over by June next year. At the end of Kerry's
presentation, Lavrov chipped in with a vague reference as to how they
“ might request” a
“Chapter 7” Security Council resolution at the UN in the event
of Syrian non-compliance. All very good we may think and certainly
enthusiastically greeted by the press and media both in Geneva at the
time and since by media throughout the world.
On
closer examination however, it would seem that this deal is no more
than 6 nuggets of candy, wrapped up in a sea of frothy rhetoric. The
logistics of the agreement are at the very best problematic. How can
inspection, collection and disposal be arranged in the middle of a
ferocious civil war? Already one group of the 1001 anti Assad groups
has rejected the Geneva agreement and has indicated that the areas
they control will not be open for
UN monitors or chemical
weapons inspectors.
In
the event that the “list” is not produced within 7 days or that
inspectors are not on the ground by November, is this to be treated
as a “non compliance” and referred to the UN for a security
council resolution? Lavrov said yesterday that “"Nothing is
said about the use of force (in the Agreement) or about any automatic
sanctions. All violations should be approved by the Security
Council." Can anyone really see Russia agreeing to military
strikes against Syria?
The
whole Geneva conference and its subsequent “agreement” has only
one plausible interpretation. It was an exercise in political face
saving for Obama who had painted himself into a corner of the room
and was seeking some way of
delaying having to press the button and launch cruise missile against
Damascus. The Kerry “gaffe” provided such an opportunity. That is
always assuming that you believe that it was a gaffe, rather than a
not very well concealed ploy
to throw out a life line to see if a delay was possible.
Geneva
agreement is more for public consumption than solution of the crisis,
but it has got Obama, and incidentally the rest of the world, off the
hook at least for the time being. Again, it is worth recalling that
the Munich agreement was only a delay in the inevitable.
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