BackRussia proposes Syria chemical weapons deal to avert war
Syria ‘welcomes’ Russian proposal, echoed by UN chief Ban Ki-moon; US ‘sceptical’ as Obama seeks lawmakers’ approval to strike
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Beirut/London: As President Barack Obama struggled to rally Congress behind the US military action in Syria, Russia seized on a remark by his secretary of state on Monday to say Damascus should save itself by handing over chemical weapons.
US secretary of state John Kerry was quick to dismiss as hypothetical his own comment that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avert the US strikes by surrendering his chemical arsenal—but not before Assad’s ally Russia had turned it into a firm proposal that was “welcomed" by Damascus and echoed by UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
The White House said it was “seriously sceptical". And rebels fighting Assad’s forces on the ground, where hundreds are being killed by conventional bullets and explosives every week, dismissed any such weapons transfer as impossible to police and a mere decoy to frustrate US plans to attack.
But with Obama preparing to make his case in television interviews later on Monday to an American public and their representatives who remain wary of involvement in another distant war, the armaments proposal could complicate his task.
The outcome of votes in Congress remains hard to predict.
Obama has argued that Assad, fighting to continue his family’s four-decade rule in a civil war well into its third year, must be punished for what Washington says was a poison gas attack on rebel areas that killed over 1,400 people on 21 August.
The president surprised friends and foes alike by turning to Congress for approval, delaying any US response. His national security adviser, in comments that may reflect some of the arguments Obama will deploy to win over doubters, said that an eventual failure to attack would boost Washington’s other foes.
“We cannot allow terrorists bent on destruction, or a nuclear North Korea, or an aspiring nuclear Iran, to believe for one minute that we are shying away from our determination to back up our longstanding warnings," national security adviser Susan Rice said on Monday.
Asked by a reporter during a visit to London whether there was anything Assad’s government could do or offer to stop a US military strike, Kerry answered:
“Sure. He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week—turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting. But he isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done."
The state department later said Kerry had been making a rhetorical argument about the impossibility of Assad turning over chemical weapons, which Assad denies his forces used.
Russian Proposal
Less than five hours later, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said he had put what sounded like Kerry’s proposal to his visiting Syrian counterpart during talks in Moscow. And Walid al-Moualem said Damascus welcomed the Russian initiative—while not spelling out whether Syria would, or even could, comply.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has blocked the UN action against Assad and says Obama would be guilty of unlawful aggression if he launches an attack without the UN approval.
Lavrov said: “If the establishment of international control over chemical weapons ... makes it possible to avoid strikes, then we will immediately get to work with Damascus."
Shortly afterward, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon took up the same theme, saying that he might ask the Security Council to end its “embarrassing paralysis" over Syria and agree to act.
Asked about Lavrov’s proposal, Ban said: “I’m considering urging the Security Council to demand the immediate transfer of Syria’s chemical weapons and chemical precursor stocks to places inside Syria where they can be safely stored and destroyed."
Ban has warned against any action that lacks the approval of the world security body could worsen the situation in Syria.
UN chemical weapons inspectors were in Damascus at the time of the mass poisoning, which Assad and Putin have blamed on rebel forces. Ban said that if the evidence they were able to gather—after lengthy bargaining over their movements with Syrian officials—proved the use of toxins, the world must act.
Syria, which has never signed a global treaty banning the storage of chemical weapons, is believed to have large stocks of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agents—the actual use of which is banned by a 1925 treaty to which Damascus is a signatory.
White House officials made clear their scepticism of the workability of the Russian proposal. Syria is a battleground where access for foreign experts would be dangerous. And it would be very hard to verify whether all sites had been sealed.
Years of cat-and-mouse manoeuvring between the UN weapons inspectors and Saddam Hussein in neighbouring Iraq show how difficult it might be to enforce any arms control orders on a timetable that would satisfy Washington in the midst of a war.
Qassim Saadeddine, a rebel commander in northern Syria and a spokesman for the Supreme Military Council of Assad’s opponents, said: “It is a trap and deceitful manoeuvre by the Damascus regime and will do nothing to help the situation. They have tonnes of weapons hidden that would be nearly impossible for international inspectors to find."
Putin, however, would see major diplomatic advantages to any plan that bolstered Russia’s role in brokering international settlements and thwarted strikes in which Obama may have French military support, as well as broader sympathy among Western leaders and Arab governments hostile to Assad’s backer Iran.
The Russian proposal won a cautious welcome in public from both the British and French governments, Obama’s main European allies in the crisis. Obama’s former rival for the presidency, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, also said surrender of chemical weapons would be an “important step" for Syria.
Congressional Lobbying
Kerry spoke to Lavrov after his proposal, a US official said.
In Washington, US deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken said the US would take “a hard look" at the idea but that Congress should still approve a military action.
“It’s important to note that this proposal comes in the context of the threat of the US action and the pressure that the president is exerting," he said. “So it’s even more important that we don’t take the pressure off and that Congress give the president the authority he’s requested."
Kerry said he was confident of the evidence that the US and its allies had presented to support their case that Assad’s forces used poison gas, though he said he understood scepticism lingering from accusations against Saddam that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and later proved to be false.
Kerry, a former lawyer, said he had successfully prosecuted people with less evidence and warned that doing nothing was worse than doing something, saying inaction would come back to haunt the US and its allies: “If you want to send Iran and Hezbollah and Assad a congratulatory message: ‘You guys can do what you want,’ you’d say: ‘Don’t do anything.’
“We believe that is dangerous and we will face this down the road in some more significant way if we’re not prepared to take ... a stand now," Kerry said.
Obama planned six television interviews later on Monday and was to speak to lawmakers at the Capitol Hill on Tuesday before a televised address from the White House in the evening.
The Senate will hold a test vote on Wednesday.
A survey by the newspaper USA Today on Monday found majorities of both houses remained uncommitted.
Tapping into concerns in the West about the role of Islamist militants in the rebel forces, Syrian foreign minister Moualem said: “We are asking ourselves how Obama can ... support those who in their time blew up the World Trade Center in New York."
Assad himself warned of reprisals—if he were attacked Americans could “expect every action", he told CBS television.
Repercussions “may take different forms" and could include “instability and the spread of terrorism all over the region that will influence the West directly".
Brent crude oil futures sank more than 2% on Monday, as the prospect of a wider war in the Middle East appeared to recede into the future: “This has thrown some sand into the wheels of military preparation in the US," said Michael Lynch of Strategic Energy & Economic Research.
“At the very least, it means the debate is going to be stalled while we wait and see if it works out."
There is a chance now that a US-led military strike could be “put on hold and possibly deterred altogether".
Inside Syria, government forces launched an offensive to wrest back control of an historic Christian town north of Damascus on Monday, activists said. In the past six days, the town of Maaloula has already changed hands three times between Assad’s forces and rebels, some of whom are linked to al Qaeda. Reuters
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