Russia Proposes Syrian Cooperation to Avoid U.S. Attack

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24022866

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?hp

Both of the above articles, one from "BBC" and the other from "The New York Times," give different accounts of the same event. 

Recently Secretary of State Kerry was asked if there were any measures Syria could take to avoid U.S. military intervention. Kerry responded that Assad could relinquish his entire chemical munitions stockpile within the week. Russia, taking advantage of his rhetoric, proposed just that: Syria submit all illicit chemical stockpiles for inspection and then eventual destruction. The articles raised several concerns which include the fact that Assad still denies possession of the Sarin gas used and the fact that this could merely be a ploy to distract President Obama from his already difficult task of swaying congressional approval. 

There are several key points to consider with this proposal. Both of the aforementioned concerns are valid and problematic. The first of them, Assad's denial of possession, is a large road block. There is more evidence that Assad does posses chemical munitions than not, such as the evidence procured by the U.S. and U.N. used in Kerry's earlier accusations, and the fact that Syria's major ally, Russia, has given no such denials. Assad is up to his neck if he really is guilty of chemical warfare, and even if there weren't so many logistical consequences of his actions to consider, after such vehement denials, it would be embarrassing to the dictator to procure the munitions. In short: Assad will probably want to save face more than he will be eager to deter American intervention and appease his allies. 

The second of them, the theory of ploy, is also valid. Russia's actions are shifty. This is the first real cooperative stance that Russia has taken on the issue since the Syrian business began. There are two prominent possible explanations to this sudden change of heart.

The first of which is that Russia is merely buying time for Assad to win the war or to secretly dispose of his chemical cache (or something else along those lines). Obama is struggling to win congressional approval, especially in the House of Representatives. If the vote on the issue was today, the House would almost assuredly vote against intervention, even if every representative who is currently undecided voted in the affirmative. Most all of the President’s efforts in the past weeks have been focused on intervention. If Russia continues to push for compromise and the strongest sentiment behind intervention continues to be the use of chemical weaponry, then the President would have to seriously consider the offer. If the President immediately denied what seemed to have been the nonviolent solution to the issue, then allegations of the U.S. being an imperialistic warmonger would have a lot more stick than they usually would. Russia could be counting on this to buy their ally the aforementioned time that it desperately needs.

The second explanation is that Russia is very afraid of the solidity of American intervention. With events like Iraq and Libya as examples, the chances of Syrian victory against the United States in a war, even one that only included the U.S. air force and navy, are next to none. Syria holds Russia’s last foreign military base and one of the best points of access Russia has to the oil-rich Mediterranean, so Russia has very large incentives for the current Syrian regime to remain in power. Short of entering war against the U.S., Russia encouraging their ally to relinquish their chemical weapons seems like the most plausible way to save Syria from America.

Plausibility of the solution aside, the fact that Russia is making cooperative moves is a good thing. Although Russia isn’t the threat it was when it was part of the USSR, it is still a major power house that is to be reckoned with and still harbors a fair amount of anti-American sentiment. Russia feels threatened by the United States in many ways by things such as its unrivaled military which occupies a fair amount of the globe and its economic standing in the world. The current President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in my opinion, is a scary man in regards to global stability. He is not proven himself to be a patient man when it comes to vocalized dissidence and the previous election still vaguely reeks of illegitimacy (not to mention is the physical epitome of a James Bond villain). It feels like he harbors some of that anti-American sentiment and a lot of the Syrian situation has aggravated that. So these recent actions are more comforting in regards to Russian-American relations.

As far as whether or not the U.S. should comply with the Russian proposal, time should be the judge. Russia may or may not pursue the proposal and depending on whether or not congress votes to support intervention, it may become the only available solution. I think Obama should continue his efforts to sway congress in favor of a limited involvement policy (“no boots on the ground”) and let the results of that determine with what seriousness we regard the Russians proposal.