After the Obama administration’s all-out push for a limited military strike against the Assad Regime for using chemical weapons to slaughter more than 1,400 of its own people to hold on to power, Syria now says that it will surrender all its stockpiles of chemical weapons to international control and destroy them.
This surprising position came shortly after Assad would not even confirm nor deny in an interview that Syria has stockpiles of chemical weapons.
The Syrian dictator even went on to warn that Syria would retaliate, should the United States carry out a missile strike in his country.
Pundits say this opening for a possible diplomatic solution to the Syria crisis resulted from a response by State Sec. John Kerry in a press conference in London, if there was anything President Bashar al-Assad of Syria could do or offer that would stop an attack.
Sec. 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 a full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.”
Somebody jumped in to grab the Kerry suggestion. It was in fact Syria’s closest ally Russia that called on the Assad regime to place Syrian chemical arsenals under international control, then destroy them to avert a US strike.
“Syria welcomes the Russian proposal out of concern for the lives of the Syrian people, the security of our country and because it believes in the wisdom of the Russian leadership that seeks to avert American aggression against our people,” said Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said during a visit to Moscow, where he held talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.
As the Associated Press reported, this statement by the Syrian Foreign Minister appeared to mean that diplomatic efforts to end Syria’s 2 and-a-half-year civil war were gaining momentum.
But according to the US State Department, it remains to be seen whether it represented a genuine goodwill gesture by Syria or simply an attempt by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to buy more time to prepare for a US military attack.
We recall that US Ambassador Samantha Power accused Russia of holding the UN Security Council “hostage” by blocking against Syria.
Ambassador Power contends that the problem lies in the structure of the Security Council, which lets four major nations hold veto power — Russia, the United States, China, France and Britain.
According to Power, Russia has consistently used its veto power to block action against President Bashar Assad’s regime.
This dramatic development unfolded a day before President Barack Obama’s primetime speech to the American people, to talk about the imminent limited military action against the Assad dictatorship in Syria, and the ongoing push of the Obama administration to get consensus among US lawmakers to endorse the planned strike against Syria.
“I think what we’re seeing is that a credible threat of a military strike from the United States, supported potentially by a number of other countries around the world, has given them pause and makes them consider whether or not they would make this move,” Obama told NBC News.
“And if they do, then this could potentially be a significant breakthrough. But we have to be skeptical because this is not how we have seen them operate over the last couple of years.”
“It’s possible, if it’s real,” Obama said in an interview with CNN, regarding Russia’s proposal that Syria put its stockpiles of chemical weapons under international supervision and destroy them eventually.
“It’s certainly a positive development,” the Commander-in-Chief said, but stressed that the threat of American force would remain. Obama believes it is this threat of attack against Syria which has made this new diplomatic solution possible.
“And we don’t want just a stalling or delaying tactic to put off the pressure that we have on there right now,” Obama added.
Heading towards the President’s speech, CNN/ORC polls released last Monday found Americans strongly opposed to attacking Syria.
Of the 1,022 people polled between Friday and Sunday, 59 percent said Congress should not authorize military action, and 72 percent said American strikes would achieve no significant goals.
President Obama said he understood the sentiments of the American people about the planned attack in Syria. “If you ask Michelle, Obama said in an interview, “Do we– do we want to be involved in another war? The answer is no.”
This is why Obama said he is open to and will always prefer diplomatic means to send the message to Syria and other rogue countries like Iran and North Korea — that it is important for all countries to abide by international laws and norms which ban the use of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
“I’m taking this vote in Congress and what the American people are saying very seriously,” Obama told NBC News.
“I knew by bringing this to Congress there was a risk that the American people just could not arrive at a consensus even around a limited strike,” he added.
“It’s my belief that for me, the president, to act without consensus in a situation where there’s not a direct, imminent threat to the homeland or our interests around the world, that that’s not the kind of precedent I want to set,” Obama pointed out.
However, more hawkish Americans are already criticizing President Obama for sending the message that he may not carry out the planned military strike against Syria. They argue that this weakens the position of America in its fight against dictators like Assad, and on the war vs terrorism.
What do you think? Should the US trust Russia and Syria? Obama drop the plan to strike Syria and just pursue the diplomatic solution being proposed by Russia and Syria?
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
