Any citizen who wants to believe in peace needs to be joining in a collective sigh of relief right now.
For more than a week, America and much of the world have been rattled by a daily drumbeat for a military strike against Syria for the regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons on more than 1,400 of its own people in ongoing civil war.
As disagreement over a U.S.-led attack spread, among Congress as well as the American people, an 11th-hour option has emerged for a diplomatic solution. Tentative though it might be, this development is welcome.
Russia, of all countries, has emerged as the key broker of a proposal to put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control for subsequent removal then disposal; and have Syria adhere to the global Chemical Weapons Convention pact that bans the production, stockpiling and use of such weapons.
A resolution, drafted by France and approved by the U.S. and Britain, is expected to be submitted today to Russia and China’s United Nations delegations.
Syria was already agreeing to its Russian ally’s proposal. “We are ready to honor our commitments under this convention, including providing information about these weapons,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al Moallem said in Moscow.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry was to meet today with Russia’s foreign minister in Geneva, while President Barack Obama was to continue talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
All this movement in the right direction is encouraging, even as much skepticism remains. Among the precarious concerns:
>> Chemical weapons disposal is a difficult task, even under the best of circumstances. U.N. inspectors have overseen destruction of most of the world’s declared stockpiles under the Chemical Weapons Convention, since 1997. Syria never signed the treaty. It must.
>> How far to trust Russia’s Putin and Syria’s Bashar Assad, in all their ruthless machinations, to de-escalate this situation and ease the global threat of chemical weapons.
>> How to make enforcement of any of this a truly global responsibility. The international community and U.N. Security Council have failed to step up in the past week while tensions ratcheted; they need to now.
Indeed, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday denounced “our collective failure to prevent atrocity crimes in Syria over the past two and a half years,” but expressed hope that the “current discussions related to safeguarding Syria’s chemical weapon stocks will lead to the Security Council playing an effective role in promoting an end to the Syrian tragedy.”
The diplomatic opening gives Obama and war-weary Americans a reprieve, putting off a congressional vote authorizing a U.S. military strike in Syria, a vote that likely would have failed.
Public opinion polls were holding consistently about 60-40 percent against a strike, with many questioning the U.S.’s purpose, intervention and muddled outcomes. Even so, the use of force should be an option to compel Syria to abide by the upcoming plan.
As Obama said in his televised address Tuesday: ”If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons. As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas” and using it.
There have been no good choices for Obama since the “red line” of chemical weapons use was crossed in Syria on Aug. 21. Inelegant as the path was leading to this point, the United States — indeed, the many nations involved — now have a slim diplomatic way out of a volatile situation; all need to muster the will to take it.
