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Syrian Gov't Agrees To Russian Chem-Weapon Turnover Plan
CNN reports that at least for now we may be able to set aside the question of whether and under what authority the U.S. should intervene militarily in Syria, a question that's dominated the news for the last few weeks. From the report:
"Facing the threat of a U.S. military strike, the country's leaders Tuesday reportedly accepted a Russian proposal to turn over its chemical weapons. ... The development, reported by Syrian state television and Russia's Interfax news agency, came a day after the idea bubbled up in the wake of what appeared to be a gaffe by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. It quickly changed the debate in Washington from 'Should the U.S. attack?' to 'Is there a diplomatic way out of this mess?' Syrian Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said Tuesday his country had agreed to the Russian proposal after what Interfax quoted him as calling 'a very fruitful round of talks' with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday. Details of such a transfer have yet to be worked out, such as where the arms would go, who would safeguard them and how the world could be sure Syria had handed over its entire stockpile of chemical weapons."
I wonder what Assad will get in return. I suppose more tanks is better than continued nerve gas attacks.
"Speak softly and carry a big stick."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
What are they negotiating the turn-over of, from their perspective?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is Western rules of war! Pain and suffering must only be of a certain TYPE!
BUY LOCKHEED. BUY BOEING.
First they protect a whistle-blower, then they work on getting chemical weapons out of Syria without causing hundreds of thousands of collateral casualties. Yet again Russia is working toward the moral high ground. If they just let up on homosexuals then my cold war anti-communism schooling will begin to unravel.
It's hard to see how this isn't a huge win for Putin. Russia gains even more influence in Syria for stopping a US attack. Obama looks weak and indecisive.
Of course the biggest winner is Syria, which doesn't get bombed. And odds are, they'll get their chem weapons back once the story dies down.
I wouldn't say that they have agreed to a plan. A plan is something with details and some notion of how, in this case, they are going to effectively assert and trust that all weapons and precursors have been handed over (when most of it all is mobile, so that they can be moved around and hidden more easily). It would have details about how you either secure everything in place...in the middle of a war zone...or how you safely move them (again, through a war zone) to be destroyed elsewhere. It bears pointing out that the destruction of chemical weapon stockpiles at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was a horrifically difficult and lengthy undertaking, and that was in the midst of a safe, secure and highly industrialized nation. There is no way anyone has come up with an acceptable plan in so short a timeframe as this; I've read that there has been some planning around how to seize and secure (with armed forces) some of the chemical warfare assets should the need and opportunity arise, but that's a very different animal than what is being discussed here, as that is predicated by a general cessation of the civil war currently under way.
What Syria has agreed to is a concept, not a plan. And even then they may only be banking on the idea that coming up with a true plan to accomplish the stated objectives will be next to impossible, just to buy themselves more time and perhaps even get the notion of military strikes to die out altogether.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Have them agree to be bombed if they are found to have any remaining chemical weapons after the turn-over.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
I think it's important to remember how Assad played Kofi Annan for a chump for weeks near the beginning of this conflict. The whole time, he kept everybody talking, dangling the bait of a peaceful solution- some compromise - while he was using tanks on protesters that were overwhelmingly peaceful, and at worst lightly armed and totally disorganized.
He may well be doing the same thing now. He has masterfully played the hand he was dealt with delays, and a gradual escalation of tactics and brutality, essentially boiling the frog of public opinion to avoid any one escalation that yields a response. Dictators for decades will study this. I watched the interview last night with Charlie Rose, and I'm pretty convinced that Putin is probably the only major world leader who'd have a chance against this guy in a poker game.
Oh John Kerry you really botched that one didn't you LOL!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUJTarxfZ6M
I want to high five the reporter that asked that question. Holy shit. A single question be a single reporter possibly changing the course of an entire war. Not every day you see that.
When considering a response to the use of poison gas in Syria, the U.S. has several choices available to it.
1. Do nothing. This is the least desirable option for most Americans, whether or not they believe we should bomb. A majority prefer some kind of response.
2. Assuming that gas was used on Assad's orders, punish him by dropping bombs on something important to him, but being careful not to hurt him so badly that his regime fails and Al Qaeda-backed forces assume power.
3. Resolve the situation diplomatically. Use third parties to pressure Assad to turn over his chemical weapons arsenal to international control.
A strong case can be made that options 1 and 2 are the least likely to achieve a desirable outcome. That leaves option 3, which as of last Monday has a real chance of happening. The most reasonable course of action appears to be laid out before us. The time is now for Obama to think out of the box, have the courage to reconsider his strategy and show the world that he really did deserve his Nobel Peace Prize.
That's easy. Putin will be having sex with fully armed and operational chemical weapons. It's sort of what he does. No PR machine needed.
A couple weeks ago, all the anti-U.S. people on Slashdot said that Syria had no chemical weapons
They said no such thing. The fact that Syria has chemical weapons was never in doubt.
Why is not wanting to go to war in Syria considered anti-US? More than half the house of representatives seem to not want to go to war in Syria.
Nobody knows what happened, for sure, or who used the weapons, Assad, or the Rebels, but I actually don't care. It shouldn't involve the US's military.
And because I don't think anyone who wasn't there knows who did what, and even if someone did, because I have no way of vetting their investigations/spin, I have to go with what was my first guess based on who stands to gain. I think likely some Syrian govt. CW depot was captured by the Rebels, or someone in the Syrian military with access to CW, defected to the Rebels, or a Rebel sympathizer in the Syrian military who had not defected officially fired the CW in order to get the US and pals to intervene on the Rebel's behalf.
It only makes sense that the Rebels bombed themselves.
The US shouldn't be anyone's tool.
Also - Syria under Assad is in the US's interest. Having Assad there as a threat gives the US leverage over Saudi Arabia and others in the area who open the oil spigots whenever the US calls because the US is important in protecting themselves from the Assad/Iraq/Iran axis. Assad/Iraq/Iran, aren't the buddies of the US, which means the US isn't liable in a P.R. way for any damage they do, but they could only do real damage with US complicity. This makes them the US's mafia muscle in the area. If the US got rid of Assad, it would be like icing it's own hitman.
Who will pay for protection without the muscle?
And Europe wants a pipeline from SA through Syria so it isn't as dependent on Russian oil. And SA wants the added customers in Europe which BTW would help it thumb it's nose at the US.
How is getting rid of Assad good for the US again?
...
A couple weeks ago, all the anti-U.S. people on Slashdot said that Syria had no chemical weapons
[citation needed]
From what I've seen, nobody's saying they don't have chemical weapons - the point of contention is whether or not it was the Syrian government who used chemical weapons in the attacks, because A) there's evidence that indicates it was actually some rebel group (probably Al Queda) who did it, and B) the US government is not a credible source in this regard, especially when they want to start the fight before evidence is process, all the while claiming that their rationale for war is classified Super Cereal Secret Squirrel.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Syria has never denied having chemical weapons. They have repeatedly and quite openly stated that they have them. What they denied was USING them on their own people.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Sounds like the Whizzo Chocolate Company is expanding into pastries?
Did I fall asleep for a week? When did the Syrian government claim they had no chemical weapons?
I think, perhaps, you're confusing the terms "have" and "used."
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I don't think anyone outside fruitcake-land (though God knows there are enough of them) seriously thought that Syria didn't have chemical weapons. What has been the subject of ferocious debate is whether Syria has used chemical weapons.
So far the evidence is unclear, IMO. There have been six alleged incidents. Five of them were relatively small and not very well documented and it would be very hard to say from the direct evidence presented who carried out the attacks, if they happened at all.
The sixth attack, in Ghouta, on 21 August, is rather a different matter. Video footage which can be fairly reliably linked to the attack shows a large scale rocket attack, hundreds of dead and injured people and the attack definitely happened in the course of a Syrian Army attack. So either someone sneaked into the Syrian Army lines with a rocket launcher (more likely a number of them) and fired a series of rockets into the same area the army was already bombarding, or the rockets were launched by the Syrian Army.
The first theory is not entirely incredible. The fighting seems to have been in urban areas with lots of civilians around, so it would perhaps be possible, with a bit of luck and a lot of planning, to get the necessary equipment to the right place for a rebel group to launch this sort of attack. The usual objection to this sort of 'false flag' attack is that it involves a group attacking their own people, but this is not necessarily the case in Syria - the rebels are very disparate and some groups probably hate each other as much as they hate the government. The motive could even be simple revenge on another rebel group, though if that were the case then it seems unlikely that they would try to make the army look responsible.
All in all, it seems pretty likely that the attack at Ghouta, at least, was real and was carried out by the Syrian Army. But how anyone can "know" the truth of that in this situation is beyond me.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
Securing chemical weapons sites in a civil war zone where people shoot at UN inspectors.
Now, there's some interesting logistics.
Add to that the possibility that some has already been stolen and at least one of the sites is under regular rebel attack.
So, we have a "red line" comment that had unintended consequences. That's now followed by an offhand comment by the Secretary of State that had unintended consequences, and the two just might cancel the worst of each other's damage out.
Ike Eisenhower once said: "I'll take a lucky general over a smart general."
I think it goes double for national leaders and diplomats.
In a further development, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin said the Russian president had discussed the weapons handover plan with Obama at last week’s G-20 summit.
So according to Russia, at least, this didn't come out of nowhere. It's been planned for a little bit. The reporter may have even been a planted question, a trial balloon for the official announcement.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Why do you think these people are the "anti-US" crowd?
It's in the best interests of the US to stay out since it's a loss both ways - a vile regime which the US and Israel dislike but the US has some history with and rebels that are most certainly no friends of the US and have connections with terrorist groups that have killed US Marines and others. Which dog to pick in the fight? That mad, bad and dangerous regime that was so handy with "extreme rendition" when US agencies wanted to pretend someone else was doing the torture, or a bunch that include people that chant "Death to America"?
What are you on about? Obama is an international hero for getting Putan to agree to the plan by having Kerry pretend he was going rogue. Obama's a super genius!
Sure, except for the fact that nobody has been able to explain how the rebels managed to get their hands on chemical weapons in order to launch the attack. Short of manufacturing them they would have had to have gotten them from a Syrian storehouse that fell into their hands in which case it makes sense for the Syrian government to want to wash their hands free of them.
Of course Syria agreed to the Russian proposal. Russia and Syria are huge allies, and Russia has had bases (not sure if they still do) there in the past. In all likelihood, Putin spoke to Assad and negotiated all of this out before he announced his plan, to make sure Assad would agree to it. Think about it: this agreement hurts the image of the US by making them look militaristic and warlike, makes Russia look good, and ensures that Assad stays in power (and makes him look reasonable). Assad doesn't care if he loses his chemical stockpile: he can kill the rebels just fine using guns, and if he keeps the issue murky enough it can never proved whether or not he actually used the chemical weapons. He loses the strategic protection afforded by possessing a stockpile of chemical weapons, but he has Russia as a strategic partner to back him up if things ever get bad. It is a win-win for both Russia and Syria, and a net loss for the US (though probably not as bad had the US taken unilateral action in Syria).
The Cold War really is ratcheting back up. Assad's just the tool, his ultimate goal is to stay in power: as long as that happens, he wins. Russia's goal is to make the US look bad as much as possible (this, Snowden, etc), which bolsters their image both domestically as well as internationally (this would lead to increased arms exports, economic opportunities, and of course political influence). This is all a game: the US uses Syria to divert attention away from domestic issues like the NSA spying while Russia uses the increased attention to basically play the US and make out like the good guy.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I don't think Assad actually did such suicidal step. He might be quite brutal dictator but he and his regime certainly have self preservation instinct. Otherwise he would be overthrown long time ago. My suspicion is that this horrible act was actually done by rebels^H^H^H^H^Hal-Quaeda as act of desperation. Assad regime that has strong motive to avoid such thing at all costs. It was clearly winning this war since taking over Qusair in June this year. Assad army was basically mopping up remaining rebel groups. Carla de Ponte, UN chief inspector digging through Syria CW issues said all things indicate rebels are behind August attack in Damascus, pretty much the same as in Aleppo case, April this year. But (surprise! surprise!) - since she said that, approx. two weeks ago, all mentions of UN Syria inspection magically disappeared from US mainstream media ! And even now, when Russians basically did 'check mate' to US administration, virtually everyone in the sane world is against intervention (except for Israel, Saudi Arabia and some EU politicians paying lip service to their US masters^H^H^H^H^Hcounterparts but passively resisting), Kerry and friends are still in warmongering binge, indicating his 'ultimatum' Syria accepted was "rhetorical". Overthrowing table after getting check-mate doesn't look good.
My take is this: United States is desperately trying to do a regime change in Syria, regardless of human costs. They basically don't give a crap about civilian casualties and if you don't believe, ask some Libyans how are they since being "liberated" (there are still full fledged atrocities and cleansings in Libya with thousands upon thousands civilian casualties, yet your lovely corporate media "forgot" reporting about this - which is expected, by the way). CW issue was a convenient pretext, yet as it just has fallen apart, your Noble Prize War Monger In Chief will invent another pretext soon. Expect more drastic provocations. Like, for example, rebels attacking targets in Israel, shooting sarin shells from Syria territory and Israel immediately bombing the hell out of Damascus before rest of the world gets aware what's going on (so no diplomacy will be possible to derail invasion plan).
Are you wondering why on Earth Obama would think it's a good idea to bomb Syria, when Libya was such a disaster? I'll give you a hint: both countries are non-members of the WTO, with state-owned banking systems. So is Iran.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/making_the_world_safe_for_banksters_syria_in_the_cross-hairs_20130905/
The people who financed Obama's elections -- and who are the only folks for whom he's been a good president -- are the ones who have the most to gain by regime change in Syria.
My suspicion is that this horrible act was actually done by rebels
I agree that - given the tiny bit of information we are working with - that is also a reasonable possibility.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'm concerned primarily with the last point:
...how the world could be sure Syria had handed over its entire stockpile
If Assad makes a big show of turning over his stockpile, but manages to hang onto some anyway, he'll have a good alibi if another attack occurs.
Slashdot is not a game, Slashdot is not a game. Crap, I just lost points.
Russia most likely sold them the chemical weapons in the first place.
Probably offered them a discount on the next batch of biological weapons or something if they go along with this time wasting (deliberately) measure.
Win / win for Russia and a Win for Assad in that he gets the ROW off his ass for awhile and can keep beating on his civilians.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
See the PNAC document, written before Bush Jr got into office. It outlines some of the reasons and all their plans to conquer the middle east. We've been following that plan since 2000 when Bush got into office. I practically memorized it.
Whomever is in charge - it's not us... because both parties are following the plans. Afghanistan was #1 on the list (yes, years before 9/11,) Iraq #2 and Syria was #3. We even started to build to invade fairly early into Iraq but some deals were made... So now for some reason we've decided the deal is off and we'll go back to our original plans. Iran is #4. You'd think we'd be pushing harder on Iran... but you just watch after Syria meets our demands (which is not WMD) the Iran situation will get much worse.
What surprises me is that these plans are so old and despite the world changing we are basically following the same plans (true, the motives haven't changed.) North Korea is #5 on the list; it was pre-nuclear so I wonder after we level Iran if they'll keep with the plan and just how they'll pull it off.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Kickstart WWIII
Duh. It's a great situation for America. We maintain the stalemate. Discreetly supplying whichever side is losing at the moment with enough weapons to restore balance. See also Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm wondering if the reported strong disagreement between Obama and Putin at the G20 was after private talks where they decided to play bad cop/good cop....
mark
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/is-cbs-reporter-margaret-brennan-responsible-for-current-proposal-on-syria/
Is CBS Reporter Margaret Brennan Responsible for Current Proposal on Syria?
by Andrew Kirell | 12:09 pm, September 10th, 2013 VIDEO
It was one of those moments for which every journalist strives. A simple question posed to a public figure led to a major shift in policy.
When CBS correspondent Margaret Brennan asked Secretary of State John Kerry if there is anything Bashar al-Assad‘s Syrian regime could do or offer that would stop a U.S. military strike, she likely did not expect for Kerry to respond with the “hypothetical” heard ’round the world.
“He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week,” Kerry responded, seemingly in jest. “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.”
Obviously it can’t be done and is not worth considering, right? After all, the State Department clarified that his statement was a “hypothetical.” Except, later that day, Kerry’s off-the-cuff remark became the foundation for a major Russian proposal: Assad hands over his chemical weapons stockpile to the international community and the U.S. military strikes.
Hours later, President Obama conceded to NBC News that this new Russian proposal-via-offhand-Kerry-remark could represent “a significant breakthrough,” signaling a shift in U.S. policy from trying to obtain congressional approval for military strikes to a U.N. Security Council resolution involving the overturning of chemical weapons.
While major questions remain as to whether Syria could realistically hand over chemical weapons stockpiles while in the midst of a bloody civil war; or whether this proposal represents a stalling by all sides until the next Assad “red line”-crossing; this much is clear: A single question from a tough-minded journalist provoked a bumbling remark from a major policy official — a remark that has, for the time being, significantly altered the course of this ongoing tension and effectively delayed the use of American military assets against the Syrian regime.
Take note, aspiring journalists.
Watch Brennan’s history-making exchange with Kerry below, as captured raw by CNBC:
So Obama and John Kerry basically make off the cuff remarks that get us into this entire situation. So we're to believe their unwitting idiots? This seems a lot like GW Bush's tactic of looking like a bumpkin to distract people from whatever unpopular thing he was doing. Is there anything going on right now that they'd want to distract us from? Like... the NSA? The Budget? The Economy? Come on, does anyone really think they give 2 shits about Syria? Or a better question, why do they care more about Syria than the Congo... where a hell of a lot more people are being killed.
That doesn't make sense either, if Obama wanted to attack Syria, he more excuse to do so than he did in Libya, because the war has bled over into our ally country of NATO (Turkey). There is no real good way to explain the actions of the Obama administration. Overall the actions of the administration seem misdirected and incompetent.
Which is the worst part of the entire situation. Even if you favor getting rid of Assad, do you really want an incompetent administration to go around flinging a giant weapon? It's like the Iraq war, I fully opposed the Iraq war, but even then, I'm willing to admit that if Bush 1 or Clinton had been engaging that war, it would have gone off a lot better.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Isreal could stand to gain...but depending which rebel faction would rise to the top afterwords, it could be a loss. A nice western-puppet though...
Interesting definition of full rights.
I saw an article today that suggests that this may have actually came up at the G20:
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/10/20416189-obama-agrees-to-un-discussion-of-russia-proposal-on-syria-chemical-weapons?lite
In a further development, a spokesman for Putin said the Russian president had discussed the weapons handover plan with Obama at last week’s G-20 summit.
What I don't get is that when rebels had momentum, they did not use chemical weapons. Now that the rebels are losing ground and the Asad military machine is winning and gaining grounds, they go ahead and use chemical agents.
Personally, it doesn't add up. IMO, the most to gain with this show was actually the rebels. Nonetheless, politics played by Putin and Asad turned this into an advantage, once they hand over the weapons, the regime can crush the rebellion in the most brutal way followed by negotiating a peace on their terms (we can hope can't we).
Personally, I would support the devil I know, i.e. the Asad regime. The other devil have significant extremist elements, aka al-qaeda.
You were alive in '45? Idiot.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Why does everyone assume that the rebels are hostile to the US? I mean the FSA, and obviously not al Qaeda or MB franchises like al Nusra.
God knows what that warmonger Romney will do!!!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/biden-on-romne-in-2012-ready-for-war-with-syria
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Peacefully/diplomatically
There is a gap the size of the Formosan Straight between "non-military" and "peaceful", and everyone involved knows that the Superweapon that will be deployed in the upcoming conflict is Money.
As far as I can tell, the KMT's main plan is to play for time and hope the PRC becomes more democratic as it develops, while developing tourism and cultural exchange with the general public of the Mainland. This reduces the risk of an open conflict and has allowed for a diplomatic "cease-fire" (where the PRC has slowed -- but not stopped -- its efforts to diplomatically isolate Taiwan and exclude it from international organizations). On the downside, the strategy also puts Taiwan in ever-increasing danger of being economically absorbed, and the PRC knows and takes advantage of this.
The DPP's strategy seems to favor edging towards an independent identity, going just far enough each time to trigger the PRC into counter-productive retaliations that alarm the international community, and reduce already-low opinion of the PRC government both domestically and abroad. Seeing as how the PRC usually takes the bait, it's a dangerous game with a lot of potential economic consequences. It also causes big political headaches for the US, which in principle supports Taiwan, but probably would like to pay as little of an economic and military cost as possible in doing so.
The idea behind the chemical weapon aversion AFAIK is that unlike bullets-- which are great on a battlefield-- chemical weapons have a tendency to be at least as damaging to the civilian populations as they are to the military, and often moreso.
More like the problem that it turns warfare into an exercise in Pest Control. Quite literally -- nerve gas is just pesticide tuned for the human nervous system.
The idealized version of warfare is one which you have a conflict that ends with 1 Army functional, 1 Army broken, and 2 Civilian populations relatively intact. In practice it doesn't happen quite that way, but our International Conventions are intended to try to keep it as close as possible to this ideal.
With Chemical Warfare taken to its extreme, the outcome is a war in which you end up with 2 opposing Armies remaining, but each with zero Civilian populations left to defend.
That's the choice really. We recently had a leader who was all about pouring out a Bajillion Dollars on desert sand, to look Strong and Decisive.
Now all we have to do is put up with one willing to look "weak and indecisive" to save us a Bajillion Dollars on another patch of desert sand. I don't have a problem with that.
Russians might be saying this just to play nice and let Obama with Kerry keep their face.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
Why? Many reasons.
To reduce support for Hezbollah.
To drive up oil prices now that they're producing more and even thinking of exporting oil.
To take out one of the few nations that isn't part of the international banking cartel.
To "improve security" for Israel.
To take away one of Russia's last "partners" on the international stage. I might be remembering wrong, but I think Russia was using Syria for air bases in a similar fashion to US-Turkey.
Need I go on?
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Why is such a great question " what action by Assad could possibly prevent an attack?" be considered a blunder ?
It is a standard and classic question to test if somebody is honest in the reasoning.
"What will it take to change your mind ?"
If somebody answers "nothing" you know they don't believe in their words
And while Saudi Arabia and the United States have been supplying money and weapons to the "opposition", of which Al Queda makes up a powerful faction, including guys who cut the hearts out of enemy soldiers and munch on them.
Then you saw him make perfectly reasonable points, like why would he use chemical weapons right next to his own troops the day weapons inspectors arrive, or why the American's aren't thundering over Israel's WMD arsenal while they're at it. You know, since they're the one regional power that has indisputably used chemical weapons, when they dumped phosphorus on Gaza.
Many options here.
1. Manufacture them (sarin is not hard to make). It's actually the delivery system that's the trickier part of this.
2. Get them from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or any other state that has discreetly supplied rebels with weapons so far.
1+2. Manufacture sarin locally and get the delivery system from one of the listed countries.
3. From an overrun Syrian army storehouse, as you have rightly pointed out.
4. Smuggled from Iraq or Libya.
I would assume that any deal that'll be brokered would include the rebels - i.e. they would have to permit inspectors and enforcers on their territory, as well. We'll see if they sign up for that or not.
I don't think anyone outside fruitcake-land (though God knows there are enough of them) seriously thought that Syria didn't have chemical weapons.
I don't think you need to account for any exceptions, actually. I mean, Syria did not sign the Chemical Weapons Convention for a reason, and that was not exactly a secret.
That would not help Russia getting rid of their chemical weapon stockpile, something they agreed to do in a convention from 1992 on the possession of chemical weapons (The 1925 convention bans the use but not the creation and possession). But this is not a big problem, since US is also late on this agenda, with a lot of remaining chemical weapons that should already have been discarded.
Because some of them are associated with the attempted attack on the US embassy in Syria a few years ago.
Hypocrisy defined. What about the U.S. chemical weapons policy? http://www.monbiot.com/2013/09/09/obamas-rogue-state/
Definitely.
I also believe the reporter asking that question was planted. I believe that the US wanted a way to save face, perhaps because they understood that Russia and other nations is not going to "let this one slip".
You can even see the way Kerry responds, and how he adds "but that's not going to happen, obviously" and body language etc.
USA wanted to save face so they are not shown as weak. Afterwards they also went out to say that it was a mistake etc. It's obvious.