Putin says that he can't guarantee that Assad will give up all his chemical weapons (tip to Instapundit):
"I don't know whether we will manage to persuade" Syrian President Bashar Assad to go along with the plan, Putin said at the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual Russian political forum. "Up to now everything looks as if Syria completely agreed with our plan.... But I can't say whether we will manage to complete the process by 100%."
And just to really rub President Obama's nose in the mess he made of the Syria crisis, Putin prepares to blame the Jews for such a failure:
Putin implied that the prospects for peace and chemical weapons disarmament in Syria would be bolstered if Israel gave up its own suspected cache of nuclear arms, believed to be the only such arsenal in the Middle East.
And the AP concludes the deal Russia organized is just buys time for Assad's survival, anyway:
AP Analysis: US-Russia Syria deal props up Assad
Ya think?
And in the bonus style point count, we've not only made it more likely that Assad could win, but if he doesn't win we made it more likely that the jihadis will be the winners:
For Syria's divided and beleaguered rebels, the creeping realization that there will not be a decisive Western military intervention on their behalf is a huge psychological blow.
For the jihadis, who are on a mission from Allah, the lack of US support isn't a big deal. But for the more acceptable rebels who aren't religious fanatics--the side we're supposed to be on, I should emphasize--this is a big deal. Sure, in the West we saw the pending mission as "unbelievably small" strikes, but the rebels just saw American planes and missiles finally dishing some death out to Assad's forces. Now they won't get that.
Our State Department disputes the notion that the deal is a life line for Assad:
Marie Harf, deputy spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, sought to debunk such accusations.
"Clearly the regime has responsibilities here ... mainly the responsibility to acknowledge their weapons and the stockpiles, and to provide security for inspectors to actually inspect them and ultimately remove them for destruction," she said this week in Washington.
"But that doesn't mean Assad gets to stay."
That's not what Russia thinks. That's not what Iran thinks. That's not what Assad thinks. And that's not what the rebels we'd mostl like to win think. But our State Department begs to differ.
Talk to me about that when arms start reaching acceptable rebels to let them know we really didn't hang them out to dry.
Or does our administration--five years in--really have no clue about how to identify friend from foe?
