If we're to meet the deadline of summer 2014 to de-fang Assad of chemical weapons, a lot of interim deadlines on moving loaded chemical weapons and raw material out of the country have to be met.
One relatively small task is finding someone in the sainted international community willing to host some ships while the chemical cargo is transferred to a ship equipped to destroy the chemicals while at sea. No problem for a job the world supports, right?
Wait. What?
The Obama administration's more immediate task is to find an allied government willing to allow the ship from Latakia to land at one its ports and unload the weapons before they're transferred to the Cape Ray. It would take roughly two days to load the weapons onto the American vessel, which means they'd need to be stored at the port temporarily, posing a potential security risk to the host country. Not surprisingly, it's been hard to convince a government to let a weapons-laden cargo ship unload at one of its ports. That makes it highly unlikely that the U.S. and its allies will be able to meet the Dec. 31 deadline, set by the OPCW, to remove Syria's chemical arsenal.
And you thought it was silly to think Assad might parlay this deal into portraying himself as our only reliable partner in this deal?
President Obama said "the world" (not him!) set a red line over Syrian chemical weapons use and likes to think he rallied the international community to scrap Assad's chemical warfare capability. The world doesn't seem to want any part of this effort.
And this is restoring our reputation abroad?
