I wondered if we'd managed to turn the Kerry-Lavrov deal on Syria's chemical weapons into a victory by engineering the removal of the weapons long before we could destroy them by the mid-2014 deadline--by which time the moderate rebels of Syria could well be dead, as Assad is counting on.
But it isn't as good as I hoped:
A Danish-led task force was being readied in Cyprus on Saturday to remove the first part of Syria's deadly chemical stockpile, due before the end of this year. ...
Denmark and Norway plan to use two cargo vessels to transport the cargo out of the Syrian port city of Latakia, escorted by two frigates of their respective navies, and deliver it to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for destruction.
Ah, it isn't everything. Which will allow Assad to string out the process as long as he possibly can to buy time to defeat the moderate rebels and leverage the role of jihadis into a Western acceptance that Assad is the lesser of two evils.
Yes indeed, Assad is managing to become the enemy of our enemy.
Think about it. Assad is the one who pulled off a Potomac Awakening to flip us to his side! And this despite his slaughter of his own people, including with chemical weapons!
I'm in freaking awe of Assad's diplomacy. At this rate, Assad will share the Nobel-fricking Peace Prize with a stiffly smiling John Kerry (who will actually believe he deserves the prize).
But of course, we have to be able to sail the chemical weapons somewhere unless we want those Danish and Norwegian ships to become a modern New York garbage barge.
Maybe the Danes and Norwegians should have inquired about the progress on opening Yucca Mountain, eh?
Bravo, Assad. Although to be fair, the degree of difficulty against our "best and brightest" is pretty low.
