Assad isn't moving poison gas to their ports for transport out of Syria where they will be destroyed, and so missed a deadline. We seem confused:
“This is not a process where you wait for a sunny day and then get it all done. You need to get moving,” the [senior State Department] official said. He said U.S. officials were “not ready to ascribe a political motive” to the delays, acknowledging that Syria faced security challenges in moving the chemicals across rebel-contested territory.
“On the other hand, they have moved these materials a number of times before, and we think they could get moving on this again,” he said.
Harf noted that the Assad regime accepted responsibility for safely transporting the chemicals after agreeing in September to voluntarily surrender its estimated 1,000 metric tons of mustard gas and highly lethal nerve agents. The agreement followed a U.S. threat to launch air strikes to punish Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians.
“We expect them to meet that obligation. That’s the next step in this process,” Harf said.
The humor value is immense here.
One, I like the sequence of our threatened "unbelievably small" strikes and then agreement as if it was cause and effect.
Two, I really enjoy the sophistication of believing that Assad considers the "process" to be one of chemical weapons removal rather than a process of regime salvation.
So expect Assad to delay things if he thinks he needs more time. There will always be security challenges and technical issues that can be blamed rather than "political" motives. We have trained diplomats wise in the ways of wordcraft, after all.
Happy new year.
UPDATE: Thanks to Stones Cry Out for the link.
