I Mean, Who Could Have Predicted the Utter Failure of Our Syria WMD Deal?

As Assad looks like he could survive the rebellion, the jihadis thrive to the point of expanding into Iraq, and the non-jihadi rebels of Syria are left to wither and die, let's recall what I said about the Syria chemical weapons deal at the time.

Bonus quote from the State Department's Marie Harf before I comprehended what an insufferable dolt she is.

Eliminating Syria's chemical weapons--if Syria actually declared all their chemical weapons and raw materials to make chemical weapons (recall that these raw materials count as chemical weapons for lauding the Syria deal but don't count for Iraq, which had no chemical weapons capability according to the critics of the war)--is a useful objective if we intervene against Assad.

But if the deal just bought time for Assad to defeat his enemies (and make ISIL seem like a worse enemy than him), Assad could rebuild his arsenal (modernizing it in the process, obviously).

Say, what about those facilities?

The OPCW also announced that the 12 former chemical weapons production facilities in Syria would be placed beyond use. Seven hangars would be razed to the ground, it said, while five underground structures would be sealed off permanently.

They "would be" disabled? They would be if Assad allows it.

Do recall that ISIL captured an old Saddam chemical weapons facility in Iraq where old weapons (unusable, according to the press reports) were stored. Why wasn't this facility disabled by now? Are we really sure that the Syria facilities will truly be made unusable before Assad terminates the deal, having wrung as much out of our pause in helping rebels as he can?