Well of course:
The United States transmitted the text of the proposed agreement to the Russian government on Monday after weeks of negotiations and internal Obama administration deliberations, an administration official told me. The crux of the deal is a U.S. promise to join forces with the Russian air force to share targeting and coordinate an expanded bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, which is primarily fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Under the proposal, which was personally approved by President Obama and heavily supported by Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the American and Russian militaries would cooperate at an unprecedented level, something the Russians have sought for a long time.
And of course it is heavily supported by Kerry.
We help Russia bomb ISIL and other jihadi opponents of Assad, under the deal. Which helps Assad. And Iran.
And Russia stops bombing non-jihadi rebels. Which no longer helps Assad but which would still leave Assad free to bombard the rebels with artillery. Which on balance helps Assad. And Iran.
We get a signing ceremony with smiling Russian foreign minister Lavrov. Man, his performance bonuses must be spectacular. Which helps Russia. But not Iran, I suppose.
So, you know, bravo! You have to love the smell of nuance in the morning. It smells like ... Russian victory.
Kerry once compared Assad to Hitler and now Kerry is in the vanguard of saving Assad.
The revolution--as I predicted in September 2013--is nearly complete:
So Assad will survive. Russia will gain stature in the Middle East. Syrians will have died in large numbers in a failed revolution that will keep the people beaten down for another generation. Jihadis will scatter back to their homelands to sow mayhem. And other than a reputation for failing to oppose enemies, all we will have is a paper WMD disarmament deal (in English and French, so Kerry can read either one!) that the next president will still be trying to verify as completed.
The revolution will be over and we'll be back to where we started[.]
And this will be called smart diplomacy.
I really don't think that term means what they think it means.
UPDATE: There are consequences of this slow flip:
Many Turks believe Russia, Iran and the United States have formed a secret alliance to defeat the Syrian rebellion and do a lot of other evil stuff. Many Arabs believe the same thing and are convinced this is all part of a Western effort to destroy Islam.
Mind you, there's a lot of paranoid thinking that pushes all responsibility for local problems on outsiders--especially America and Israel--but we're making it easy for the paranoid fantasists.
