I hope you've never been in this situation, but maybe you have. You've messed up so badly that no one reputable will help you out, and you're forced to turn to, er, unconventional sources of assistance. They'll give you what you need. But boy, will you pay a price.
That's Barack Obama. Let's recount how he got into this mess. First, he declares the use of chemical weapons as a "red line" that will necessitate the use of force by the U.S. Then, when Bashar Assad goes right ahead and uses chemical weapons anyway, Obama:
Announces he has decided to attack Syria.
Announces he will ask Congress for authorization to attack Syria, even though he . . .
Insists he already has the authority
Claims he never set a red line, which no one believes in spite of the best efforts of media "fact checkers" to cover his butt on this whopper.
Find little support in Congress for the attack, making him potentially the first president ever to ask Congress for authorization to use military force and be told no.
Lets his Secretary of State offer the assurance that the attack will be "incredibly small," which surely has Assad quaking in his boots.
What a mess. How could you possibly weasel your way out of it? Either you lose the vote, or you win the vote and launch your "incredibly small" attack, which has Assad laughing at you but quite possibly invites retaliation from Iran against Israel.
Enter Vladimir Putin. He recognizes that John Kerry presented him with an opportunity by suggesting we could get out of this whole thing if Assad would turn over his chemical weapons arsenel to "the international community," which of course, Kerry then adds, Assad would not and could not do.
Suddenly, Putin and Assad are both game. A way out?
Sure. Assad, who depends on his chemical weapons not only to ward off the rebels in Damascus but also to maintain a credible threat against Israel, is going to just hand them over to Putin. And Putin - our buddy, our pal - yeah, don't worry. He'll make sure everything is on the up-and-up.
The most hilarious thing about this is that Obama supporters are trying to say a) this all happened because of the "credible threat" of an attack by Obama, since dictators really fear "incredibly small" strikes that U.S. presidents are having trouble getting authorization to launch; or b) this was some sort of master stroke by Kerry, signaling Putin to spring into action, as if they were really working together on the whole thing.
That's funny.
I suspect Putin and Obama have indeed talked about this, and if Putin's going to do it, two things are guaranteed: 1. The U.S. will pay a steep price for this; and 2. The chemical weapons handover will be as phony as a $3 bill, and the U.S. will get no real opportunity to verify anything.
That's the only way this can go. Obama gets to save face by claiming he got Assad to give up his weapons. Assad gives up absolutely nothing. And Putin is the loan shark with the note calling for 50 percent interest. You don't seriously think Putin persuaded Assad to act against his own best interests, do you? And if you're Assad, what makes more sense? Brace for Obama's "incredibly small" attack and then go on with nothing really changed? Or give up your entire chemical weapons arsenal?
Come on. Are you seriously buying this? If this Russian proposal turns into reality, our bumbling president just got bailed out by a loan shark who will, without a doubt, make him play a steep price for having talked his way into such a clusterfark.
