http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/why-syrias-chemical-weapons-agreement-will-succeed
Much of the current debate on Syria centers on whether Assad will in fact give up his chemical weapons. Not to worry. The chemical weapons agreement will be a resounding success.
This is not because all or most of the weapons themselves will be found and destroyed. The odds are high that critics are right in suspecting Assad will lead inspectors on a dance similar to that pioneered by Saddam Hussein. It will be a success because it is in the interest of all parties to the agreement to pretend that it is. Obviously it is in Russia’s interest, since Putin presides over the entire scheme, at the center of the world stage like Jimmy Carter who knocked heads together to cobble together the Camp David agreement. It is in Assad’s interest to appear compliant because while the U.S. focuses on chemical weapons, he is free to pursue the war (with growing Iranian help on the ground) by conventional means.
Now that Assad is signing the Chemical Weapons Convention, there is a new party to the agreement, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The OPCW is charged with implementing the Convention and its Executive Council will have its own interests in claiming that everything possible is being done. (There seems to be general agreement that it is virtually impossible for Syrian stockpiles to be destroyed by the middle of 2014, as the agreement stipulates.) Investigative journalist Claudia Rosett points out that Iran, Assad’s determined ally, holds a seat on the Executive Council and on all three of its main subsidiary bodies and Iranians are on the staff of the OPCW. While the OPCW is not part of the UN, Rosett notes drily that it replicates many of that body’s failings.
Above all, it is in the interests of the Obama administration, the supposed monitor of plain dealing – “this is not a game,” says Secretary Kerry sternly – to claim the agreement is working. Obama declares “If diplomacy fails the United States and the international community must be prepared to act.” But Putin has already declared force is off the table at the UN even if Syria fails to comply so the “international community” won’t be acting. (Even Obama’s chief ally Francois Hollande now talks of “sanctions” if Syria fails to comply.) And the last thing Obama wants to do is to go back to Congress for authorization to strike without UN backing. Putin rescued him at the last moment from humiliating defeat in the House of Representatives and perhaps in the Senate as well. And now that Obama has gone to Congress, to strike without its authorization is even more problematic.
