The Diplomacy Path

There are so few good analyses of Syria and the emergent Diplomacy Path, in my opinion. Here's one of the very few, from BooMan Tribune, titled "What Makes Syria Hard." Here's another: Smartypants on Monday, titled "What's In It for Putin." And here from The People's View today titled "The Power of Explanation: Why the President's Speech Got It Right." Today, will just give you a short list of MSM pundits who are totally panning our President:

• James Carafano, Vice president, Heritage Foundation, The "Obama Doctrine Has Officially Collapsed - Putin is Now In Charge"
• Joe Klein, Swampland/Time Magazine, "Obama and Syria: Stumbling Toward Damascus"
• Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal, "The Laurel and Hardy Presidency"
• Peter Wehner, Commentary, "The Collapse of the Obama Presidency"
• Megan McCardle, Bloomberg, "Will a Muddled Barack Obama Get Lucky on Syria?"

And to many in Congress and in the media, Vladimir Putin's Op-Ed in the New York Times "A Plea For Caution From Russia", just added insult to injury. Senator Menendez (D, NJ) said it "made him want to vomit."

Wow!! And why exactly do I see lots of light in this picture? I will try (briefly) to explain:

• Negotiations have just begun in Geneva between Secretary of State Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov. Kerry spoke briefly to the press before beginning, saying the US has high hopes for the discussions, but that it retains the right to use military force if these talks break down.
• Syria has submitted an application request to the UN to join the Chemical Weapons Treaty.
• Discussions are progressing at the UN over drafting a Security Council Resolution requiring Syria to give up their CW. The contentious issue is whether force will be authorized for non-compliance. Russia says no. We open saying yes. Believe we will relent on this, reserving to ourselves, as always, the right to strike unilaterally.

The Critique

The majority of the reviews this morning were blistering. Here's an extended quote from The Wall Street Journal this morning:

The world will see through this spin (that the US initiated the CW idea). A British commentator in the Telegraph on Monday called this "the worst day for U.S. and wider Western diplomacy since records began," and that's only a mild exaggeration. A weak and inconstant U.S. President has been maneuvered by America's enemies into claiming that a defeat for his Syria policy is really a triumph.

The Iranians will take it as a signal that they can similarly trap Mr. Obama in a diplomatic morass that claims to have stopped their nuclear program. Israel will conclude the same and will now have to decide if it must risk a solo strike on Tehran. America's friends and foes around the world will recalculate the risks ahead in the 40 dangerous months left of this unserious Presidency.

Peggy Noonan said the Russian proposal was "absurd" on its face. Assad would never even contemplate giving up his CW, his survival insurance. William Dobson of Slate said, "If your foreign policy has to be rescued by a dictator, you are doing it wrong." Jonathan Chait at NY Magazine, normally an Administration supporter, said, "But, having arguably blundered into the precipice of war, the administration seems to have indisputably blundered into a promising solution." Peter Wehner at Commentary called the damage caused by Obama unilaterally giving up the US' dominant mid-East strategic position as "historic" and potentially irreversible. John Podhoretz at the New York Post titled his piece this afternoon: "Feckless Obama Embarrasses the Nation." Bob Dreyfuss, at The Nation, an anti-war, very liberal publication, had this to say:

The President's Speech

The game has changed. Tonight the President made the moral case for American action, calling for targeted strikes against Syrian regime assets. And then he said that in light of the recent overtures from Russia and apparent agreement by Syria to sign the Treaty Banning Chemical Weapons, to turn their CW over to the UN, and to assist in their destruction, he has asked Congressional leaders to put off voting on the Authorization to Use Military Force. It looks like we will spend time trying to get a Security Council resolution demanding that Syria sign the CW Treaty and turn over all chemical weapons.

How much time? That's the question now. And what penalties if Russia and Syria just try to run out the clock. This is where the Manchin-Heitkamp resolution circulating in the Senate may come to the fore. The resolution has been under development for ten days or so, so it precedes the recent diplomatic flurry; and it is being rewritten, I understand, to specifically authorize the President to use force, if the diplomatic process drags out beyond, say, 45 or 60 days: Security Council Resolution, Syria signing the CW Treaty, and beginning the process of UN inspectors securing the weapons.

Suspect they will proceed with this in the Senate, certainly through committee. And it might well be brought to a vote. My hunch says such a resolution would pass the Senate, but not the House. However, even if just the Senate approves such a conditional resolution, Russia and Syria will see confirmation that the threat of force has not been voted off the table. And I think diplomacy would work, mainly because Russia and the US actually share the interest of not letting Islamist terrorists get their hands on chemical weapons. Assad wants to stay in power and he will do what his sponsor tells him to. Also, although we in the US weren't much impressed with our Libya strike, I suspect Assad was very impressed, and does not want to be put in a similar bulls eye.

Our President

Humor Break

Can't help myself - I love this from The People's View:

The Tide Shifts

The Syria conversation may yet end well. This from Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast :

The Russian foreign minister’s support for international control over Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal is a big deal, it seems to me. And the scenario for this sweet spot in dealing with Assad’s chemical weapons is not new. Here is Israel’s former intelligence head, Amos Yadlin, on how that compromise could turn a disaster into something far more constructive:

"Were Putin to offer to take Assad’s chemical weapons out of Syria, said Yadlin in an Israeli Channel 2 news interview, “that would be an offer that could stop the attack.” It would be a “genuine achievement” for President Barack Obama to have ensured the clearing out of Assad’s capacity, and that would justify holding fire, said Yadlin. For Putin, such a deal would also keep the US from acting militarily in a state with which Russia is closely allied.

The UN Secretary General has also now endorsed the idea.

And some recent tweets:

It certainly appears that Russia and Syria believe Obama will strike. They probably also believe they can win without chemical weapons, which may be true. But we will not strike if there is a real chance of getting the Syrian chemical weapons under international control. And note that this is the first time Syria has officially admitted to having these weapons; so my instinct is that Russia and Syria are serious about turning them over to avoid a US strike. Suspect the next step may well be a Security Council call for Syria to turn over all CW by a date certain.

What will the US do right now? My guess: proceed with a conditional authorization, on a slightly slower schedule, to see if Russia moves this forward through the UN Security Council. If they do, we might or might not continue with a conditional authorization.

And here's my overall prediction: Obama may or may not secure a conditional authorization. In either case, Russia will take the lead in getting Syria to turn over their CW weapons. There will not be a strike. And this will be a big win for Obama.

The Betting

My guess is that a significant majority of the GOP and a fair number of Democrats are betting that the following will happen on an unclear timeline, but certainly before Christmas:

• Obama will lose the Syria vote and will emerge from the legislative tussle bruised, humiliated and ineffective. 
• Obamacare Exchanges will open in a bit more than three weeks, and the"train wreck" pundits have been talking about will occur. Even where Exchanges have reasonably smooth openings, the fundamental flaws in the program's architecture will soon become obvious - that young, healthy people would rather pay the penalty than sign up, and the resulting "older, sicker" insurance pool will doom the program.
• Obama is desperate to kill the sequester. He may not agree to defund Obamacare, but he will accept significant entitlement cuts and other discretionary reductions in order to cancel the sequester.
• Obama says he won't negotiate over the debt ceiling. GOP negotiators will seek a 45-60 day extension for both the budget and the debt ceiling, moving the drop dead dates on both to late November/early December. Keeping the two dates close together allows Obama to say he did not negotiate over the debt ceiling, that all cuts are related to the new Budget - although anyone with half a brain will see right through this.
• Obama may ask for tax increases as part of an agreement, but in his weakened state he will be unable to get them.
• The country still has a serious debt and deficit problem, even if the soft recovery has dropped deficit levels a bit. Obama is a big-spending President that still needs to be firmly reined in.
• Obama has lost every negotiation he has engaged in, so this Fall will be a walk in the park for GOP negotiators.