Despite skepticism from President Obama, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Syria will accept Russia’s proposal to surrender its chemical weapons to the international community. The diplomat met with Russia’s parliament speaker on Tuesday local time upon which his government “agreed to the Russian initiative,” according to the AP.
The suggestion by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for Syria to place its chemical weapons under the control of the international community and subsequently dismantled cam yesterday when Secretary of State John Kerry, from a press conference in London, called for exactly that saying the only way Syria could avoid facing American military might “He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over. All of it, without delay. And allow the full and total accounting for that. But he isn’t about to do it.”
Turns out, he is about to do it.
President Obama told NBC News in an interview last night “But we have to be skeptical because this is not how we’ve seen them operate over the last couple a years.
“I don’t think that we would have gotten to this point unless we had maintained a credible possibility of a military strike, and I don’t think now is the time for us to let up on that.”
And while President Obama threats of a military strike against President Bashar al-Assad’s government regime acted as the catalyst for dissuading the civil war-ridden country from employing any use of chemical weapons ever again, as was allegedly done against more than 1,400 unarmed civilians (including over 400 children) who died after Damascus suburbs were bombarded with nerve gas on August 21, Arizona Senator John McCain (R) made a statement alluding to the idea that perhaps said threats were no more than the result of complete disorganization from within the Obama Administration.
“There’s a degree of incoherence that I have never seen the likes of so far,” said McCain on trying to work with the President and Secretary of State.
But hindsight is 20/20 and Assad’s government is willing to lay down its arms now.
Interestingly, though, the White House is urging Congress not to delay voting on American intervention in the Middle Eastern country while it waits for Syria to put its money where its mouth is and hand over its arsenal, according to the Huffington Post.
Congress returned to session yesterday and suggested it will make a preliminary vote on the matter tomorrow, Wednesday, September 11.
