Sunday, September 8, 2013

Put Russia to the test

One final chance to co-operate on Syria

By Brian Whitaker

"....
On the other hand, there's little doubt that Russia and the Assad regime would prefer not to see American airstrikes – so the question is what price they would be willing to pay in order to avoid them. At present we don't know, but it might be worth finding out.

The bare minimum would be to prevent any further attacks in Syria using banned weapons (and I have suggested how that might be achieved in an earlier blog post). Putting the regime's chemical stockpile under UN control would not only prevent its use by the regime – thus avoiding further international confrontations on that issue – but would also remove the risk of it falling into rebel hands.

If that idea could be sold to Russia without endless quibbling, Assad would have to fall in line too or risk losing his key ally, and we might see some progress. Rejection, however, would close the diplomatic door and Assad would then face the military consequences."

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