Skip to main content

More frothy rhetoric than practical substance



 

US And Russia Agree Deal Over Syria's Chemical Weapons




John Kerry
 John Kerry Sergey Lavrov 


 
The Syrians were not in Geneva in 2013, in much the same way as the Czechs were not in Munich in 1938. The resultant “agreement” however has the same sort of “peace in our time” ring about it as did the sheet of paper waved in the air at Heston Aerodrome all those years ago.
John Kerry and Sergey Lavrov stood behind their respective lecterns as Kerry presented the 6 point agreement, (after seemingly to forget that number six followed number five), outlining how Syria should produce a list of their chemical weapons within a week, how inspection should start by mid November and how the weapons must be handed over by June next year. At the end of Kerry's presentation, Lavrov chipped in with a vague reference as to how they “ might request” a “Chapter 7” Security Council resolution at the UN in the event of Syrian non-compliance. All very good we may think and certainly enthusiastically greeted by the press and media both in Geneva at the time and since by media throughout the world.
On closer examination however, it would seem that this deal is no more than 6 nuggets of candy, wrapped up in a sea of frothy rhetoric. The logistics of the agreement are at the very best problematic. How can inspection, collection and disposal be arranged in the middle of a ferocious civil war? Already one group of the 1001 anti Assad groups has rejected the Geneva agreement and has indicated that the areas they control will not be open for UN monitors or chemical weapons inspectors.
In the event that the “list” is not produced within 7 days or that inspectors are not on the ground by November, is this to be treated as a “non compliance” and referred to the UN for a security council resolution? Lavrov said yesterday that “"Nothing is said about the use of force (in the Agreement) or about any automatic sanctions. All violations should be approved by the Security Council." Can anyone really see Russia agreeing to military strikes against Syria?
The whole Geneva conference and its subsequent “agreement” has only one plausible interpretation. It was an exercise in political face saving for Obama who had painted himself into a corner of the room and was seeking some way of delaying having to press the button and launch cruise missile against Damascus. The Kerry “gaffe” provided such an opportunity. That is always assuming that you believe that it was a gaffe, rather than a not very well concealed ploy to throw out a life line to see if a delay was possible.
Geneva agreement is more for public consumption than solution of the crisis, but it has got Obama, and incidentally the rest of the world, off the hook at least for the time being. Again, it is worth recalling that the Munich agreement was only a delay in the inevitable.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Northern Ireland and Brexit. The return of "The Troubles"

Northern Ireland: police attacked in another night of disturbances | Northern Ireland | The Guardian When the "Brexit" debate was still filling our newspapers and our television screens, readers may remember why I had changed my mind since voting to leave at the referendum vote. Apart from the economic arguments, which had become crystal clear after peeling away all the lies and misrepresentations trotted out by Bozo Boris and his "Get Brexit Done" conspirators, there was always the problem of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Would it be possible to have a border between the European Union and the United Kingdom where people, goods and services could pass freely between the two nations without customs restrictions, tariffs, duties and all the other formalities? Would it be possible to have one part of the United Kingdom treated differently from other parts of the United Kingdom, particularly when Scotland for example had voted overwhe

The Parliamentary Labour Party conspirators are hatching another coup.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corbyn-labour-leadership-rebel-mps-a7202641.html Labour MPs plan for Corbyn victory  and plot how to confront an emboldened leader Even for the "Independent", the number and use of unnamed anonymous "sources" in this article is quite astonishing. However, amongst all the usual speculative delusion, there is one factor which causes concern to anyone who believes in the Labour Party, its principles and in he democratic process of the Labour movement. It is abundantly clear that elements within the Parliamentary Labour Party, are even now, planning another coup in the event that Jeremy Corbyn should emerge as winner in the current ballot. The failed coup of earlier this year, has now descended into a sham leadership election, because the conspirators still fail to accept the democratic decision of the Labour party membership and cling to

New Agenda on Sunday is out Sunday, Apr. 28, 2019

https://paper.li/f-1346065353#/ Good morning everyone. Last weeks scare regarding Megan and Harry being sent to live "somewhere in Africa" seems to have been dispelled, at least for the time being. It now seems that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will take up residence in California.  Unless  they are actually  doing  some proper work in "The Golden State", I hope that they are taken off the civil list so that we do not have to fund their life choice. The nauseating Daily Mail is at it again. A headline this week, which I will not even bother to reproduce here, screams out in disgusting and repulsive bias without any acknowledgement to the factual basis of their "story". Spewing out their usual smears and embellished distortions about Hamas, the IRA, Hezbollah and the rest, the Mail condemns itself with ample justification, for the closure of a "newspaper," which again abuses 10 fold, the privilege of "freedom of t