Putin will follow through on his warning. If Putin tells Assad he has gone too far, it is over for Bashar. No military action from the US or anyone else will be necessary. All Moscow has to do is pull the plug on the continuing supply of arms to Syria and Assad's goose is cooked. He is barely hanging on now with a massive advantage in heavy weapons.
If Putin decides to stick with Assad no matter what, there is little the US can do. If Assad goes chemical in a big way, I will feel sorry for the Syrian people but we should not take military action without the authorization of the UN. Putin will keep the Russian Mediterranean port they have in Syria and Assad will 'win' in the sense that he keeps the throne. His strategy for holding onto power will be a lesson for dictators everywhere, but Putin's credibility with many will be severely damaged.
Assad defies the U.S. and Russia
Assad’s use of the chemical weapons crosses the “red line” stated last month by President Obama. But perhaps more important is that
it also violates the warnings made privately to Assad by Russia. The Russian caution towards Assad about chemical weapons was noted by Vitaly Naumkin, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences and a Russian expert on the Middle East, in response to a question at a security conference here organized by the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank.
The crisis should convince Russian President Vladimir Putin that it’s time to abandon his support for Assad and begin to work for a political transition in Syria. Assad is apparently so desperate that he has ignored warning about the chemical weapons not just from Washington, but also from Moscow. Will Putin really allow the Syrian dictator to use weapons of mass destruction in defiance of Russia?
The shared U.S. and Russian opposition to any use of chemical weapons in Syria was discussed in February by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Vice President Joe Biden when they met on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich. The two also talked about ways they could cooperate in safeguarding the weapons if Assad’s regime is toppled. Yet
Russia said in March, after the initial reports of Syrian chemical weapons use, that both sides in the Syrian civil war had made claims and called for a UN investigation of all such accusations. Lavrov summarized this position Tuesday in comments to reporters in Brussels and said investigators should focus on specific reports about the weapons’ use, rather than make a broader inquiry.
Has the Obama administration pressed Moscow about Assad’s violation of their joint red line—and proposed that the offense is a basis for action to force Assad to hand over power? I hope so. That’s the only explanation for Washington’s strange silence as the evidence mounts of Assad’s brutal tactics.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/04/23/in-using-chemical-weapons-syria-assad-defies-the-u-s-and-russia/
= new reply since forum marked as read
