Too good to be true: on the deal on Syria’s chemical disarmament

... well short of a victory for America and the West. Lacking any concrete threat of force for non-compliance, it could be used by Syria’s bloody dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to deceive the global community and hold on to his gases nonetheless. When Russian officials announced their plan for the Syrian government to hand over its chemical weapons stockpiles to the UN for destruction, thus averting an American punitive strike, everybody agreed that it had to be given a chance. Hailed by Russia’s press as a “diplomatic coup”, it did seem a comfortable solution to all involved. With no gases in Assad’s arsenal, ...