UN report fuels anti-Assad push at UN

Spurring a flurry of diplomatic activities at the UN Security Council, aimed at securing a strong resolution invoking Chapter VII in order to compel the Syrian regime’s full compliance with the Kerry-Lavrov agreement, the report does not place the blame on anyone and is confined to the investigation of the nature and scope of the attack that killed and injured hundreds of civilians.
 
Still, irrespective of viable information that the Syrian rebels may have been behind those ghastly attacks, in order to lure the Western powers in the Syrian theater of conflict, as Moscow and Iran adamantly claim by offering evidence to the UN, the mainstream Western media has been quick to interpret the UN report as an indirect confirmation of the US’s accusation of Syrian regime as the true culprit, which has now officially admitted to possessing chemical weapons (after a long denial). Citing the chemical attacks in Syria as a “war crime,” a number of UN officials and Western diplomats are now exploring the possibility of bringing formal charges of “crimes against humanity” against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which has hailed the US-Russia agreement as a “victory” and pledged to comply with the terms of that agreement, i.e., full disclosure of the inventory in one week, allowing international inspections in November, and agreeing to the removal and destruction of the stockpile by next Summer.
 
Despite Damascus’s positive reaction and its willingness to join the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons last week, pressure is building at the UN Security Council for a new resolution that threatens Syria with military action if it does not disarm.
 
As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian diplomats at the UN have rightly insisted, such a resolution is not called for in the disarmament agreement and Lavrov has tacitly criticized his American counterpart, John Kerry, for ignoring the agreement by seeking a Security Council resolution, that would authorize the use of force against Syria, sure to be vetoed by Russia (and opposed by China as well).
 
Not only that, the mere push for such a “war resolution” at the UN can erode Damascus’s confidence in US’s good faith negotiation and thus result in a setback with respect to their commitment to comply with the agreement under the duress of Chapter VII.
 
Is the US beginning to back paddle and reverse itself on this agreement, in light of the UN report that is tantamount to fresh logs in the anti-Assad furnace? This appears to be the case as a result of mounting criticisms of the agreement by various US politicians and pundits, who have branded it as a “victory” for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and a “loss” for US credibility. The Syrian rebels, on the other hand, have completely rejected the agreement as a concession against the “regime change” strategy championed by Saudi Arabia and a number of other conservative Arab states.
 
Of course, it is rather absurd to assign winners and losers to a delicate and complicate process that is on-going and still at its infancy -- so many variables can turn the tides one way or another, -- but the main issue is a breakthrough in big power cooperation to address a major international crisis that threatens regional and global peace and security. This important yet tenuous cooperation transpiring in a thick air of mistrust between Washington and Moscow can easily unravel, especially if Moscow concludes that the US is backtracking on its commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Syrian crisis. Concerning the latter, despite Damascus’s consent to the disarmament agreement, Kerry has insisted that the military option remains in effect, thus evincing a paradox of US preference that reflects a superpower’s hard power addiction.
 
Consequently, the possibility of a “win-win” scenario nested by the Kerry-Lavrov agreement is in the danger of evaporating by the multifarious efforts both inside and outside the UN that seek to block the diplomatic efforts in favor of a military solution in Syria, no matter what the toll on the Syrian people and the neighboring countries.
 
The big question is, of course, if the White House is able to resist the mounting political pressure and stick to the agreement, instead of morphing into a lobbyist against it at the UN Security Council? The UN inspectors report is as stated above a complicating factor that has the potential for misuse by certain governments in order to roll back the diplomatic breakthrough of recent days and, yet, this goes against US national interests, which dictate avoiding entanglement in another Middle East conflict.
 
A litmus test of Obama’s political will, his ability to disallow a negative derailing of the agreement with Russia on Syrian disarmament due to the UN report and the accompanying efforts to corner Damascus at the Security Council is now the line and time will tell if he will succeed or fail the test.