Giving peace a chance #2

Will the main stream media writers now correct the way they wrote about the Russian/Syrian offer to get rid of Syria's chemical weapons ?  They had referred to it as coming about through Kerry's bumbling and Putin's seizing the initiative.  But now we know better.

Maureen Dowd did her usual snarky word play on it;  others referred to the Obama administration's ineptness, etc.

As the story unfolds now, though, it sounds -- at least in one report -- that President Obama is the one who first mentioned the possibility in a private meeting with President Putin back in March 2012.   It has repeatedly since then been discussed by Secretary of State John Kerry with his Russian counterpart.   Obama and Putin discussed it again on at least two other occasions, including the recent meeting in St. Petersburg.    Putin had never warmed to the idea until the last few weeks.

What has turned the tide, it seems, is that until now it was being discussed in connection with removing Assad from power through diplomacy and setting up a new government.

Now with a U.S. air strike threatening, it suddenly becomes attractive to Putin -- and to Syria -- to try to avoid that by giving up the chemical weapons.   So Putin took up the suggestion, made it his own, and got the Syrians to agree.

The questions now are:   What did they agree to?   and Can we trust them?

Already they are saying the Syrians will only agree to give up the weapons and sign the agreement if they are not under threat.   This means taking a military strike off the table.  We will not agree to that.   So there is the hard part of making this work.

Ralph

PS:   I realize that my information on this may be the slant the U. S. wants to put on how it all came about.   But it rings true.