Just a few days ago, Russian–US relations were seen as hopeless, but it was these two countries that were capable of coming up with an out-of-the-box idea for dealing with the Syrian problem. Russia proposed that Damascus put its chemical weapons under international control, and the Syrian government immediately agreed. At first this seemed to be an ad lib, but the notion had already come up in talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama and later between Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov and John Kerry.

Russia and America have a good history of working together to counteract weapons of mass destruction in other countries. Back in the days of the Cold War, despite their adversarial relationship, the Soviet intelligence services informed their American colleagues of South Africa’s nuclear program, and through joint efforts, the West and the USSR successfully pressured Pretoria to discontinue the program. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States helped Russia organize the work — at first on a political and diplomatic level, and then on a technical level — to move the nuclear arsenals from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan into Russian territory. In 2002, Russian and American specialists moved weapons-grade plutonium to Russia from Yugoslavia, where it had remained since the time of Josip Broz Tito’s efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. If they can reach agreement now on joint actions to neutralize Syria’s chemical weapons capability, it would be serious evidence that Moscow and Washington are still responsible leaders on the issue of dealing with weapons of mass destruction left over from the days of the Cold War.

The move involving international control over Syria’s chemical weapons refocuses the debate away from the pointless argument over who used the poison gas, since there is not and will not be incontrovertible proof. There can be no objection to the core idea of this solution. If Syria signs the Chemical Weapons Convention and gives up its dangerous arsenal, that would be an unqualified blessing. The proposal could be implemented only cooperatively, through coordinated efforts by Russia, the United States, the United Nations, countries respected for their neutrality (Sweden and Switzerland come to mind) and the Syrian government.

Ultimately, everyone saves face, which is extremely important in big-time politics. Obama and the United States would have a way to avoid an unpopular war with unpredictable results. And they could claim that it was the threat of a military strike that forced Damascus to agree to give up its chemical weapons, and therefore the American policy succeeded. Russia would finally reap the fruits of its consistent position — Bashar al-Assad could agree only to a proposal from Moscow, which he trusts. Damascus would avoid a military strike from outside by sacrificing weapons that practically cannot be used without fatal consequences.