Obama’s Syria Policy Has Potential For Breakthrough on War
Al-Monitor’s analysis and coverage of US policy toward Syria.
The US-Russia framework to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, agreed to in Geneva on Sept. 14, marks a potential strategic and humanitarian breakthrough to end the 2½-year Syrian war.
The devil is in the details, and compliance by Damascus must be rigorously verified, but big things don’t come easily or without risk.
The bottom line, for now, is that the framework — which will soon be backed by a UN Security Council resolution, even if imperfect — has the potential to do far more than a “targeted strike” ever could do to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons.
The US-Russia negotiations on the framework have also been a catalyst for a diplomatic surge toward convening the Geneva II conference on a political transition in Syria. United Nations-Arab League joint special representative Lakhdar Brahimi met with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Sept. 13, on the sidelines of the framework discussions, and the three reaffirmed their commitment to Geneva II.
