http://swampland.time.com/2013/09/13/washington-whiplash-dc-pivots-away-from-syria/

Nothing fades faster in Washington than an unpopular idea.

The debate over military intervention in Syria departed DC Thursday for the quiet halls of the United Nations and picturesque Geneva, where Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Ambassador Samantha Power are taking the lead on negotiating the transfer of Syrian chemical weapons to the international community. And no sooner were the diplomats wheels up out of Andrews than Washington breathed a collective sigh of relief, shelving the politically unpopular talk of war and returning to the familiar, reassuring routine of partisan bickering and legislative fights.

Even the White House seemed happy to move on, as President Barack Obama marked a pivot from his administration’s singular focus on Syria of the past three weeks.

I also think most Americans are tuning out now as well. I think this is good for the diplomatic negotiations. I 100% agree with Andrew Sullivan that the Russians have overplayed their hand, and contrary to what the talking heads are saying, have been outsmarted by the Obama Administration:

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/09/12/vladimir-meet-niccolo-machiavelli/

President Putin’s op-ed in the NYT today is fantastic. It’s a virtual end-zone twerk, as this botoxed former KGB hack brags about restoring a more peaceful world order, basks in the relatively new concept of Russia’s global stature, asserts obvious untruths – such as the idea that the rebels were behind the chemical attack of August 21 or that they are now targeting Israel – and generally preens.

Good. And whatever the American president can do to keep Putin in this triumphant mood the better. Roger Ailes was right. If the end-result is that Putin effectively gains responsibility and control over the civil war in Syria, then we should be willing to praise him to the skies. Praise him, just as the far right praises him, for his mastery of power politics – compared with that ninny weakling Obama. Encourage him to think this is a personal and national triumph even more than he does today. Don’t just allow him to seize the limelight – keep that light focused directly on him. If that also requires dumping all over the American president, calling him weak and useless and incapable of matching the chess master from Russia, so be it. Obama can take it. He’s gotten used to being a pinata.

All this apparent national humiliation is worth it. The price Russia will pay for this triumph is ownership of the problem. At some point, it may dawn on him that he hasn’t played Obama. Obama has played him.

I still don't know if this was all planned. What I do know is that Kerry, like Biden before him, handed Obama a gift, and he decided to run with it. I am happy we will not be going to war.

on cable news programs, in the morning and in the evening. As a matter of fact, Andrew Sullivan was on CNN last night discussing Syria. I also do not think this is over, although, talks are progressing well, with mostly everyone cooperating.

Here, however, Lavrov is rather ignoring that his boss had just written an extremely political - for American audience - oped. That oped, in addition to needling the US with many self satisfied US tenets that are blindly repeated. When watching Obama's speech, it was obvious that the use of "American exceptionalism was a needle to the Republicans. I have never been happy when Democrats claimed "me too" on that -preferring Kerry's clever comment that "America is exceptional when it does exceptional things." - a comment that is essentially a truism and true for any country -- if it does exceptional things.

But those pinpricks are not the real problem -- Putin reframes Syria and use of chemical weapons from what most international sources believe to a state of them likely not having used chemical weapons. Kerry is obviously charged with moving the discussion back to Syria likely did use chemical weapons. This is important as the situation with a country voluntarily giving up chemical weapons - as many countries have - and a country having the weapons taken away because they used them. The UN report should be out soon - and assuming that it backs what the US thinks, it is important to start the process accurately recognizing truth.

In a NYT article - the day of Kerry's comment that set all this off - Kerry speaking of trusting Assad spoke of how Assad lied to his face on Syria's transporting ScUDS to Hezzbollah. This was at a point that Obama was reaching out to Assad and trust needed to be built on both sides. It was also soon after Charlie Rose's interview with Assad - where he obviously lied.

I understand why people here desperately wanted to believe Assad. They do not want war. I don't think Obama or Kerry do either, but they both think there is a need to have some response to the use of chemical weapons. I do get people who say that others did bad things and we did not act - but to me, that is like a kid who broke a rule in class yelled that previously other kids broke rules and it is unfair. However, looked at objectively - control was needed.

I really do not think Kerry did not think before he spoke in London, There was no better way to answer the questions. All other responses are either dreadfully weak or real gaffes. Saying "I don't know, only Obama could answer that, or refusing the question all would be unseemly for a man who was charged with diplomacy and bringing in EU - it was an obvious question the people he was meeting with could ask and they deserved a real answer in the private meetings. To say "nothing" meant they were no giving diplomacy a chance - something against Kerry's entire foreign policy vision; to say "Assad could step down" would be a real gaffe - as that was specifically not the goal. As to his pessimistic view that it likely could not, would not happen - that seems to reflect the true situation at that point in time - it was only within the week before that this was even getting any traction.

If you think of it, this is jostling for position in the negotiations. Russia wants to be seen as the serious good guy working for the overall good of the world, the US wants to be seen as an advocate of an "international norm" and Assad in his comments wants to be seen as a good guy voluntarily giving up his weapons. All are not 100% true. The US and Russia both have not been innocent with regards to the mess in Syria. (I am really disturbed that we raised the expectations of the rebels and supported them in some way for at least 4 years or so. I not like this when Carter supported the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan or Reagan supported the Contras. )

This will affect how strong we will be in the negotiations. Note that BOTH Lavrov and Kerry have suggested that the chemical weapon issue resolution be followed by the Geneva 2 negotiations that Kerry and Lavrov called for reviving earlier this year. Listen to the last question on this goodle hang out - http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/announcing-a-live-google-hangout-with-john-kerry/?_r=1 (If limited for time start at 30 minutes in when the second to last question is asked because it to some degree informs the last question. ) These are high stakes.

If you watch the google hangout - Kerry does unambiguously say that this is a better solution than a strike. Here, I suspect that he is doing just what he says - working to insure that this does not become a game that extends for months into years -- and in the end - Syria could still have chemical weapons.

Joint Statements After Trilat


Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi
UN Offices
Geneva, Switzerland
September 13, 2013
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SECRETARY KERRY: Let me just say to everybody that we will not – we will each make a very brief statement. We’ll not be taking questions at this time. And we apologize for that, but we need to get back to the conversations that we’re having on the issue of chemical weapons.

First of all, Foreign Minister Lavrov and I both want to thank Lakhdar Brahimi and the United Nations for their invitation to have a discussion today about the question of the Geneva 2 conference. As everybody knows, the principal reason that Foreign Minister Lavrov and I are here are to have discussions with respect to the initiative to gain control of and remove and destroy the chemical weapons in Syria. That is our principal mission here in Geneva. And I think we would both agree that we had constructive conversations regarding that, but those conversations are continuing and both of us want to get back to them now.

We came here this morning at the invitation of the Special Representative for the Geneva 2 and Syria negotiations in order to discuss where those negotiations are and how we can advance them. I will say on behalf of the United States that President Obama is deeply committed to a negotiated solution with respect to Syria, and we know that Russia is likewise. We are working hard to find the common ground to be able to make that happen and we discussed some of the homework that we both need to do. I’m not going to go into it in any detail today. We both agreed to do that homework and meet again in New York around the time of the UN General Assembly, around the 28th, in order to see if it is possible then to find a date for that conference, much of which will obviously depend on the capacity to have success here in the next day, hours, days, on the subject of the chemical weapons.

Both of us – Sergey Lavrov and I, our countries, our presidents – are deeply concerned about the death toll and destruction, the acts on both sides, all sides that are creating more and more refugees, more and more of the humanitarian catastrophe. And we are committed to try to work together, beginning with this initiative on the chemical weapons, in hopes that those efforts could pay off and bring peace and stability to a war-torn part of the world. And we’re very appreciative for Lakhdar Brahimi hosting us today in an effort to try to advance this initiative.

Sergey.

FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we had a very useful meeting with Lakhdar Brahimi. As you know, as John said just now, we are here basically to discuss the issue of chemical weapons in Syria. Now that the Assad government joined the Chemical Weapons Convention, we have to engage our professionals together with the Chemical Weapons Prohibition Organization, as we agreed with the United Nations, to design a road which would make sure that this issue is resolved quickly, professionally, as soon as practical.

But we are very glad to Lakhdar Brahimi for inviting us on this occasion to discuss a longer-term goal for Syria, namely the preparation for the conference which is called Geneva 2. Russia, the Russian President from very beginning of the Syrian conflict, have been promoting a peaceful resolution. We have firmly supported the Arab League initiative, their being observers, and we supported Kofi Annan’s initiative, the UN observers, and we were one of the initiators of convening Geneva 1. Last year here, we adopted the Geneva communique, resolved major – almost all major players, including all P-5 countries for the region, Arab League, Turkey, European Union, United Nations. And it is very unfortunate that for a long period the Geneva communique was basically abandoned and we were not able to have endorsement of this very important document in the Security Council, as is as adopted.

Thanks to John, who after becoming Secretary of State in spite of his huge workload on Arab-Israeli conflict understood the importance of moving on Syria and doing something about this. And I am very grateful for him for coming to Moscow on May 7th this year when we launched the Russian-American initiative to convene a Geneva conference to implement fully the Geneva communique, which means that the Syrian parties must reach mutual consent on the transitional governing organ which would command full executive authority. And the communique also says that all groups of Syrian society must be represented.

And we discussed these aspects and other aspects of the preparatory work today with Lakhdar Brahimi and his team. We are very grateful to Lakhdar for his insight, for the suggestions which he made and which we will be entertaining as we move forward parallel with the work on chemical weapons. We agreed to meet in New York in the margins of the General Assembly and see where we are and what the Syrian parties think about it and do about it. And we hope that we will be able to be a bit more specific when we meet with you in New York.

SPECIAL ENVOY BRAHIMI: Thank you very much indeed, both of you, first of all, for coming to talk to us in the Palais de Nation in Geneva. We look forward to the work you are doing on chemical weapons in Syria. It is extremely important in itself and for itself, but it is also extremely important for us who are working with you on trying to bring together the Geneva 2 conference successfully.

Our discussions today, as you have both said now, have been useful. And we are not going to retain you much longer; you have other business to do. Thank you again very, very much indeed for being here.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thanks, Lakhdar.

FOREIGN MINISTER LAVROV: Thank you.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you, sir.

SPECIAL ENVOY BRAHIMI: Thank you very much.

**** posted in its entirety as the SD has a facebook and twitter link to share it

from "Kerry lost in translation" which when reading the article were implying that the relationship between the two men was decent, a title implying optimism, one saying that Kerry was tough. This is now the fourth title I read.

This is certainly a testimony to the power of editors who write titles. In a world where people often stop at the title, it is frustrating that one person can have this type of power.

As for the meeting (and putting aside my irritation with meeting Kissinger of all people, and doing that on the anniversary of the Chilean coup (may the our progressive government could talk to progressive foreign policy experts, once in a while), I think that, contrarily to what DU believes, we should avoid trusting every single report as if it was the truth. It is obviously a very polished set of events where every report is just an act of propaganda on both sides. I wished that DU understood this. This would avoid a lot of ridiculous indignation on all sides.

I found it hysterical, and given Kerry citing Kissinger in speeches for years, I did not find the meeting problematic. I mean, I am sure he is ringing up progressive foreign policy experts all the time without any photo op. It seems to me this meeting was to conjure up memories of Kissinger's success with respect to China.

This is an example of my feeling very apart from the anti-war left crowd (I'm sure there is a better term, but these are the folks from the '60s anti-war movement plus their ideological descendants since then). They're overall a nasty bunch of people, at least online, who are nauseatingly self righteous. Anyone who disagrees is akin to a Nazi sympathizer. I will include Glenn Greenwald to the type of person I mean, who is always RIGHT and condemns anyone who disagrees as a sycophant to power. I'm more pragmatic about who Kerry can or cannot meet with to solve problems.

(some of them have appeared to the RW of DU on other issues). I think the main problem they have is common with the tea party is that they distrust government and at the same time assume that a perfect (meaning that they would agree 100% with in tone and substance) government is possible.

As for Kissinger and Pinochet, it may be a question of generation. I understand why they met, but the Chile coup and the death of Allende is the first political event I was aware of and it was a brutal one and one the US government should never have been involved with. I think he should be at the ban of American politics. I just wished that they had not done such a big deal about this meeting. Somewhere, it hurts.

The lost in translation piece - that did show they had a decent relationship - had the most asinine comments. Somehow, it lacked class per some that Kerry asked for the translation.

in this gallup poll - done September 5 -8 - before he spoke of Assad giving up the chemical weapons. Any poll could be an outlier, but the same poll has Obama at 45% approval which is about where he has been in their polls.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/164411/americans-laud-kerry-efforts-secretary-state.aspx