Romney Was Right

[sharkman]

Whats off track is the idea that a regime thats fighting for its survival is going to change its behavior because of a few cruise missiles.

Oh, they are only going to use 4 cruise missiles? And no jets, eh? Maybe you're right then.

[cybercoma]

If Syria wasn't facing military intervention from the US and allies, would they have so easily agreed to Russia's terms?

[The_Squid]

If Syria wasn't facing military intervention from the US and allies, would they have so easily agreed to Russia's terms?

Would Russia have played at diplomacy?

[dre]

Oh, they are only going to use 4 cruise missiles? And no jets, eh? Maybe you're right then.

No the estimates I heard were more like a bombardment lasting a couple of days with a couple of hundred cruise missiles.

[sharkman]

If Syria wasn't facing military intervention from the US and allies, would they have so easily agreed to Russia's terms?

What was Syria really facing? After a couple of days Obama decides that unlike the Libya military strikes where he didn't get congress approval, he should for Syria. That was a tell that he was getting cold feet, and any political analyst would say so to Assad, because it's common knowledge that congress loves to deep six anything Obama's trying to get through. So at that point, Syria's chances of getting bombed were getting pretty small.

Do you know how the idea of Syria giving up control of their chemical weapons came about? An offhand throw away comment from Kerry when he was ad-libbing:

Russia jumped on a hypothetical comment by Kerry, who told reporters in London that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avert a threatened U.S. attack by turning over “every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week.” While Kerry added immediately that Assad “isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously,” the idea took on a life of its own.

That's kind of funny that the reporter says the idea "took on a life of its own", when in fact Russia and Syria gave life to the idea, and now Putin is in the driver's seat on the Syria issue, not Obama. I contend that Russia's proposal on this has made a congressional approval for military strikes impossible, and it was partly done with that in mind.

Will we ever even see a congressional vote now?