Checkmate

Russia has enjoyed numerous international chess champions: Boris Spassky, Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Botvinnik, Anatoly Karpov, and so forth. Suffice it to say Russians know their way around a chessboard.  I believe that this kind of strategic thinking has served them well in the current back and forth over Syria’s use of chemical weapons against its own people.  In this bellicose context, America’s Secretary of State Kerry (“Puffy John”) has exhibited a series of verbal blunders upon which the Russians have pounced … and backed the U.S. President, Barack Obama, into a corner.  

Kerry said that any American missile attack on Syria would be “unbelievably small” and then ad-libbed a possible detente … turning over to international inspectors Syria’s chemical weapons “by the end of the week.”  This was a verbal monkey wrench which Russia immediately picked up and is now pummeling President Obama with … checkmate.

And so Obama gave a speech from the White House tonight (interestingly, not from the Oval office) in which he ducked for cover … see: Full Text of the Speech.  He tried to sound forceful, but just sounded forced.  He has claimed that the substance of Kerry’s gaff had already been discussed with Putin at the G-20 summit … clearly a lie … which he must hope that Putin won’t reveal.  Now he has backed away from his threat of an immediate Syrian missile attack … an attack that Congress would not have approved anyway.  

The President has given Russia and Syria the prerogative to remove these chemical weapons under international supervision … an impossible task.  Charles Krauthammer pointed this out tonight on Fox News saying it took Libya eight years to perform its surrender of WMDs under much calmer circumstances. For two other reactions to Obama’s retreat on Syria see: Peggy Noonan's Comments and Wall Street Journal Comments. Both are worth a read.

Do you get the impression that, in international diplomacy, Russia is playing chess and America is playing checkers?