Kerry's Mind Games

Everything is meant “rhetorically”: That’s how it was with Vladimir Putin’s change of heart, when he said he would agree to a military intervention if the use of poison gas by Assad’s regime could be proven. Now U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has issued an ultimatum to Bashar al-Assad: He must hand over the chemical weapons within a week if he wants to stop a U.S. attack. The Department of State intervened, saying that wasn’t what was meant. Moscow ran with it anyway, with the suggestion that Syrian chemical weapons be placed under international control. The Syrians jumped at the idea.

Technically and politically, the undertaking would be nearly impossible. Even assuming Assad miraculously decided to hand some weapons over, who could verify that they were “the” Syrian chemical weapons? And then, assuming the greater miracle — Assad gave over everything he had — who would believe him?

In any case, we can at least hope that the U.S. will stop trying not just for international legitimacy, but also for international legality. After all, Kerry’s mind games only work when an internationally independent body is in charge of the weapons question. There already is one, though: Why Washington does not declare its readiness to wait for the U.N. inspectors’ report, which they compiled from samples in Syria, is hard to understand.