Will There Be a Comprehensive Russia-US Agreement on Syria?

There has been a lot of wreckage in the arena of international and Middle Eastern relations during the chemical weapons crisis in Syria. While the U.S. and Russia have strengthened their relations through the chemical weapons disarmament agreement, bilateral and regional relations as a whole have come away worse for the wear.

Obama’s threats stirred up an international political storm; while it had seemed that Russia was without true allies, the U.S. secretary of state threw himself into lining up supporters for the U.S. decision on Syria, collecting signatures from 14 nations at the G-20 Summit. In Europe, the EU statement on Aug. 26 showed support for Washington; regionally, both the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council formed an Arab cover for any decision to be made by Washington.

All this international political support scattered at the first mention of the Russia-U.S. agreement. This must have humiliated France, which had been the lone European partner eager for military partnership in the strike that Obama managed to get. Likewise, the agreement raised reservations among Arab nations, who had come to see the strike as being imminent and were content to hope that it was going to change the course of events in Syria against the Assad regime.

When Obama referred his decision on the strike to Congress, supporters of his plan described it as being the consolidated approach that he had been speaking of since entering the White House, promising that America would never act in global crises without first consulting and coordinating with its allies, as it did in Libya. However, it appears that British parliamentary rejection of the strike, coupled with an opposing majority in Congress, forced Obama to recalculate and return the U.S. to its state of bipolarity. Through his agreement with Putin, Obama pushed his European and Arab allies to the side, not entering into consultations with any who had supported him. Since the agreement, Kerry has been trying to repair the damage with America’s allies, particularly with France, which seems like it had been left by itself in the middle of the road with no substantial role as a major nation, whether it agrees with or goes against Washington. France is now trying to garner support for the chemical weapons draft that it has prepared to present to the Security Council, this being the plan which Kerry and the Hague supported in their most recent meeting with Fabius in Paris; however, it has met with strong opposition from Lavrov.

The coming week will show how the Russia-U.S. agreement holds up, or how the U.S.-European-Arab alliance holds up, especially with Paris. When the Security Council considers the French proposal, it will either face a major obstacle in the form of Russia preventing its issue by falling back on Chapter VII, or Kerry and Lavrov will shock the world — and U.S. allies before that — by agreeing on another compromised form that will be passed in the Security Council, and which will disregard Chapter VII and the International Criminal Court. In other words, it will disregard the essence of the French draft and U.S.-British agreement in the Paris meeting.

If this were to happen, then bipolarity will become a reality in international politics, which will open the doors for Geneva II in the coming months, so that the U.S. and Russia can come to an agreement on all of Syria, not just its chemical weapons.