Out of a moment of extreme crisis has come an opportunity-now it's up to all sides to seize "IT" with both hands.

We can write a new chapter in the diplomatic handbook, dedicate it to the off-the-cuff remark – the gaffe even – which averts a war.

"We don't yet know if John Kerry's apparently unplanned comment in London, suggesting Syria could avoid a US military strike by turning over its stash of chemical weapons, has set in train a process that will ultimately prevent armed American action. But Barack Obama described it as a "possible breakthrough" and the relief can be felt across multiple world capitals.

Of course the practical problems are legion – one report claims that getting rid of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile could take not weeks or months but "years". Nevertheless, this latest initiative deserves to be taken seriously because it gives all the key players something they need. Crucially, it would allow the antagonists to step back from the brink without losing face.

For Bashar al-Assad, the prize is obvious. If he agrees to ban the banned weapons, to use the vocabulary of the Northern Ireland decommissioning process, he can dodge the US bullet that was perhaps coming his way. Even with Kerry promising on Monday that any attack would be "unbelievably small", Assad would still prefer to avoid an American attack if he can.

For Russia, whose foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, seized on Kerry's rhetorical flourish and turned it into an initiative, there is a double benefit. First, Vladimir Putin gets to pose as the global statesman who stayed the hand of the mighty American hyper power. Second, Russia has its own reasons for wanting to see Syria's toxic arsenal put beyond use. Moscow has long worried about such weaponry falling into opposition jihadist hands should Assad fall. Spiriting it out of Syria dampens that danger. (Tehran is said to support the latest Russian plan for similar reasons.)"(source: guardian.uk)



Let's be honest about this. This is good for a public that does not want to be embroiled in war, but this is a victory for Assad, and unlikely to end the war. The revulsion produced by his use of chemical weapons (and before someone's knee-jerk response about definite proof, it doesn't really matter for the point I'm trying to make) shows Assad what a poor part of his arsenal chemical weapons really are. He can't use them without risking a western response. So he's giving up something e can't use, for what is in effect a free hand in dealing with his opponents. 100,000 have died before chemical weapons were used, and no one is going to lift a finger as long as he uses conventional weapons. The west has nothing on him, no cards to play, why would he make the slightest concession...
This gaffe will not stop war, because we are already at war with Syria (thanks to the terrorists we have sent in), and because the US wants hegemony over the Middle East to offset the decline of its empire....The suggestion that Assad did this is laughable.
If CW were launched, then there would be satellite imagery from just before the attack, showing a missile launched from within regime held areas. The numerous US geo-stationary satellites that are currently hovering over Syria are designed to spot these things. They've been doing it for decades.
This evidence doesn't exist because it never happened. We know the terrorists are in possession of CW, we know that they have already used them, and we know they had the most to gain from the use of CW...So who do we think used them?
Apparently it's whoever the Botox bandit (Kerry) plucks out of a hat FFS!!!