HAS KERRY'S GAFFE SAVED SYRIA FROM AIR STRIKES?

HAS KERRY'S GAFFE SAVED SYRIA FROM AIR STRIKES?

From the Times:

"Russia wrongfooted the West by turning an offhand comment by John Kerry, the Secretary of State, into a full-fledged peace initiative.

Huh? The Guardian explains:

"Speaking in London, Kerry suggested that the only way for Syria to avoid the threat of a US attack would be for it to hand over all its chemical weapons within a week... [T]he comments were immediately seized on by the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, who raised the prospect of international observers supervising such a handover... 'We are calling on the Syrian leadership to not only agree on placing chemical weapons storage sites under international control, but also on its subsequent destruction and fully joining the treaty on prohibition of chemical weapons,' Lavrov said after a meeting with his Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Moallem."

Will Bashar al Assad comply? Will he even admit he possesses chemical weapons?

Obama, nevertheless, has since welcomed the Russian proposal as possible breakthrough" and a "potentially positive development". Asked by an ABC News interview if he would put plans for an attack on hold should Assad yield control of his chemical weapons to the UN, the US president replied: "Absolutely, if in fact that happened."

The Guardian report adds:

"The president will address the American people in a direct televised broadcast on Tuesday evening. By that time, the White House will have had the opportunity to assess the viability of the Russian proposal. But already on Monday night there was a clear sense of relief on Capitol Hill, where support for military action had been patchy."

Meanwhile, the Telegraph says the proposal out of Moscow "threatens a new diplomatic headache" for the Obama administration.

You've got to hand it to the Russians, they like their chess - or in the case of the country's president, their judo. Obama and Kerry seem to have been stalemated/flipped over/pick-your-analogy by Putin and Lavrov...