Juan Cole: the agreement deeply disappointed Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who wanted a US strike.

[pampango]

The big losers were the anti-Baath Syria hawks, who were hoping that a US attack on Syria with cruise missiles would draw the Obama administration inexorably into the conflict on the side of the rebels. ... The Syrian rebels complained bitterly about the accord, and declared they would go on attempting to overthrow the Baath regime. ... Saudi Arabia doesn’t typically convey its views in public, but surely Riyadh is little different from Ankara in its cold fury at the turn events have taken.

Thus, the agreement deeply disappointed Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who wanted a US strike. In Europe, the French government had been hoping the US would go in with French help, allowing Paris to assert itself in its former Syrian colony and to insert itself into the center of world affairs again. The agreement likewise disappointed the hawks in Washington, including Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinin (R-FL) among the few US federal legislators who wants yet another war.

The winners were the Shanghai Cooperation Council and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which overlap somewhat. It is worth noting that Lavrov explicitly thanked this bloc ...

The agreement for Syria to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and allow inspections of its chemical weapons averted a unilateral American attack on Damascus, which would have symbolically underlined that Russia is no longer a great power and has no inviolate spheres of influence. In contrast, since Lavrov put forward his plan last Monday to have Syria’s chemical weapons inspected, Russia has been treated as an equal by US diplomats. Russia has gained stature.

Moscow has also protected the Baath regime in Syria from the consequences of an American attack, which would likely have given a big boost in morale to the rebels and likewise would likely have degraded regime air capabilities.

http://www.juancole.com/2013/09/lavrov-accord-syria.html

[Igel]

1. Wrong spin.

No traction.

[eridani]

2. Fuck 'em n/t