Sirija

[bergasa19]

Boško Jakšić.

[reg]

Cisto sumnjam da bi HRW izmisljao dokaze. Uz to ne verujem bas u price o namestaljkama tipa Markale, Racak itd tako da posto je neko pobio te ljude sve su sanse da je to Asad.

Kada si vec poceo...ne znam da li je neko vec postovao izjave talaca tzv. Abu Omara:

“During our kidnapping, we were kept completely in the dark about what was going on in Syria, including the gas attacks in Damascus”, Quirico said. “But one day, we heard a Skype conversation in English between three people whose names I do not know. We heard the conversation from the room in which we were being held captive, through a half-closed door. One of them had previously presented himself to us as a general of the Syrian Liberation Army. The other two we had never seen and knew nothing about”.“During the Skype conversation, they said that the gas attack on the two neighbourhoods in Damascus had been carried out by rebels as a provocation, to push the West towards a military intervention. They also said they believed the death toll had been exaggerated,” Quirico said in his statement. “I don’t know if any of this is true and I cannot say for sure that it is true because I have no means of confirming the truth of what was said. I don’t know how reliable this information is and cannot confirm the identity of these people. I am in no position to say for sure whether this conversation is based on real fact or just hearsay and I don’t usually call conversations I have heard through a door, true,” Quirico said.

Freed Captives Differ on Claim Syrian Rebels Framed Assad With Gas Attack [naslov je los posto se slazu u onome sto su culi, ali ne i da li je to istina] Edited September 16, 2013 by reg

[porucnik vasic]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-sdO6pwVHQ

[Filipenko]

[Prospero]

"Paid for by Koch Industries", zašto nisam iznenađen :)

[Lord Protector]

Mislim da se preteruje sa diplomatskim uspehom Rusije i neuspehom Amerike da sprovede svoj naum u Siriji. Situacija na terenu će vrlo brzo pokazati ko je pravi gubitnik. Mislim da će to biti Asad i njegov režim, kao i manjinske grupe u Siriji. Režim će biti demontiran uz blagoslov Rusije i to će biti jedina taktička razlika bez uticaja na strateški score kada se bude podvukla crta za par godina. Sirija je razorena, zemlja je nepopravljivo podeljena i zavađena, i u bilo kom smislu neće predstavljati opasnost za njene neprijatelje decenijama. Uklanjanje hemijskog oružja je vađenje zuba već mrtvoj divljoj mački. Nikome ne odgovara da Al Kaidi padne u ruke hemijsko oružje.Što se tiče Obame, mislim da je on svesno sabotirao vojnu intervenciju, iako je na njega vršen ogroman pritisak lobističkih grupa i dela establišmenta kome je odgovarala intervencija. Možda to zvuči ludo, Putin je svojim činjenjem uradio ono što je Obama potajno želeo: da ne bude bombardovanja u ovom trenutku.Obama je privatno bio protiv intervencije samo je to upakovao u drugačiji celofan pre nedelju dana:

Čak i Mišel Obama protiv intervencije u SirijiObama je u mnogim televizijskim intervjuima priznao da je njegova supruga Mišel Obama protiv plana o vojnoj intervenciji u Siriji, za koji se on zalaže ukoliko diplomatska sredstva ne urode plodom. "Znate, ako pričate sa članovima moje sopstvene porodice, ili sa Mišel, oni su vrlo skeptični i nepoverljivi prema bilo kakvoj akciji", rekao je Obama za televiziju PBS. U intervjuu za NBC on je dodao: "Ako pitate Mišel da li želimo da uđemo u još jedan rat, odgovor je - ne".

U raljama Izraela, Saudijske Arabije i Turske:

Israel, Syria and American Moral HazardLeon HadarSeptember 13, 2013Israeli critics of President Barack Obama have been attacking him for delaying the planned response to the alleged chemical attacks by Syria, and for not doing more to stop the slaughter in that country and oust its leader Bashar Assad.But President Obama’s detractors in Israel who have accused him of being a “softy” on Syria “should ask: Why hasn’t [israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu acted on Syria,” suggested [3] Aluf Benn, the editor of Haaretz in a commentary recently.Until not too long ago, Netanyahu quietly backed Assad, viewing him as “a shield against radical Islam in Syria,” Benn noted. “Now the mood has changed,” and the new spin of the Israeli government and its supporters in Washington is that “Assad has become the new Hitler, and the world is silent, just as it was during the Holocaust.” And something has to be done ASAP to punish him.But then, as Benn points out, the solution is clear and simple. After all, Israel has a strong army and air force. “If its leaders wanted to, they could easily use it to hit any strategic target in Syria, after years of precise intelligence monitoring and detailed operational planning,” he proposes, noting that the Israeli air force has already hit several targets in Syria this year, with precision and with no Israeli casualties. “Thus our leaders could order the planes to take off; the pilots know the route and the targets,” Benn stresses.That Netanyahu has not ordered the IAF to bomb Assad’s regime and military targets, including his chemical weapons, reflects the calculations of the Israeli national-security establishment that the costs of such a move, including the potential for a regional military escalation, attacks on Israeli civilian targets, and the strengthening of radical Islamist opposition forces, would be much higher than the benefits that would accrue to Israel by hurting an ally of Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.But as Benn and other propose, there is no risk that Washington would condemn such as Israeli military action that would destroy Syria’s chemical weapons and devastate its military forces. In fact, Washington would probably give a green light to such an Israeli move and would veto any condemnation of Israel by the United Nations Security Council.Indeed, a scenario along these lines did take place in September 2007 when Israel launched an airstrike [4] on a suspected nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region [5] of Syria. In his memoir Decision Points [6], President George W. Bush [7] wrote that then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had requested earlier that the United States bomb the Syrian site. But Bush refused, despite support for the idea from Vice President Dick Cheney, saying the intelligence was not definitive on whether the plant was part of a nuclear-weapons program. Bush claimed that Olmert did not ask for a green light for an attack and that he did not give one. Olmert may have acted alone and did what he thought was necessary to protect Israel. But at the end, Washington didn’t complain.So why isn’t Netanyahu doing now what is supposedly necessary to protect Israel and attack Syria’s chemical sites? A similar question could be posed to two other major Middle Eastern players, Turkey and Saudi Arabia that very much like the Israeli leaders have been pressing Washington to “do something” in Syria and use its military muscle to oust Assad and his Ba’ath regime from power, and express dismay over the supposedly weak military and diplomatic posture that the Obama administration has been exhibiting in Syria and in the entire Middle East.In the case of the Saudis and the Turks, their criticism of American policy in Syria gives a bad name to the term chutzpah. After years of providing military assistance to the anti-Assad rebels in Syria and creating the conditions for the widening of the civil war and the increase in the number of casualties, the Turks and the Saudis are complaining now that American inaction is responsible for the widening of the civil war and the increase in the number of casualties.In a way, the behavior of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel in Syria exemplifies more than just another case of free riders that expect to benefit from the security protection provided by the hegemon without paying for the costs. These governments recognize that what happens in Syria, with or without American military intervention, would affect their national-security and foreign-policy calculations. They count, however, on the United States to be responsible for dealing with the consequences of the collapse of the balance of power in Syria, including through direct military intervention to help protect their interests there.In a way, American global military intervention, in general, and in Syria, in particular, tends to encourage foreign governments and groups ally with it to engage in risky behavior whose costs end-up being paid by American soldiers and taxpayers, and could therefore be considered a case of “moral hazard,” not unlike the way that bailing out financial institutions encourages risky lending in the future since those taking the risks end-up operating under the assumption that they will not have to pay the full costs of future losses.Or to put it differently, insulating a certain foreign player from future risk is a “moral hazard;” the same player would behave differently than if it is fully exposed to the risk. Examples abound: Georgia provoking a conflict with Russia (expecting the U.S. to come to its aid); Pakistan supporting radical Islamists (expecting the U.S. to pay the costs of fighting terrorism); Israel building-up settlements in the West Bank (expecting Washington to protect it against international denunciations).Not unlike America’s too-big-to-fail financial institutions, U.S. foreign clients tend to make their strategic calculations based not on what Washington says, but on what Washington does. The financial firms rescued by the Treasury and the Fed are confident that despite all the public rage and the tough populist rhetoric emanating from Congress and the White House, Washington would bail them out once again if and when their risk-taking will force us into another financial meltdown.Similarly, the Turks, the Saudis, and the Israelis are certain that notwithstanding all the talk about war weariness in Washington and across the nation, they could eventually draw the Obama administration into Syria to protect them from the consequences of their policies there, whether it is the direct aid that the Turks and the Saudis are providing to the rebels, or the more complex Israeli game of ensuring that Assad and the opposition forces continue to fight and secure a military deadlock in the civil war.But there is no reason why Washington should continue playing this role of a global sugar daddy when its allies seem to be more than ready to take upon themselves the responsibility to protect their security.The GFP [8] website that compares the military strengths of the world’s leading sixty-eight military powers, positions Turkey in the eleventh place, Israel in the thirteenth, Saudi Arabia in the twenty-seventh, with Syria down at the bottom, thirty-eighth. This global firepower (GFP) ranking is based on each nation’s conventional war-making capabilities and doesn’t factor in nuclear capability, which Israel possesses; Turkey as member of NATO enjoys in theory the nuclear protection of the United States (not to mention the support of its close military ally, a nuclear-armed Pakistan). Saudi Arabia and Turkey are also major global economic powers and members of the G-20.The United States does not have an obligation to help these regional military powers and global economic players deal with security problems that are taking place in their respective strategic backyards (and doesn’t affect directly its security) and bail them out after they helped create a mess. If Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel believe that Assad poses a direct threat to them, let them handle the problem on their own, or under the best scenario, work together to maintain stability in the region. American military intervention only ensures that that wouldn’t happen any time soon.http://nationalinter...ral-hazard-9057Leon Hadar, senior analyst at Wikistrat, a geostrategic consulting group, is the author of Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East

Edited September 16, 2013 by slow

[Indy]

The new study by IHS Jane's, a defence consultancy, estimates there are around 10,000 jihadists - who would include foreign fighters - fighting for powerful factions linked to al-Qaeda..Another 30,000 to 35,000 are hardline Islamists who share much of the outlook of the jihadists, but are focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle.There are also at least a further 30,000 moderates belonging to groups that have an Islamic character, meaning only a small minority of the rebels are linked to secular or purely nationalist groups.

[Roger Sanchez]

"Paid for by Koch Industries", zašto nisam iznenađen :)

Eh?

[Prospero]

Na kraju klipa, na 3:30 imaš disklejmer™, a valjda je opšte mesto da braća Koch ne vole socijalistu u Beloj kući.

[Roger Sanchez]

Ok, ali ovo je skeč, pa unutar toga je i disklejmer™ samo faniđouk, sou....

[Кристофер Лумумбо]

ma to je deo zajebancije, ne finansiraju oni anti-obama spotove ovako direktno.rodja objasnio

Edited September 16, 2013 by kojot

[Prospero]

Now I'm torn

[Bane5]

izvestaj (u celosti) inspekcije un o uptrebi sarina 21. avgusta u delovima damaska:https://docs.google....pdf&chrome=true

Edited September 16, 2013 by Bane5

[Prospero]

Zanimljiv i informativni presek stanja u Vašingtonu oko Sirije:

Inside White House, a Head-Spinning Reversal on Chemical Weapons How the U.S. Stumbled Into an International Crisis and Then Stumbled Out of ItADAM ENTOUS, JANET HOOK, CAROL E. LEE

When President Barack Obama decided he wanted congressional approval to strike Syria, he received swift—and negative—responses from his staff. National Security Adviser Susan Rice warned he risked undermining his powers as commander in chief. Senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer pegged the chances of Congress balking at 40%. His defense secretary also raised concerns.Mr. Obama took the gamble anyway and set aside the impending strikes to try to build domestic and international support for such action.He found little of either. Congress's top leaders weren't informed of the switch until just an hour or so before Mr. Obama's Rose Garden announcement and weren't asked whether lawmakers would support it. When the president's chief of staff, Denis McDonough, announced the decision on a conference call with congressional committee leaders, some were so taken aback they seemed at first to misunderstand it.Outside the U.S., Arab leaders privately urged the U.S. to bomb, but few backed Mr. Obama publicly. The United Kingdom pulled the plug on a joint operation two days after indicating to the White House it had the votes to proceed. Compounding the confusion, the same day a potential breakthrough emerged via a diplomatic opening provided by Russia, the administration sent a memo to lawmakers highlighting why Russia shouldn't be trusted on Syria.This account of an extraordinary 24 days in international diplomacy, capped by a deal this past weekend to dismantle Syria's chemical-weapons stockpile, is based on more than two dozen interviews with senior White House, State Department, Pentagon and congressional officials and many of their counterparts in Europe and the Middle East. The events shed light on what could prove a pivotal moment for America's role in the world.Through mixed messages, miscalculations and an 11th-hour break, the U.S. stumbled into an international crisis and then stumbled out of it. A president who made a goal of reducing the U.S.'s role as global cop lurched from the brink of launching strikes to seeking congressional approval to embracing a deal with his biggest international adversary on Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin.Mr. Obama saw the unintended outcome as better than the alternative: limited strikes that risked pulling the U.S. into a new conflict. It forestalled what could have been a crippling congressional defeat and put the onus on Russia to take responsibility for seeing the deal through. U.S. officials say the deal could diminish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's chemical stockpile more effectively than a strike, though it leaves Mr. Assad and his conventional arsenal in place."I'm not interested in style points," Mr. Obama told his senior staff in a closed-door meeting Friday, according to a participant. "I'm interested in results."Not everyone is pleased. Mr. Obama infuriated allies who lined up against Mr. Assad and his regional backers Iran and Hezbollah. French officials, who were more aggressive than the U.S. in urging a strike, feel they have been left out on a limb. And Russia has been reestablished as a significant player on the world stage, potentially at the expense of the U.S.House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R., Mich.) joined a chorus of Republican lawmakers critiquing the deal, calling it a "Russian plan for Russian interests" that leaves Mr. Assad in power. "Putin is playing chess, and we're playing tick-tack-toe," he told CNN.Mr. Obama was first briefed on the chemical-weapons attack on the morning of Aug. 21. As intelligence agencies began tallying the dead and reviewing intercepted communications that they say made clear Mr. Assad's forces were to blame, White House officials knew the incident was a game changer. Later, the U.S. would say the attack killed more than 1,400.Key U.S. allies in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia, started applying pressure. Saudi Arabia's influential ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir, and other diplomats raced back to Washington from their August vacations to advocate strikes, according to officials and diplomats.Mr. Obama initially appeared to be receptive to arguments for acting forcefully. Meeting on Aug. 24 with his national security advisers, he made clear he leaned toward striking."When I raised the issue of chemical weapons last summer, this is what I was talking about," Mr. Obama said, referring to his "red line" declaration in August 2012. The Navy positioned five destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean, each armed with about 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles.House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) was in a car en route to a GOP fundraiser in Jackson Hole, Wyo., when he received his first high-level White House contact. His staff had earlier put up a blog post chiding the White House for not consulting Congress. A few hours later, White House Chief of Staff McDonough called to explain the options. No mention was made of asking Congress to vote.The next day, Mr. Obama spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron. Both leaders made clear they were ready to strike and agreed on an approach designed to deter Mr. Assad from using chemical weapons again, not bring down the regime. "They were ready to go," said an official briefed on the call.Mr. Cameron rushed politicians back from vacations. While parliamentary approval wasn't legally required, he was conscious of the damage invading Iraq had done to one of his predecessors, Tony Blair. The U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff and British forces already had hammered out details of a "combined contingency operation," a senior U.S. official said.Late in the day before the parliamentary vote, Mr. Cameron was forced to change tack. Under pressure from politicians, he split the process in two: an initial vote on the principle of intervention, then a second on whether the U.K. should become directly involved.At that point, Mr. Obama's advisers concluded the U.K. would end up bowing out.On the night of Wednesday, Aug. 28, Mr. Obama called House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to talk through the options. Ms. Pelosi later told colleagues she didn't ask Mr. Obama to put the question to a vote in Congress.On Thursday, Aug. 29, the U.K. Parliament shot down Mr. Cameron, a major embarrassment to the British leader that raised pressure on the U.S. to seek other support. Opposition came from not only Labour but from Mr. Cameron's own Conservative Party. Mr. Cameron threw in the towel, saying the British Parliament had spoken and the government would "act accordingly."The vote shocked Mr. Putin, who later told Russian state TV he thought legislatures in the West voted in lock-step, "just like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union." Moscow's alarm and frustration was growing as the move toward military action advanced, bypassing the U.N. Security Council where Moscow had veto power.The U.K. parliamentary vote happened as National Security Adviser Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel were beginning a conference call with congressional leaders. During the call, Mr. Hagel, who was traveling in Asia, raised the question of U.S. credibility. He said South Korea was concerned U.S. inaction would make North Korea think it could get away with using chemical and biological weapons.On Friday, Aug. 30, signs of congressional unease were mounting. Some 186 Democrats and Republicans signed letters asking the president to seek congressional authorization.That day, Mr. Kerry made an impassioned speech defending the president's decision to consult with Congress as the right way to approach "a decision of when and how and if to use military force."Five Navy destroyers were in the eastern Mediterranean, four poised to launch scores of Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria, according to military officials. Officers said they expected launch orders from the president at between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday. To make sure they were ready to answer reporters' questions, Pentagon officials conducted a mock news conference.Around 5 p.m., Mr. Obama went on a 45-minute walk with Chief of Staff McDonough. Mr. Obama summoned his top advisers to meet in the Oval Office at around 7 p.m."I have a big idea I want to run by you guys," Mr. Obama started. He asked for opinions on seeking congressional authorization. Everyone was surprised, except Mr. McDonough, a consistent voice of caution on getting entangled in Syria.Ms. Rice expressed reservations. From a national-security perspective, she said, it was important the president maintain his authority to take action, according to a senior administration official. Mr. Pfeiffer, the senior adviser, gave his assessment of the political odds and the consequences of failure.Mr. Obama called Mr. Hagel, who, like Ms. Rice, raised concerns. He thought "the administration's actions and words need to avoid the perception of swinging from vine to vine," according to a senior administration official.Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, sent a draft of an announcement to the president at 1 a.m. Saturday, and it was reworked until shortly before being popped into the teleprompter. Mr. Obama also worked the phones to notify congressional leaders—but not to seek their advice.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) was preparing a turkey sandwich in his Louisville, Ky., home when he took the call. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was called in Nevada. Mrs. Pelosi was in San Francisco.Mr. Boehner was in a hotel in Steamboat Springs, Colo., when the president called. According to an aide, they discussed the logistics of a House vote. Mr. Boehner told Mr. Obama it would be hard to call lawmakers back to Washington quickly, and that he would need time to sell it.Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) was on a treadmill in a Los Angeles gym and watched the news on Fox television. When a friend asked what was going on, Mr. Waxman replied, "He's going to Congress, and I'm sweating."Mr. Obama also alerted French President François Hollande, who had been waiting for Washington to launch strikes. Mr. Obama now told his French counterpart he needed to build support in Washington, from Congress, according to a senior French official.It swiftly became clear the White House faced a fight. On Sunday, Sept. 1, members of both parties were questioning the White House proposal.That day, the administration convened its first of several classified briefings for lawmakers. Dozens of House members and senators showed up in the middle of a congressional recess and on Labor Day weekend.That night, the president called one of his closest friends in Congress, Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) at home in Springfield, Ill., and talked to him for more than a half-hour. Like many liberal Democrats, Mr. Durbin was torn. The situation had echoes of the war in Iraq, which he had opposed. He hung up still unsure what he would do. (He ended up approving the strikes in a Senate committee vote.)In an effort to sway House Democrats, the administration held a conference call briefing the House Democratic Caucus. One Democrat on the call was openly critical: Rep. Rick Nolan, a freshman from Minnesota who said an isolated strike could escalate."Have we forgotten about the lessons of Southeast Asia and a president who said we need to have our boys fight there," Mr. Nolan said, according to an official familiar with the exchange.Mr. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, shot back: "No, I haven't forgotten that. I know it pretty well. And I fought against that war. That's not what anyone's talking about."After the briefing, Mr. Nolan said he was more convinced that military strikes were a bad idea.After a Sept. 3 meeting Mr. Boehner, Ms. Pelosi and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) gave strong statements of support for the administration's resolution. But both Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Boehner said they weren't going to "whip" the vote—Congress-speak for making the vote a test of party loyalty.Mr. Obama hoped to use the Group of 20 summit in St. Petersburg to shape international consensus for a military assault. He left the conference with half the members unconvinced.While Saudi Arabia and Turkey voiced support for the U.S. position, other Arab allies were silent, reinforcing Mr. Obama's worries about going it alone. Diplomats from Jordan and the United Arab Emirates told lawmakers they would like to help win votes in the House. But they made clear that they weren't prepared to endorse the idea publicly because they feared for their security if the U.S. strikes sparked a backlash or reprisals.By the time Mr. Obama got back to Washington, his aides thought the resolution could make it through the Senate, but felt the House was lost.The way out of the impasse came by accident during a news conference in London on Sept. 9. Secretary of State Kerry, in response to a question, ad libbed that Syria could avert a U.S. attack if it gave up its chemical weapons.Minutes later, his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, called him. "I'd like to talk to you about your initiative," Mr. Lavrov said from Moscow, where he was hosting a delegation of Syrian diplomats."I don't know what you're talking about," the American diplomat jokingly replied.Even though both sides had previously discussed such an idea, State Department and White House officials were skeptical. How would inspectors do their work in the middle of a civil war? Also, working with the Russians seemed implausible. The same day Mr. Kerry made his fateful remark, the State Department sent Congress a memo detailing: "Russian Obstruction of Actions on Syria."Things changed quickly once the White House realized Mr. Kerry's inadvertent remark may have provided a way around the political impasse.Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a supporter of the Syrian strikes, was lunching in the Senate Dining Room with the Russian ambassador to the U.S., who persuaded her the Russians were sincere. Other lawmakers also saw hope for a new diplomatic initiative—and for avoiding a vote they were dreading.While prepping for a series of TV interviews, Mr. Obama told his senior aides of the proposal and said, "Let's embrace this and test it."U.S. and French diplomats said there was an early push by the allies to seek a binding U.N. Security Council resolution that could authorize the use of force if Syria didn't meet its obligations. French diplomats drafted a resolution with muscular language.Russia rejected the language outright and U.S. diplomats worked behind the scenes to pull France into line with a compromise that Moscow could accept.Hours after Messrs. Kerry and Lavrov's London phone call, the American and Russian bureaucracies mobilized, say U.S. and Russia officials involved in the process.Mr. Obama's speech to the nation on Sept. 10, initially intended to sell lawmakers on supporting strikes, instead called for postponing action in Congress to explore the Russian proposal.It infuriated Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), one of the few vocal GOP supporters of the Syria strikes, for not making the case about the risk to U.S. credibility. He snapped at Mr. McDonough in an email: "You guys are really hard to help, OK?"On Sept. 11, Mr. Kerry spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he believed Russia wasn't bluffing and that a deal was possible, according to American and Middle Eastern officials briefed on the exchange. Israel shared U.S. concerns that strikes could strengthen rebels linked with al Qaeda and allow them to seize Mr. Assad's weapons.A senior official in Mr. Netanyahu's office declined to comment on the contents of the discussions with Mr. Kerry, but on Monday denied that Mr. Netanyahu pushed the U.S. to take the Russian deal. Mr. Netanyahu subsequently said he hoped the agreement will achieve its stated goal of stripping Syria of its chemical weapons.Rebel leaders based in Turkey and Jordan were angry about the unfolding diplomacy, but were told by U.S. and European diplomats not to publicly reject the plan. But several spoke out. "To hell with America," said Brig. Gen. Adnan Selou, a Syrian defector who used to head a chemical-warfare program in Syria and now is based in Turkey. "We don't recognize this plan."Messrs. Kerry and Lavrov arrived in Geneva Thursday afternoon without even a broad outline of a plan. Both sides agreed on the extent of Mr. Assad's stockpiles and began discussing next steps.Mr. Lavrov and his deputy surprised the Americans by sticking to their position that Syrian rebel forces, rather than Mr. Assad, were behind the chemical-weapons attack, and spinning conspiracies about how Saudi Arabia and other Arab states played a role in overseeing it.In a blow to the French, Messrs. Lavrov and Kerry hashed out a framework agreement omitting any mention of who was to blame for the chemical attacks. The agreement also made military intervention an increasingly remote possibility.Mr. Putin celebrated with an op-ed in the New York Times, lecturing Americans on the failings of their government's policies.A senior administration official said Mr. Obama felt—even more so after Mr. Putin's op-ed—that "if Putin wants to put his credibility on the line in supporting this proposal," then the White House would make sure he owns it.Having given up on prospects of a U.N. Security Council resolution that threatened force for noncompliance, the U.S. told the Russians it reserved the right to take military action if Mr. Assad doesn't meet the agreement's terms.On Sunday, Mr. Assad's warplanes again bombed the Damascus suburbs after a short-lived lull in air attacks after Aug. 21.—Jay Solomon, Cassell Bryan-Low, Gregory L. White, Nour Malas, Sam Dagher, Charles Levinson and Stacy Meichtry contributed to this article.

[Roger Sanchez]

Pazi kako se Vlad nije zajebo pa reko da je mislio da parlamenti na Zapadu glasaju ko Gosudarstvenaja Duma.