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What Russia's Plan for Syrian Chemical Weapons Tells Iran
(Jerusalem Post) Ariel Ben Solomon - Iran observed how Syria, with Russia's assistance, has wiggled out from what was to be limited U.S. strikes. It will take note at how effectively Syria was able to split the international community over the planned attack and how uneasy people in the West are over military interventions in the Middle East. Emily Landau, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told the Jerusalem Post that Iran is paying close attention to "how deep the divide is between the U.S. and Russia." The Syrian issue "is a kind of test case for the international community in facing serious noncompliance in the WMD realm," she said. The good news is that Iran, Russia and Syria saw the U.S. threat to use force as real. It was this threat that caused Russia and Syria to come up with this alternate proposal, thus demonstrating that the U.S. is able to modify behavior of rogue regimes if it chooses to do so. Furthermore, the success of the Russian proposal could result in "the U.S. and Russia moving closer together, meaning Iran cannot count on Russia and the U.S. to be on opposite sides regarding its ongoing nuclear progress." "On the negative side, we have yet to see how this plays out, and what Obama does if the Russian proposal does not materialize into an effective plan."