Destroying Syria's chemical weapons is harder than it sounds

Everybody is excited about a new path to not bombing Syria, but there's a pretty big catch...

Secretary of State John Kerry
(Image credit: (REUTERS/Alastair Grant))

There's an unexpected twist in the international drama over Syria's use of chemical weapons, and for once it's a development everybody has welcomed: Thanks to an apparently off-the-cuff proposal by Secretary of State John Kerry, quickly picked up by Russia and given a tentative thumbs-up from Syria's foreign minister, there's now a promising avenue toward avoiding U.S. airstrikes on Syria.

The idea sounds deceptively simple: In return for the U.S. standing down, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime will agree to turn over its stockpile of chemical weapons to international control, eventually to be destroyed. President Obama would get his primary stated goals — Syria wouldn't be able to gas its citizens again, and one of the world's biggest caches of chemical munitions would be obliterated — and no U.S. missiles would be fired.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.