What's a Kerry deadline worth? About the same as Obama's red line. All that smart power adds up to little more than hot air that blows one way and then another and then gets sucked away into a convenient vent.
Kerry wanted to coordinate air strikes with Russia in Syria. Russia wanted Assad to win. Kerry was too stupid to grasp this and instead engaged in extended negotiations with the Russians who knew that they could keep on playing for time because the Dems would negotiate with any enemies indefinetly.
Secretary of State John Kerry admitted Monday that Russia has failed to meet his Aug. 1 deadline for playing a more constructive role in Syria, and warned that he now sees Russia's actions in Syria as "very troubling."
Kerry warned Russia back in May that it has to help the U.S. and other allies start moving Syria toward a political transition by today. That date was still months after a United Nations-brokered cease-fire was supposed to take effect in Syria.
You don't hear much about the cease fire today, though there was plenty of bragging about it back then. Just like you don't hear much about the WMD deal with Syria. For good reason.
But on the day of the deadline, Kerry acknowledged in Washington that Russia has failed to meet his expectation. He said ongoing fighting in Syria has made it "impossible" to sit down and negotiate, and said the last several months have been filled with unsuccessful efforts to enforce the cease-fire despite Russia's ongoing military action there.
"It is critical, obviously, that Russia restrain both itself and the [Bashar] Assad regime from conducting offensive operations, just as it is our responsibility to get the opposition to refrain from engaging in those operations," Kerry said.
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"Now, my hope is that we can arrive at that," he said. "If we can't, nobody is going to sit around and allow this pretense to continue."
"These are important days to determine whether or not Russia and the Assad regime are going to live up to the U.N., live up to the cycle or not," Kerry added. "And the evidence thus far is very, very troubling to everybody."
It's only troubling if you don't grasp reality. Kerry is now coming to the troubling conclusion that Russia never meant to negotiate in good faith. It's a common sense conclusion that any intelligent person already understood. What Kerry fails to acknowledge is that Russia played him quite effectively.