Barack Obama has defended himself against charges of weakness after agreeing a chemical weapons with Russia that appears to allow President Bashar al-Assad to stay in power for at least another year.
Mr Obama said the threat of military action is still on the table Photo: AP
By Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent, Damien McElroy and Nick Allen
9:20PM BST 15 Sep 2013
The US president was accused of being "indecisive" and allowing himself to be outmanoeuvred by Russia and Iran, Mr Assad's strongest international backers, over the deal. It gives Mr Assad until the middle of next year to hand over his chemical weapons stocks for destruction.
The Assad regime was quick to claim the agreement as a "victory", but Mr Obama said the threat of military action was still on the table.
He said the US was no longer in a "Cold War" with Russia and that he welcomed President Vladimir Putin's "involvement" in Syria. "I welcome him saying, 'I will take responsibility for pushing my client, the Assad regime, to deal with these chemical weapons'," he said.
Until now, administration officials have presented Russian involvement in a wholly negative light, highlighting Moscow's repeated use of the veto to prevent anti-Assad resolutions passing the UN security council.
Under the deal announced on Saturday, Mr Assad has a week to provide a list of all his chemical weapons, delivery systems and storage facilities, and until November to allow full UN inspection. The first date in particular is much quicker than the 30 days expected.
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However, the process of destroying the weapons, either inside Syria or elsewhere, is seen as continuing until the middle of next year, a date by which time Western governments had previously suggested they expected to see Mr Assad out of office. He himself has said there will be elections next year.
The opposition, previously buoyed by the hope that the deaths of hundreds of civilians in a chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburbs of East and West Ghouta on August 21 would finally lead to Western intervention in the conflict, reacted angrily to what they said was a betrayal.
Gen Selim Idriss, notional commander of the Free Syrian Army's high command, said he would cooperate with the inspectors but not allow a ceasefire.
"Are we Syrians supposed to wait until mid-2014, to continue being killed every day and to accept it just because the chemical arms will be destroyed in 2014?" he said.
The opposition's political leadership in exile, the Syrian National Coalition, called for the international community to ban air and missile strikes, a reflection of the most common complaint of rebels and activists on the ground, that the previous 100,000 deaths in the war were being overlooked.
Mr Obama's critics in the United States said he had been "outplayed" by Mr Putin who had ensured Russia's political influence in the Middle East.
"This is a Russian plan for Russian interests. And we should be very, very concerned," Mike Rogers, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said. "Not one ounce of chemical weapons came off the battlefield but we've given up every ounce of our leverage when it comes to trying to solve the broader Syrian problem because we've taken away a credible military threat."
Senator John McCain, the leading voice for American intervention, said: "I think it's a loser because I think it gave Russia a position in the Middle East which they haven't had since the 1970s."
Mr Obama's position with his critics will not have been helped by the chorus of self-congratulation coming from Syria, despite the sudden volte-face by which Mr Assad apparently agreed to give up a key part of his arsenal despite claiming the attack was the work of the rebels.
"These agreements are a victory for Syria, achieved thanks to our Russian friends," Ali Haidar, the minister for national reconciliation, told Russian media.
The favourable coverage of the deal may have averted a major embarrassment for Russia when the UN chemical weapons inspection report into the Ghouta attack is published today (Monday). It will not assign blame but it is expected to lay out not only the chemicals allegedly used but also the delivery systems and even their trajectories, allowing responsibility to be inferred.
So far, independent reports have suggested that the evidence is likely to point towards regime responsibility.
Russian officials were keen to put a positive spin on Mr Assad's concession, saying they had prevented a "mistake the size of Suez".
"It was going to be a disaster to intervene militarily in Syria," one Russian official said. "We saved them. Vladimir Putin, really, deserves the Nobel Peace Prize."
Mr Obama, though, said the most important issue was to prevent an attack happening again, and said that in the meantime he had still not ruled out the use of force. "What I've said consistently throughout is that the chemical weapons issue is a problem," he said. "I want that problem dealt with."
The president's point was backed up by John Kerry, the secretary of state. "The threat of force is real, and the Assad regime and all those taking part need to understand that President Obama and the United States are committed to achieve this goal," he said in Jerusalem, where he briefed the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on the deal.
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