John Kerry's ad lib remark yesterday (it wasn't cleared with anyone) that Syria could avoid war if they turned over their chemical weapons to the international community presented a perfect opportunity for President Putin to get the upper hand in the Syria debate and probably forestall an attack. Within hours of Kerry's mutterings, Putin had turned Kerry's off hand comment into a proposal to avoid war. Moscow said they would work with President Assad to make Kerry's "rhetorical arguments' as the State Department put it, into a concrete proposal to avoid war. Yochi Dreazen of Foreign Policy asks "Did Kerry Just Ad-Lib His Way Out of a War"? The Obama administration reacted much more cautiously, noting that Lavrov had provided no timetables or details about how his idea would work in practice, but White House officials didn't dismiss the Russian plan out of hand. "We're going to take a hard look at this," Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken told reporters at the White...(Read Full Post)