Russian officials are hoping to see the UN Security Council agree soon to a new peace resolution for Syria, based on a plan negotiated in Geneva in June. If Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has her way, it won’t even come up for a vote.
“There is no point to passing a resolution,” Clinton insisted, saying the US would only agree to the deal if it involved UN ‘consequences for non-compliance’ on the regime, something the Russian resolution does not do.
The Geneva Plan sought the end of the ongoing civil war, but US officials interpreted the deal entirely different from Russians, saying it “required” Syrian President Bashar Assad to immediately resign.
After the way NATO escalated the Libya “no-fly zone,” any “consequences” in a resolution are certain to be rejected by Russia, which is concerned that the US will try to reimagine any such resolution as an authorization to invade, and has demanded every resolution passed explicitly rule out invasion.
