John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has said he will move towards a plan B that could involve a partition of Syria if a planned ceasefire due to start in the next few days does not materialize, or if a genuine shift to a transitional government does not take place in the coming months.
Oh yes, you may have thought that “partition” is a bad word, but that’s only true when the Russians do it. When Americans partition a foreign country (Korea, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Sudan) that is actually a good thing.
Which presents us with a problem since Kerry is apparently willing to invite Putin to help with the partition:
Kerry suggested partition could form part of an eventual solution, saying “this can get a lot uglier and Russia has to be sitting there evaluating that too. It may be too late to keep it as a whole Syria if it is much longer”.
It is the first time Kerry has spoken of partition, although some believe Putin would be content to see this happen.
This creates a moral problem for us because while a unilateral partition of Syria by the virtuous US would be a good thing, a joint US-Russian partition would be tainted by the virtue of having evil Russian paws over it.
Hopefully the Russian nation-breaking dictator will decline the offer of the nation-building Obama Administration official and avert the possibility of American-Russian collusion in breaking up a sovereign third country.
PS. Wasn’t it just a short few weeks ago that the West was accusing Moscow of plotting partition of Syria? How times change.