Russia's Offer to Take Syria's Chemical Weapons

First, I think this will be the deal. Or something very close. It offers too much face-saving to everyone involved. Don't forget: Syria and Russia are allies. They're on the same side. Russia wants Assad to stay in power. That's their interest. With this deal: 

• The USA gets to say: We forced Assad to give up his chemical weapons! 
• The Russians get to say: We brokered a peace deal! Look how important we are! 
• Assad gets to say: I'm not guilty, but here are my chemical weapons.

The Russians and Syrians know that we are very unlikely to bomb Assad much. However, Russia might not have wanted to take the chance that a little push on Assad might have tipped the balance of the civil war. The Russians cannot afford for Assad to lose to the jihadist rebels. So maybe the Russians are being a little risk-averse here.

Also, the chemical weapons have no further use for Assad. His goal is to win the civil war, and he can do that with conventional weapons. I'm sure that part of this deal will have the Russians giving/selling more conventional weapons to the Assad, so he can continue prosecuting the war. I hate to break it to y'all, but people are just as dead from an AK-47 as they are from sarin. Dead is dead.

It's possible that Assad is giving up nothing by giving up chemical weapons since those weapons have already achieved as much military advantage they were going to achieve. Think about it like chess.

What Russia and Syria are doing is taking and keeping the initiative, forcing Obama to respond to them. They're offering to exchange some pieces for position and time. The piece they are giving up are no longer useful in the full sense. However, they get to string out "inspections" and such for a long time. It will probably be long enough for Syria to win the civil war.

In chess--a game Putin no doubt knows very well--initiative is nearly everything: one has the advantage when one is forcing an opponent to respond to your moves rather than you to his. By forcing Obama's play, he is effectively one or more moves ahead.

In chess, there are (basically) three stages of the game. There's the opening game, in which the players being to strategically place all of their pieces on the board, bringing out their powerful pieces in turn. This is followed by the middle game, which takes place after some of the pawns have been cleared away and there is room for powerful pieces to exert their reach. Finally, you have the endgame, where final pressure on the opponent's king is exerted, and he's ultimately powerless and trapped in checkmate.

We're now in the middle game. The endgame here is Iran with nukes. Checkmate happens when the Iranians achieve nuclear capability and we are maneuvered into a position where we can do nothing about it.

Sometimes mistakes in the opening cannot be overcome.