After nearly going down in flames, the President's Syria policy has apparently been saved from the abyss by an offhand remark by Secretary of State Kerry and an opportunistic move by Putin.



This will be "spun" in many directions by all sides on the debate, including this commentary, but hopefully it has moved the situation in a positive diplomatic direction and will eliminate the threat of further use of chemical weapons in Syria and reassert the international norm against their use.



That said, this strategy is not without risk. It does nothing to end the civil war in Syria, which will likely end with a reassertion of the Assad dictatorship and a stronger regional presense for Iran, or an extremist Islamic regime aligned with Jihadists. While the threat of the use of chemical weapons will hopefully be taken off the table in Syria, it does nothing to deal with the larger issues across a 5000 mile wide swath from Northern Pakistan through Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Arabian peninsula, Syria, Egypt and across Northern Africa as the terrorist attack on a Kenyan mall vividly demonstrates.



If the move is effective in eliminating most chemical weapons in Syria and preventing their further use, it will be a small diplomatic victory for the President and Putin. That said, it does nothing to address the larger issues across the Middle East and North Africa that will continue to manifest in domestic conflict, regional geopolitical jockeying and resurgent international terrorism for decades to come.



In a larger sense, it is representative of America's weakened position in the region after more than a decade of war and the withdrawal from Iraq and the pending withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as the Presidents weakness at home on both sides of the aisle. While the wisdom of past interventions can be endlessly debated, what seems clear is that the U.S. is significantly weaker in the region and the forces of violence, including extremist violence, are ascendant.



While the norm against state actors using chemical weapons has hopefully been reasserted, the template for non-state actors, who by definition dont respect international norms, has been cast.