To understand the Syrian mess, think of President Obama as the classic Jeff Bridges character in the 1998 Coen Brothers film “The Big Lebowski.”
Just like the loveable Jeff Lebowski — the White-Russian-drinking dude dragged in to solve a confusing crime — Obama stumbles along into hopeful solutions to complex problems. And just like The Dude, he’d rather be bowling.
Obama alone, we’re told, grasps the real world’s overwhelming complexity. As The Dude explains in the movie, “This is a very complicated case . . . You know, a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous. And, uh, a lotta strands to keep in my head, man.”
Then there’s that other Jeffrey Lebowski, the Big one.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his sidekick, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, play that role in the Syrian drama: Their agenda isn’t immediately clear to the casual viewer.
Just like that Lebowski, who claims to want his kidnapped young wife back, they say they just want to solve the crime.
But do they?
The real-world crime was detailed Monday in a damning UN report about the horrific Aug. 21 Sarin attack in three Damascus suburbs. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called it “the worst use of weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century.”
Ban urged the UN Security Council to put the culprits on trial for crimes against humanity. But while the UN report had enough details in it for even an amateur sleuth to conclude that forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad committed the attack, it didn’t quite say it: Russian diplomacy had gotten the investigators barred from any such finger-pointing.
So in Moscow yesterday, Lavrov still insisted that “serious grounds” remain to believe that anti-Assad rebels were responsible.
Yet standing next to Lavrov was his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius — who’d rather send Assad to a world court by tomorrow morning. In other words, the “international community” isn’t as united as it may have looked these last few days.
Lavrov’s framework agreement with Secretary of State John Kerry entrusts the United Nations, Russia and Syria to dismantle the huge cache of chemical arms that Russia had helped Syria amass for decades.
But, as Kerry said, this blueprint still needs to be written up as a Security Council resolution before it becomes a reality. With Lavrov at the helm, good luck getting such a resolution quickly.
Lavrov’s favorite drink is Johnnie Walker Black. He wouldn’t get near such drinks as a White Russian, the cocktail of choice for the aging California hipster Lebowski. That stuff is closer to the sensibilities of surfers like Kerry.
The Moscow Lebowskis scoff at such sensibilities the way they sneered at Obama’s now-famous declaration that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a “red line.”
To them it sounded like The Dude protesting, “This will not stand, you know, this aggression will not stand, man.”
In the film, The Dude eventually turns the tables on the Big Lebowski. Our president hasn’t managed that: Assad’s atrocity still stands — and while Obama did threaten to unleash America’s military might, he quickly backed down.
Like one of those crazy schemes hatched in the movie by Walter, The Dude’s ’Nam-evoking buddy, Kerry made a flippant remark about Syria disarming itself. Lavrov latched on, and the wheels were soon in motion.
Will the current process of UN-supervised chem destruction work? One thing’s for sure: The longer the diplomats haggle over the details, the more it risks falling apart.
Reports in several Gulf newspapers this week say that Assad has already started moving his chemical arms to hiding places in Syria and neighboring countries. Yet his most friendly neighbor is Hezbollah, which controls much of Lebanon.
Oops: All along, one of the biggest fears about Assad’s chemicals was that they’d get into the hands of terrorist groups . . . like Hezbollah.
So the “solution” may lead to the scariest of scenarios.
And by the time the Turtle Bay diplomats straighten all their ins, outs and what-have-yous, and once UN inspectors (yet to be named) finally make their way into Syria (where they’ll need armed protection from all warring sides), they may find that Assad has very few chemical arms left after all.
But by then, our lovable Lebowski will be back at his favorite bowling lane.
Obama will be playing Washington politics, which he prefers to all this foreign adventurism. He’s never made a convincing case for American involvement in Syria. No wonder polls show the public wants nothing to do with it.
But, hey, The Dude abides.