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The agreement on Syria’schemical weapons, reached between US Secretary of State John Kerry and RussianForeign Minister Sergey Lavrov and reported on September 14, 2013, is all sewnup. It appears that the United States was determined to reach an agreement onlyif it met strict criteria on all the substantive issues related to disarmingSyria of its chemical weapons.

The purpose of theagreement is the total destruction of Syria’s chemical capability and itscomponents: chemical agents, dual-use warheads, production facilities, storagesites, and relevant operational units. A short and inflexible timetable was setfor implementing the agreement: one week to report the extent and location ofthe Syrian chemical arsenal, a month and a half for inspectors to inspect thesites, and nine months to complete the disarmament process. The decision willlikely be backed by a UN Security Council resolution (albeit with thepossibility of a Russian veto later), including action on the basis of Chapter7 of the UN charter, which allows imposition of sanctions and the use of militaryforce in order to enforce the decision. The Syrians do not have the right toappeal the Russian-American plan, and they will not be allowed to setconditions for its implementation.

If implemented, thesignificance of this comprehensive agreement is that four parties will emergevictorious from the crisis in a win-win-win-win situation. Russia, which ledthe process to formulate the agreement, has in effect restored its status as a playerin the Middle East equal to the United States. The Obama administration was noteager to take military action, and the agreement gave it a political-diplomaticway out with a significant strategic achievement. The Bashar al-Assad regime inSyria has succeeded in preventing a painful US military strike, and evenreceived “approval” of sorts to continue its war against the rebels and killcivilians by any means it chooses, other than chemical weapons. Lastly, the longstandingthreat to Israel from chemical weapons might be removed, which would also freeIsrael of the financial burden of providing gas masks to its population.

Nevertheless, at thisearly stage there are also two casualties of the agreement:

1. Justice and morality: The superpowers have chosen not to get involved in a comprehensive solution to the civil war and the ongoing killing in Syria. Bashar al-Assad, who is responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 Syrian civilians, including by means of weapons of mass destruction, is not being punished and has even received ostensible approval to continue the aggression.
2. The Syrian opposition and all those who believe that the Assad regime is not worthy of continuing to rule Syria, and that it should be toppled for moral and strategic reasons (i.e., as a death blow to the radical axis).

It is too early toenvision definitively the strategic balance that will emerge with the effortsto implement the agreement, and the jury will be out for several months. TheSyrian regime could lose its strategic arsenal, which in its eyes was insuranceagainst threats both domestic and foreign. If it forfeits its chemical weapons,the regime will lose the ability to deter its adversaries and thwart forcesthat aspire to unseat it.

Consequently, Assadwill likely do everything in his power to sabotage the process and retainoperational chemical capability while concealing his deceit. This would be anattempt to limit the price he is forced to pay to avert the US attack. In thepast, Assad has not hesitated to lie and deceive leading European and Americandiplomats. He has denied responsibility for the murder of Lebanese Prime MinisterRafiq al-Hariri and a series of other senior Lebanese officials, deniedtransferring advanced weaponry to Hizbollah, and even denied that Syria has a nuclearprogram and a chemical weapons arsenal. Secretary of State Kerry, who in hisprevious capacity as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee visitedDamascus often and discussed the peace process with Assad, was himself a victimof Assad’s lies, and in particular, Assad’s denial that he transferred Scudmissiles to Hizbollah.

Reports to the effectthat Assad is now transferring chemical weapons to Iraq and Lebanon look morelike psychological warfare by the Syrian opposition against the regime andagainst the agreement. There is no logic to the transfer of weapons to Iraq.Those in control of the Syrian-Iraqi border are Sunnis, Syrian rebels who areAssad adversaries, and it is not clear who in Iraq would receive the Syrianchemical weapons. However, there is a great deal of logic in transferringchemical weapons to Hizbollah, which offers a relatively safe haven for theAssad regime. At the same time, chemical weapons in Lebanon are a red line forIsrael, and according to sources in the Pentagon, Israel has taken action recentlyseveral times in order to disrupt the transfer of advanced weaponry – Syrian,Iranian, or Russian – from Syria to Hizbollah.

How might anagreement to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons be implemented? There arethree main scenarios, with potentially very different strategic results.

One scenario shows aprocess conducted according to plan. Within a week, the Syrian regime willreport on everything that is required, and leading intelligence agencies in theworld will confirm the report’s credibility. By the end of November 2013, aprofessional force of inspectors will enter Syria and receive the regime’s fullcooperation and protection from attacks by opposition forces. This force willgo to all relevant sites under regime control, and locate and deal with thechemical agents and the means of production for the chemical weapons. Bymid-2014, all chemical components will be destroyed or removed from Syria. Thechances that this scenario will materialize if Assad continues his previousbehavior are limited. At the same time, some have argued that Assad now realizesthat the use of chemical weapons jeopardizes his regime more than it helps it.If so, this scenario might in fact materialize.

A second – opposing –scenario has Assad do all that he can to delay the disarmament process and,with Russia’s tacit support, dissolve the agreement. Assad, who confronted thechallenge of being ousted from Lebanon, returned there after the world wasfocused on other crises and for many years withstood pressure from the UnitedStates not to allow jihadists passage to Iraq. Thus, the regime could provide incompletereports in an attempt to conceal some of its chemical arsenal until the event blowsover, cause delays on various pretexts, and complicate matters for theinspectors, as it has done for the inspection mechanism of the Arab League andthe UN since 2011. For their part, the Russians will cooperate with Assad in away that resonates of their previous endorsement of Assad’s claim (until abouta week before the agreement was formulated) that he had not used chemicalweapons on Syrian soil and that if they were used, it was by the rebels.According to this scenario, the Russians will benefit from their stopping theUS strike, reentering the game in the Middle East, and continuing therelationship with the ruling regime in Syria. This scenario too has littlelikelihood of materializing.

In a third,intermediate scenario, the Russians would honor their commitment to the UnitedStates, and Assad would work very cautiously and less flagrantly to retainpossession of his chemical arsenal, attempting to save some of it, avoid fullreporting, delay the arrival of the inspectors, and complicate their mission.However, when he is reprimanded by Russia or realizes that he is essentially invitinga firm Security Council resolution against him or a US military strike, he willresume more significant cooperation. This scenario is quite likely.

The first scenariodoes not present challenges to the West as far as chemical weapons areconcerned. Nevertheless, it does obligate the West to address the issue of thecontinued killing in Syria by conventional means, and take a stand on thefuture of the Assad regime and on support for non-jihadist rebels. Theagreement on chemical weapons does not mention the Geneva 2 process, and itcertainly does not prevent its progress. If the process continues, Russia mayallow Assad and his close associates to be removed from power while ensuringthe continuation of the existing regime, with certain reforms, in order toprotect their foothold in Syria.

The second scenario returnsthe world to the starting point: President Obama and Secretary of State Kerryhave announced that they will not compromise on a failure to fulfill theagreement and that the option of an attack remains on the table. Hence, ifthere is a flagrant violation of the agreement, which is backed up by solidintelligence, the administration will reconsider the issue of a strike, whichwould then be more legitimate, both in the eyes of the American public and theinternational community. However, if this were to occur, Russia would likelyuse its veto power in the Security Council and the United States would beforced to act unilaterally and without the explicit approval of international law,or in other words, to take action that the president has sought to avoid inrecent weeks.

The third scenario isthe most problematic. Like his Iranian allies, Assad could maneuver cautiouslyso as not to create a pretext for breaking the rules and for a resolution infavor of an attack. The removal and destruction of chemical agents wouldencounter great difficulty, and the inspectors would be hard pressed to createa safe work environment and would suffer attacks by unidentified “armedelements” (the UN and the peacekeeping forces are not known for theirdetermination in the face of fire and terrorism). In the absence of definitiveproof that Assad is sabotaging implementation of the agreement, the West wouldhave a hard time restoring the military option and conveying a credible messagethat the next stage is to use it.

The big elephant inthe room is of course Iran. Any scenario that develops in Syria will be studiedclosely by the Iranians, with an emphasis on the credibility of the Americanmilitary option, President Obama’s red lines, the support of the Americanpublic for a military strike, and the significance of Russia’s conduct (concernfor the survival of its allies or true concern about proliferation of weaponsof mass destruction). The Iranians will carefully examine the internationalcommunity’s response to a lack of Syrian cooperation on nonconventional weaponson the one hand, and the unrestrained, continued killing with conventionalweapons on the other. The conclusions drawn in Tehran will undoubtedly haveconsequences for international efforts to confront Iran's progress towardcompletion of its military nuclear program.