BREAKING: Russia says ready to help guard Syria chemical weapons sites

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is ready to help guard Syria's chemical weapons sites when President Bashar al-Assad's chemical arms stockpiles and factories are destroyed, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying on Thursday by news agencies.

"We will be ready to help in guarding those facilities where work is being carried out," Interfax news agency reported Ryabkov as saying at an arms fair.

BREAKING: Russia says ready to help guard Syria chemical weapons sites

Saw this coming. Of course Russia will have the upper hand here, and this will keep NATO from entering because Russia and Syria are in agreements of this from the start (it appears.)

Regardless if they do guard them, until they are removed and disposed...
This will NOT stop the fighting, so something else must be considered.

reply to post by CALGARIAN


Actually I think this could be a good thing, for a number of reasons.

The US Department of Defence estimated it would take up to 75,000 soldiers to undertake the security of handling this chemical disarmament.

Given the US's stance that the responsibility of this disarmament lies squarely on Russia (as they opposed the military strike the US was pushing for), it would make sense for Russia to send her troops to undertake this process, especially given the public resistance of US 'boots on the ground' to deal with it.

Now the rebels would be faced with an additional 75,000 foreign soldiers (albeit in a non-military role). They would have to realise that any attack on them, accidental or intentional, would invoke a full response from the Russian military. Given that Assad has reportedly been gaining the upper hand, the involvement of the Russian military on top of this would be too much for them to deal with, I think. Therefore it could have a very stabilising effect on the area. Given this war has dragged on for nearly three years, and both sides are reportedly growing tired of the bloodshed, it could have a positive result of ceasing hostilities (at least for the lengthy duration of the disarmament process).

Further, the presence of Russian soldiers at these chemical plants would mean that it would be impossible for the US to target these sites in a military strike if they got their way in the future. The US would realise that such a strike which resulted in the deaths of Russian soldiers would have very grave consequences for the world arena, particularly given that the US gave support for Russia to undertake this chemical disarmament which saw the Russian soldiers put in harm's way. To then launch a strike which would result in the deaths of Russian soldiers whose presence they agreed to would be unfathomable.

I've been following this mess on a daily basis for more than 2 years now, and I really think there would be some positives to emerge here...

Regards,
Rewey