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WASHINGTON — The United States will begin working with its allies at the United Nations to explore the viability of a Russian plan to avert military action against Syria by having the international community take control of the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile, a senior White House official said on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — President Obama, facing an almost certain defeat in obtaining Congressional support for a military strike against Syria, prepared to tell the nation on Tuesday night that he would give serious consideration to a proposal by Russia that international monitors take over and destroy Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons.
The decision to work through the United Nations came after President Obama spoke Tuesday morning with President François Hollande of France and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, the White House official said.
Mr. Obama, according to aides, was still planning to press Congress to support action against Syria, arguing that only a credible threat of military force would persuade President Bashar al-Assad to surrender his weapons stockpiles. But at the end of two days of fast-moving developments, Congressional leaders said any vote on a strike had been pushed off as the focus shifted to diplomacy.
“They agreed to work closely together, and in consultation with Russia and China, to explore seriously the viability of the Russian proposal to put all Syrian chemical weapons and related materials fully under international control in order to ensure their verifiable and enforceable destruction,” the official said. “These efforts will begin today at the United Nations.”
In a speech that only 48 hours ago was going to be a call to arms against Syria in relatiation for its use of chemical weapons, Mr. Obama was instead to offer a qualified endorsement of a Russian proposal that his own advisers conceded was rife with risk, given Russia’s steadfast refusal to agree to any previous measures to pressure its longtime client in Syria.
A meeting of the Security Council had been scheduled for Tuesday afternoon but was canceled at Russia’s request, according to United Nations diplomats.
While aides said the president would reiterate a legal and moral case for punishing Syria for its deadly use of chemical weapons, his speech was to be a frank acknowledgment of how radically the political and diplomatic landscape had shifted in just a few days.
The rapid-fire diplomatic developments elicited some skepticism from many regional and international players, who questioned the motives behind the Russian gambit and speculated that Moscow’s plan would enable the Syrian authorities to buy time. There are also questions about the viability of the plan, which is still being developed.
On Capitol Hill, at the United Nations and in foreign capitals, officials flocked to endorse Russia’s proposal as an alternative to involving the United States in the two-and-a-half-year-old civil war in Syria. The proposal also won the backing of the Syrian government: the foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said Tuesday that Syria would turn over its chemical weapons arsenal to Russia, the United Nations and “other countries” — a startling concession, given that as recently as this week Mr. Assad had disputed that Syria even possessed chemical weapons.
France has already begun to share a draft Security Council resolution on Syria, which members of the council were consulting about on Tuesday afternoon. “Discussions have just begun,” said a United Nations diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We’re looking at a process that will last a few days.”
Still, administration officials, lawmakers and diplomats all expressed doubts about the Russian plan. Some said it would allow Syria to play for time and was calculated to undermine the drive for Congressional and international support for a strike. Others said the idea of securing chemical weapons stockpiles in the midst of a brutal civil war was fanciful.
But Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced in a statement that it opposed any resolution that would authorize the use of force. Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, telephoned his French counterpart and told him a resolution like the one proposed by France was “unacceptable,” the ministry said in a statement.
Moreover, the diplomatic efforts — which began after Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, announced his proposal on Monday — quickly ran into trouble. A meeting of the United Nations Security Council was canceled Tuesday afternoon after Russia clashed with the United States and France over whether to make its proposal binding and back it up with the threat of force.
Instead, Russia will propose a presidential statement, which is far less binding, calling on the secretary general and the organization that oversees the Chemical Weapons Convention to carry out the proposal to put Syria’s arsenal under international control.
“We need a full resolution from the Security Council to have the confidence that this has the force it ought to have,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a social media interview sponsored by Google. “Right now the Russians are in a slightly different place on that.”
“The Russian draft confirms that there is no alternative to a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict” in Syria, the statement said.
Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov will meet in Geneva on Thursday to work out these disagreements. Before Russia made its announcement, Mr. Kerry expressed blunt skepticism that Syria could be trusted to turn over its stockpile, which is dispersed in multiple locations around the country. In testimony to Congress on Tuesday, he described the Obama administration’s position on the Russian plan.
Mr. Obama’s decision to embrace a United Nations process came as he prepared to consult with senators on Capitol Hill and deliver a speech to the nation Tuesday night, which was originally scheduled to explain why he was asking Congress for authorization to take military action against the government of President Bashar al-Assad in retaliation for its use of chemical weapons.
“It has to be swift, it has to be real, it has to be verifiable,” Mr. Kerry told the House Armed Services Committee. “It cannot be a delaying tactic.”
Aides to Mr. Obama said he would continue to press for military action against Syria, but the proposal floated Monday by Mr. Lavrov has transformed both the domestic and international debate over Mr. Obama’s plan after he appeared to be waging a losing battle to win support for a military response.
Mr. Obama’s decision to work through the Security Council is itself a shift, given that 10 days ago he described it as “completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable.” But administration officials said they were swayed by the level of detail in the Russian proposal, which grew out of an impromptu conversation between Mr. Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin on the sidelines of a summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, last week.
Under the Russian proposal, international monitors would be sent to Syria to take control of the chemical stocks, which would ultimately be eliminated. Syria has welcomed the Russian initiative but has not specifically endorsed the idea of disposing of its huge chemical weapons arsenal.
“The Lavrov statement was quite comprehensive,” a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Frankly, it exceeded expectations in the level of detail it went into.”
In Moscow, Russian officials said they were working with the authorities in Damascus on a “workable, precise and concrete plan” to advance the proposal, which received public endorsements from Syria’s foreign minister and prime minister, but not from Mr. Assad himself.
On Capitol Hill, where opposition to a strike was hardening, senators emerged from lunchtime meetings with Mr. Obama optimistic that Congress could shift from a resolution authorizing force to one that would give diplomacy more time.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that the proposal to take control of Syria’s chemical weapons — and to resolve the crisis in general — was possible only if the United States and others forswore the use of military force. He said he had discussed the issue with Mr. Obama on the sidelines of the Group of 20 meetings in St. Petersburg last Friday. Mr. Putin also said he welcomed the initial response of Syrian officials.
The president impressed on them the need to keep the pressure on Syria and Russia, but expressed support for a delay in any vote until the Security Council makes clear what it plans to do.
“Undoubtedly, all of this makes sense and can function, can work, only if we hear that the American side and those who support the United States in this sense rule out the use of force,” Mr. Putin said in televised remarks on Tuesday night, “because it is difficult to make any country — Syria or any other country, any other government in the world — unilaterally disarm if the use of force is being prepared against it.”
“I didn’t see any anxiety on the part of the president for an immediate need for action,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland.
He noted that Syria had “a certain arsenal of chemical weapons,” and that “the Syrians have always regarded it as an alternative to the nuclear weapons in Israel.” He said he and Mr. Obama had agreed to ask Mr. Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry to work intensively to try to resolve the issue.
While the House was considered the major obstacle for Mr. Obama in seeking approval for a strike, a shift in the Senate began taking shape before the Russian proposal Monday, when it became clear that the straightforward resolution authorizing force that the president had sought was highly unlikely to pass there either. Only a handful of Republicans were yes votes, and at least 15 Democrats were likely to vote no.
Syria’s foreign minister appeared to acknowledge for the first time on Tuesday that the Syrian government possesses chemical arms, and he declared that the country aimed to become a signatory to the international convention banning the weapons.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and one of the strongest supporters of a strike, contacted a fellow Republican hawk, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, on Saturday to try to put together a new negotiating group.
The indirect admission came as the foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, suggested that Mr. Assad’s government was ready to accept a deal to get rid of the weapons in order to avoid an American military strike.
On Monday, Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham met in the Capitol and brought in two senior Democratic senators, Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Charles E. Schumer of New York, the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat.
“We are ready to reveal the locations of the chemical weapon sites and to stop producing chemical weapons and make these sites available for inspection by representatives of Russia, other countries and the United Nations,” Mr. Moallem said in a statement, which he read on Al Mayadeen, a Lebanese television station that leans in favor of the Syrian government.
Mr. Levin stressed Tuesday that the alternative resolution developed by the group would authorize a military strike, but set aside that authority if Mr. Assad placed his chemical weapons under the control of the United Nations, as Russia has proposed.
Mr. Moallem also said Syria was “ready to cooperate fully” with the initiative, “particularly given that we want to become a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention.” A similar statement was also released to a semiofficial news agency in Russia.
“This is kind of a twofer,” Mr. Levin said. “It’s a way of keeping the pressure on Syria and on Russia to get rid of chemical weapons, which is the goal of the whole effort, and second, if they fail, it would keep the authorization to launch a strike.”
On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, a bipartisan group of eight senators announced plans for a new Congressional resolution that would authorize an attack on Syria, but only after the introduction of a United Nations resolution that would set a deadline for the Assad government to hand over its chemical weapons stockpile. If that deadline is not met, the resolution would authorize the use of military force.
The approach quickly gained supporters in both parties. It meshed with an alternative resolution drafted by two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, which would have given Mr. Assad 45 days to join and comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention or face “all elements of national power.”
If the resolution gains support, it could stave off a debilitating defeat for the Obama administration on a resolution authorizing an attack that was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, but that had been losing ground in both parties in recent days.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that as many as 40 chemical weapons sites in Syria would have to be consolidated under international control. And missiles and other delivery systems already loaded with chemical weapons would have to be accounted for.
Senators emerged from extended meetings with Mr. Obama optimistic that Congress could shift a resolution authorizing force to one that would give diplomacy more time.
“There’s work to be done, and it has to move very quickly,” Ms. Feinstein said. But she added: “I think we can wait a week. This is an opportunity, and it should be taken fully.”
The president impressed on them the need to keep the pressure on Syria and Russia with a credible threat of military force, but he expressed support for a delay in any vote until the United Nations Security Council makes clear what it plans to do. Senators said he was open to the developing new approach.
Mr. Graham cautioned that no one should conclude that the latest negotiations would produce a resolution strong enough to maintain a credible threat but capable of passing Congress. “I’m not going to embrace a U.N. path until I see it’s real,” he said.
Mr. Kerry, appearing before a Congressional committee Tuesday morning, expressed caution about the diplomatic efforts even as he pledged that the president would “take a hard look at” the Russian plan in the days ahead. Mr. Kerry said any diplomatic response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria must be viewed cautiously.
Such wariness may be warranted. Russia quickly opposed a draft United Nations resolution being circulated by France because it would authorize force if the weapons transfer fell through.
“It has to be swift, it has to be real, it has to be verifiable,” Mr. Kerry told members of the House Armed Services Committee. “It cannot be a delaying tactic.”
Russia favors a presidential statement, which is far less binding. It would call on the United Nations secretary general and the organization that oversees the Chemical Weapons Convention to carry out the plan to put Syria’s arsenal under international control.
Mr. Kerry said the administration would continue to push for Congress to authorize military action against Syria, believing that the threat of an attack had prompted the new diplomatic initiative. “The use of force absolutely should not be off the table,” Mr. Kerry said.
The diplomatic maneuvering brought criticism from some Arab countries, which have been impatient to put an end to a destabilizing civil war in the heart of the Middle East.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, appearing at the same committee hearing, said in his prepared statement that “for this diplomatic option to have a chance of succeeding, the threat of U.S. military action must continue to be very real and credible.”
“This does not stop the bloodshed in Syria,” said Bahrain’s foreign minister, Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, after a meeting of Persian Gulf states. “We are tired of procrastination and delay.”
“So Congress has a responsibility,” he added, “to continue this important debate on authorizing the use of force against the Syrian regime.”
While Mr. Obama said on Monday that the Russian proposal might produce a diplomatic breakthrough, there is concern among American officials that it may be a maneuver to undermine the administration’s effort to mobilize international and Congressional support for a military strike.
Obama administration officials have previously discussed the idea of some sort of ultimatum that might be presented to Mr. Assad to give up his chemical weapons stocks, a senior administration official said on Monday. But the idea seemed to have many problems. Among the questions was: How would the stocks be secured and transported out of Syria during a war? And how would inspectors ensure that stocks were not hidden?
The administration had dismissed the United Nations for days, saying that diplomacy there had failed to rein in Mr. Assad. Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, said Monday morning that Mr. Obama believed that the United Nations Security Council had been ineffective.
By Tuesday morning — with governments around the world seizing on the Russian proposal as a serious idea — the White House tone had changed. The White House official said that the efforts at the United Nations would “include a discussion on elements of a potential U.N. Security Council resolution.”
Developments in Congress reflected the fast-moving diplomacy.
In the Senate, which had already delayed an initial vote on military strikes that had been scheduled for Wednesday, the bipartisan group drafting an alternative Congressional resolution said its plan would give the United Nations time to take control of the Syrian government’s arsenal of the internationally banned weapons.
The alternative resolution is far from complete, but a Senate aide familiar with the talks over its wording said the negotiations were being conducted in consultation with the White House.
The shifting direction in the Senate began taking shape well before Russia advanced a new diplomatic path forward when it became clear that a straightforward resolution authorizing force was highly unlikely to pass the Senate. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and one of the strongest supporters of a strike, contacted a fellow Republican hawk, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, on Saturday to try to put together a new negotiating group.
Negotiations on a new resolution began in earnest on Monday. Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham met in the Capitol and brought in two senior Democrats, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Charles E. Schumer of New York, the Senate’s third-ranking Democrat. On Monday evening, after a vote in the Senate, two more Republicans, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and two other Democrats, Chris Coons of Delaware and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, joined the negotiations. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, was also involved in the discussions. The next session was to be held Tuesday afternoon or evening.
The approach quickly gained supporters in both parties, but senators joining the talks said Syrian compliance would have to come quickly.
Mr. Graham cautioned that no one should conclude that the new negotiations would produce a resolution strong enough to maintain a credible threat but capable of passing Congress.
“I don’t know if this is going to go anywhere,” he said. “I’m not going to embrace a U.N. path until I see it’s real.”
Reporting was contributed by Alan Cowell from London, Steven Lee Myers from Moscow, and Rick Gladstone from New York.
