John Kerry's Syria remarks: Mr. Magoo school of diplomacy

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A wounded Syrian woman walks with her children after airstrikes on a rebel area of the war-torn northern city of Aleppo. (Mohammed al-Khatieb / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Mourners attend a funeral for men killed during battles with members of the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. (Mahmud Al-Halabi / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Rebel fighters carry a man’s body at the Aleppo headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria after he was allegedly killed by the AlQaeda-linked group in January. (Medo Halab / AFP/ Getty Images)

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A Syrian man helps an injured resident following an airstrike in Aleppo’s Maadi neighborhood. (Mohammed al-Khatieb / AFP/ Getty Images)

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A Syrian man reacts after an airstrike by government forces on the city of Aleppo. (Mohammed al-Khatieb / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Rebel fighters inside a building during clashes with pro-government forces in the Sheikh al-Said neighborhood of Syria’s northern city of Aleppo. (Medo Halab / AFP/ Getty Images)

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An opposition fighter runs through a hole in a wall to avoid sniper fire by regime forces during clashes in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo. (KARAM AL-MASRI / AFP/Getty Images)

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Opposition fighters open fire from behind a car during fighting in the Salaheddin district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce fighting in Damascus province between rebels and troops backed by pro-regime militias and fighters from Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah. (KARAM AL-MASRI / AFP/Getty Images)

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A Syrian rebel aims his weapon during clashes with government forces in the streets near Aleppo international airport in northern Syria. (Stephen J. Boitano / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Rebel fighters duck as they run behind a barricade to avoid being fired at by Syrian government forces in the Old City of Aleppo. (JM Lopez / AFP/ Getty Images)

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A fighter allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad runs across the street after fighting with rebels in the Yarmouk refugee camp in the capital, Damascus. (Anwar Amro / AFP/ Getty Images)

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A fighter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad, jumps through the window of a destroyed building in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. (Anwar Amro / AFP/ Getty Images)

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An opposition fighter runs in front of a sniper curtain in the industrial area of Syria’s eastern town of Deir Ezzor during clashes with government forces. (Abo Shuja / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Free Syrian Army fighters clean their weapons and check ammunition at their base on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. (Khalil Hamra / Associated Press)

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Syrian government forces patrol the Khaldiyeh district of Syria’s central city of Homs. The Syrian government announced on July 29 the capture of Khaldiyeh, a key rebel district in Homs. (Joseph Eid / AFP/Getty Images)

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A Syrian national flag is waved in Damascus to show support for President Bashar Assad. (Louai Beshara / AFP/Getty Images)

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A rebel fighter takes aim at regime forces in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. (Louai Abo Al-Jod / AFP/Getty Images)

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A man stands near destroyed buildings after reported airstrikes by Syrian government forces in the rebel-held northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. (Abu Amar Al-Taftanaz / AFP/Getty Images)

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Mustafa Abu Bekir, 23, second from left, meets relatives after crossing the Turkish Cilvegozu gate border. Abu Bekir said he was severely wounded by a bomb dropped from a Syrian army warplane while fighting with the Free Syrian Army in Idlib. (Gregorio Borgia / Associated Press)

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A man carries a boy who was severely wounded during heavy fighting between Syrian rebels and troops last year in Idlib. (Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press)

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Syrian President Bashar Assad arrives at a dinner event in Damascus on the last week of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (Virginie Nguyen Hoang / AFP/Getty Images)

By Robin Abcarian

Sept. 10, 2013 3:30 AM PT

Secretary of State John Kerry’s accidental, possible solution to the Syrian crisis takes a page right out of the Mr. Magoo School of International Diplomacy: Just keep bumbling along and you may eventually get to your destination.

When asked in London on Monday what Syria could do to avoid a U.S. missile strike aimed at crippling its chemical weapon arsenal, Kerry replied that Syrian President Bashar Assad would have to give up his weapons within seven days. Implicit in the flippant remark: Just blowing off a little steam here, folks; it’s not gonna happen.

Except Syria’s ally, Russia, took the suggestion seriously.

So did Syria’s foreign minister, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Britain’s prime minister, who had been slapped down by his own parliament when asked to support a U.S. strike. So, for that matter, did former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, both of whom suggested such a move would be welcome.

The widespread, positive response makes the president’s plan for military action look even more precipitous and poorly thought out than it looked last week, when even then it was clear that most Americans, for myriad reasons, oppose military action against Syria.

(And even the president acknowledged as much when he told CNN during a blitz of network television interviews on Monday that the idea was “a potentially positive development.” Though he argued that the threat of military action had given Syrians “pause.”)

Of course, it would be so much easier to dispatch a few Tomahawk cruise missiles from Navy destroyers than to try to wrest control of and then destroy the chemical weapons stockpiles that the Syrians have denied possessing, let alone using, against rebel targets and civilians.

But the struggle would be well worth the effort, given that no one can predict with certainty the fallout from an American military incursion on a politically complex and war-torn Muslim nation.

On Monday, the New York Times reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov even suggested that Syria might also sign the treaty that bans the manufacture, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons.

For too many Americans, the rush to bomb Syria is a bad flashback to the Bush administration lies about Iraq, Saddam Hussein and his imaginary weapons of mass destruction.

On Friday, U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, a genocide expert who has been quick to advocate U.S. military intervention in lopsided conflicts around the world, told a group of foreign policy wonks at the liberal Center for American Progress that a military strike against Syria is the only option available to the United States.

Many people believe she made a more compelling argument than the president or his secretary of state have to date. And yet, even she did not anticipate the positive response to Kerry’s off-the-cuff remarks.

“Some have asked, given our collective war-weariness, why we cannot use non-military tools to achieve the same end,” said Power. “My answer to this question is: We have exhausted the alternatives.”

Apparently not.

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