How Geopolitical Chess is Played and Won

It's Monday.. start of a new week.  Sorry about no Friday posting.. even we need a Friday off once in a blue moon..

We could talk about the economy..  About the 516,000 people who left the labor force in the last month which statistically allowed the unemployment figure to drop...

Or that on top of this, the labor participation rate (total number of those employed divided by those of working age) fell to 63.2%. This is the lowest level since the late ‘70s. 

Or there are more Americans today on food stamps than the total population of Spain (47.3 million people live there)

We could continue today on that track..   We won't...

We could talk about the stock market...  Up +116pts and counting today; re-re-re crossing over that "magical" 15,000 line based on absolutely nothing real but manipulated China data and easing belief in a US strike on Syria..

Funny, the President doesn't seem to be easing in his desire.. 

In fact his Secretary of State John Kerry has a brilliant idea how to deal with Syria (using Saudi Arabia to foot the bill since we can't afford it and our military is now the 'A-Team'...)

The idea is to strike at Assad..

Not just strike, but a small one...

And not just a small strike but an 'unbelievably small' one...

From Yahoo! News:

"We will be able to hold Bashar Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged kind of effort in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons without assuming responsibility for Syria’s civil war,” Kerry said at a press conference in London...

“That is exactly what we’re talking about doing — unbelievably small, limited kind of effort,”

Kinda like, "I plan on holding my breath for an unbelievably small amount of time when I don't get my way and because my action is to be very limited and very targeted, I should get the same successful result as if I held it for an extended period..."

Lordy!

But wait.. Susan Rice, Obama's National Security Advisor tweeted this via the White House Twitter account at 1:30p today:  

"Rice: "Our overarching goal is to end the underlying conflict through a negotiated, political transition in which Assad leaves power" #Syria"

Which is it.. a 'very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort' that doesn't involve ourselves in the Syrian civil war as Kerry suggests, or is the goal to oust Assad?

Rice's tweet was based on a clever shift by Russia earlier this morning...

How does the US now justify military force (a Congressional vote upcoming) when Syria now says it will comply with Russia's appeasement suggestion that Syria give up its chemical weapons to international control?

From Reuters:

"Syria welcomes a Russian proposal to place the nation's chemical weapons under international control, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Monday after talks in Moscow..."

Brilliant geo-political chess move by Putin..  

Russia suggested that Syria skip straight to step 2 of the US military campaign, and hand over its chemical weapons to "international control" which would immediately obviate the US campaign completely, whose entire premise for public consumption is just that - to put Syrian chemical weapons under adult supervision and third party control. 

Hmmm...

So now what Mr President?