NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell questioned the viability of the U.S.-Russian deal over the removal and destruction of Syrian chemical weapons Sunday on Meet The Press, saying "there are a lot of ifs."
Mitchell said the credibility of U.S. military intervention if the deal was violated was gone with Congress and the American public openly against the Obama administration:
DAVID GREGORY: It amounts to this. Assad and the Russians committing to say all of the chemical wagons that he's got, and to get rid of them by the middle of the next year. So why shouldn't that be universally cheered?
MITCHELL: Well, it's a very big deal, it's a sweeping deal, but there are a lot of ifs. Is it going to work? First of all, the Russians say they're speaking for Assad, but Assad has not personally committed to this. He's supposed to disclose in a week. What if he doesn't meet that deadline? The only enforcement is up to the U.N., and that is still to be negotiated. And Russia has ruled out the use of force as as a threat. That doesn't mean that the president couldn't use force, but with Congress leaning against that, with the American people against that, how credible a threat is that?
GREGORY: I don't want to get into the weeds on the United Nations but when it comes to force, if somebody plays cat and mouse, if somebody wants to gum up the works, the U.S. is in a position to go to the U.N. and say, 'Hey, if that happens, then we're going to threaten force here and we're in a position to use it.'
MITCHELL: That's correct. In fact, tomorrow, there's going to be this big report from the U.N. inspectors, which is going to be devastating, not literally tying it to Assad but so devastating that it will build international pressure. At the same time, though, the only threat of force, if it's credible at all, will be U.S. unilateral force. The Brits have said no, the French now have huge public opinion against it. There will be some Arab support but the U.S. would have to stand alone and is it really credible that this president would do that now? One other quick thing. Gadhafi gave up his weapons. After he was gone we found more chemical weapons [in Libya]. The U.S. is and Russia is still destroying our weapons 15 years after we agreed to. It takes a long time. This is very challenging.