(CBS News) A handshake agreement
between the United States and Russia to identify Syria's chemical
weapons, place them under international control and ultimately dismantle
them was "the only way to solve" the the immediate crisis of chemical
weapons use in Syria's ongoing civil war, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said Sunday on "Face the Nation."
On
the other hand, Corker - the top Republican on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee - said, "I think all of us have to approach this
with a healthy and strong degree of skepticism. The fact that it's not
only what is said in these agreements, but what is not said, or what is
said privately.
"...The threat of force from a multilateral
standpoint is still very much in Russian hands," he went on. "That's the
most important element, is the veto piece. So in many ways our
credibility in the region, and certainly relative to the chemical
warfare, is very much driven by Russia, which has its hands firmly on
the steering wheel."
It does mark "significant progress," agreed
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee,
that Russia was willing to go in on a tentative deal to secure and
destroy Syria's chemical weapon stockpile. Still, it "will not be fully
implemented, I'm afraid, without a continuing threat" of possible military action from the United States, he added.
A longtime ally of Syria, Russia "can force" President Bashar Assad, who the United States has alleged
used the chemical weapons against his own people, "to do what Russia
wants Assad to do," Levin continued. "It is the weapons supplier for
Assad; it has been deeply involved in one of the very few countries that
have supported Assad."
Corker, meanwhile, said he has expressed to Secretary of State John Kerry worry that the agreement will set back U.S. support for the Syrian opposition.
"We
certainly have not done what we need to do" in terms of providing aid
to the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, he said. "It has hurt our
credibility, certainly, on the ground. ... But the way to counter that, I
think, is to much more strongly equip and train the opposition there on
the ground."
The United States is "not going to agree to"
Syria's attempt to stifle support to the opposition as terms of its
compliance with the U.S.-Russia deal, Levin said.
"We have
supported the opposition, I agree, not sufficiently," he said. "I have
always called for increasing the military pressure on Assad by
supporting the opposition, and I think we should do that and I think we
now have some indication from the administration recently that there
will be ways found to provide greater military support, hopefully,
including anti-tank weapons for the opposition."
There are "going
to be mistakes," Corker conceded, in determining who among the
opposition should be armed - "some people are going to get arms that
should not be getting arms." But, he went on, "I think we know more than
we led on publicly about which groups to support and which not - we
need to do much more to help them."
