Didn’t you know? The chemical weapons ultimatum proposed by Russian president Vladimir Putin concerning Syria was part of the plan all along.

“I had some conversations about this with my counterpart from Russia last week,” State Secretary John Kerry boldly asserted Tuesday.

His proclamation, however, comes after being caught earlier this week making an offhand remark while on the topic of Syria. “[Assad] could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week” in order to avoid a US strike, Mr. Kerry said Monday. Conveniently, Russia presented the ultimatum shortly thereafter, which would require Syria to hand over their chemical weapons to international control.

But what the heck, Kerry will take credit for it anyway.

Memo to Kerry: You didn’t build that! Someone else made that happen.