Syria – Obama: ” . . . America should take action”
03 Tuesday Sep 2013
Tag Archives: Obama
Syria – Putin’s Blind Spot – Obama’s Misstep
06 Tuesday Aug 2013
The conflict in Syria is not complicated.
It is twisted.
It draws on an anti-human egotism and irrationality to divide its national community and set each at the other’s throat, and not only those quick to fight but families too.
As it is, Syria remains unsolvable as one would wish to promote neither a brutal dictatorship, which if Assad’s wasn’t, it has certainly become, nor the fascist vision of a humanity subjugated to men who would portray themselves as the appointees of God and would become themselves absolute powers.
Although I’ve collected below a few leads and quotes from recent news, each seeming to balance out the other, one might fault Putin a little more than Obama over Syria for having taken a deeply anomic stance that set aside the conflict’s developing human toll in death, suffering, and, not to be overlooked, social disorganization and anarchy in favor of reducing overt policy to revenues tied to military contracts.
Is that a stance worthy of an empire?
An emperor?
* * *
I suppose if I were somehow working under contract with, say, RAND, I’d feel better about not knowing the answers with regard to Syria.
In that way, of course, it’s okay if idling over a blog one fails to outfox two of the world’s most powerful politicians, their advisers, and their nation’s think-tanks.
One might also consider such a “cop out” at any level of intellectual endeavor.
Clearly, Syria is a collapsing house on fire, and sooner or later, the neighborhood will have to account for the homeless and the maimed, the destruction of economic assets, including trade relationships, the diminishment of the efficacy of state, regional, and local powers, and the dangers posed by continuing and related political anarchy and its spillovers.
Obama’s bid to approach Iran’s looming nuclear threat by way of Qatar and through Syria would seem of equal positive interest to post-Soviet Russia, and it may be and may be working out that way (remember: Russia has largely ferried away its civilian and military presence in Syria), but it has no interest in the promotion of Sunni Islam over Shiite (nor should the world at large, Sunnis and Shiites included, have that interest — perhaps that’s to be saved for another post), and it knows — and Obama should know — that attempting to develop and validate an Islamic democracy today affords a look at the span from the chartering of Pakistan to the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
It does not work.
Or it does not work sensibly or well without direct challenge.
And it does not do so because the language of Islam in its totality has not been updated (not with “invention” on lock-out) or reformed, so that good sentiment borrowed from a Jew, say, Hillel’s “whosoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whosoever that saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world” (source: Wikipedia) cannot offset the grandiose, pandering, and placating slips that disservice mankind in the name of human aggrandizement: “Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low” (Quraan 9:29 — I chose to lift from a skeptic’s web page).
Eventually, resettling Syria, not alone in this predicament, will mean introducing and strengthening other thought in the environment and that extensively and potently enough to bring Syria’s displaced back to their homes or known lands or landscapes with their heads held high but in them a different outlook on their humanity and their evaluation of political leadership.
I don’t see that happening today.
In fact, what one sees may be opposite: further exposure and subjection to criminality and humiliation for those in camps or lost on the new landscape and otherwise squeezed between these other and most evil forces come to fight within the state to sustain war without end and with an intellectual basis that proves altogether and repeatedly incoherent as regards decency in purpose.
What follows is what I’ve snagged off the web while constructing these thoughts.
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BEIRUT — Human Rights Watch says the Syrian military is firing ballistic missiles into populated areas where it is battling rebels, killing hundreds of civilians.
The U.S.-based group said in a report released Monday that it has investigated nine apparent missile attacks that killed at least 215 people, half of them children, between February and July.
Comment on Qusayr:
“The devastation is evident everywhere. According to the government telecoms chiefMtanios al-Shaer, “The terrorists destroyed everything 24 hours before the town was liberated, and caused damage of a billion Syrian pounds ($57 million).”
Activists and local opposition groups in Syria accused regime forces for using poisonous form of gas in the city of Douma and Adra, outskirts of Damascus.
According to the local media offices, Syrian army has launched a series of attacks on these two big cities on Monday. More than 400 people have been hospitalised showing symptoms of convulsion, shortness of breath, profuse sweating and frothy sputum, activists said.
“No solution can be reached with terror except by striking it with an iron fist,” Assad said.
. . . .
He accused the Syrian National Coalition of “being on the payroll of more than one Gulf country,” and of “blaming the (Syrian) state for terrorism rather than blaming the armed men,” or rebels.
Al Aribya. “Assad’s solution to Syrian conflict: striking ‘terror with iron fist’.” August 5, 2013.
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Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center, has said that “There is no doubt that as a distinct single entity, Syria has ceased to exist… Considering the sheer scale of its territorial losses in some areas of the country, Syria no longer functions as a single all-encompassing unitarily-governed state.”
Rieser, Bennett. “War in Syria: Nation Suffers 3-Way Divide.” WebProNews, August 5, 2013.
President Bashir Assad will be winning until he loses; alternatively, he may hold out and win on that level, but his Syria won’t be that which he inherited.
Additional Reference
Borri, Francesca. “I want to talk about Syria, not just my role as a freelance journalist.” The Guardian, July 26, 2013. As long as I’m updating reference, I thought I would include this as mere mention (plus a comment) of the journalist has brought me some recent traffic. One day, perhaps starting with Margaret Bourke-White, I will have to write about peripatetic women journalists in war zones. They are great people!
Defense World. “Syria Buying Russian Weapons With American Dollars.” August 6, 2013.
Dreyfuss, Bob. “Russia’s Stake in Syria’s War.” The Nation, August 6, 2013.
Kroth, Olivia. “Syria’s optimism for 2013.” Pravda (English), January 25, 2013.
Mackey, Robert. “Stunning Images of Destroyed Syrian City.” Blog. The New York Times, July 31, 2013.
Skelton, Charlie. “The Syrian opposition: who’s doing the talking?” The Guardian, July 12, 2013:
“The sand is running out of the hour glass,” said Hillary Clinton on Sunday. So, as the fighting in Syria intensifies, and Russian warships set sail for Tartus, it’s high time to take a closer look at those who are speaking out on behalf of the Syrian people.”
Sky News. “Syria: Dramatic Images of Destruction in Homs.” July 30, 2013.
WASHINGTON — Twelve Republican and Democratic senators are calling on the Pentagon to cancel all contracts to buy helicopters for Afghan security forces from a state-run Russian arms exporter that is a top weapons supplier to the Syrian government.
Ya Libnan. “Russian ships transferring Hezbollah fighters to Syria: Idris.” July 25, 2013 (bold italics mine):
General Salim Idris, the head of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) accused Russia of using its ships in the Mediterranean to transfer Hezbollah fighters from Beirut , Lebanon directly to the mostly Alawite province of Tartus in western Syria.
In an interview with the Turkish Anadolu News Agency he also accused Russia and Iran of supplying the Syrian army with 400 tons of ammunition every ten days.
Wikipedia. “List of heritage sites damaged during Syrian civil war”.
Each Name Opens To A Universe
05 Monday Aug 2013
Tags
Assad, conflict, ethics, Obama, obligation, political, politics, Putin, Youssef Abdelki
Hours before his arrest, Abdelke had signed a petition that averred (here’s where Chrome’s translate option comes in handy) “support to the forces of the revolution who advocate the establishment of a pluralistic democracy” and “desire for a peaceful solution to stop the bloodshed and to preserve national unity and territorial integrity, which involves the departure of Bashar al-Assad and pillars of his regime.
http://artfcity.com/2013/08/01/the-web-petitions-to-free-syrian-artist-youssef-abdelke/
Youssef Abdelke — never hard of him before two minutes ago — but as one who has learned the ways of the World Wide Web, the third minute opens on eternity.
(Reuters) – Syrian government forces have detained a dissident left-wing painter in a new wave of arrests of non-violent critics of President Bashar al-Assad, opposition groups said on Friday.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/19/us-syria-crisis-arrests-idUSBRE96I0LP20130719
“A place to share art, uninhibited without a bunch of stupid ass rules. A place to help your fellow page owners grow and succeed. A group to have fun with no dictator shoving shit down your throat and bowing down. A group to be FREE to help as you see fit. A group to rock the fuck on!”
https://www.facebook.com/groups/639798962716250/
It’s a closed Facebook group, one to which I would apply if I were shooting the local downtrodden as opposed, say, to the leisured, business, and community development classes.
Nonetheless, “Art and FREEDOM”, my soul is with you and your author, Youssef Abdelke.
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I really don’t know why Putin darkens his role in history by keeping in his hand with the Ayatollah’s Iran and the Assad’s Syria.
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Novelist Daniel Silva has a great deal of fun with the “Russian President” — in fiction, merely a character, never named, nothing more than coincidental with anything or anyone in reality, in his latest best seller The English Girl.
As a fiction writer, Silva’s actually, probably, one of the very best political analysts on the international stage, and while playing that role through his characters and plots, the Russian President looms large and rightly so for the behind-the-curtain strategy pursued by the post-Soviet oligarchs of the Latest and Greatest in Russian States.
As we know about narcissists and narcissistic hunger and supply, they are ultimately about themselves, and whatever their charms, political and social, may be. Not that Bashir Assad has enjoyed abundance in dimension, but it’s the Russian President who has been most quiet on the obscenity of a state that deploys jets to suppress, at first, a small challenge to its authority.
While the Syria of 2010 has been destroyed, culturally, socially, structurally, one might note that Russia, in her defense, has ferried both the larger part of its civilian and military presence out of the country — not exactly a show of confidence, that, but not exactly either a show of humanist resolve.
The world wonders at the conundrum that has pit a brutal dictatorship against partially but deeply virulent Islamist forces. There is in that aspect of Syria’s agony the “no good dog in the fight” and the “black hole” of the Islamic Small Wars constructed of a contempt, hatred, and self-contempt in the inhumanity that draws in military energy and burns without end.
Nearly one hundred thousand dead and four million displaced in Syria’s furnace and neither of two of the most powerful statesmen of our era either cares to or knows how to shut it down.
Instead of the kumbaya “reset” between the states and the federation (how young is Obama?), Putin appears to be draining the former plus NATO by keeping the oven hot while avoiding, rightly, the imposition of another Chechnya in its sphere of influence. And yet . . . the Assad regime was the Soviet’s monster, and one would think that after 1991 the state would have been concerned with other than filling its pockets in collusion with it for another 22 years.
But that perhaps would have been too caring, too ethical.
Too English.
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While the superpowers dick around with trivial issues like Snowden, Syria, in part, draws to it the “worst of the worst” — or just the most spirited — of fighters representing Shiite and Sunni Islam, those two angry wasps someone left in a bell jar separating their concerns from the much, much greater world surrounding.
On a portion of that, I would blame the west.
We’ve done business, haven’t we, for how many years?
And barely a word, most certainly few, if any, of outrage in regard to humanity and human rights in the contained but also dark medieval quarters of the globe.
So why not leave them — today in Syria, tomorrow perhaps in Egypt or somewhere else — in their own mess?
Whether the President of the Free World or that of the Russian Empire, is it incumbent on either to reorganize a middle east state as a pet humanitarian project?
There are, of course, other ambitions in the mix, much including Iran’s and Qatar’s, but one may one wonder between them whether either will wake up from their dream or with history pass away into it.
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Prestige matters.
As a Jew, I may wonder how global memory will treat of today’s powerful in the days beyond their reclamation by the earth.
Additional Reference
Official Site of the Bureau International des Expositions.
World Bulletin News Desk. “Erdogan, Putin discuss Syria and Egypt.” August 5, 2013.
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Bloody Syria May Turn Out Putin’s Problem After All
22 Monday Jul 2013
Displaced: six million.
You know I didn’t want to see that number.
Dead: 93,000 estimated
Not that I’m happy with that one either.
For the time being, Obama and NATO may be taking the heat in relation to the assembly of Syria’s civil war and its mix of ends, including the neutralization of Iran, and interests, including expansion of Sunni influence in the middle east.
However, the old Soviet relationship with the Assad regime and whatever updates or transformations have attended Vladimir Putin’s time at the helm of the Russian Ship of State will most certainly haul Putin back to the hot lights on the world stage.
At this time, he has gotten the Russian Navy out of Tartus and enabled Russian civilian citizens in Syria to leave en masse over time.
If Putin wishes to promote Russian influence with the Syria to come, if he wishes to one day leave a good record of his accomplishments for Russia (that as opposed to having the phantoms of his enemies emerge to steal that light from him), he’s going to have to intercede soon on behalf of the humanity affected, and this especially in light of measures taken to equip the Assad regime to remain at war to this point.
This is not to ascribe to Putin responsibility for Assad excesses or rebel barbarism, which latter he has used well to embarrass Obama; it is to suggest he take some measures in concert with others to damp the Syrian furnace or, alternatively, involve Russia immediately in broad humanitarian amelioration of the effects of the war.
This next I’ve copied from “The Embassy of the Russian Federation to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”:
15.07.2013
On supply of Russian humanitarian aid for Palestinian refugees in the territory of Syria
On July 11, two aircrafts of the Emergencies Ministry of Russia delivered 70 tons of urgent humanitarian aid to Latakia for Palestinian refugees in the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, including food and other essentials.
The government of Palestine, as well as the Palestinian refugees with deep gratitude perceived this Russian humanitarian action effected with proper level of security on behalf of Syrian authorities.
The Russian Federation will continue providing required humanitarian aid to the friendly Palestinian people both in the bilateral format and in the line of specialised international organisation.
Has this movie not been shown before?
I thought it had ended about 21 years and seven months ago even though to some it would seem like only last week — or as if it didn’t happen at all.
Be that as it may, while the world, much less “the government of Palestine” (which one?) most certainly appreciates the shipment to Syria of other than shore-to-ship missiles, one might expect a little more effort on general terms from the modern Putin-guided (one way to put it) democracy.
Reference
AP. “Activists: 75 Syria rebels dead in Damascus.” USA Today, July 22, 2013.
BBC. “Syrian conflict: ‘Troops kills [STET] 13 family members’.” July 21, 2013.
Solomon, Erika. “Syrian opposition forces fighting each other.” World News / Reuters, July 21, 2013.
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Syria – The Cost of Incoherence
05 Wednesday Jun 2013
Tags
Al Nusra, Al Qaeda, analysis, Islamists, Obama, political, politics, Putin, Qusayr, rebels, Syria
Of course one reason why President Barack Obama and other Western leaders are staying well on the sidelines in this conflict may be precisely due to the intelligence reports warning that Assad is a far harder nut to crack than previously thought.
Syrian Army forces guard a checkpoint in Damascus in May 2013. Better armed, and better logistical support.(Reuters)
That and the fact that the rebels are no closer to forming a winning, united or even trustworthy insurgency
Stewart, Brian. “Brian Stewart: Is Syria’s Assad turning the tide of battle?” CBC News, June 5, 2013.
The news breaking for the past several hours is that Syrian troops with a boost from Hezbollah have gained control of al-Qusayr, a border town associated with arms smuggling from Lebanon and prized for the highway connecting Damascus to Homs.
Last month, Real Clear Politics suggested that “Without stronger U.S. measures, the most likely outcome is the fragmentation of Syria into warring fiefdoms, with some turf controlled by Iran and some by al-Qaeda” (“U.S. policy on Syria still lacks coherence,” May 1, 2013). As much may be a nightmare come true.
While General Selim Idriss of the Free Syrian Army may be counted on to represent a moderate proto-democratic force, the crowd beneath the umbrella may be too diverse, negatively so, for moving in that one direction.
More than a year ago, the Institute for the Study of War published Joseph Holliday’s Middle East Security Report 3: Syria’s Armed Opposition (March 2012), which notes in its executive summary section the following:
“As the militias continue to face overwhelming regime firepower the likelihood of their radicalization may increase. moreover, the indigenous rebels may turn to al-Qaeda for high-end weaponry and spectacular tactics as the regime’s escalation leaves the rebels with no proportionate response, as occurred in iraq in 2005-2006. Developing relations with armed opposition leaders and recognizing specific rebel organizations may help to deter this dangerous trend.”
As much has come to pass.
This comes from a Reuters filing in mid-May:
“Nusra is now two Nusras. One that is pursuing al Qaeda’s agenda of a greater Islamic nation, and another that is Syrian with a national agenda to help us fight Assad,” said a senior rebel commander in Syria who has close ties to the Nusra Front.
“It is disintegrating from within.”
Today, the black flag of Al Qaeda flies over Raqqa, Syria.
From Al Arabiya:
“Anyone who might have a complaint against any element of the Islamic state, whether the Emir or an ordinary soldier, can come and submit their complaint in any headquarters building of the Islamic state,” the notice stated. “The complaint should be in writing, provide details and give evidence.”
Al-Qaeda then goes on to promise that those who commit transgressions will face justice.
The weird left, from “globalresearch” to “counterpunch” to “infowars” have been having a field day asserting an Obama+Al-Qaeda connection (as much I deduce from the headers alone: “How Obama and Al-Qaeda Became Syrian Bedfellows”; “Obama to Arm Al-Qaeda Terrorists in Syria”.
You can look those up yourself.
I’m only wondering if I need to buy a new olive drab field jacket, say about two sizes up from whatever was in the closet in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In Syria, perhaps signaled by the state’s turnaround in Qusayr, Putin wins this round because, oh honey oh baby Obama, ain’t no one carrying around even a smidgen of the west in less than half a brain wants to hang around with Al Qaeda and its ilk, and it appears those have gotten their hooks into the community of rebel organizations in Syria, General Idriss’s moderate appeal notwithstanding.
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Reference
Al Arabiya. “Al-Qaeda sets up ‘complaints department’ in Syrian city of Raqqa.” June 3, 2013.
Al Jazeera. “Syrian army regains strategic city of Qusayr.” June 5, 2013.
BBC. “Syrian rebels ‘can fight Hezbollah in Lebanon’ – Idriss.” June 5, 2013.
Hornik, P. David. “Showdown in Syria.” Frontpage Magazine, May 30, 2013.
Sly, Liz. “Islamic law comes to rebel-held Syria.” The Washington Post, March 19, 2013. Excerpt:
Building on the reputation they have earned in recent months as the rebellion’s most accomplished fighters, Islamist units are seeking to assert their authority over civilian life, imposing Islamic codes and punishments and administering day-to-day matters such as divorce, marriage and vehicle licensing.
Their battlefield supremacy has enabled them to seize the economic as well as the military high-ground.
In Raqqa, they also control flour production, earning money from selling to bakeries, some of which they own as well. “Jabhat now own everything here,” one disillusioned secular activist said.
The Washington Post. “A grim anniversary: Two years of conflict in Syria.” May 18, 2013. The video is the same as the YouTube copy posted above this reference section.
Syria – The Worst Ambitions in the Worst Place in the Worst Ways
28 Tuesday May 2013
Israel quickly issued a thinly veiled warning that it would bomb the Russian S-300 missiles if they were sent to Syria, as such a move would bring the advanced guided missiles within range of civilian and military planes over Israel.
Borger, Julian. “Isrel warns Russia against arming Syrian government.” The Guardian, May 28, 2013.
Apparently, Obama is not able, or willing, to acknowledge that the views of the White House and Russia on Syria are different not because the vestigial enmity of the Cold War has driven a stake through the heart of international concord, but simply because the national interests of the two countries are different. But that’s assuming they really are different.
On such politics, cynics must suckle!
Exterior framing: a brutal dictatorship vs. an Islamic revolution of some kind.
Exterior wall: NATO vs. Russia bonded in place by the habits of the Cold War even though to the two share most essential values involved in Syria.
Interior furnishings: affinity between the souls of autocrats and dictators, perhaps; perhaps, the Saudi’s guy in the White House — horrible clashing right there.
Also playing in the yard: Hezbollah.
Neighbor up the block: Iran.
Favorite toys: rockets.
What they want to be when they grow up: nuclear.
President Obama Addresses Terrorism at National Defense University
23 Thursday May 2013
Nevertheless, this ideology persists, and in an age in which ideas and images can travel the globe in an instant, our response to terrorism cannot depend on military or law enforcement alone. We need all elements of national power to win a battle of wills and ideas. So let me discuss the components of such a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy.
First, we must finish the work of defeating al Qaeda and its associated forces.
By narrowing his war to Al Qaeda and related affiliates, Obama may claim some victories.
By seeking to integrate the Muslim Brotherhood into domestic and international governance, in essence enlarging its operating environment, he may also claim progress: the day of the dictator’s free ride, including when the dictator is ours, may be over — as a rule, the peacocks are strutting through more complex, sophisticated, and varied social environments than ever before, and whether scrutinized by such as the Committee to Protect Journalists or merely surprised by FEMEN, those who a decade ago would have capitalized on watching others are, lo and behold, finding themselves watched by an entire world.
Obama goes on to note, “Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror’ – but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.”
Unfortunately, the attractive quality promoted in warring on the west is of a boundless quality summoned by such as Quran 9:29:
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.”
Nonetheless, the fronts are boundless too, from the landing zones of distant mountains to proliferation of Facebook and other forums in Intellectual Battlespace, and, frankly, the more conflict is worked around language, the more quickly language may be evolved away from the many curses of the medieval mind and its straying from humanity.
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Putin – The Charming Colonel President King
22 Wednesday May 2013
Tags
modernization, narcissism, Obama, political, psychology, Putin, reform, Russia, sphere of influence, Syria
I like him.
At least compared to Robert Mugabe, among others of that sort, I like him.
When one invents a term like “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” or trots out another like “Malignant Narcissism” one might caution — or run for cover as social psychologists tend to do — with the phrase “complex, multi-dimensional”: how much of arrogance, demanding egocentric behavior, grandiose delusion, lack of empathy, messianic passion, paranoia, and resistance to criticism might there be in the mix?
Putin, unlike, say, old Qaddafi, knows containment and restraint.
While the critical wonks will follow the Khodorkovsky story and the world in which old friends are friends indeed, Russia’s charming colonel President (king) Putin runs a modern state, and if imperfectly democratic, still a force of its own and one with which to be reckoned — this as Obama — see previous post — may have by now figured out, not that such a challenge to authority as Masha Gessen failed to warn him (reading recommended: The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin).
The destabilization of Syria has brought untold suffering to Syrians, and while that suffering and its related economic and political costs might serve to compel an average western politician to action, the same may not have the same impact on a post-Soviet autocrat-become-president who may be more interested in the reflection reflection that conveys control and mastery of a situation and further reflects well in terms of practical character, judgment, and statesmanship.
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Obama’s setting out to transform the middle east may be perceived as having backfired: instead of democracy, such as Egypt, for example, have been handed over, even if by election, to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and the methods, in part, of another dictator, albeit one with perhaps a new political environment for navigation.
Putin cannot be blamed for the chill President Mursi has injected into Egypt’s “Arab Spring.”
Furthermore, in relation to NATO, Putin cannot be blamed for Erdogan’s rise and subsequent neutralizing of Kamalist rivals and unfriendly press.
So in Syria, while the 92,000 dead and 3.4 million homeless may help drag his name into it, he didn’t arm — or allow the arming — of rebels against the regime, did he?
As I type, this header is just about one hour old: “Syria’s rebels blame Russia’s Putin for prolonged fight” (Michel Stors, YNet News, May 21, 2013). Toward the end, Stors’ notes:
“Russians have never been very popular with Syrians. During an Islamist rebellion in the 1980s they were targeted by the insurgents for supporting the regime. Pale Americans often complained that Syrians, mistaking them for Russians, jeered at them in the streets.”
In the United States, Obama’s America is emphatically not at war with Islam (nor need it be – my own position is very moderate on this and the related complexity in how the Islamic Small Wars work); in Syria, Obama’s America and some rickety fixing between Saudi (Qatari) and Turkish interests have made the United States an enabler, at least, in the effort to expand Sunni Islam and — eye on the ball, please — isolate the Shiite Ayatollah’s Iran.
Putin, who has made his position clear in Chechnya has similarly made it clear in Syria even while aligning Russia toward Israel and away from playing paddy-cake with Islam.
So far, with the recent deliveries of anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles, he’s given the Assad regime (and Maher Al-Assad) breathing space, reduced Iranian capital (in some measure), and playing defense, held Russia’s position; to continue on to “solving Syria” — and this now that he’s more representative of the polyglot desires of the west than the west! — he may have to alter the character of the regime by bringing to it an improved set of contemporary Russian values, the same as to which he responds in his political life today (specifically: the same that keeps Masha Gessen out of prison and eventually turn the Pussy Riot crew back out the streets, presumably toward the end of their two-year term), while sweeping away the terrors of the old Soviet machinery (the development of the FSB and its purposes notwithstanding).
Whether by way of President Putin or not, Russia has come far from what it was in the Soviet Era, but it’s continuing influence wants for reason, and for that oligarchy and money may not suffice; moreover, if Gessen’s portrait of Putin prevails within Putin, that won’t work for history; add this: if he wants to do what he may behind the curtain — back stage, finally – he may have to do it in a way that alters the atmosphere of the conflict even without visible intercession.
Tall order, that.
I think President Putin bright and clever (quiet and strong), and he will find a way to keep Syria in Russia’s sphere as well as make it more democratic, egalitarian, free and tolerant.
* * *
Perhaps I am dreaming.
We shall see.
Rose-colored summary: Putin may not be moved toward western-style intervention, but he may wish to be remembered well, and for that he may engage the Assad family, seek modification of the demands of the challengers, and set Syria on a progressive track.
On that too, we shall see.
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Additional Reference
I placed reference inline on this post, which I think adds to the on-the-fly blogging experience (even that which hails from the second row seat to history). However, I opened other tabs on this too, and list them here.
Masyuk, Elena. “Gleb Pavlovskiy: “What Putin is most afraid of is to be left out”. Novayagazeta.ru, June 11, 2012: Excerpt from the interview: “A leader is the one chosen by others, and a master is a master regardless of whether you choose him or not.”
Wagele, Elizabeth. “What is Putin’s Personality Type?” Psychology Today, December 19, 2011.
Wikipedia. “Narcissistic personality disorder”. Reference provided neither to condemn nor diagnose, but rather to refer to several of the dimensions involved (in relation to this “complex, multidimensional” topic) in suggesting best political policy courses that must prove psychologically satisfying to the leaders who choose, engage, and promote them.
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