A day after reports that the two sides were close to a deal on Syria, President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin gave their respective UN General Assembly addresses, and once again the US and Russia are lashing each other for their respective anti-ISIS strategies.
Putin is continuing to push a strategy Russia has been pushing for months, the formation of a “broad coalition” of secular forces to fight against ISIS. In his speech today, Putin likened this coalition to the alliance against Nazi Germany during World War 2.
Putin went on to accuse the US of “egotism” in its war in Syria, aiming to destroy ISIS and the Syrian government at the same time, and assume that America’s unipolar view of the world meant this would inevitably lead to an outcome favorable to the US.
President Obama’s speech came before Putin’s, and he railed at Putin for suggesting the fight against ISIS required a coalition, and demanded that Russia endorse Syrian regime change as a condition for being allowed to take part in the American war against ISIS.
Putin shot back that it’s only the Syrian military and Kurds who are seriously fighting ISIS in the first place, and it’s a mistake to refuse all cooperation with the Syrian military while they’re engaged in a protracted war against ISIS.
For the US, the regime change position came early on Syria, and President Obama even tried to start a war against the Syrian government before he settled for the war against ISIS. Having endorsed regime change, the administration simply isn’t going to change its find, no matter how little sense the current strategy of multiple wars against multiple factions aimed at installing a pro-US faction that doesn’t exist seems.
The blood soaked war criminal Barack Hussein Obama (BSWCBHO) lives in a fantasy world where the worship lavished on him by his acolytes is fact, and actual facts are “Russian propaganda”. He is as much a believer in the “create our own reality” hypothesis as his much reviled predecessor.
I guess Obama has learn nothing from “regime change,” or is he just taking orders from his masters in Tel Aviv.
This is a replay of Ukraine-Crimea in a different setting. If Assad is ousted his replacement will demand that Russia get out of Latakia. President Obama is not "weak" as his dumb opponents claim. He is playing a high-stakes game and is determined to win this time.
The anti-Russians do not care that Assad is a despot. They want Russia out of the Near East which has become the Balkan of our Century.
Check-mate — Go for it Putin
Surely, if Obama was not such a non-thinking puppet to the corporate rich, he would see the wisdom in what Putin is trying to accomplish.
Why are you so determined to see Putin destroy himself in the Syrian quagmire?
Putin is in very deep trouble! We all know that he doesn't really care about ISIS or even Assad. He just wants to hang on to his militarily useless naval base for domestic political reasons. The fact that he's so frantic shows that he realises that he's painted himself into another corner. Just as in Ukraine, he can't advance, he can't retreat, he can't stand still. If he abandons the base, he's discredited in the eyes of his elderly supporters. If he fights ISIS, he get's bogged down. If he fights a post-Assad government that wants to throw him out, he'll also get bogged down and might well have to fight the US. Whichever way he jumps, he loses (just as in Ukraine).