Divisions within the US are inevitable as the notion of US global authority fades. It's too late to bomb Assad. If they wanted to do that they should have done it a couple of years ago. That, of course, would likely have led to another Iraq/Libya etc. but they might have gotten away with it then. Obama is in an impossible situation since the threat to the fading dream is not Russia or China as contenders for the global crown but the very idea of a single global authority, and that's tough for US 'exceptionalism' to take on board. I recall a, doubtless apocryphal, story told after WWII of an English traveller arriving in New York and gazing around in some confusion until he enquired of an official: I see American citizens go through there, and foreigners over there, but where do the English go?
...apparently they believe the best way to go on keeping Palestinians stateless and without rights is to convince Americans that all Muslims are wicked and deserving of any abuse visited on them….
If 'best' means effective they could well be right. Anything appears permissible today as long as it is not specifically prohibited, not against the Law. It's something especially though not uniquely true of the US. I believe it to be an unintended consequence of hyper-legislation which has eroded social responsibility with its innate sense of right and wrong; it operates at every level from parking anywhere where it doesn't say you can't to employing experts to pick routes through tax regulations. It is dialectically arguable that such attitudes, which can readily morph into crime, and are an offspring of freedom.
The second thought through my mind when I heard of this dastardly act was that it could benefit the remain campaign by disgusting some undecided and frightening others. What even my aged cynicism had not foreseen was the financial markets, sensing this too, would respond by raising sterling from a two month slide. http://atimes.com/2016/06/sterling-rises-after-pro-eu-british-lawmaker-killed-yen-up/ . It's enough to make you sick.
He talks from some Norman Rockwell cloud cuckoo land that never existed off the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. A splash of fact based realism wouldn't go amiss. But then I imagine he's had enough by now, just coasting through his last months.
Seeking to impose your values on other cultures is a cornerstone of hegemonic aggrandizement, to be pursued with all the unquestioning conviction of a Dominican inquisitor. Homosexual activity is simply one type of sex outside marriage, which is condemned in many places, Qatar for instance where it is illegal and considered a serious crime, and should not be confused with screwing the occasional camel boy. The implied argument that 'raising voices' against the values of Islamic marriage will somehow obviate unconscionable excesses of homophobia in the US is hard to follow.
This unconscionable action may be the most destructive to date but it is far from rare. Daesh claim responsibility, presumably because if people believe that then it's the same as carrying it out without all the collateral effort, but it cannot be compared with the bombings in Paris and elsewhere. AP reports US citizens shooting each other almost daily so the singularity of this event is its enormity not the incidence. Looking for a singular motive for each is like seeing each weed rather than the field overrun with them. Apart from their reaction of horror, which is a personal reaction, many outside the US have come to see such incidents as things that happen there.
A mayor has to be gregarious, know a lot of people and be known by many more, and I would hazaard a guess he was expressing views fairly widely held in Tel Aviv.
'Higher Ideals' are not peculiarly American, they have existed since mankind emerged from barbarism, they were embodied in the Gods, and contravening them was an offence against the Gods inviting retributive judgement and the penance of sacrifice. Americans scarcely need to be reminded of them, they preach them to the world, like quatrocento cardinals preaching chastity. Read Friday's DOS briefing http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2016/06/258369.htm and see how the US has more concern for gays in Moldavia than Palestinians under Avigdor Lieberman's latest excesses.
This shouldn't surprise anyone. The return of the KSA to the list after this further 'investigation' would be surprising.
We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction…. We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.” George Kennan, U.S. State Department memo, 1948
The whole thing has a strange aura of unlikelihood since France is on high alert. The last thing they need now is a goose chase.
... French police sources told AFP news agency that Ukrainian officials had yet to send them any details. There was some scepticism that the suspect could have been anything more than an arms trafficker.
Councils in the UK have voted to support BDS and to exclude companies that aid and abet Israel's crimes from public contracts. Now the government wants to ban councils from these kinds of steps.
which led me to this:
The Conservative Party press release announcing the plan named it as a response to the "spread of militant divestment campaigns against UK defence and Israeli firms."
Does opposition to third party funding imply that the court's verdict is determined in some way by who pays the plaintiff's legal fees? It seems to me this case hinges on an issue that would benefit greatly from a good airing, and possibly also a series of appeals up the ladder resulting in a useful precedent.
Suicide bombings are not peculiar to Syria. They are not invasions but terrorist actions and quite separate from territorial gains and losses. They have to be dealt with primarily through intelligence, and the Russians are quite right about the need for negotiation because until the 'war' is under control and some semblance of stability exists it must be all but impossible to gather and utilise such intelligence. It doesn't help anyone to promulgate the view that Assad is some demonic source of the darkest evil and not the elected leader of Syria battling a tide of extraneous opponents.
This US obsession with Assad is increasingly bizarre. The US appears to have lost sight of the fact that one unfortunate intervention does not simply replace the one before, they become cumulative in the global mind. It's as if Obama et al are allowing veil after veil to float away, exposing purposes ever further from the well being of the Syrian people, avowed humanitarian priorities, or even democracy. Had this Orwellian titled 'Centcom Commander' informed the Syrian government of his desire to visit, it is likely permission would have been denied. True, but many see it as a further example of US disregard for other nations' sovereignty. Either nations respect each others sovereignty or to all intents and purposes they are at war.
But Grandmother! What big teeth you have," said Little Red Riding Hood.
"The better to eat you with, my dear,” roared the wolf
Regrettable perhaps, but on the other hand if it accelerates the divisions between Israel and the outside world, and more significantly within Israel itself, it may turn out to be a silver lining; passionate divisions have ever been their Achilles' heel. Netanyahu may have shot his own foot again.
The US is a litigatious nation and should not be surprised by Iran's suit. US law looks for winners and losers and is somewhat like a medieval challenge as opposed to the more staid, and perhaps more boring, Napoleonic pursuit of truth. US law is also expensive and the threat alone can be used to silence potential opponents, a sort of latter day six-shooter. Also, of course, law degrees are popular qualifications for public and political life. All this makes for an elite with highly confrontational attitudes to almost anything, including foreign policy which renders the notion of 'US diplomacy' quite Trumpian. Of course the Iranians would not get any monetary recourse from suing the US, but a lot of smelly stuff would hit the fan. The same will be true when the long delayed Chilcot inquiry finally confirms the Blair/Bush secret deal over the invasion of Iraq. That is hand rubbingly worth looking forward to. These days I do sometimes feel we are living in several TV series at the same time.
“Might is right” is the timeless philosophy of imperial expansion. The only real difference today is the presumed need to conceal it under a cloak of hypocrisy. In its earliest manifestations no such need existed as is clear from The Iliad, and Thucydides' graphic account of the Athenian arguments for overthrowing the neutral island of Melos in 416 BC, which led to the slaughter of every male and the slavery of all women and children; a bit like Libya and Afghanistan in a way. The problem is that it becomes increasingly difficult for the leaders to maintain benevolent behaviour at home while exercising themselves so ferociously abroad, particularly when the economic rewards of expansion dwindle and even maintaining a status quo ceases to be cost effective. At that point irreparable fractures begin the appear. It's a cyclical pattern, it happened to Rome, Spain in the 16th century, and Britain after WWII.
Cinton killed himself? His integrity perhaps. The umbrella problem was and is that the last thing the US wants in that area is another independent Arab state, particularly one not that enamoured of the US. The only short term solution is BDS until the pips squeak and the Israeli people themselves abandon their genocidal dream.
No one is foisting Trump on the US, rather he is being elevated by a pissed off population; the candidates who have fallen by the wayside were the foisted ones. If we see Sanders facing off with Trump I'll wager Sanders to win. Clinton and Trump, however, would see my wallet back in my pocket.
making them scapegoats it is comforting not only to the poor and powerless, but also to the rich and powerful. This hits the nail because whatever one likes to call it, the notion of what is or is not proper, acceptable, to do or say is essentially a middle class contribution, always has been, and it is the decline of the middle class that opens the door to the Trumps of the US and other Western nations.
The legend, if not the reality, of Dick Wittington (late 14th early 15th century) surely demonstrates that the appeal of a rise from obscurity to the office of London's mayor is no modern happenstance.
The broad public is really not much interested in more than the immediate. They, like Strepsiades in Aristophanes' The Clouds are unfamiliar with conceptual thinking, and by extension concepts of which historical continuum is one. From that perspective Sadiq Khan may fairly be described as “first Muslim mayor of a major European city” because he is exactly that within the immediately tangible world. It is also fairly likely that the many journalists who feed news to the broad public share its disinterest in a lot of contrary historical detail. Conceptual thought doesn't appeal to everyone, perhaps because it overshadows and numbs the piquant immediacy of emotional life. Details from the historical past can be displayed before the public but only in the form of narrative or investigative entertainment. Furthermore, there is always the danger that such historical detail, taken out of its broader context, can far too readily be misinterpreted; it might, for instance, strike some as proof that Muslims have been trying to take over our world for centuries. Better, perhaps, not even to taste the Pierian Spring?
Lavrov's talking points may be viewed as propagandistic but they are consistent, as indeed are the policies of Assad. Both are pursuing the liberation of Syria from armed rebels of whatever colour. The collateral damage is more than unfortunate, and tragic for the individuals and families involved, but Assad did not arm the opposition; you cannot protect the Aubusson if you are extinguishing a fire. There are deep ideological differences between the US and Russia but the views expressed by Lavrov, particularly those relating to US motives, are shared by many, and many more who demur from showing it. The fact that the US does not share Lavrov's perspective is unfortunate but it doesn't make the US right. The US attitude is all of a one with swanning around in a guided missile destroyer 4000 miles from home provoking Russia on the grounds that such actions are not against international law, without ever pausing to consider that just because something is not against the law does not justify doing it.
Is it reasonable to expect that fostering and arming opponents of a regime, particularly one with a well equipped and loyal military and powerful allies, is likely to proceed without loss of civilian life and infrastructural damage, or to be surprised that the damage and humanitarian crises evolve in fairly direct proportion to the scale of arms and support invested? The only way to put Syria on its feet is to eliminate all disparate armed groups of whatever colour, restore, as near as possible, the status quo ante and let a diplomatic process begin, which is what Putin claims to be his purpose and his actions appear to most of the world to be in line with that. Assad is President and Commander in Chief. These roles, like the US Presidency itself, are elements of the constitution which continue regardless of who occupies them at any one time. This concept has deep roots, it is enshrined in the 26th of the 39 Articles: Of the Unworthiness of the ministers, which hinder not the effect of the Sacraments. ...the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority... but the authority of the institution remains separate from the 'wickedness' of any one man.
As Mario Cuomo said: You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose. Clinton will contribute nothing 'positive' to the US, its allies or the world at large. Within the US, however, the classic ingredients for a move towards fascism have begun to form and I suspect most of Trump's populist appeal is a reflection of that. It won't happen shortly, perhaps it never will, but it has some life in it which is stirring.
Russia, as Putin and others have set out in simple terms time and again. seeks a Syria reunited and completely free of armed rebels of whatever colour, following which a revised constitution will lead to elections. What may make it appear confusing is that the US wants all sorts of other things to do with Saudi Arabia, Israel and heavens knows who else, and its policies change with a hectic pragmatism to which Russian tactics must adapt to keep its strategy in sight. What appears confusing is US, not Russian, actions and that is because US purposes have never been defined with any corresponding clarity, due perhaps to the fact they are too devious to be put on the table.
Most Americans know nothing about Arab people or Muslims, few could even identify any other country on a globe, except perhaps Canada. Ignorance makes it easy to demonise people. At least Prince actually went to the Middle East where his impressions inclined him to be positive. The fact that his experience was limited is hardly surprising since he went as an entertainer and was doubtless on an extremely limited schedule. Had he gone to Scotland he might have said the Scots wear kilts without implying they all do, and if he was even vaguely expecting what US media and political spokespersons say about the area and people, he is likely to have been more affected by the reality than if he had gone with an untrammelled mind. I am not aware of having ever seen him or heard any of his songs but my first impression from his comments quoted here is positive.
Many Americans doubtless woke up appalled by the implications of the NY results, but to citizens of other countries who have no deep involvement they appear not good but not surprising. In living memory it has been possible to adopt the attitude that it doesn't matter what you do so long as you don't 'do it in public and frighten the horses'. I don't believe human nature changes and, although I realise it to be a contentious position, I don't believe it ever does; it is human attitudes and social environments that change and the most dramatic recent such change is the explosion of media which has rendered it all but impossible for anything to be done that doesn't reach public scrutiny, and the spin-off from that has made the public more open about what they do, defiantly so in many areas that were simply not talked about before. This is perfectly understandable since if you are going to be outed anyway you might as well be up front about it; the morphing of public attitudes towards homosexuality over the last 50 years provides a succinct illustration of this in action but it applies in many. and soon perhaps all, other areas as well; farewell hypocrisy, the expression of beliefs, feelings and virtues that one does not hold or possess. Trump does not appear to be such a hypocrite; it's possible to believe he actually does hold the views he expounds. I doubt many feel that about Clinton and in that sense Trump is the more honest. The results in NY and elsewhere may well be a reflection of that fact that many US citizens actually feel the same but have hitherto lacked the temerity or opportunity to admit it.
As for the things he proposes, the compelling argument against torture is that it doesn't work. The killing of women and children is effected daily by guys sitting at consoles zapping drone targets thousands of miles away. And, if you have demonised all Moslems to the point of persecution then indeed you need to keep a close eye on places they may assemble. The problem is less the 'protective' action than the ignorance that provoked it's need. None of this is rational but few people are rational or ever have been. Rationality is a tool not a panacea, and like any tool it has precise and limited functions. More importantly, it does not of itself induce morality, it is of no value to philosophy, it can't be used against the slings and arrows of fortune, it's useless against Zionists and other religious convictions, etc. It was integral to our liberation from mediaeval theocracy, and an inspiration in the questing centuries that followed but they are passed and we are moving swiftly into a post-rational era where feelings are less constrained. Whether this is a good thing or not is entirely a question of the perspective you take and how free you are in considering others. To my mind the number of Trump supporters demonstrates how many are at last prepared to acknowledge the emperor is quite naked.
Israel's defiance of international law and Western moral norms is like a gangrene; it slowly, and then more speedily, ate into Palestine and the surrounding areas, and now it spreads relentlessly through the body of a largely passive West. Personally, I think that current circumstances being what they are it has become incurable and will only die when what it feeds on has witherered. To oppose it with rationality is as pointless as arguing with a forest fire. It is, alas, a peculiarity of the rational mind that it more often than not relies on parti pris perspectives that lead to profound misinterpretations of the way the minds of the non-rational function. It is not so much any underlying morality of the US/West that has been destroyed but the faith of so many who trusted and were inspired by it in formative good faith and whose disillusion has left a deep dark void.
She is not responsible in an absolute sense but she surely shares a level of responsibility, a higher level than many due to the single-minded forcefulness of her persuasions and the then influence of her positions. Since she is seeking the highest office it's perfectly valid for people to be reminded of her past positions and the consequences that followed them and haunt us to this day.
I think one can make too much of this Panama business. It discloses behaviour which is selfish and anti-social at best and criminal at worst, but it is behaviour by individuals and commercial outfits, not nations. I don't think it's enough to spark a revolution of the sanguinary proportion of the Syrian mess. Political opposition exists in all societies, it's an ongoing part of their evolution and, however bloody, would, and should, normally be self-contained. What has turned Syria into the mess it is is the intrusion of so many external interests from viral Jihadists, through oil interests, to geopolitical manipulators. Within this, the US has arguably been the prime mover and motivator. 'Corruption' of the Panama kind is symptomatic of a state of affairs within which political opposition can take root and flourish but I doubt it is of itself the cause.
They don't really need any new motives. They are doing what have always said they would do. Russia has very good reasons of it's own for bringing Daesh down and Assad would be failing in his duty if he didn't seek to regain all Syrian territory. He told French lawmakers visiting Damascus on Sunday that Syria is too small for federalization.
I have seen it reported that when Putin went on Russian television in October announcing he had sent bombers and weaponry to Syria he said:
I have two purposes — to bolster the president of Syria Assad's army, so that it can fight terrorists on the ground, because we, Russia, are not going to send combat soldiers. And secondly, once the Syrian army is stabilized, the political processes of compromise and negotiation can begin.
He also said: 'I think it will take three to five months.
This sounds a perfectly clear unequivocal statement of purpose, but the necessary ceasefire which has been achieved is frangible and requires the cooperation of a lot of interests not renowned for their ability to cooperate so it seems reasonable that he stand poised to return should the untoward, but not unlikely, occur. He seems to me simply to be doing exactly what he said he would do. This, of course, in Western terms is incomprehensible verging on the outrageous.
Fascinating the way the Western media ferret ulterior motives for Putin's decision instead of just taking it at face value. Few, aside from Juan here, seem prepared to accept that he feels what he set out to achieve has been achieved. Rather, he has to be up to something, has to have some devious motive, saving money, gaining kudos, whatever. Any action may carry ancillary benefits but that doesn't make them motives. Thinking it does leads to false syllogisms.
Putin has never claimed to be supporting Assad because he is Assad but rather because he heads Syria's legitimate government and military. Now an apparently meaningful pause in the conflict has been achieved and the government is engaging with its political opponents in an international environment, that is enough. He surely knows more about the dynamics of the peace than the Western media and will no doubt keep an eye on things but, within bounds, he may feel it's now time to leave it to them. The surprise to my mind is Hizbullah but he likely had a hand in that as well.
Along the same lines, 42% of Israeli Jews say that squatter settlements on Palestinian land in the Palestinian West Bank benefit Israeli security.
This is probably true for two main reasons. One because they make the prospect of the return of the land all but impossible without creating a humanitarian problem of the same order as the one it would resolving, and then because they would be first in line if any external enforcement was ever undertaken and, ultimately, sacrificeable.
Netanyahu is simply a man who puts the interests of Israel as he perceives them above every other consideration, quite literally. Most leaders do but few have national interests so divergent from broadly accepted Western norms and so it's less apparent. Furthermore he is unrestrained in this purpose by the niceties of loyalty or even good manners. I met Ben Gurion in 1971 and although by then age had mellowed him he must have been exactly the same. Our conversation turned at one point to de Gaulle who he said he greatly admired. There may have been the inadvertent flicker of my eyebrow because he insisted, explaining that de Gaulle was a leader who put the interests of France above all others, and that is what any leader should do.
While it is indeed possible Obama's diplomatic strategy feeds into these results it is arguably no less true that a steady move away from unequivocal theological subservience has been on the cards anyway. Iranians are not immune to the modern world and, while there certainly persist ultra extremists in the more remote areas, many of their less acceptable judicial sentences have, I understand, been set aside by the high court. The recent isolation of Iran may actually have been inhibiting a process of liberalisation for at least two reasons, the first that such developments have a distinctly Western, particularly US, feel about them, and then, associated with that, the activity of humanitarian groups, however well motivated and intentioned, and the extensive publicity of their activities which may have made mercy harder to grant since doing so might appear to be bowing to Western pressure. There are no absolutes here but it is worth considering whether what the elections appear to evidence today might not have of occurred sooner without all those sanctions and demonisation. The same could well be true of Syria. After all, the US is quite happy to support the KSA and Israel so it might appear a shade disingenuous to make an issue of Iran's internal political arrangements.
For Kerry prognosticating a breakup of Syria is scarcely difficult since he and a whole disparate bunch of people are engaged in conflicting efforts and purposes which appear to be united only in moving in that direction. The sole entity actively opposed to such an outcome is the Syrian government, army and allies. Assad has made it clear his purpose is to regain control of all Syria, and the only way to accomplish that surely is to defeat or disarm all armed groups actively opposed to the government. If the West is not going to help in that direction it should get out. The ceasefire, is a US obsession, with Kerry desperately trying to look as if he is doing something positive, while the Russians go through the motions and get on with the job. Personally I consider Trump's notion of US disengagement quite the most constructive suggestion.
Rightly or wrongly, the US is giving the distinct impression of not having the faintest idea what it thinks it's doing. Just compare Mark Toner, the DOS spokesperson, responding to questions the other day, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2016/02/253123.htm#SYRIA. with the Russian, Maria Zakharova, doing the same.
There's a guy here, Jean-Michel Vernochet, writing that the population of Nouboul et Zahra welcomed the Syrian soldiers as liberators, showering them with rice and flowers.
Autant dire que la rébellion court maintenant le risque d’un effondrement à court terme, surtout que l’armée de Damas est parvenue, le 4 février, à briser l’encerclement (en place depuis 2012) par les djihadistes de deux petites villes chiites, Nouboul et Zahra, dont la population a reçu les soldats loyalistes sous des pluies de riz et de fleurs. Ce qui signifie que plusieurs milliers, 5.000 peut-être, miliciens chiites seront disponibles pour joindre leurs forces à celles des assiégeants d’Alep.
I think what you suggest has been inching forward for some time. I can't put a finger on it but I have sensed it, not as anything anti-Israel as decreasingly pro. Quite aside from the lobbies, Obama cannot act out of tune with broad US public feeling on the matter and that includes a large chunk of indifference about the Palestinians per se which I don't think it's realistic to assume will change since the horrific images and stories fro the area haven't already changed it. On the other hand Israel itself has provoked not inconsiderable global negativity, largely through Netanyahu's insufferable behaviour, and that's what really exasperates Europeans and can rouse them to action. Obama, who is cerebral rather than emotional, surely knows this and even though Kerry's relentless efforts achieved no practical resolution they must have provided the clearest possible picture of Israel's thinking, strengths, and weaknesses. Obama may be very gradually leaving the door ajar and allowing the initiative to slip into other hands. This is necessary because there is a real danger that Americans, who are peculiarly emotional, may be incapable of turning on Israel without becoming anti-Semitic. Netanyahu certainly knows this and waves it about like a grenade with the pin removed. It doesn't work that well in Europe which better understands the excesses of 20th century anti-Semitism as a specifically Nazi manifestation.
Numerous actions are serving to reduce first the affection and now any residual respect for the US, and pandering to Israel's behaviour is certainly one of them. I imagine that's what Shapiro was try to warn of the other day, the same day incidentally the EU was passing a resolution defining the distinction between pre-1967 Israel and now. Israel is undoubtedly heading for a slide. its present trajectory is unsustainable, but a slide towards a whimper, most of the civilised world hopes, and not the bang Netanyahu seems so tauntingly to invite.
Are Western democracies becoming over ripe? Not Democracy itself, of course, since that is an abstract concept and cannot even be defined, let along practised, to everyone's satisfaction. Large swathes of the Western public now appear to function as thought police, sniffing around with their McCarthyist obsessions, which, due to the dark side of social media, often lead to, presumably cathartic, witch hunts. I had no knowledge of Don Imus until his fall which seemed to me to reveal a social phenomenon potentially far more dangerous, and closer to fascism, than his absurd remarks. The issue of what is the appropriate response to Trump/Palin is surely a good deal more important than the silly things they say. This is one of those issues where a too hasty determination may invite unintended consequences; who defines where the line lies in the grey middle?
There was a recent debate in the UK Parliament arising from a public petition to ban Trump from entering the UK. This was not a debate that could have led directly to a ban but one where members express and explore their opinions, a time-honoured British parliamentary custom. If you have time, it's worth dipping into because looked it reflects a serious and considered effort to explore broader aspects of a prickly issue.
One random quote:
I have heard of a number of cases in which people have been excluded for incitement or for hatred; I have never heard of someone being excluded for stupidity, and I am not sure that we should start now.
Thanks for the sane suggestion that they may simply have run out of gas. It can happen to anyone, and has to most of us. There's no evidence of any effort to humiliate the sailors; getting them to kneel and put their hands of their heads until it's clear what's going on was common sense; I've suffered greater indignity stopped by a traffic cop on Sunset, and anyway the pictures show it was hardly officiously enforced. McCain is acting like a drama queen.
Most of what he said was aspirational rather than any reflection of current reality; comforting evocations of what the US once was. The present situation is, alas, much closer to Gregory II's call to Crusade against the infidels.
Bombing a populated area will kill people; trying to kill some but not others is like trying to boil only some of the water in a kettle. That is a fact and this sort of event proves it. Hoping it won't happen, indeed even trying to avoid it happening, is nothing more or less than gambling. The Germans and the British did it to each other in WWII, however that slaughter was quite deliberate and involved no hypocrisy. I was not yet four when our London house received a direct hit; mercifully there were siren warnings and we had time to decamp to the nearby subway platform or I would not be recounting it now. Perhaps it's human nature: Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above. and, one is inclined to add, conspicuously fail to do.
True, but there's a deeper significance. Such a decision must either have been countenanced, if not made, by Assad, otherwise it suggests some other person or entity with extraordinary authority independent of Assad, and should that be so it might provide an alternative explanation of much else laid at his door.
May seem fanciful but this is exactly how multi-polar balance of power would work in practice. Two out of three combine to keep the third on the table.
Last week, lawmakers adopted China's first-ever dedicated anti-terrorism law. The new law's most interesting provision, as far as foreign observers are concerned, is an article authorizing the Chinese military to take part in counter-terrorism missions abroad. Will China now join the Syrian, Russian and Iranian-led anti-terror campaign in Syria?
Only by a negotiated end to the civil war and national elections can Syria be restored to order.
But isn't that what Russia, Iran, the UN, and Assad himself all seek? Others seem to want to predetermine the result of such elections. Therein lies the rub. Why must Assad, or anyone else for that matter, be excluded from elections? Surely, it should be up to the Syrian electorate roundly to reject him if that is their wish. I suspect the answer is the US and others have a pretty shrewd notion free national elections would not produce the results they want for the area, and might, heaven forfend, even reaffirm Assad's legitimacy, a prospect too ignominious to contemplate. Russia and Iran face territorially significant threats from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) of a magnitude not known to the US or Europe. The US doesn't lack oil nor, of course, do Russia or Iran. It may be comforting to define this as a proxy conflict over fuel but there are increasing numbers who see it more as the painful emergence of a multi-polar balance of power. If they could be right the ME is simply one board on which this phenomenon is playing out.
This ISIS conflict is all but out of hand. At root it is a global problem which should have been dealt with at a global level. Unfortunately its resolution is subservient to a far larger conflict, which many, particularly Americans, see as some kind of stand off between the US and Russia. But it is not a stand off between between any two groups, it is rather the US/West 'dream' of global authority encountering the cold light of day. It simply isn't possible to effect a world with one set of cultural convictions however gift-wrapped in concepts like human rights. If a journalist offends authorities in Tehran or Beijing and is denied a visa or even arrested then that is what the journalist has done, that is how the authorities have responded and no amount of piety or protestation will undo it. The other day the US stopped a British Muslim family (two brothers and nine children) from boarding a flight to visit Disneyland for Christmas http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/22/us-stops-british-muslim-family-flight-disneyland-david-cameron . Well, the US has a right to issue and revoke visas, although most of us thought such use of it would likely wait until Trump became President. In future Brits with Moslem names will simply have to go somewhere else for Christmas. It is completely unrealistic to take the view that one local set of criteria can dominate everywhere. The real conflict today is not between nations or peoples, but between ways of organising spheres of future global authority; a Western dominated single authority has not been able to establish itself while an alternative is not yet on the horizon. The resulting vacuum is where ISIS et al manage to flourish, and also why perfectly well understood commonsense changes are not swiftly found to confront issues like climate change.
Trump dovetails into the European view of US politics, a view that gives rise to the very erosion of prestige the gun wavers want so belligerently to maintain. There won't be overt opposition, but US wishes will be increasingly ignored or circumvented. Only the other day the DOS was lecturing China on the sentence given Pu Zhiqiang.
We are disturbed, however, that Mr. Pu was convicted and given a three-year suspended sentence following 19 months of imprisonment on vague charges of “inciting ethnic hatred” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” We urge Chinese authorities to vacate that conviction immediately and unconditionally.
As if China could give two figs that its internal judicial system disturbs Mr Kerry; and it needs to be acknowledged that not only do such attitudes appear absurd but the absurdity is cumulative. Unless they are abandoned altogether, next year will see an increase in ingenious and less ingenious circumvention of US inspired sanctions against Russia, it's a slippery slope. Season's Greetings!
Trump dovetails into the European view of US politics, a view that gives rise to the very erosion of prestige the gun wavers want so belligerently to maintain. There won't be overt opposition, but US wishes will be increasingly ignored or circumvented. Only the other day the DOS was lecturing China on the sentence given Pu Zhiqiang.
We are disturbed, however, that Mr. Pu was convicted and given a three-year suspended sentence following 19 months of imprisonment on vague charges of “inciting ethnic hatred” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” We urge Chinese authorities to vacate that conviction immediately and unconditionally.
As if China could give two figs that its internal judicial system disturbs Mr Kerry; and it needs to be acknowledged that not only do such attitudes appear absurd but the absurdity is cumulative. Unless they are abandoned altogether, next year will see an increase in ingenious and less ingenious circumvention of US inspired sanctions against Russia, it's a slippery slope. Season's Greetings!
Helping ISIS is shoulder shrugging collateral damage. Trump's principle motive is to promote keeping the US free of any more strange brown faced people, and there is nothing particularly unusual in that if this guy has his facts right. http://atimes.com/2015/12/trumps-muslim-ban-is-as-american-as-apple-pie/
It is no crime to lack intellectual acuity, and ignorance is simply not knowing what someone else knows. Most people the world over simply seek social stability and a bit of prosperity. To ask a trick question like that suggests an ugly and divisive sense of superiority.
Once you imagine something split off from absolute unity you have not two elements but three because there remains the unity of which they are both part. This notion is not uniquely Christian but it serves to uphold the idea of the Son being both separate and one.
A problem with breaking Daesh is that under the broad umbrella of that purpose, which itself has several leaks, there are far too many opportunistic options and differing priorities. It would have been better for the leaders of the US, Russia and China to have sat down, devised a united plan, then called on their allies to aid its achievement in specific and clearly defined ways. As it is we've got what my grandmother would have called, a dog's dinner.
Popular media has become entertainment. Objective news is cerebral, it involves the mind, entertainment is essentially the orchestration of emotion without cerebral involvement. Selective, highly professional coverage of wars, bomb outrages, mass slaughter, and guys like Trump provides plenty of compelling low cost and immediate entertainment it would be prohibitively expensive to replicate.
Not dealing with terrorists is a generally accepted principle, one the US espouses, publically at any rate, and as such it has no more to do with Assad's character and behaviour than it would Obama's. It seems to me highly doubtful Assad ever exercised complete control over the actions of the Syrian military elite, and to blame him for all the ruthlessness against political opposition may risk ignoring the strength and nature of the enforcement structure left in place by his father who may well have left it fairly impregnable considering he was obliged to leave so complex a situation in the hands of an ophthalmologist. The US and a bunch of other nations continually insist Assad cannot be part of the Syrian future, without apparently considering that such an approach to another nation's electoral process is not only undemocratic but transparently hypocritical, particularly from Saudi Arabia. Russia considers the Syrian people should decide who they want as President, as does the UN Secretary General.
What is really at issue here is the US etc. reacting to the threat facing its preferred uni-polar global vision, a threat that appears to be coming to a head in a manner that would likely be occurring even if ISIL did not exist. Looked at from a different perspective there is no 'moral' element involved, it is rather a process with a high degree of inexorability. One superpower would face constant anarchy, two would be forever at each others throats, three, as Orwell projected, could reach a delicate degree of fluctuating but overall acceptable equilibrium. That is as much physics as politics.
Is it possible that Daesh/ISIS and this widespread civic lawlessness are symptoms of an era of multipolar or, as Orwell proposed, tripolar distribution of global power and influence rising up against the unipolar aspirations of the US and largely Christian West, with what Bush termed the axis of evil the principal front line? There are American, British, French, UAE, Jordanian, Australian, Iraqi, Syrian. Iranian and Russian military aircraft, backup, manufacturing, and intelligence resources currently involved in the area, not to mention unprecedented domestic security activities. When one ponders the level and incalculable cost of resources currently engaged in this struggle, resources which might be flowing towards the betterment of human life, it seems scarcely surprising we find anarchy and 'terrorism' rife in our societies. As for Obama's sticking to our values and preserving our liberty, some might see the relentless US/Western effort to export those values, a purpose ever an ingredient of empire building activity, the real threat to fast fading liberties. In a tripolar world, the leaders could come together, if only temporarily, to deal with common threats, in fact they would be better equipped to forestall them altogether.
@Gary Page: The Russian position is the same as that of the UN Secretary General and most other nations, that the future President of Syria should be chosen by the people of Syria alone, without preconditions imposed by outsiders. If, for the reasons you outline, the Syrian people may prove to have a preference for al-Assad then that is a US concern, not a Russian one.
Sure there is a significant difference in the incidence of murder by shooting between the US and those countries that have laws against gun ownership. I am fairly confident, however, Europeans simply don't want to own guns unless for specific hunting purposes, which are anyway in serious decline, and if proffered a gun many would react like an arachnophobe in the presence of a spider. European laws against gun ownership are not onerous because they precisely reflect public opinion. Gun ownership was never widespread in the UK although a fair number of weapons did come home as souvenirs from WWII and later active service; I myself had a 9 mm Luger which I became increasingly concerned of owning in case of burglary. Fortunately the government periodically offered amnesty for weapons handed over within a period and I took it to the local police station where it gave me mixed comfort to witness the admiration with which it was received! I offer this anecdote because one must not just look to arresting further sales but to ridding society of existing weapons. There is a greater division of trust between police and public in the US today which might make this a more challenging task, and legislation might simply encourage the concealment of weapons while adding another 'crime' for zealous police to pursue. Further, one might wonder if gun legislation of itself would arrest an alarming urge to mass slaughter fellow citizens or simply divert it in some chemical or incendiary direction? Such speculation is not offered as opposition to legislation, rather to suggest that, highly desirable as it may be, it may not of itself prove a panacea for all current ills.
Someone has been facilitating the flow of illegal oil through Turkey for the benefit of IS coffers and there is speculation that Erdogan's son is behind it, which makes his position highly questionable. The Russian response to the downed plane has been pretty controlled although highly public and accompanied by awesome defensive arrangements which can only be interpreted as warning. The current Turkish crackdown on respected media figures is a sign of weakness verging on the desperate, As the weeks pass the situation will likely go off the boil
On November 16 the US claimed to have destroyed 116 trucks carrying illegal oil in ISIL controlled territories and a couple of days later the Russian Air Force announced it had destroyed 500 such trucks. Obviously the stuff must be flowing in quantities difficult for Turkey to be unaware of. PBS had a program touching on this traffaic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMermbclRXs but, according to Sputnik news, http://sputniknews.com/us/20151121/1030518092/pbs-newshour-russian-airstrikes-footage-us-lying.html they had to use Russian footage to illustrate the US claim because the US didn't provide any.
All Erdogan needs do to get this off the table before the sanctions bite either way is climb down a little further. The nub is in Dr Cole's last question, Will the Turks blame Erdogan? Will he risk that? More likely he'll find an acceptable accomodation, the lesson, however, will have been learned.
Erdogan appears to be having serious regrets. Apparently he called twice but Putin wouldn't take his calls. He's now manoeuvring for a meeting in Paris on the side lines of the climate change conference, a meeting he may well not get either. He has treated the body of the downed Russian pilot with impressive reverence, and he has uttered a formulaic apology saying he wishes the event had not occurred. However, he still insists the plane was in Turkey's airspace, albeit only for seconds, and until he revises that claim I imagine Putin will continue to rub his nose in it. Meanwhile, few Europeans would consider it an acceptable response to shoot down an aircraft actively engaged in combating ISIL even if it did stray over the Turkish border, and that taken with Obama's knee jerk support of Turkey's 'right to defend its airspace', so like his support for Israel's carnage in Gaza, will only increase European respect for Putin and sympathy for Russia. Furthermore, the whole thing is unlikely to help Cameron when he tries to coax the UK Parliament to authorise bombing in Syria, and if Cameron fails at that, as he did once before, Obama's tenuous 'strategy' will suffer a further blow.
They seek one here,
They seek one there,
His courtiers seek one everywhere.
Where will they find one,
Nobody knows
Of a good dry cleaner for Emperor's clothes.
Turkey is behaving unpredictably and Putin's response is sensible and will doubtless be appreciated and supported within Russia. We'll see what happens but so far he has shown statesmanlike restraint. Imagine the ballyhoo if this had been a US aircraft.
Here's the DOS spokesman on Tuesday being uncharacteristically cautious.
. We’re still trying to determine what happened. It’s easy to rush to judgments and to make proclamations and declarations after an incident like this. You need to gather the facts, you need to be clear about what happened, what occurred,
..a genuine process which presents certain possibilities. Humph! Did they really manage to reconcile those who insist Assad be dumped at all costs and those, including Russia and the UN, who feel the Syrian people should make the decision.
The position the US aspired to hold in the world came with obligations; the bombings in Paris and the downing of the Russian plane demonstrate pretty conclusively that the US has failed those obligations and, like an ageing alpha male in a pride, that position is decreasingly tenable and thermodynamically irreversible. Russia's historical ties with Europe are deep. The Russia of Peter the great had much in common with the France of Louis IV whom he visited so flamboyantly in 1717, Russian émigres were welcomed to France from the Bolshevik revolution, the last Empress consort was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, it was Russia delivered the fatal blows to both Napoleon and Hitler, Marx is buried in Highgate cemetery. It's no big deal to roll back recent differences, It's true NATO wants Ukraine but NATO is a US project long passed it's shelf life.
Perhaps we have arrived at a branch point with one path leading towards escalating carnage and the other winding tortuously towards a new global order. Our world has run out of spaces for oppressed people to migrate and find a new life, something which always occurred in the past and laid the foundations of many civilisations, including America.. But it was already too late after WWII which is perhaps why Israel in Palestine is such a festering sore. It can't be done any longer, we have to find an alternative where people can stay where they are or move in patterns of mutual exchange.
It seems time to abandon notions of a global hierarchical authority under the US or any other segment of our world and move towards something horizontal, for the US to come down now from its self-allocated throne and join a round table. The other day in Vienna Kerry was still claiming Assad's continued presidency to be the principle reason for terrorism in the ME, and presumably now by logical extension the carnage in Paris, which is both absurd and insulting. There can be no resolution to the problem of terrorism while such irrationality gets a hearing. No one believes it. Kerry can't really believe it himself, or if he does he's dotty. Obama today puts me in mind of a Holy Roman Emperor, not Holy, not Roman, and not an emperor. And unclothed to boot. We seriously need to make the UN real or there is no hope of ever finding peace. Change, like birth is ever painful, perhaps it will be the final outcome of this painful period.
It is really up to Europeans to resolve this festering situation since they are less compromised, marginally perhaps but nevertheless. People are always saying, Obama could or should do this or that but in the end he is not able to, the knot is too tangled, there are too many conflicting interests at each others' throats. By sort of washing his hands of responsibility he is effectively leaving the stage to Europeans, and that is not doing nothing, in fact it's doing quite a lot.
This EU labeling business closes a loophole It needn't be seen as controversial since in theory it is as likely to attract buyers as to put them off. I live in Southern Spain where local agriculture suffers from US inspired sanctions against Russia. In a German supermarket oranges from South Africa were on sale next to Spanish oranges and I bought the local though they were more expensive. That was not just a gesture of support, it also satisfied my feeling that it is morally questionable and environmentally absurd to send oranges half way round the world to compete with a local produce surplus.
What is good about the labeling is it provides a focus for public action, and there are not that many. However distressing Europeans find Israel's behavior there is little most ordinary people can do about it; now they need only not purchase something. Many may avoid buying Israeli products as well with the issue in front of them since, after all, it is Israelis who oppress Palestinians not produce. Most such produce will presumably be sold through supermarkets and it need only be left unsold on their counters for them to switch suppliers since turpitude is no match for the bottom line.
Quaeque ipsa miserrima vidimus, et quorum pars magna fuimus Vergilius, cum excusatione
Hollywood is not the guardian of public morality, or the greater public interest either for that matter. Entertainment also serves as a safety valve. Subliminally directing collective antipathy of mass surveillance into fictional entertainment where the action hero struggles colorfully and comes out on top in the end may actually dissipate the urge for more practical resistance, as it did with the Roman use of the arena, and the culture of 'bread and circuses'. There are, of course, those on whom violent entertainment can have a contrary effect but they are isolated and numerically far fewer. I have a theory about that but this is not the place to share it.
My hunch is the Russian people will respect Putin's caution in not reaching a determination before the investigation is complete. Rushing to this or that instant conclusion and extrapolating in myriad speculative directions is not a Russian peculiarity.
If it proves to have been a bomb It will likely confirm the importance of eliminating IS, and the correctness of Putin's decision to roll up his sleeves.
His swift and masterly deployment of awesome Russian resources, and his statesmanlike diplomatic skills will confirm the confidence the vast majority of Russians have in their charismatic President.
Not the passing of an age of lies, alas, hardly an eye blink in an ongoing process with profound implications for our sense of identity and how we take our bearings in the real world. Many have foreseen and warned of the harm arising from the loss of that shared distinction between truth and lies without which we are blind and deaf in a storm, ever subject to shifting rumour, fears and wild fancies.
Frankly I don't think the world would care that much about their Jewish state or how they behave in it if they were to confine themselves within their own borders where they would be just like so many other countries with practices contrary to broad moral norms. What is increasingly unacceptable is the continued occupation of Palestinian land and their treatment of the peoples there, not so much because of any widespread love for Palestinians but because Israel's behaviour runs firmly counter to accepted moral aspirations, aspirations for the kind of world we would like to see. The Western world, for all its adoption of Hebrew mythopoeia, is more deeply rooted in Homeric, Platonic, and Roman traditions and values.
International law is an abstraction unless enforceable and enforced. All these groups are armed opponents of the regime one way or another, and for Russian purposes that makes them all the same whether they are in one boat or a flotilla.
Basically I believe that it is up to the Syrian people who have to decide the future of President Assad.
Ban Ki-moon told a recent news conference in Geneva. http://af.reuters.com/article/idAFL8N12V0O320151031 and that means clear the decks of all rebels and call free elections uninfluenced by outside interests.
If this evolving situation doesn't soon bring the US to work together with Putin to resolve the mess, it's quite possible Europeans will begin to peel off and do so anyway, and that could be far more significant from a global point of view than anything that goes on in the ME.
One thing that needs to change if we want a more peaceful world for future generations is the ingrained habit the US has, and disperses like dandelion seed, of approaching everything in terms of conflict and competition. Why is this conference, for instance, viewed as some kind of stand-off between Russia and the US, the KSA and Iran, etc. instead of a genuine multinational effort to resolve a pressing problem? Over the years I've come to think it may be something to do with the nature of US law. A large percentage of the US elite is made up of law graduates, and US law is fundamentally confrontational; two parties facing each other in a battle designed to identify a winner and loser, a method of resolving conflict descended from the duel which colours a lot of US thinking. US law is unlike much European law which, since Napoleon, has been fundamentally investigative, Perhaps that's a fanciful notion but it fits the emerging divide between the US and Europeans over issues like al-Assad's future, and Russian sanctions over Ukraine. I was much taken by the translation Dr Cole provided of Gen. Husayn Salami's claim about Syria and Iraq being the point of confrontation between Eastern and what are essentially US, beliefs, politics and security interests. Why should the Syrians not be allowed to make up their own minds about Assad? Indeed, how can elections be deemed 'free' if they come with externally imposed preconditions? Would it not be less equivocal if Assad were to be roundly renounced, or selected even, by the Syrian people in free and scrutinised elections?
Sorry. What you say illustrates the clash of cultures. No other nation summons selective urges to set forth and adjust bits of the world to their values as the US does when their moral sensibilities are offended. Salami, I thought, was simply pointing out that the exercise of that urge lies behind what you quote him calling the confrontation between regional and international powers, and the conflict of beliefs, politics and security interests taking place in Iraq and Syria. Personally, I think he has a point. It's not intended as a value judgement, simply a dispassionate observation. Dmitry Medvedev may well have been shielded from more egregious sights on his visit, or he may simply not have considered them any of his business. Therein lies the 'cultural' distinction that increasingly separates the US from the rest.
If Iran backing the Syrian regime appears shocking, Is that not precisely because Syria is what Salami is describing above as one of the points of confrontation between regional and international powers... in a conflict of beliefs, politics and security interests? Everyone has faith is their own beliefs, regardless how they may conflict with others, something vividly illustrated by the beliefs of the Israelis today, and many Americans with their belief in 'exceptionalism'.
Here is Sputnik News quoting Dmitry Medvedev after Assad's recent visit to Moscow, when a lot of what appears to be a remarkable bringing together of disparate interests was presumably on the agenda.
“The last time I saw the Syrian President was in Damascus in May 2010. Syria was a tranquil and civilized country then, unlike now. The old part of Damascus, where I could take a walk, looked like a city where people of different nationalities and religions lived together peacefully.”
“I talked with Syrians, who spoke warmly about Russia and its people. I photographed its ancient mosques and churches. It was a modern secular country.”
Everything changed a year later, the prime minister noted with regret
.
“Life in Syria became a nightmare in 2011, with war, terror, death and the destruction of holy places and monuments that are part of our global heritage.”
They are apparently still 'deliberations' and will probably stay that way. My reading is Obama is slipping his hand under Putin's blanket while seeking to appear to be busily engaged in something quite other.
Blair is a disgusting little man but he intrigues me, and has since his pre-election canvassing in 1996 when it appeared that my fellow citizens, consumed by some spirit of communal masochism, were actually going to put him in Downing Street; an outcome some might see as a potent argument against universal suffrage.
I have always understood the Russian position to be that Assad should remain until the rebels, of whatever colour, are cleared and a modicum at least of peace is restored so that nationwide presidential and parliamentary elections can be held, at which time Assad's hat, should he seek to stand, would be in the ring along with any others.
This is how Putin put it the other day at the Valdai International Discussion Club:
"The US goal is to get rid of Assad. Probably so. Our goal is to defeat terrorism, fight terror, help President Assad defeat terror, thus creating conditions for the start, and, I hope, successful conclusion of the political settlement process. I believe this is the only right way,"
Syria was only the final part of that speech, the rest is well worth reading.
Assad himself has said he will only continue if the Syrian people want him. Presidential and parliamentary elections are supposed to produce results for the electorate not external interests. Of course politics can be a dirty game, but where is that not true.
Putin has made it clear all along that his first priority is Daesh which is hardly surprising considering Russia's own vulnerability to its kind of excess, and it is rational to be seek to work with any bona fide group with similar immediate purposes. Furthermore, Assad is, de facto, the Syrian regime but one day the Syrian regime will be led by another, quite possibly an FSA protégé, so it would appear rational to propose present coöperation. Confronted with any messy situation, the sensible thing is to break in down into compartments, stages, whatever you want to call them, and then tackle them one at a time; as the Red King advised Alice, Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
As for Iran, Putin isn't engaged in the current exercise to serve Iran, although peace in the area would benefit the whole world, whether all like the idea or not.
Would the Russians dispute the issue with the US if the Iraqi government formally requested air support? They didn't with the Iranian request, and it takes two to wrangle. It looks more like the US attempting to blackmail the Iraqi PM for reasons of their own that have little or nothing to do with Daesh; a bit like what Netanyahu does to Obama before breakfast?
The truth is perhaps best sought dialectically, by listening to one version and then its opposite and resolving them to a coherent scenario. Anything else is like listening to the defence and ignoring the prosecution, or vice-versa.
Behind the Syrian chaos lies the reluctance of the US to accept that it is not possible for one power to rule the whole world, separate spheres of influence are inevitable and need to be allowed to develop. Many, when they evoke Orwell's novel 1984, do so for its preview of 24/7 surveillance, and overlook the novel's broader setting, the division of the world into three competing powers, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, engaged in perpetual war and forever realigning their treaties. The 'hero', a citizen of Oceania, is employed in a department revising history to fit each new 'truth'.
True, but it was close, just about as close as you can get without tipping into anarchy. Besides an outcome where an acceptable political future arises appears to be the Russian purpose
The Russian prime minister further emphasized that only the Syrian people are entitled to decide on the future of their country.
“Now, who will be the leader of Syria is an issue to be decided by the Syrian people,” he said, adding, “Our current position is that the legitimate president is [Bashar] Assad.”
There is much written about the conflicting differences between groups of Syrians and most of it is doubtless true, but such differences, which are ongoing, can be put aside, not resolved, just put aside while the parties combine to face an immediate danger. The differences do not disappear and when the danger is passed they re-emerge. Although remote from current Syria, there is perhaps a parallel in the political situation in the UK prior to WWll when dangerous levels of social unrest were reaching a point they even provoked the emergence of fascism. However both sides put those differences on the back boiler while they united to face 6 years of war. When the war was over (largely due to the actions of the Russians ironically enough) the differences come to the front again and resulted in the free election of the Labour Party with Clement Atlee as PM, while Churchill stepped down to the expressed astonishment of much of the world. Time and working, suffering, and sharing triumphs together had blunted their differences and diverted them into democratic paths. This, of course, occurred without any external interference, and might perhaps in Syria if allowed to, and if Putin can keep the likes of La Nuland at bay.
They could try once Russia has cleared the decks. A similar group pulled off the Iran nuclear treaty. That's a lot of muscle. Russia has twice got Assad to agree to go to the negotiating table but no one would talk to him. Naive, maybe but worth a try, Javier Solana seems to think so http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151016/1028600445/isil-iran-nuclear-deal.html .
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Divisions within the US are inevitable as the notion of US global authority fades. It's too late to bomb Assad. If they wanted to do that they should have done it a couple of years ago. That, of course, would likely have led to another Iraq/Libya etc. but they might have gotten away with it then. Obama is in an impossible situation since the threat to the fading dream is not Russia or China as contenders for the global crown but the very idea of a single global authority, and that's tough for US 'exceptionalism' to take on board. I recall a, doubtless apocryphal, story told after WWII of an English traveller arriving in New York and gazing around in some confusion until he enquired of an official: I see American citizens go through there, and foreigners over there, but where do the English go?
...apparently they believe the best way to go on keeping Palestinians stateless and without rights is to convince Americans that all Muslims are wicked and deserving of any abuse visited on them….
If 'best' means effective they could well be right. Anything appears permissible today as long as it is not specifically prohibited, not against the Law. It's something especially though not uniquely true of the US. I believe it to be an unintended consequence of hyper-legislation which has eroded social responsibility with its innate sense of right and wrong; it operates at every level from parking anywhere where it doesn't say you can't to employing experts to pick routes through tax regulations. It is dialectically arguable that such attitudes, which can readily morph into crime, and are an offspring of freedom.
The second thought through my mind when I heard of this dastardly act was that it could benefit the remain campaign by disgusting some undecided and frightening others. What even my aged cynicism had not foreseen was the financial markets, sensing this too, would respond by raising sterling from a two month slide. http://atimes.com/2016/06/sterling-rises-after-pro-eu-british-lawmaker-killed-yen-up/ . It's enough to make you sick.
He talks from some Norman Rockwell cloud cuckoo land that never existed off the covers of the Saturday Evening Post. A splash of fact based realism wouldn't go amiss. But then I imagine he's had enough by now, just coasting through his last months.
Seeking to impose your values on other cultures is a cornerstone of hegemonic aggrandizement, to be pursued with all the unquestioning conviction of a Dominican inquisitor. Homosexual activity is simply one type of sex outside marriage, which is condemned in many places, Qatar for instance where it is illegal and considered a serious crime, and should not be confused with screwing the occasional camel boy. The implied argument that 'raising voices' against the values of Islamic marriage will somehow obviate unconscionable excesses of homophobia in the US is hard to follow.
This unconscionable action may be the most destructive to date but it is far from rare. Daesh claim responsibility, presumably because if people believe that then it's the same as carrying it out without all the collateral effort, but it cannot be compared with the bombings in Paris and elsewhere. AP reports US citizens shooting each other almost daily so the singularity of this event is its enormity not the incidence. Looking for a singular motive for each is like seeing each weed rather than the field overrun with them. Apart from their reaction of horror, which is a personal reaction, many outside the US have come to see such incidents as things that happen there.
A mayor has to be gregarious, know a lot of people and be known by many more, and I would hazaard a guess he was expressing views fairly widely held in Tel Aviv.
'Higher Ideals' are not peculiarly American, they have existed since mankind emerged from barbarism, they were embodied in the Gods, and contravening them was an offence against the Gods inviting retributive judgement and the penance of sacrifice. Americans scarcely need to be reminded of them, they preach them to the world, like quatrocento cardinals preaching chastity. Read Friday's DOS briefing http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2016/06/258369.htm and see how the US has more concern for gays in Moldavia than Palestinians under Avigdor Lieberman's latest excesses.
This shouldn't surprise anyone. The return of the KSA to the list after this further 'investigation' would be surprising.
https://roma38.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/george-kennan-secret-us-state-department-memo-1948/
Not far off in 1948 perhaps but firmly behind us today.
The whole thing has a strange aura of unlikelihood since France is on high alert. The last thing they need now is a goose chase.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36460569
Why, one wonders, are the Ukrainians dilatory in providing details?
Somewhat off topic but I find this in my inbox:
which led me to this:
Does opposition to third party funding imply that the court's verdict is determined in some way by who pays the plaintiff's legal fees? It seems to me this case hinges on an issue that would benefit greatly from a good airing, and possibly also a series of appeals up the ladder resulting in a useful precedent.
Suicide bombings are not peculiar to Syria. They are not invasions but terrorist actions and quite separate from territorial gains and losses. They have to be dealt with primarily through intelligence, and the Russians are quite right about the need for negotiation because until the 'war' is under control and some semblance of stability exists it must be all but impossible to gather and utilise such intelligence. It doesn't help anyone to promulgate the view that Assad is some demonic source of the darkest evil and not the elected leader of Syria battling a tide of extraneous opponents.
This US obsession with Assad is increasingly bizarre. The US appears to have lost sight of the fact that one unfortunate intervention does not simply replace the one before, they become cumulative in the global mind. It's as if Obama et al are allowing veil after veil to float away, exposing purposes ever further from the well being of the Syrian people, avowed humanitarian priorities, or even democracy. Had this Orwellian titled 'Centcom Commander' informed the Syrian government of his desire to visit, it is likely permission would have been denied. True, but many see it as a further example of US disregard for other nations' sovereignty. Either nations respect each others sovereignty or to all intents and purposes they are at war.
But Grandmother! What big teeth you have," said Little Red Riding Hood.
"The better to eat you with, my dear,” roared the wolf
Regrettable perhaps, but on the other hand if it accelerates the divisions between Israel and the outside world, and more significantly within Israel itself, it may turn out to be a silver lining; passionate divisions have ever been their Achilles' heel. Netanyahu may have shot his own foot again.
The US is a litigatious nation and should not be surprised by Iran's suit. US law looks for winners and losers and is somewhat like a medieval challenge as opposed to the more staid, and perhaps more boring, Napoleonic pursuit of truth. US law is also expensive and the threat alone can be used to silence potential opponents, a sort of latter day six-shooter. Also, of course, law degrees are popular qualifications for public and political life. All this makes for an elite with highly confrontational attitudes to almost anything, including foreign policy which renders the notion of 'US diplomacy' quite Trumpian. Of course the Iranians would not get any monetary recourse from suing the US, but a lot of smelly stuff would hit the fan. The same will be true when the long delayed Chilcot inquiry finally confirms the Blair/Bush secret deal over the invasion of Iraq. That is hand rubbingly worth looking forward to. These days I do sometimes feel we are living in several TV series at the same time.
“Might is right” is the timeless philosophy of imperial expansion. The only real difference today is the presumed need to conceal it under a cloak of hypocrisy. In its earliest manifestations no such need existed as is clear from The Iliad, and Thucydides' graphic account of the Athenian arguments for overthrowing the neutral island of Melos in 416 BC, which led to the slaughter of every male and the slavery of all women and children; a bit like Libya and Afghanistan in a way. The problem is that it becomes increasingly difficult for the leaders to maintain benevolent behaviour at home while exercising themselves so ferociously abroad, particularly when the economic rewards of expansion dwindle and even maintaining a status quo ceases to be cost effective. At that point irreparable fractures begin the appear. It's a cyclical pattern, it happened to Rome, Spain in the 16th century, and Britain after WWII.
Cinton killed himself? His integrity perhaps. The umbrella problem was and is that the last thing the US wants in that area is another independent Arab state, particularly one not that enamoured of the US. The only short term solution is BDS until the pips squeak and the Israeli people themselves abandon their genocidal dream.
No one is foisting Trump on the US, rather he is being elevated by a pissed off population; the candidates who have fallen by the wayside were the foisted ones. If we see Sanders facing off with Trump I'll wager Sanders to win. Clinton and Trump, however, would see my wallet back in my pocket.
making them scapegoats it is comforting not only to the poor and powerless, but also to the rich and powerful. This hits the nail because whatever one likes to call it, the notion of what is or is not proper, acceptable, to do or say is essentially a middle class contribution, always has been, and it is the decline of the middle class that opens the door to the Trumps of the US and other Western nations.
The legend, if not the reality, of Dick Wittington (late 14th early 15th century) surely demonstrates that the appeal of a rise from obscurity to the office of London's mayor is no modern happenstance.
The broad public is really not much interested in more than the immediate. They, like Strepsiades in Aristophanes' The Clouds are unfamiliar with conceptual thinking, and by extension concepts of which historical continuum is one. From that perspective Sadiq Khan may fairly be described as “first Muslim mayor of a major European city” because he is exactly that within the immediately tangible world. It is also fairly likely that the many journalists who feed news to the broad public share its disinterest in a lot of contrary historical detail. Conceptual thought doesn't appeal to everyone, perhaps because it overshadows and numbs the piquant immediacy of emotional life. Details from the historical past can be displayed before the public but only in the form of narrative or investigative entertainment. Furthermore, there is always the danger that such historical detail, taken out of its broader context, can far too readily be misinterpreted; it might, for instance, strike some as proof that Muslims have been trying to take over our world for centuries. Better, perhaps, not even to taste the Pierian Spring?
Lavrov's talking points may be viewed as propagandistic but they are consistent, as indeed are the policies of Assad. Both are pursuing the liberation of Syria from armed rebels of whatever colour. The collateral damage is more than unfortunate, and tragic for the individuals and families involved, but Assad did not arm the opposition; you cannot protect the Aubusson if you are extinguishing a fire. There are deep ideological differences between the US and Russia but the views expressed by Lavrov, particularly those relating to US motives, are shared by many, and many more who demur from showing it. The fact that the US does not share Lavrov's perspective is unfortunate but it doesn't make the US right. The US attitude is all of a one with swanning around in a guided missile destroyer 4000 miles from home provoking Russia on the grounds that such actions are not against international law, without ever pausing to consider that just because something is not against the law does not justify doing it.
Is it reasonable to expect that fostering and arming opponents of a regime, particularly one with a well equipped and loyal military and powerful allies, is likely to proceed without loss of civilian life and infrastructural damage, or to be surprised that the damage and humanitarian crises evolve in fairly direct proportion to the scale of arms and support invested? The only way to put Syria on its feet is to eliminate all disparate armed groups of whatever colour, restore, as near as possible, the status quo ante and let a diplomatic process begin, which is what Putin claims to be his purpose and his actions appear to most of the world to be in line with that. Assad is President and Commander in Chief. These roles, like the US Presidency itself, are elements of the constitution which continue regardless of who occupies them at any one time. This concept has deep roots, it is enshrined in the 26th of the 39 Articles: Of the Unworthiness of the ministers, which hinder not the effect of the Sacraments. ...the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority... but the authority of the institution remains separate from the 'wickedness' of any one man.
As Mario Cuomo said: You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose. Clinton will contribute nothing 'positive' to the US, its allies or the world at large. Within the US, however, the classic ingredients for a move towards fascism have begun to form and I suspect most of Trump's populist appeal is a reflection of that. It won't happen shortly, perhaps it never will, but it has some life in it which is stirring.
Russia, as Putin and others have set out in simple terms time and again. seeks a Syria reunited and completely free of armed rebels of whatever colour, following which a revised constitution will lead to elections. What may make it appear confusing is that the US wants all sorts of other things to do with Saudi Arabia, Israel and heavens knows who else, and its policies change with a hectic pragmatism to which Russian tactics must adapt to keep its strategy in sight. What appears confusing is US, not Russian, actions and that is because US purposes have never been defined with any corresponding clarity, due perhaps to the fact they are too devious to be put on the table.
Most Americans know nothing about Arab people or Muslims, few could even identify any other country on a globe, except perhaps Canada. Ignorance makes it easy to demonise people. At least Prince actually went to the Middle East where his impressions inclined him to be positive. The fact that his experience was limited is hardly surprising since he went as an entertainer and was doubtless on an extremely limited schedule. Had he gone to Scotland he might have said the Scots wear kilts without implying they all do, and if he was even vaguely expecting what US media and political spokespersons say about the area and people, he is likely to have been more affected by the reality than if he had gone with an untrammelled mind. I am not aware of having ever seen him or heard any of his songs but my first impression from his comments quoted here is positive.
Many Americans doubtless woke up appalled by the implications of the NY results, but to citizens of other countries who have no deep involvement they appear not good but not surprising. In living memory it has been possible to adopt the attitude that it doesn't matter what you do so long as you don't 'do it in public and frighten the horses'. I don't believe human nature changes and, although I realise it to be a contentious position, I don't believe it ever does; it is human attitudes and social environments that change and the most dramatic recent such change is the explosion of media which has rendered it all but impossible for anything to be done that doesn't reach public scrutiny, and the spin-off from that has made the public more open about what they do, defiantly so in many areas that were simply not talked about before. This is perfectly understandable since if you are going to be outed anyway you might as well be up front about it; the morphing of public attitudes towards homosexuality over the last 50 years provides a succinct illustration of this in action but it applies in many. and soon perhaps all, other areas as well; farewell hypocrisy, the expression of beliefs, feelings and virtues that one does not hold or possess. Trump does not appear to be such a hypocrite; it's possible to believe he actually does hold the views he expounds. I doubt many feel that about Clinton and in that sense Trump is the more honest. The results in NY and elsewhere may well be a reflection of that fact that many US citizens actually feel the same but have hitherto lacked the temerity or opportunity to admit it.
As for the things he proposes, the compelling argument against torture is that it doesn't work. The killing of women and children is effected daily by guys sitting at consoles zapping drone targets thousands of miles away. And, if you have demonised all Moslems to the point of persecution then indeed you need to keep a close eye on places they may assemble. The problem is less the 'protective' action than the ignorance that provoked it's need. None of this is rational but few people are rational or ever have been. Rationality is a tool not a panacea, and like any tool it has precise and limited functions. More importantly, it does not of itself induce morality, it is of no value to philosophy, it can't be used against the slings and arrows of fortune, it's useless against Zionists and other religious convictions, etc. It was integral to our liberation from mediaeval theocracy, and an inspiration in the questing centuries that followed but they are passed and we are moving swiftly into a post-rational era where feelings are less constrained. Whether this is a good thing or not is entirely a question of the perspective you take and how free you are in considering others. To my mind the number of Trump supporters demonstrates how many are at last prepared to acknowledge the emperor is quite naked.
Israel's defiance of international law and Western moral norms is like a gangrene; it slowly, and then more speedily, ate into Palestine and the surrounding areas, and now it spreads relentlessly through the body of a largely passive West. Personally, I think that current circumstances being what they are it has become incurable and will only die when what it feeds on has witherered. To oppose it with rationality is as pointless as arguing with a forest fire. It is, alas, a peculiarity of the rational mind that it more often than not relies on parti pris perspectives that lead to profound misinterpretations of the way the minds of the non-rational function. It is not so much any underlying morality of the US/West that has been destroyed but the faith of so many who trusted and were inspired by it in formative good faith and whose disillusion has left a deep dark void.
She is not responsible in an absolute sense but she surely shares a level of responsibility, a higher level than many due to the single-minded forcefulness of her persuasions and the then influence of her positions. Since she is seeking the highest office it's perfectly valid for people to be reminded of her past positions and the consequences that followed them and haunt us to this day.
I think one can make too much of this Panama business. It discloses behaviour which is selfish and anti-social at best and criminal at worst, but it is behaviour by individuals and commercial outfits, not nations. I don't think it's enough to spark a revolution of the sanguinary proportion of the Syrian mess. Political opposition exists in all societies, it's an ongoing part of their evolution and, however bloody, would, and should, normally be self-contained. What has turned Syria into the mess it is is the intrusion of so many external interests from viral Jihadists, through oil interests, to geopolitical manipulators. Within this, the US has arguably been the prime mover and motivator. 'Corruption' of the Panama kind is symptomatic of a state of affairs within which political opposition can take root and flourish but I doubt it is of itself the cause.
The article is hovering dangerously close to a false syllogism.
They don't really need any new motives. They are doing what have always said they would do. Russia has very good reasons of it's own for bringing Daesh down and Assad would be failing in his duty if he didn't seek to regain all Syrian territory. He told French lawmakers visiting Damascus on Sunday that Syria is too small for federalization.
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160327/1037042472/assad-syria-federalization.html#ixzz44IIlrmMX
I have seen it reported that when Putin went on Russian television in October announcing he had sent bombers and weaponry to Syria he said:
He also said: 'I think it will take three to five months.
This sounds a perfectly clear unequivocal statement of purpose, but the necessary ceasefire which has been achieved is frangible and requires the cooperation of a lot of interests not renowned for their ability to cooperate so it seems reasonable that he stand poised to return should the untoward, but not unlikely, occur. He seems to me simply to be doing exactly what he said he would do. This, of course, in Western terms is incomprehensible verging on the outrageous.
Fascinating the way the Western media ferret ulterior motives for Putin's decision instead of just taking it at face value. Few, aside from Juan here, seem prepared to accept that he feels what he set out to achieve has been achieved. Rather, he has to be up to something, has to have some devious motive, saving money, gaining kudos, whatever. Any action may carry ancillary benefits but that doesn't make them motives. Thinking it does leads to false syllogisms.
Putin has never claimed to be supporting Assad because he is Assad but rather because he heads Syria's legitimate government and military. Now an apparently meaningful pause in the conflict has been achieved and the government is engaging with its political opponents in an international environment, that is enough. He surely knows more about the dynamics of the peace than the Western media and will no doubt keep an eye on things but, within bounds, he may feel it's now time to leave it to them. The surprise to my mind is Hizbullah but he likely had a hand in that as well.
Netanyahu might be regarded a winner since the what is happening up there serves to divert attention from his ongoing, purposeful theft of Palestine.
Along the same lines, 42% of Israeli Jews say that squatter settlements on Palestinian land in the Palestinian West Bank benefit Israeli security.
This is probably true for two main reasons. One because they make the prospect of the return of the land all but impossible without creating a humanitarian problem of the same order as the one it would resolving, and then because they would be first in line if any external enforcement was ever undertaken and, ultimately, sacrificeable.
Netanyahu is simply a man who puts the interests of Israel as he perceives them above every other consideration, quite literally. Most leaders do but few have national interests so divergent from broadly accepted Western norms and so it's less apparent. Furthermore he is unrestrained in this purpose by the niceties of loyalty or even good manners. I met Ben Gurion in 1971 and although by then age had mellowed him he must have been exactly the same. Our conversation turned at one point to de Gaulle who he said he greatly admired. There may have been the inadvertent flicker of my eyebrow because he insisted, explaining that de Gaulle was a leader who put the interests of France above all others, and that is what any leader should do.
While it is indeed possible Obama's diplomatic strategy feeds into these results it is arguably no less true that a steady move away from unequivocal theological subservience has been on the cards anyway. Iranians are not immune to the modern world and, while there certainly persist ultra extremists in the more remote areas, many of their less acceptable judicial sentences have, I understand, been set aside by the high court. The recent isolation of Iran may actually have been inhibiting a process of liberalisation for at least two reasons, the first that such developments have a distinctly Western, particularly US, feel about them, and then, associated with that, the activity of humanitarian groups, however well motivated and intentioned, and the extensive publicity of their activities which may have made mercy harder to grant since doing so might appear to be bowing to Western pressure. There are no absolutes here but it is worth considering whether what the elections appear to evidence today might not have of occurred sooner without all those sanctions and demonisation. The same could well be true of Syria. After all, the US is quite happy to support the KSA and Israel so it might appear a shade disingenuous to make an issue of Iran's internal political arrangements.
For Kerry prognosticating a breakup of Syria is scarcely difficult since he and a whole disparate bunch of people are engaged in conflicting efforts and purposes which appear to be united only in moving in that direction. The sole entity actively opposed to such an outcome is the Syrian government, army and allies. Assad has made it clear his purpose is to regain control of all Syria, and the only way to accomplish that surely is to defeat or disarm all armed groups actively opposed to the government. If the West is not going to help in that direction it should get out. The ceasefire, is a US obsession, with Kerry desperately trying to look as if he is doing something positive, while the Russians go through the motions and get on with the job. Personally I consider Trump's notion of US disengagement quite the most constructive suggestion.
Rightly or wrongly, the US is giving the distinct impression of not having the faintest idea what it thinks it's doing. Just compare Mark Toner, the DOS spokesperson, responding to questions the other day, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2016/02/253123.htm#SYRIA. with the Russian, Maria Zakharova, doing the same.
Mario Cuomo said: You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose. At least with Trump the voter knows what he would be getting.
Exhilarating! As Arthur O'Shaughnessy put it.
For each age is a dream that is dying
or one that is coming to birth
Appropriate it comes from the East.
There's a guy here, Jean-Michel Vernochet, writing that the population of Nouboul et Zahra welcomed the Syrian soldiers as liberators, showering them with rice and flowers.
What can one believe? http://www.bvoltaire.fr/jeanmichelvernochet/bataille-dalep-monte,237573
Perhaps more like Netanyahu than Trump?
Israel has every reason to fret.
I think what you suggest has been inching forward for some time. I can't put a finger on it but I have sensed it, not as anything anti-Israel as decreasingly pro. Quite aside from the lobbies, Obama cannot act out of tune with broad US public feeling on the matter and that includes a large chunk of indifference about the Palestinians per se which I don't think it's realistic to assume will change since the horrific images and stories fro the area haven't already changed it. On the other hand Israel itself has provoked not inconsiderable global negativity, largely through Netanyahu's insufferable behaviour, and that's what really exasperates Europeans and can rouse them to action. Obama, who is cerebral rather than emotional, surely knows this and even though Kerry's relentless efforts achieved no practical resolution they must have provided the clearest possible picture of Israel's thinking, strengths, and weaknesses. Obama may be very gradually leaving the door ajar and allowing the initiative to slip into other hands. This is necessary because there is a real danger that Americans, who are peculiarly emotional, may be incapable of turning on Israel without becoming anti-Semitic. Netanyahu certainly knows this and waves it about like a grenade with the pin removed. It doesn't work that well in Europe which better understands the excesses of 20th century anti-Semitism as a specifically Nazi manifestation.
Numerous actions are serving to reduce first the affection and now any residual respect for the US, and pandering to Israel's behaviour is certainly one of them. I imagine that's what Shapiro was try to warn of the other day, the same day incidentally the EU was passing a resolution defining the distinction between pre-1967 Israel and now. Israel is undoubtedly heading for a slide. its present trajectory is unsustainable, but a slide towards a whimper, most of the civilised world hopes, and not the bang Netanyahu seems so tauntingly to invite.
Are Western democracies becoming over ripe? Not Democracy itself, of course, since that is an abstract concept and cannot even be defined, let along practised, to everyone's satisfaction. Large swathes of the Western public now appear to function as thought police, sniffing around with their McCarthyist obsessions, which, due to the dark side of social media, often lead to, presumably cathartic, witch hunts. I had no knowledge of Don Imus until his fall which seemed to me to reveal a social phenomenon potentially far more dangerous, and closer to fascism, than his absurd remarks. The issue of what is the appropriate response to Trump/Palin is surely a good deal more important than the silly things they say. This is one of those issues where a too hasty determination may invite unintended consequences; who defines where the line lies in the grey middle?
There was a recent debate in the UK Parliament arising from a public petition to ban Trump from entering the UK. This was not a debate that could have led directly to a ban but one where members express and explore their opinions, a time-honoured British parliamentary custom. If you have time, it's worth dipping into because looked it reflects a serious and considered effort to explore broader aspects of a prickly issue.
One random quote:
Watch: http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/83208344-218d-4c43-9300-ca78c374b875
Read: https://hansard.digiminster.com/commons/2016-01-18/debates/1601186000001/DonaldTrump
He reminds me of the Duchess from the pages of Carroll's Alice.
Thanks for the sane suggestion that they may simply have run out of gas. It can happen to anyone, and has to most of us. There's no evidence of any effort to humiliate the sailors; getting them to kneel and put their hands of their heads until it's clear what's going on was common sense; I've suffered greater indignity stopped by a traffic cop on Sunset, and anyway the pictures show it was hardly officiously enforced. McCain is acting like a drama queen.
Most of what he said was aspirational rather than any reflection of current reality; comforting evocations of what the US once was. The present situation is, alas, much closer to Gregory II's call to Crusade against the infidels.
Bombing a populated area will kill people; trying to kill some but not others is like trying to boil only some of the water in a kettle. That is a fact and this sort of event proves it. Hoping it won't happen, indeed even trying to avoid it happening, is nothing more or less than gambling. The Germans and the British did it to each other in WWII, however that slaughter was quite deliberate and involved no hypocrisy. I was not yet four when our London house received a direct hit; mercifully there were siren warnings and we had time to decamp to the nearby subway platform or I would not be recounting it now. Perhaps it's human nature: Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above. and, one is inclined to add, conspicuously fail to do.
True, but there's a deeper significance. Such a decision must either have been countenanced, if not made, by Assad, otherwise it suggests some other person or entity with extraordinary authority independent of Assad, and should that be so it might provide an alternative explanation of much else laid at his door.
Strange how it's always 'the regime' when anything beneficent occurs and 'Assad, who barrel bombs civilians' when it's the opposite.
Jerry Seinfeld the other day asked Obama, how many world leaders are just completely out of their minds. Obama told him, a sizeable number, they stay in office too long, their feet hurt and the have trouble peeing… here at 14: http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/president-barack-obama-just-tell-him-you-re-the-president
May seem fanciful but this is exactly how multi-polar balance of power would work in practice. Two out of three combine to keep the third on the table.
http://sputniknews.com/military/20160101/1032581067/china-troops-syria-analysis.html#ixzz3w2u2CR9t
Only by a negotiated end to the civil war and national elections can Syria be restored to order.
But isn't that what Russia, Iran, the UN, and Assad himself all seek? Others seem to want to predetermine the result of such elections. Therein lies the rub. Why must Assad, or anyone else for that matter, be excluded from elections? Surely, it should be up to the Syrian electorate roundly to reject him if that is their wish. I suspect the answer is the US and others have a pretty shrewd notion free national elections would not produce the results they want for the area, and might, heaven forfend, even reaffirm Assad's legitimacy, a prospect too ignominious to contemplate. Russia and Iran face territorially significant threats from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) of a magnitude not known to the US or Europe. The US doesn't lack oil nor, of course, do Russia or Iran. It may be comforting to define this as a proxy conflict over fuel but there are increasing numbers who see it more as the painful emergence of a multi-polar balance of power. If they could be right the ME is simply one board on which this phenomenon is playing out.
This ISIS conflict is all but out of hand. At root it is a global problem which should have been dealt with at a global level. Unfortunately its resolution is subservient to a far larger conflict, which many, particularly Americans, see as some kind of stand off between the US and Russia. But it is not a stand off between between any two groups, it is rather the US/West 'dream' of global authority encountering the cold light of day. It simply isn't possible to effect a world with one set of cultural convictions however gift-wrapped in concepts like human rights. If a journalist offends authorities in Tehran or Beijing and is denied a visa or even arrested then that is what the journalist has done, that is how the authorities have responded and no amount of piety or protestation will undo it. The other day the US stopped a British Muslim family (two brothers and nine children) from boarding a flight to visit Disneyland for Christmas http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/22/us-stops-british-muslim-family-flight-disneyland-david-cameron . Well, the US has a right to issue and revoke visas, although most of us thought such use of it would likely wait until Trump became President. In future Brits with Moslem names will simply have to go somewhere else for Christmas. It is completely unrealistic to take the view that one local set of criteria can dominate everywhere. The real conflict today is not between nations or peoples, but between ways of organising spheres of future global authority; a Western dominated single authority has not been able to establish itself while an alternative is not yet on the horizon. The resulting vacuum is where ISIS et al manage to flourish, and also why perfectly well understood commonsense changes are not swiftly found to confront issues like climate change.
Trump dovetails into the European view of US politics, a view that gives rise to the very erosion of prestige the gun wavers want so belligerently to maintain. There won't be overt opposition, but US wishes will be increasingly ignored or circumvented. Only the other day the DOS was lecturing China on the sentence given Pu Zhiqiang.
As if China could give two figs that its internal judicial system disturbs Mr Kerry; and it needs to be acknowledged that not only do such attitudes appear absurd but the absurdity is cumulative. Unless they are abandoned altogether, next year will see an increase in ingenious and less ingenious circumvention of US inspired sanctions against Russia, it's a slippery slope. Season's Greetings!
Trump dovetails into the European view of US politics, a view that gives rise to the very erosion of prestige the gun wavers want so belligerently to maintain. There won't be overt opposition, but US wishes will be increasingly ignored or circumvented. Only the other day the DOS was lecturing China on the sentence given Pu Zhiqiang.
As if China could give two figs that its internal judicial system disturbs Mr Kerry; and it needs to be acknowledged that not only do such attitudes appear absurd but the absurdity is cumulative. Unless they are abandoned altogether, next year will see an increase in ingenious and less ingenious circumvention of US inspired sanctions against Russia, it's a slippery slope. Season's Greetings!
Yes, well that's one way of putting it I suppose.
Helping ISIS is shoulder shrugging collateral damage. Trump's principle motive is to promote keeping the US free of any more strange brown faced people, and there is nothing particularly unusual in that if this guy has his facts right. http://atimes.com/2015/12/trumps-muslim-ban-is-as-american-as-apple-pie/
Ah well, you can always blame your foot if you fall on your face.
It is no crime to lack intellectual acuity, and ignorance is simply not knowing what someone else knows. Most people the world over simply seek social stability and a bit of prosperity. To ask a trick question like that suggests an ugly and divisive sense of superiority.
Well, you could but your iPad wouldn't work.
Once you imagine something split off from absolute unity you have not two elements but three because there remains the unity of which they are both part. This notion is not uniquely Christian but it serves to uphold the idea of the Son being both separate and one.
Here is an interesting insight into the Saudi alliance; apparently Pakistan, Malaysia and others are unaware of being part of it. https://www.rt.com/news/326161-saudi-military-coalition-questioned/
A problem with breaking Daesh is that under the broad umbrella of that purpose, which itself has several leaks, there are far too many opportunistic options and differing priorities. It would have been better for the leaders of the US, Russia and China to have sat down, devised a united plan, then called on their allies to aid its achievement in specific and clearly defined ways. As it is we've got what my grandmother would have called, a dog's dinner.
Popular media has become entertainment. Objective news is cerebral, it involves the mind, entertainment is essentially the orchestration of emotion without cerebral involvement. Selective, highly professional coverage of wars, bomb outrages, mass slaughter, and guys like Trump provides plenty of compelling low cost and immediate entertainment it would be prohibitively expensive to replicate.
Not dealing with terrorists is a generally accepted principle, one the US espouses, publically at any rate, and as such it has no more to do with Assad's character and behaviour than it would Obama's. It seems to me highly doubtful Assad ever exercised complete control over the actions of the Syrian military elite, and to blame him for all the ruthlessness against political opposition may risk ignoring the strength and nature of the enforcement structure left in place by his father who may well have left it fairly impregnable considering he was obliged to leave so complex a situation in the hands of an ophthalmologist. The US and a bunch of other nations continually insist Assad cannot be part of the Syrian future, without apparently considering that such an approach to another nation's electoral process is not only undemocratic but transparently hypocritical, particularly from Saudi Arabia. Russia considers the Syrian people should decide who they want as President, as does the UN Secretary General.
What is really at issue here is the US etc. reacting to the threat facing its preferred uni-polar global vision, a threat that appears to be coming to a head in a manner that would likely be occurring even if ISIL did not exist. Looked at from a different perspective there is no 'moral' element involved, it is rather a process with a high degree of inexorability. One superpower would face constant anarchy, two would be forever at each others throats, three, as Orwell projected, could reach a delicate degree of fluctuating but overall acceptable equilibrium. That is as much physics as politics.
Is it possible that Daesh/ISIS and this widespread civic lawlessness are symptoms of an era of multipolar or, as Orwell proposed, tripolar distribution of global power and influence rising up against the unipolar aspirations of the US and largely Christian West, with what Bush termed the axis of evil the principal front line? There are American, British, French, UAE, Jordanian, Australian, Iraqi, Syrian. Iranian and Russian military aircraft, backup, manufacturing, and intelligence resources currently involved in the area, not to mention unprecedented domestic security activities. When one ponders the level and incalculable cost of resources currently engaged in this struggle, resources which might be flowing towards the betterment of human life, it seems scarcely surprising we find anarchy and 'terrorism' rife in our societies. As for Obama's sticking to our values and preserving our liberty, some might see the relentless US/Western effort to export those values, a purpose ever an ingredient of empire building activity, the real threat to fast fading liberties. In a tripolar world, the leaders could come together, if only temporarily, to deal with common threats, in fact they would be better equipped to forestall them altogether.
@Gary Page: The Russian position is the same as that of the UN Secretary General and most other nations, that the future President of Syria should be chosen by the people of Syria alone, without preconditions imposed by outsiders. If, for the reasons you outline, the Syrian people may prove to have a preference for al-Assad then that is a US concern, not a Russian one.
Sure there is a significant difference in the incidence of murder by shooting between the US and those countries that have laws against gun ownership. I am fairly confident, however, Europeans simply don't want to own guns unless for specific hunting purposes, which are anyway in serious decline, and if proffered a gun many would react like an arachnophobe in the presence of a spider. European laws against gun ownership are not onerous because they precisely reflect public opinion. Gun ownership was never widespread in the UK although a fair number of weapons did come home as souvenirs from WWII and later active service; I myself had a 9 mm Luger which I became increasingly concerned of owning in case of burglary. Fortunately the government periodically offered amnesty for weapons handed over within a period and I took it to the local police station where it gave me mixed comfort to witness the admiration with which it was received! I offer this anecdote because one must not just look to arresting further sales but to ridding society of existing weapons. There is a greater division of trust between police and public in the US today which might make this a more challenging task, and legislation might simply encourage the concealment of weapons while adding another 'crime' for zealous police to pursue. Further, one might wonder if gun legislation of itself would arrest an alarming urge to mass slaughter fellow citizens or simply divert it in some chemical or incendiary direction? Such speculation is not offered as opposition to legislation, rather to suggest that, highly desirable as it may be, it may not of itself prove a panacea for all current ills.
Someone has been facilitating the flow of illegal oil through Turkey for the benefit of IS coffers and there is speculation that Erdogan's son is behind it, which makes his position highly questionable. The Russian response to the downed plane has been pretty controlled although highly public and accompanied by awesome defensive arrangements which can only be interpreted as warning. The current Turkish crackdown on respected media figures is a sign of weakness verging on the desperate, As the weeks pass the situation will likely go off the boil
On November 16 the US claimed to have destroyed 116 trucks carrying illegal oil in ISIL controlled territories and a couple of days later the Russian Air Force announced it had destroyed 500 such trucks. Obviously the stuff must be flowing in quantities difficult for Turkey to be unaware of. PBS had a program touching on this traffaic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMermbclRXs but, according to Sputnik news, http://sputniknews.com/us/20151121/1030518092/pbs-newshour-russian-airstrikes-footage-us-lying.html they had to use Russian footage to illustrate the US claim because the US didn't provide any.
All Erdogan needs do to get this off the table before the sanctions bite either way is climb down a little further. The nub is in Dr Cole's last question, Will the Turks blame Erdogan? Will he risk that? More likely he'll find an acceptable accomodation, the lesson, however, will have been learned.
Erdogan appears to be having serious regrets. Apparently he called twice but Putin wouldn't take his calls. He's now manoeuvring for a meeting in Paris on the side lines of the climate change conference, a meeting he may well not get either. He has treated the body of the downed Russian pilot with impressive reverence, and he has uttered a formulaic apology saying he wishes the event had not occurred. However, he still insists the plane was in Turkey's airspace, albeit only for seconds, and until he revises that claim I imagine Putin will continue to rub his nose in it. Meanwhile, few Europeans would consider it an acceptable response to shoot down an aircraft actively engaged in combating ISIL even if it did stray over the Turkish border, and that taken with Obama's knee jerk support of Turkey's 'right to defend its airspace', so like his support for Israel's carnage in Gaza, will only increase European respect for Putin and sympathy for Russia. Furthermore, the whole thing is unlikely to help Cameron when he tries to coax the UK Parliament to authorise bombing in Syria, and if Cameron fails at that, as he did once before, Obama's tenuous 'strategy' will suffer a further blow.
They seek one here,
They seek one there,
His courtiers seek one everywhere.
Where will they find one,
Nobody knows
Of a good dry cleaner for Emperor's clothes.
Turkey is behaving unpredictably and Putin's response is sensible and will doubtless be appreciated and supported within Russia. We'll see what happens but so far he has shown statesmanlike restraint. Imagine the ballyhoo if this had been a US aircraft.
Here's the DOS spokesman on Tuesday being uncharacteristically cautious.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/11/249928.htm
..a genuine process which presents certain possibilities. Humph! Did they really manage to reconcile those who insist Assad be dumped at all costs and those, including Russia and the UN, who feel the Syrian people should make the decision.
The position the US aspired to hold in the world came with obligations; the bombings in Paris and the downing of the Russian plane demonstrate pretty conclusively that the US has failed those obligations and, like an ageing alpha male in a pride, that position is decreasingly tenable and thermodynamically irreversible. Russia's historical ties with Europe are deep. The Russia of Peter the great had much in common with the France of Louis IV whom he visited so flamboyantly in 1717, Russian émigres were welcomed to France from the Bolshevik revolution, the last Empress consort was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, it was Russia delivered the fatal blows to both Napoleon and Hitler, Marx is buried in Highgate cemetery. It's no big deal to roll back recent differences, It's true NATO wants Ukraine but NATO is a US project long passed it's shelf life.
Perhaps we have arrived at a branch point with one path leading towards escalating carnage and the other winding tortuously towards a new global order. Our world has run out of spaces for oppressed people to migrate and find a new life, something which always occurred in the past and laid the foundations of many civilisations, including America.. But it was already too late after WWII which is perhaps why Israel in Palestine is such a festering sore. It can't be done any longer, we have to find an alternative where people can stay where they are or move in patterns of mutual exchange.
It seems time to abandon notions of a global hierarchical authority under the US or any other segment of our world and move towards something horizontal, for the US to come down now from its self-allocated throne and join a round table. The other day in Vienna Kerry was still claiming Assad's continued presidency to be the principle reason for terrorism in the ME, and presumably now by logical extension the carnage in Paris, which is both absurd and insulting. There can be no resolution to the problem of terrorism while such irrationality gets a hearing. No one believes it. Kerry can't really believe it himself, or if he does he's dotty. Obama today puts me in mind of a Holy Roman Emperor, not Holy, not Roman, and not an emperor. And unclothed to boot. We seriously need to make the UN real or there is no hope of ever finding peace. Change, like birth is ever painful, perhaps it will be the final outcome of this painful period.
It is really up to Europeans to resolve this festering situation since they are less compromised, marginally perhaps but nevertheless. People are always saying, Obama could or should do this or that but in the end he is not able to, the knot is too tangled, there are too many conflicting interests at each others' throats. By sort of washing his hands of responsibility he is effectively leaving the stage to Europeans, and that is not doing nothing, in fact it's doing quite a lot.
This EU labeling business closes a loophole It needn't be seen as controversial since in theory it is as likely to attract buyers as to put them off. I live in Southern Spain where local agriculture suffers from US inspired sanctions against Russia. In a German supermarket oranges from South Africa were on sale next to Spanish oranges and I bought the local though they were more expensive. That was not just a gesture of support, it also satisfied my feeling that it is morally questionable and environmentally absurd to send oranges half way round the world to compete with a local produce surplus.
What is good about the labeling is it provides a focus for public action, and there are not that many. However distressing Europeans find Israel's behavior there is little most ordinary people can do about it; now they need only not purchase something. Many may avoid buying Israeli products as well with the issue in front of them since, after all, it is Israelis who oppress Palestinians not produce. Most such produce will presumably be sold through supermarkets and it need only be left unsold on their counters for them to switch suppliers since turpitude is no match for the bottom line.
Quaeque ipsa miserrima vidimus, et quorum pars magna fuimus Vergilius, cum excusatione
Juan is a serious movie enthusiast! He can quote from Star Wars as others quote from Vergil.
Hollywood is not the guardian of public morality, or the greater public interest either for that matter. Entertainment also serves as a safety valve. Subliminally directing collective antipathy of mass surveillance into fictional entertainment where the action hero struggles colorfully and comes out on top in the end may actually dissipate the urge for more practical resistance, as it did with the Roman use of the arena, and the culture of 'bread and circuses'. There are, of course, those on whom violent entertainment can have a contrary effect but they are isolated and numerically far fewer. I have a theory about that but this is not the place to share it.
My hunch is the Russian people will respect Putin's caution in not reaching a determination before the investigation is complete. Rushing to this or that instant conclusion and extrapolating in myriad speculative directions is not a Russian peculiarity.
If it proves to have been a bomb It will likely confirm the importance of eliminating IS, and the correctness of Putin's decision to roll up his sleeves.
His swift and masterly deployment of awesome Russian resources, and his statesmanlike diplomatic skills will confirm the confidence the vast majority of Russians have in their charismatic President.
Not the passing of an age of lies, alas, hardly an eye blink in an ongoing process with profound implications for our sense of identity and how we take our bearings in the real world. Many have foreseen and warned of the harm arising from the loss of that shared distinction between truth and lies without which we are blind and deaf in a storm, ever subject to shifting rumour, fears and wild fancies.
Frankly I don't think the world would care that much about their Jewish state or how they behave in it if they were to confine themselves within their own borders where they would be just like so many other countries with practices contrary to broad moral norms. What is increasingly unacceptable is the continued occupation of Palestinian land and their treatment of the peoples there, not so much because of any widespread love for Palestinians but because Israel's behaviour runs firmly counter to accepted moral aspirations, aspirations for the kind of world we would like to see. The Western world, for all its adoption of Hebrew mythopoeia, is more deeply rooted in Homeric, Platonic, and Roman traditions and values.
International law is an abstraction unless enforceable and enforced. All these groups are armed opponents of the regime one way or another, and for Russian purposes that makes them all the same whether they are in one boat or a flotilla.
Ban Ki-moon told a recent news conference in Geneva. http://af.reuters.com/article/idAFL8N12V0O320151031 and that means clear the decks of all rebels and call free elections uninfluenced by outside interests.
If this evolving situation doesn't soon bring the US to work together with Putin to resolve the mess, it's quite possible Europeans will begin to peel off and do so anyway, and that could be far more significant from a global point of view than anything that goes on in the ME.
One thing that needs to change if we want a more peaceful world for future generations is the ingrained habit the US has, and disperses like dandelion seed, of approaching everything in terms of conflict and competition. Why is this conference, for instance, viewed as some kind of stand-off between Russia and the US, the KSA and Iran, etc. instead of a genuine multinational effort to resolve a pressing problem? Over the years I've come to think it may be something to do with the nature of US law. A large percentage of the US elite is made up of law graduates, and US law is fundamentally confrontational; two parties facing each other in a battle designed to identify a winner and loser, a method of resolving conflict descended from the duel which colours a lot of US thinking. US law is unlike much European law which, since Napoleon, has been fundamentally investigative, Perhaps that's a fanciful notion but it fits the emerging divide between the US and Europeans over issues like al-Assad's future, and Russian sanctions over Ukraine. I was much taken by the translation Dr Cole provided of Gen. Husayn Salami's claim about Syria and Iraq being the point of confrontation between Eastern and what are essentially US, beliefs, politics and security interests. Why should the Syrians not be allowed to make up their own minds about Assad? Indeed, how can elections be deemed 'free' if they come with externally imposed preconditions? Would it not be less equivocal if Assad were to be roundly renounced, or selected even, by the Syrian people in free and scrutinised elections?
Sorry. What you say illustrates the clash of cultures. No other nation summons selective urges to set forth and adjust bits of the world to their values as the US does when their moral sensibilities are offended. Salami, I thought, was simply pointing out that the exercise of that urge lies behind what you quote him calling the confrontation between regional and international powers, and the conflict of beliefs, politics and security interests taking place in Iraq and Syria. Personally, I think he has a point. It's not intended as a value judgement, simply a dispassionate observation. Dmitry Medvedev may well have been shielded from more egregious sights on his visit, or he may simply not have considered them any of his business. Therein lies the 'cultural' distinction that increasingly separates the US from the rest.
If Iran backing the Syrian regime appears shocking, Is that not precisely because Syria is what Salami is describing above as one of the points of confrontation between regional and international powers... in a conflict of beliefs, politics and security interests? Everyone has faith is their own beliefs, regardless how they may conflict with others, something vividly illustrated by the beliefs of the Israelis today, and many Americans with their belief in 'exceptionalism'.
Here is Sputnik News quoting Dmitry Medvedev after Assad's recent visit to Moscow, when a lot of what appears to be a remarkable bringing together of disparate interests was presumably on the agenda.
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151023/1028995019/medvedev-assad-visit-moscow.html
I heard the same thing from a French friend, a Jewish lady as it happens, who had been traveling there a few years earlier.
They are apparently still 'deliberations' and will probably stay that way. My reading is Obama is slipping his hand under Putin's blanket while seeking to appear to be busily engaged in something quite other.
Blair is a disgusting little man but he intrigues me, and has since his pre-election canvassing in 1996 when it appeared that my fellow citizens, consumed by some spirit of communal masochism, were actually going to put him in Downing Street; an outcome some might see as a potent argument against universal suffrage.
He would have had no influence on these events had it not been for Bush, to whom he was a latter day 'freedman', offering unctuous advice and egregious support while lining his own pockets, which today bulge with around £60 million (US$92) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11670425/Revealed-Tony-Blair-worth-a-staggering-60m.html
I have always understood the Russian position to be that Assad should remain until the rebels, of whatever colour, are cleared and a modicum at least of peace is restored so that nationwide presidential and parliamentary elections can be held, at which time Assad's hat, should he seek to stand, would be in the ring along with any others.
This is how Putin put it the other day at the Valdai International Discussion Club:
Syria was only the final part of that speech, the rest is well worth reading.
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151022/1028914471/putin-valdai-club-speech.html
Assad himself has said he will only continue if the Syrian people want him. Presidential and parliamentary elections are supposed to produce results for the electorate not external interests. Of course politics can be a dirty game, but where is that not true.
Putin has made it clear all along that his first priority is Daesh which is hardly surprising considering Russia's own vulnerability to its kind of excess, and it is rational to be seek to work with any bona fide group with similar immediate purposes. Furthermore, Assad is, de facto, the Syrian regime but one day the Syrian regime will be led by another, quite possibly an FSA protégé, so it would appear rational to propose present coöperation. Confronted with any messy situation, the sensible thing is to break in down into compartments, stages, whatever you want to call them, and then tackle them one at a time; as the Red King advised Alice, Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
As for Iran, Putin isn't engaged in the current exercise to serve Iran, although peace in the area would benefit the whole world, whether all like the idea or not.
Would the Russians dispute the issue with the US if the Iraqi government formally requested air support? They didn't with the Iranian request, and it takes two to wrangle. It looks more like the US attempting to blackmail the Iraqi PM for reasons of their own that have little or nothing to do with Daesh; a bit like what Netanyahu does to Obama before breakfast?
The truth is perhaps best sought dialectically, by listening to one version and then its opposite and resolving them to a coherent scenario. Anything else is like listening to the defence and ignoring the prosecution, or vice-versa.
Behind the Syrian chaos lies the reluctance of the US to accept that it is not possible for one power to rule the whole world, separate spheres of influence are inevitable and need to be allowed to develop. Many, when they evoke Orwell's novel 1984, do so for its preview of 24/7 surveillance, and overlook the novel's broader setting, the division of the world into three competing powers, Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia, engaged in perpetual war and forever realigning their treaties. The 'hero', a citizen of Oceania, is employed in a department revising history to fit each new 'truth'.
True, but it was close, just about as close as you can get without tipping into anarchy. Besides an outcome where an acceptable political future arises appears to be the Russian purpose
That is what the US claims to want except few believe them and anyway they want to eat the chicken first and roast it later.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/10/18/433898/Russia%20US%20Syria%20Daesh%20Dmitry%20Medvedev
There is much written about the conflicting differences between groups of Syrians and most of it is doubtless true, but such differences, which are ongoing, can be put aside, not resolved, just put aside while the parties combine to face an immediate danger. The differences do not disappear and when the danger is passed they re-emerge. Although remote from current Syria, there is perhaps a parallel in the political situation in the UK prior to WWll when dangerous levels of social unrest were reaching a point they even provoked the emergence of fascism. However both sides put those differences on the back boiler while they united to face 6 years of war. When the war was over (largely due to the actions of the Russians ironically enough) the differences come to the front again and resulted in the free election of the Labour Party with Clement Atlee as PM, while Churchill stepped down to the expressed astonishment of much of the world. Time and working, suffering, and sharing triumphs together had blunted their differences and diverted them into democratic paths. This, of course, occurred without any external interference, and might perhaps in Syria if allowed to, and if Putin can keep the likes of La Nuland at bay.
They could try once Russia has cleared the decks. A similar group pulled off the Iran nuclear treaty. That's a lot of muscle. Russia has twice got Assad to agree to go to the negotiating table but no one would talk to him. Naive, maybe but worth a try, Javier Solana seems to think so http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151016/1028600445/isil-iran-nuclear-deal.html .