Via Richard Fernandez, this is kind of interesting. Basically the NYTs is reporting that Obama is planning to do nothing in Syria; 'patience' the times calls it.
Its almost as if Obama knows, just knows that Putin's gambit in Syria is doomed to fail. After all look at the American experience in Vietnam and Iraq and...
Everyone knows you can's defeat an insurgency. The British didn't do that in Malaya, we didn't do that in Vietnam, and we certainly didn't defeat the insurgency in Iraq. Everyone knows that.
Of course, Putin made his bones smashing Chechnya in the 2000's.
Now, when America, or say, Israel fights terrorists, both nations make heroic efforts to avoid civilian casualties. I once heard Tom Friedman on Imus, in a rare moment of clarity ask, 'How lucky is Arafat that his enemy is the Jews?' Indeed. Assad would have wiped out the Palestinians.
Putin, of course, has no compunction about flattening entire cities. Just ask the citizens of Grozny. Today Chechnya is still a part of Russia, and firmly under the control of a Putin approved and supported strongman.
Whatever the endgame in Syria, Putin plans to smash the various rebels (U.S. back rebels so far, imagine that) and leave his favored strongman in control.
Worked before, didn't it?
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