By: Otto Waldmann

Otto Waldmann — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 09:42:19 +0000

Putin, actually Russia, has produced with the mentioned op-ed letter in the New York Times, one of the most interesting texts of a well designed strategy in the current Syrian apparent confusion.
Reading the call to the prevalence of legal principles may seem farcical, coming from a system where law as such is trampled regularly. Yet, in the case of Syria it seems a cautious policy of protection.
The failings of the fourth decade League of Nations was to a great extent caused by the complicity and open aggression in tandem by both Nazi Germany AND Stalin’s Soviet Union on Poland.
Like that act of war, Russia today is IN FACT protecting Syria in another open war.
This time, under the guise of “legal arguments” Russia is, in fact, facilitating a better, wiser stage for the removal of Assad personally, while ensuring that an “Assad type” regime remains at the helm in Syria.
The only proviso is, indeed, the assurance that at no stage chemical warfare could be possible. All this “legal” argument will help, in essence, Israel, one of the prime possible targets in the use of chemical weapons.
Although an ally of Assad, Russia cannot trust Assad to safeguard the chemical arsenal, implicitely real possibility of having part at least of the same arsenal fall into the hands of the extremists opposing Assad.
Otherwise, Russia lecturing USA on morals……………….

Comments on: Putin puts International Law before War…writes David Singer

By: Otto Waldmann