I don't really think Putin's Strategy or the Western Strategy is going to work in the Middle East. Ever since Iran, Assad and Russia decided to kill and completely disenfranchise ALL Sunnis in Syria there's going to be hell to pay from 1.2 billion really pissed off Sunnis worldwide because of this for 20 to 100 years or more already. It's a long term disaster right now no matter what anyone does now. There presently is: NO LONG TERM SOLUTION. The sectarian war will continue likely no matter what with millions and millions of refugees going all over the world, mostly Sunnis but also Yazidis, Christians and Shiites and others from the Middle East.
I think the Dalai Lama is right: "over this century unless there are non-violent solutions to these problems there will literally be 100 Bin Ladens by this centuries end or soon after. They will come from the persecuted Sunnis and 100 times as psychotic as Osama Bin Laden and Al Baghdadi. This is unfortunately what is presently coming for the next century. Non-violence is the only thing that will keep Israel and the rest of the middle east a place where people can actually live and raise children relatively safely. Somehow non-violence is the ONLY thing that can create a habitable place for any humans to live there.
Without non-violence for the middle east it is also possible that human extinction will be the eventual result (at least here on earth).(this century or the next). (I'm speaking looking down potential time lines right now). (This is one of the actual options we are looking at right now). So, we need to create something else better. (For all 7 plus billion of us).
Obama and Putin Clash at UN Over Syria Crisis
| New York Times | - |
UNITED
NATIONS - After circling each other for the past year, President Obama
and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia squared off on Monday at the
United Nations in dueling speeches that presented starkly different
views on the Syrian crisis and how ...
The Syria Problem at the United Nations
At the 70th annual session of the
United Nations General Assembly, world leaders addressed the war in
Syria, which has contributed to the rise to ISIS and a global migrant
crisis.
By YOUSUR AL-HLOU on Publish Date September 28, 2015.
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Associated Press.
Watch in Times Video »
UNITED NATIONS — After circling each other for the past year, President Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia squared off on Monday at the United Nations in dueling speeches that presented starkly different views on the Syrian crisis and how to bring stability to the Middle East.
President Obama made a forceful defense
of diplomacy and the system of rules represented by the international
body, but in a veiled reference to Mr. Putin, he warned that “dangerous
currents risk pulling us back into a darker, more disordered world.”
Mr. Putin talked about mounting a broad effort to support Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad,
as the best bulwark against the spread of the Islamic State and other
radical groups, even though the White House has said Mr. Assad has to
leave power if there is to be a political solution in Syria.
Beyond
the verbal jousting and steely looks over lunch after the morning
speeches, however, the two leaders were still playing a subtle game of
diplomatic poker, each trying to maneuver the other into shifting his
position.
Putin Addresses U.N. on Syria
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia
defended his country’s support of the Syrian government and criticized
other western states’ policies in the Middle East.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish Date September 28, 2015.
Photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times.
Watch in Times Video »
For
the White House, this has meant accepting a Russian role in the region
but hoping that Moscow will appreciate the risk of becoming bogged down.
That, they hope, will raise the costs of backing Mr. Assad and force
Russia to work sincerely on a political transition that will lead to the
Syrian leader’s departure.
“Knock
yourselves out,” one Obama administration official said, mocking Mr.
Putin’s bravado about forming a grand coalition in Syria.
For
the Kremlin, it means restoring enough stability to Syria to win
acceptance of an expanded role for Russia in the Middle East — not to
speak of its expanded military presence. Such a development, in the
Kremlin’s view, would also validate Mr. Putin’s contention that toppling
authoritarian governments in the Middle East has led only to chaos and
sanctuaries for terrorists.
Two
speeches, one reception and a meeting later, there was no hint that the
two leaders had substantially narrowed the chasm between them on their
principal disagreement: the future of Mr. Assad.
Obama Addresses U.N. General Assembly
President Obama said “there are no
easy answers to Syria” and called for the cooperation of all the states
in the United Nations General Assembly to end the fighting and help the
victims.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish Date September 28, 2015.
Photo by Michael Appleton for The New York Times.
Watch in Times Video »
“The
Obama administration would like to find a way to link arms with Russia
on a diplomatic process and not have to tackle some of the less
palatable issues like creating safe areas in Syria,” said Andrew S.
Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace. “But the only road map Putin laid out today was a
fuzzy concept of a grand coalition to fight terrorism arm in arm with
Bashar al-Assad, the very man the Americans say is the source of the
problem.”
After the Russians surprised the Obama administration by deploying warplanes, tanks and marines
at an airfield near Latakia, Syria, the White House agreed to hold
military-to-military talks to ensure against any accidents leading to a
confrontation. But the larger hope, as Secretary of State John Kerry
made clear on Sunday, was that the two sides might work out a common
political strategy on Syria.
There was no hint of that in the two leaders’ speeches on Monday.
Mr.
Obama singled out Russia’s annexation of Crimea as a flagrant violation
of the international order. On Syria, he repeated the administration’s
insistence that Mr. Assad would ultimately have to step down, though he
provided no clues as to what steps the United States might take to
pressure him to hand over power.
Competing Worldviews
“The
United States is prepared to work with any nation, including Russia and
Iran, to resolve the conflict,” Mr. Obama said. “But we must recognize
that there cannot be, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a return
to the prewar status quo.”
Mr.
Obama also talked about a “managed transition” in Syria, in which Mr.
Assad would be gradually eased out of power. There are intense
discussions underway on how long that transitional period should be and
how many in Mr. Assad’s close circle would have to go, several United
Nations Security Council diplomats said.
Mr. Putin, who was making his first appearance at the United Nations General Assembly
in 10 years, was openly dismissive of the United States’ interventions
in the Middle East. The United States-led effort to oust Saddam Hussein
in Iraq and Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, he said, had made each
country a haven for terrorists.
And
the Obama administration’s attempts to train and equip a moderate
Syrian opposition would end up swelling the ranks of Islamic radicals,
Mr. Putin insisted. The Kremlin says about 2,000 of the extremists who
have joined the Islamic State have come from Russia, fueling concern
that they may return and carry out terrorist attacks. Russia has fought
two wars against Islamist separatists in Chechnya.
Better,
Mr. Putin said, to rally around Mr. Assad. “We think it is an enormous
mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed
forces, who are valiantly fighting terrorism face to face,” he said.
But
he offered no prescription for how the Syrian political crisis might be
resolved. Nor did Mr. Putin indicate that the Russian military buildup
in Syria — including its first new military base in the Middle East in
decades — would be reversed if the Islamic State was defeated.
Russia
and Syria are longtime allies, with deeply interwoven personal and
military connections that militate against any wholesale abandonment of
Damascus by the Kremlin.
“The
Russians have consistently said that they are not attached to Assad
personally, but they insist his government is legitimate, that it is
fighting terrorists, and they have rejected efforts from any outside
country or combination of countries to impose a particular person or
formation to replace Assad,” Robert S. Ford, a former American
ambassador to Syria, said in a recent interview. “And they have stressed
they want to preserve the Syrian state and its institutions, many of
which it has long had close ties with.”
Graphic: How Syrians Are Dying
On
Monday evening, the two presidents entered a small room with Russian
and American flags and shook hands before their widely anticipated
meeting. They ignored shouted questions on Syria. The meeting, the first
between the two leaders in two years, was held in a Security Council
consultation room.
Before
the closed session, the prospects for close cooperation did not appear
auspicious. Mr. Putin did not provide notice to Mr. Obama of the Russian
decision earlier this month to set up an air hub near Latakia or to
conclude an intelligence-sharing agreement on Sunday with Iraq, Iran and the Syrian government.
In recent days, the two sides sparred even over which one wanted the meeting more. Mr. Putin also appears to be coordinating his strategy with Iran, which has been Mr. Assad’s strongest backer.
Still, Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin did manage to work together in 2013
to forge an accord that called for Syria to give up its chemical
arsenal. Mr. Putin pursued that accord to head off an American military
strike that might have emboldened the Syrian opposition and undermined
Mr. Assad, and since then the conflict in Ukraine has soured relations.
After
the meeting Monday night, Mr. Putin said the discussions had been “very
constructive, businesslike and frank.” American officials, who insisted
on anonymity as a condition of briefing reporters, echoed that
description, noting that half of the session had been spent on Ukraine
and half on Syria.
Still,
there was nothing to suggest that the two sides had overcome their
differences on the future of Mr. Assad. “I think the Russians certainly
understood the importance of there being a political resolution in Syria
and there being a process that pursues a political resolution,” an
American official said. “We have a difference about what the outcome of
that process would be.”
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