Putin, New World Leader

With his hesitant and unclear stance on Syria, U.S. President Barack Obama has fallen into autocrat Vladimir Putin’s trap. For example, the Russian president can present the plan to place the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal under international control and destroy it as a result of his diplomatic genius, even though the U.S. had already demanded the disarmament of the Syrian regime a long time ago without Assad’s protector in the Kremlin ever agreeing.

With the deal on a joint approach with Russia in the U.N. Security Council, Washington has placed itself at Putin’s mercy. Indeed, this strategy, with its condition that the U.S. must renounce the threat of military aggression in a U.N. resolution, has not been fully ratified. But the proviso that, in the case of noncompliance with its obligations, Syria could be punished with sanctions — up to and including a military attack — remains hypothetical. Should it ever come to a vote over such sanctions in the Security Council, Moscow could, as always, impede the vote with its veto.

There remains the U.N. resolution that foreign ministers Kerry and Lavrov have agreed on, which has yet to be wrapped up. Early signs show that the Russians are already attempting to delay its adoption and further dilute the resolution’s meaning to suit their own means. Even now, after the report by U.N. inspectors confirming that the nerve agent sarin has been used, the Russian government continues to deny that the Assad regime is responsible for its use.

That Obama has allowed Putin to take control of the military option, and thus the initiative of the whole situation, is tantamount to a Moscow-imposed ban on U.S. intervention. This is a historical rupture, probably the gravest since the end of the Cold War. The world order now has a new supreme leader: Vladimir Putin.

Assad Can Carry On His Conventional Killing

It was solely Obama’s announcement of a military attack that forced the leader of the Kremlin and his protégé to take action; however, Putin abruptly spoiled this short-term triumph for the commander-in-chief of the White House. After the Syrian regime used toxic gas against its own people, Obama decided that he would not tolerate this crime against humanity; in the same breath, he hinted that he was not sure about his cause.

In seeking approval for an assault against Assad — only limited, in any case — from a Congress unenthusiastic about war, and thereby postponing it for an indeterminate time, he signals reservation: Obama, who wants to go down in history as the eradicator of war, would only too happily dispense with the military option. Above all, he does not dare stand by his decision for a clear response to the Syrian regime’s crime against humanity, which is based on his adherence to certain principles, as this would be in contradiction to the current public opinion of his own people.

To bail himself out, Obama has put himself in Putin’s hands, whose central strategic goal is the overthrow of American influence in the world, now more than ever. Obama is now paying the price for his insistence on the question of chemical weapons exclusively and ruling out an overthrow of the Assad regime as the goal of the announced military intervention. This was also a fatal caprice when considering that it was the U.S. government that stipulated the demand for the dictator to give up his power early on, thus allowing the Russian head-of-state to divert international attention to the alleged solution of the chemical weapons problem and from the actual cause of the crime in Syria: the nefarious rule of the Assad regime, to which human lives are worth nothing and which is prepared to annihilate unlimited numbers of Syrians in order to stay in power.

Assad is gaining plenty of breathing room, room to delay the handing over of his chemical weapons arsenal or even to hide away the majority of it — for example, in Lebanon with Hezbollah. His protector in Moscow has achieved what he wanted: Syria’s dictator is still in power, his use of toxic gas remains unpunished and, meanwhile, he can resume his campaign of murder against his own people in conventional ways — but from now on without the fear that the West could interfere. Because of protracted negotiations over the chemical weapons, the continuing Syrian civil war has currently fallen from the international agenda.

Not least among those gloating over this development is Assad’s closest ally, Iran. Threats from Washington to thwart Tehran’s nuclear build up with military action in case of emergency will certainly not be taken seriously anymore. Already, representatives of the Iranian regime, who assist Assad’s bloody campaign with military advice and support, gleefully brag about the defeat and impotence of America.

The Patron of Mass Murder Poses as Justice of the Peace

Vladimir Putin insisted on not only constraining the weak U.S. president, but also on making him look like a fool, which he did with his editorial in The New York Times. With breathtaking cynicism, the Russian autocrat played the role of mentor in matters of peacekeeping and human rights. Of all things, he accuses America of undermining the authority of the U.N., although it was he who paralyzed the U.N. Security Council for two and a half years through his veto and sabotaged every attempt by the international community to confront the murders taking place in Syria. Putin has the temerity to preach about the possible civilian victims of a U.S. assault, when it was he, and he alone, who made it possible for over 100,000 people to be murdered and millions to have to flee. The wolf is in sheep’s clothing; the mentor of mass murder is posing as peacekeeper.

All Europeans, who applaud him for this coup de main because of their anti-American sentiment, should know what sort of world would blossom if a brutal person such as Putin were to draw the lines of global politics. Russia would feel empowered to frustrate every future attempt by the international community at intervention on issues of human rights. Putin, however, already set the benchmark for indiscriminate repression of resistant movements years ago with his campaign of destruction against the Chechens.

Under his leadership, the hour hand of history would be turned back and the greatest achievement since the end of the Cold War, the international “responsibility to protect,” would be effaced.

Since the beginning of his term in office, Obama has said that a “reset” of the relationship with Russia was the main aim of his foreign policy. But the result of his “watch-and-wait” policy is that the U.S. has ultimately forfeited its role as an authoritative, regulatory power in the Middle East and has made itself the leading power of Western discredit. Now it has to dance to the tune of a power that bases itself on the disregard of fundamental legal norms.