By forcefully intervening in Syria, Russia is simply acting on the principles that have governed geopolitics throughout history, writes Edward Luttwak. What is baffling, rather, is American behavior:
So, yes, ladies and gentlemen, the . . . accused, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is guilty of a very great crime: he defends his allies and attacks his enemies—conduct particularly reprehensible in the eyes of the Obama administration, which does the exact opposite. Obama’s America dislikes Japan’s staunchly pro-American prime minister [Shinzo] Abe (deemed “insufficiently apologetic”), it spurns the calls for action of Britain’s [David] Cameron and [François] Hollande of France, and has missed no opportunity to denigrate Benjamin Netanyahu, even as it eagerly embraces the bleak dictators of Cuba—and, of course Hassan Fereydoun, a.k.a. Rouhani, president of the “death to America” Islamic Republic of Iran and de-facto chief nuclear negotiator—for the second time.
The first time, from October 6, 2003 to August 15, 2005, when Rouhani was the official negotiator, under the equally mellifluous President Mohammad Khatami, he boasted that he had used the talks “to buy time to advance Iran’s nuclear program”—but that is not something that would dissuade an American administration that is intensely suspicious, but only of its allies.
More about: Barack Obama, Iran nuclear program, Politics & Current Affairs, Russia, Syrian civil war, US-Israel relations, Vladimir Putin