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At A Complete Loss
Alexei Pushkov, chair of the Russian Federation State Duma's international affairs committee, saying what I think:
"To us, it looks as though [George W.] Bush, [Dick] Cheney and [Donald] Rumsfeld never left the White House. […] It's basically the same policy, as if US leaders had learned nothing and forgotten nothing in the past decade. They want to topple foreign leaders they regard as adversaries, without even making the most basic calculations of the consequences. An intervention in Syria will only enlarge the area of instability in the Middle East and expand the scope of terrorist activity. I am at a complete loss to understand what the US thinks it is doing."
Or maybe I am not yet enough of a cynic.
Putin is a better man then me. I would have sent his [Bandar’s] head back to King Jabba on a silver platter, diplomatic immunity or not (one of the many reasons I doubt I’ll ever be President of anywhere). Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Aug 27, 2013 1:27:21 PM | 98
Well, what Putin said, according to the report, if you believe it, was:
We know that you have supported the Chechen terrorist groups for a decade. And that support, which you have frankly talked about just now, is completely incompatible with the common objectives of fighting global terrorism that you mentioned.
That sounds much more plausible than Bandar’s supposed admission, to me. I can imagine Putin saying the two sentences in that quote (minus ‘which you have frankly talked about just now’), as an accusation, before Bandar has a chance to say anything at all. Looking again at Bandar’s statement, it seems to me doubly implausible. Let’s unpack his whole supposed statement, the one Putin was replying to. Here it is in all its manifold quintogity:
The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us, and they will not move in the Syrian territory’s direction without coordinating with us. These groups do not scare us. We use them in the face of the Syrian regime but they will have no role or influence in Syria’s political future.
He is talking as if the entire Syrian guerrilla force was composed of Chechens, which is an absurd distortion. However, the question is not their nationality or their ethnicity, but who (if anyone) controls them. Bandar doesn’t actually say: ‘we control all the guerrillas in Syria.’ He says: ‘we can stop the guerrillas currently in Chechnya from going to Syria.’ But then, quite illogically, he implies that he does after all control all the guerrillas in Syria, because he says ‘We use them in the face of the Syrian regime, but they will have no role or influence in Syria’s political future.’ This is meaningless unless it is a statement about all the guerrillas in Syria, not about just the Chechens. He’s saying (supposedly): ‘I can promise you that they will topple Assad but they will not control or even feature in the government which will subsequently be formed.’ Which is a hell of a mouthful, and more in fact than even Bandar can promise. And since Bandar is not stupid or unrealistic, that means that (if he said it) it is a dishonest promise, one he knows he can’t keep and therefore cannot honestly make, ie that he is lying. He is in my view the main paymaster now that Qatar is out of the picture (assuming it really is), but he is not omnipotent. So, he doesn’t give a damn if Syria ends up like Libya, but he is trying to fool Putin.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Aug 27 2013 18:19 utc | 105
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