Fasces -- Oh, it's a victory for Obama, if you are looking for hollow, meaningless victories. His moronic minions of Libtardery such as Thucy think that he had talked his way out of action, and now there is "a deal on the table".

It matters not what happens to the chemical weapons now...after all, Obama talked himself in to a deal...and appearances are all that matter for Libtards, not actual results.

Within two weeks, noone in the media will mention chemical weapons again, regardless of what happens to them, and the only thing Libtards and the lapdog press will remember is what a brilliant victory Obamtard had in negotiating a peace.

Meanwhile, in Syria, the **slaughter** of human life continues...

Mr. Krellin,

What would you have done, if you were President? How would you resolve the crisis?

Krellin, if the Arab and Muslim nations of the Middle East do not feel it is a necessity to stop the "slaughter of human life" in Syria then anyone who tries to place blame non-Arab, non-Muslim nations, and nations outside the Middle East for failing to halt the Syrian Civil War has an indefensible position.
Obama committed a catastrophic foreign policy mistake by declaring a red line when he didn't have to at all. A great rule of foreign policy is to keep as many options available as possible.

Mr. Putin,

I wouldn't have waited for 2 years and 100,000 dead before I pretended to care.

Then I wouldn't have drawn a red line in the sand, and then ignored that red line for *months*....if you are going to make a threat, you better be a big boy and be prepared to back it up.

Asking "what would I have done" is a ridiculous question, because no decent President would have sat back for years on end doing *nothing* and stick his ass in the game in the 4th quarter like this douchebag did.

And all this feigned indignation because chemical weapons were used....give me a fucking break. Are the people dead of chemicals weapons somehow more dead than those that were fucking blown up or shot dead? Somehow we think the chemically dead are more worthy of a response? Bullshit.

If the answer to that question is "Oh...well if Assad has chemical weapons, then terrorists might get them..." and so we are going to align ourselves with terrorists and a nation (Russia) that allies itself with terrorist nations, and pretend this is a solution?

Not to mention the fact that intel agencies have **known** that Syria had chemical weapons before....so really, who gives a fuck. So they used them now...and now, *at best*, they will give up a fraction of them...and keep the rest and whatever.

There is *NO* victory here at all....it is *impossible* for there to be a victory here.

Had the US decided to intervene years ago....when it was possible to find NON_Al-Queada backed rebels to arm and support....remember...back during the Election cycle when this was already an issue getting out of hand?!?!....had we intervened back then and found worthy people to arm and support *maybe* we wouldn't be in such a bad spot now Obama should have just shut the fuck up and not gotten involved *at all*,.

And how DARE you, Putin, you fucking hypocrite, for suggesting that the US - whom in your opinion is the root of all evil, and causes all evil in the world - suggest we get involved to solve this problem. I'm certain you think we created it, and no matter what we do, you will be here later telling us all how evil the US is and how much worse we made the situation. So FUCK OFF, seriously, because you have no good thing to say ever, and are *only* capable of twisting reality in to your perverse anti-American-at-all-times version of history. So....seriously....fuck off.

@Emac - what is your point? Obama sucks? Yes. That we should keep all options on the table...trite, irrelevant statement, especially when you PUT an option on the table, say will use it, and then punk out like a bitch.

But the most important point you miss in your own statement is that if the Middle East doesn't want to stop this slaughter, then WE sure as hell have no right to step in and do it., either. Not our problem. No need to spill American blood there. AND...no need to use American weapons to spill Syrian (or Hessbuloah, or anyone elses) blood there. If we start killing, it'll just come back to haunt us...therefore if we can't/shouldn't threaten to kill people, we have no ability to negotiate, and need to just stay the fuck out of the problem.

So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you would have either supported the *correct* rebels (which is precisely what the administration attempted to do) or done nothing (which you also criticize Obama for doing)?

I never said we had a right to stop it. I agree , not our problem. I agree intervention has a huge downside. My point is that people who criticize the United States for the slaughter in Syria or not stopping the slaughter do not have not a leg to stand on because Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia not only aren't stopping the slaughter they are pouring arms and money into it.

Putin, no, you do not understand me correctly, and even if I spell it out precisely, you will intentionally not understand what is said, or will misconstrue it, because you are an asshole.

In short, Putin, over the months or years I have seen you around here, I have seen a person who completely and 100% lacks *any* credibility. You latch on to lies like a hooker to crack. You are incapable of being persuaded by facts if they go against your preconceived notions.

Therefore, having any discussion with you is simply a waste of my (or anybody eleses, for that matter) time. So...as I said before: Fuck off. You aren't worthy of further discussion, asshole.

Whether or not I'm an orifice pertaining to the excretory system should have no bearing on your ability to answer the question.

I want to understand your preferred policy on Syria.

Is it:

1) Military intervention
2) Material support for rebel groups without discrimination
3) Material support for rebel groups with discrimination
4) Non-intervention

You can't leave for a year and expect people to forget you're a Stalinist who denies the Bosnian genocide and supports North Korea, Putin33.


But to steal the question and answer it, 3 until sometime early this year or late last, 4 now unless there is an attack on ourselves or our allies. The window to effectively influence events there has closed. We blew it, and now all we should do is try and make sure the conflict, which will go on indefinitely, doesn't spread.

I'm still not sure what critics like you would have done differently. Scratch beneath all the invective and ad hominems and you're advocating the same policy as the one the administration pursued.

I didn't know bashing the credibility of someone you've never seen in was an adequate way to avoid a question posed to you on a random internet forum.

"You can't leave for a year and expect people to forget you're a Stalinist who denies the Bosnian genocide and supports North Korea, Putin33."

Are Bosnia and North Korea administrative divisions in Syria or something? I missed the memo where those are relevant to the discussion.

What would I have done differently? I would have done something in 2011, how's that? I wouldn't have had Hillary Clinton keep calling Assad a reformer when he's shelling civilians with artillery. I wouldn't put American credibility on the line by saying Assad had to leave power and then do nothing to make that happen. I wouldn't have laid a red-line off the cuff. I wouldn't have put America through the embarrassment of the last few weeks over the phoney Russia deal, with more to come as the plan falls apart. I wouldn't have ignored the advice of my entire national security council and withheld aid to the rebels at critical points in 2011 and 2012.

Despite your best tries to muddy the waters it is a fact that the Obama administration has not handled Syria in anything like a competent manner since day one. This is what history will judge him most harshly on, since his poor decisions in 2011 and 2012, in the face of better advice from within the administration, has lead to this hellish war with huge potential for regional escalation. Stop apologizing for him. This is an unambiguous failure.

A few premises-
1-Muammar Gaddafi was able to hide sizable stockpiles of chemical weapons despite acceding to the same restrictions that Assad prepares to follow.
2-Assad's regime must feel uneasy about their grip on power because they resorted to the use of chemical weapons despite President Obama's red line. If they do not use every weapon in their arsenal including chemical weapons they stand a greater relative chance of being overthrown.
3-If the disjointed rebels topple the Assad regime then Syria will fall into a state of anarchy worse than Libya's post Gaddafi reality and probably as bad as Lebanon's post civil war chaos.
4-Assad is not using his chemical weapons against the United States nor is he threatening to use them against us.
5-The United States and the West (including Russia) will face a greater threat from the chemical weapons now in Syria if the Assad regime falls. Vladimir seems far ahead of the curve on this issue than President Obama and his humanitarian melodrama team of Samantha Powers and John Kerry.
Keeping the Assad regime in power and in possession of those chemical weapons against the current conglomeration of rebels groups seems a wiser foreign policy no matter how repugnant Assad is. Vladimir seems to steer Russian diplomacy along these lines while President Obama seems to have no consistent or well thought out plan of action.

I agree with Invictus that 2011 presented much better options for a favorable outcome, and that the Obama administration's lack of effective policy completely lost any chance to avoid the massive deterioration of the last two years.
Nevertheless the situation is what it is today and President Obama must adapt his policy actions to current conditions given his failures in 2011 and 2012 that Invictus described.
Keeping those chemical weapons out of the hands of extremists represents a true national security concern.
The other aspect of the Syrian Civil War is its current status as a proxy confrontation between Iranian Shia fundamentalism and Saudi led Sunnis who do not want to see another overthrow of an authoritative regime like their own.
In these circumstances keeping a lid on those chemical weapons and preventing their dispersion to Muslim terrorists is the key consideration and Vladimir has properly focused Russian foreign policy on this objective. Hopefully Obama will see the light.

Great to see Putin33 back in the forum :)

The withholding of aid to the rebels had to do with a concern that the aid would get into the hands of extremists, which is I policy you claimed to support. They were particularly concerned with the prospect that mobile surface-to-air missiles could wind up the hands of people who wanted to use them against Israel. The fact is the best and most disciplined fighting forces in Syria on the rebel side were groups like Al Nusra front. There were no 'good Syrian rebels' to give weapons to.

Threats are made all the time without being carried out without credibility being eroded. You're fond on bringing up North Korea. Have their threats against the South lost any significance or failed to make headlines just because none have been carried out?

What do you think America should do Putin?

I don't know enough about it myself to have a strong opinion, but this seems to me to one of those situations where whatever America does or doesn't do, will in hindsight, be criticised as wrong decision.

The al Nusra Front and Islamist rebels generally did not exist in 2011 when peaceful protesters were throwing flowers on the American ambassador's car. Obama made the decision to stay completely out of Syria and not even speak up in support of the initial protests. In the absence of American involvement the rebels steadily became more and more radicalized. We never even tried to build up the groups most ideologically similar to us, and while we dithered al Qaeda moved in an the Gulf states pumped money into Islamist groups. There were good rebels, but they never had a chance against the better supplied Islamists and steadily lost ground to them to the point where today there isn't a relevant secular group inside Syria at all.

You're jumping around in time, Putin33, confusing current policy to not arm obvious terrorists with reluctance a few months and more ago to arm moderate Islamists and with outright incompetence in the rebellion's first year to back the kinds of people we would have wanted to inherit the Syrian state.

Because of that policy there now is no Syrian state. There's East Lebanon. There's a society that has melted away, where killings and reprisals are the norm. This will not end in Geneva. It can only end when either Assad is strung up like Mussolini and the Alawites are driven out of the country or Assad destroys the rebellion with such cruelty that the people give up in exhaustion. Neither of these, obviously, is a good outcome. And neither would have been necessary if we had a president who had any idea what he was doing when it comes to foreign policy.

You raise some interesting points Invictus. Maybe America could have contained the problem if it had acted sooner. I have a couple of questions about this:
1. Why is it America's problem to contain?
2. What sort of action would you have like to have seen. An invasion?

1. Because Israel Turkey Jordan. These are our close allies and it was a disaster to allow Syria to become as it has. Assad has been an opponent of the United States for decades, with his support for Hezbollah not the least of the reasons.

2. No, no invasion. Not even airstrikes. Just support for "our guys" who opposed Assad. Something like what we did to support Chad when Gaddafi invaded, or any other time where we took sides in a conflict but did not directly intervene. Instead of advancing American interests Obama stayed out entirely. This has lead to the mess we see now, since Russia, Iran, and the Gulf states sure didn't stay out.

But this is all just silly counterfactuals at this point. Syria is what it is and it can't be fixed now. The only thing to do is stay out of direct involvement and do everything we can to keep the conflict from spreading to the countries I listed above. At least this latest iteration of the Islamist movement can be bleed white without Americans dying too.

I see. That makes sense. Thanks Invictus. Looking back I would imagine the trouble might have been finding a suitable rebel group to give support to. That group would have had to have:
1. Been pro-America
2. Capable of decisively removing Assad from power and then forming a stable government.

Otherwise America would have been faced with two options, allowing the Assad regime to continue, or complete anarchy. And as undesirable as Assad's regime was, it was better than anarchy. But as it turned out that is what we have now, complete anarchy.

Exactly. I'm sure in 2011 there was someone who we could have played ball with, and if we had showered those people with aid from the get-go they could have been so strong that other rebel movements wouldn't have formed or at least Islamists wouldn't have the virtual monopoly they do now.

But again, just counterfactuals at this point. The moment has passed. Syria is broken beyond repair.

"But this is all just silly counterfactuals at this point."

And silly predictions of doom.

"The al Nusra Front and Islamist rebels generally did not exist in 2011 when peaceful protesters were throwing flowers on the American ambassador's car. Obama made the decision to stay completely out of Syria and not even speak up in support of the initial protests. In the absence of American involvement the rebels steadily became more and more radicalized."

Then please explain why the US State Department said that Al Nusra attacks began in November 2011 when they listed them as a foreign terrorist organization?

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/12/201759.htm


By November of 2011 senior members of the Free Syrian Army were meeting with representatives of LIFG. Considering that the existence of the Free Syrian Army was only first reported in July of 2011, that's a rapid radicalization process.

I should note that the protests became armed as early as March 20, when the Israeli media first reported of government buildings being torched and police being killed. This occurred after the Syrian government made an offer of releasing detained students. There is also a public record of State Department statements claiming that the US government was supporting "civil society groups" opposed to the Syrian government. So the notion that the US government hasn't been backing these "good protesters" is quite false.

http://bcove.me/9ium0b6y

None of that disproves what I said.

"What do you think America should do Putin?"

Exactly what they did re: agreement with Russia. Also cease prolonging the combat and end all arms distribution to the rebels, and put pressure on the Gulf states and other Saudi allies to do the same. Without external support, there is no rebellion and no civil war.

Putin33 if the options really are either a. support the existing regime and return stability to the country b. chaos (as Invictus says "broken beyond repair", then sounds preferable to b.

Would you envision option a being accompanied by pressure to for the Assad regime to gradually give-up power?

typo

... then *option a sounds preferable to option b.

Also I think the word I was looking for was envisage (not envision)

"Would you envision option a being accompanied by pressure to for the Assad regime to gradually give-up power?"

Reform proposals have been offered by the government, beginning as early as March when the protests began, and the proposals were summarily rejected each time. If and when the opposition decides it wants to engage in the process of implementing political reform, then yes. But if it's just an excuse to continue to destabilize the country and engage in violence, then no.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/24/us-syria-idUSTRE72N2MC20110324

Good to see you back, Putin.

Holy shit I think I actually agree with Putin for once. Someone take note.

The pessimists are wrong. Again.

http://world.time.com/2013/09/27/u-s-and-russia-say-majority-of-syrian-chemical-arsenal-is-unweaponized/

We should stop listening to them for good.

Putin is pleased with the Obama administration's actions in regards to Syria because it strengthens his dear Rodina and its Dictator.

And I say we let the civil war continue. Neither side is friendly to the US. Let them kill each other for a few more years.

Let the Arabs and Muslims stop a Civil War between Arabs and Muslims. Let Vladimir order the Russian military to stop the bloodshed.

Nothing like sanctimony followed swiftly by amoral indifference to human suffering.

And Russia is not my rodina, dip.

Coulda fooled me.

You're such a smart fellow. I doubt it.

Nothing like Putin making a fabricated appeal to morality when he denies the Holodomor.