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Russia Has Backed Itself Into a Corner in Syria

(Moscow Times-Russia) Vladimir Frolov - The chemical attack in Idlib produced a radical shift in Trump's position on Syria and Assad and made military action against the Syrian regime to punish and deter further attacks difficult to avoid. Moscow suspended a military-to-military agreement on avoiding incidents in Syria's crowded airspace, but such a reaction was self-defeating. After all, Russia was warned in advance by the U.S. through this exact agreement. This time Assad may have overplayed his hand. He disrespected Putin by making him look helpless as a guarantor of the chemical weapons deal with Washington or worse, complicit with Assad in cheating on the agreement. He humiliated Putin before Trump by making Putin look weak. It is a slight the Russian leader has never taken lightly. There is a sense among the Russian players that Assad was perhaps deliberately trying to scuttle the Astana peace process in which Moscow and Ankara invested much political capital. Assad and Tehran want full military victory, not a power-sharing arrangement with defeated rebels.
2017-04-10 00:00:00
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