THE one thing that can be said for Russia's criminal support of the barbarous Assad regime in Syria is that it has been remarkably consistent. In sharp contrast to the double-thinking and consequent disastrous indecision of the United States and its European allies, Moscow has plowed a straight course, enduring the howls of anger from the millions of decent people who see Assad as a blood-thirsty dictator, prepared to do absolutely whatever it takes to cling to power. There were times over the last four bloody years of civil war, when this slavish support for a horrific dictatorship actually came close to rupturing diplomatic relations between Moscow and other of world capitals. While Washington dithered and dithered, Moscow plowed on regardless. And Putin is now congratulating himself on the apparent success of his wicked policy. This is because on Monday, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, President Barack Obama did his latest policy backflip and landed very unsteadily on his feet. The latest change is that the Syrian dictator, Basher Assad can stay in office while a political solution is sought to end the revolution. Obama insisted of course that Assad could not be part of the solution, because he is a major part of the problem. This contrasted with Putin's address to UN members shortly afterwards, when he laid the blame squarely on Washington for its interference in sovereign states and the consequent anarchy that that had brought about. He justified his support for the Assad regime on the basis that it was a sovereign government which had claimed all along that the popular revolution was in fact an attack by outside terrorists. In spouting this line, Putin convenient ignored the deals that Assad had done with Daesh, (the so-called IS) to allow it to grow and challenge the real revolutionaries in the Free Syrian Army. It did not suit the Kremlin's cloyingly virtuous message to admit that Assad had done more than anyone to foster and grow the brutal enormity that is Daesh, even while it had been behaving with no less savagery toward its own people. And Putin's message that Russia wants to join the international fight against Daesh comes with a scorpion's sting. Washington and its allies, including the Kingdom, should be assaulting the terrorists at the behest of a sovereign Syria, whose leader is the butcher Assad. Those are the terms under which the Russian military seem about to be engaging Daesh. Thus it is equally likely that Moscow's war planes and special forces will be helping Assad do his dirty work, by engaging units of the Free Syrian army as well as the terrorists. Putin made much of Washington's superpower arrogance which led it to ride roughshod over successive UN resolutions, pressing on with the destruction of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. He once again harped on about the importance of sovereignty. This of course was to overlook Russia's seizure of the Crimea from the sovereign government of Ukraine and its continued support for secessionist rebels in the east of Ukraine, to say nothing of its military interference in Georgia. Putin's statesman-like demeanor before the UN General Assembly was a cynical mask. His ticket to the moral high ground was a complete forgery and many who listened to him must have known it.
