Posted on 09/05/2013 7:39:15 PM PDT by tcrlaf
"Administration Calculated It Had Little to Gain in Offering Concessions to Putin, Whose Motivations Have Been Confounding"
President Barack Obama's 15 seconds of face time with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, while American and Russian warships patrolled the eastern Mediterranean, spoke to a deep chill that has created one of the biggest complications to the U.S.'s plan to strike Syria.
Mr. Obama used the opening day of a Group of 20 meeting in St. Petersburg to press his Syria agenda, speaking for an hour with Japan's prime minister. With Mr. Putin, the summit's host, he simply shook hands and smiled for cameras, with no further meeting plans scheduled.
Their tense standoff, in many ways, is the outgrowth of previously undisclosed calculations about the level of U.S. interest in the civil war in Syria. In early 2012, White House and State Department officials asked themselves what the U.S. might be willing to do to wean Russia from its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Curtail missile defenses in Europe? Pare plans to enlarge the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?
Their conclusion: These initiatives weren't worth sacrificing for a deal on Syria, which was then lower on the foreign-policy priority list, say current and former officials who took part in the brainstorming exercise. Likewise, officials doubted such a gambit would work with a Russian leader whose motivations have confounded the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Putin's motives are very clear.
-Help protect a long-term Russian ally and trade partner.
-Help prevent the spread of radical Islam, which is no friend of Russia. If they are fighting in Syria, they aren't fighting in Russia or the 'Stans.
-Jab a stick in to the eye of the runaway narcissist the USA has for a President. (Restore some Russian prestige by standing up to the Bully Obama and America.)
If Hussein tried to “horse-trade” with Putin he would come back without his pants.
Yeah. It isn’t like 0bama has anything Putin needs;
And the crap that 0bama pulls with his own obsession to destroy America and turn the rest of the ‘western world’ into third-world hellholes gives Putin everything he would like, without ‘horse-trading’.
LOL!
I stand with Putin.
Up against the likes of Putin, little Barry is a rank amateur. I think little Barry knows it.
Barry would love to drop his pants for Putin.
Sounds like something bambi might like.
Agreed, but you’re missing a big one. Qatar has, for a number of years, desired an LNG pipeline to Europe which needs to pass through Syria. Assad will not allow this. Meanwhile Gazprom maintains a monopoly on the European LNG market. To clarify Putin’s interest here not only does this company provide 10% of Russia’s GDP the state also owns a controlling share of its stock.
Having the media say good things about his efforts for Russian LGBTs is more important to him than the thousands dying in Syria. So he never made an effort to negotiate with Putin about Syria.
A bucket of spit can negotiate better than Obama anyway.
I think we have to have Putin curb his Syrian Dog. Make Putin own any future WMD attacks by either side.
What happened to Obama’s promised “flexibility”? Is Putin getting screwed like the typical American is?
That would kind of difficult since he is already an empty suit.
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