Posted on 09/10/2015 1:24:48 PM PDT by Trumpinator
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However, it is important to understand why Russia chose this moment to move, when it could have done so at any time.
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With Mr. al-Assad now controlling only 17 per cent of the country, and fighting on an axis running from Damascus, Homs, Aleppo and Latakia (oddly enough the centres of Alawite and Christian populations), the fear is that without any discernible moderate opposition the groups best positioned to take advantage of an Assad collapse are IS the best organized and any number of splinter Islamist groups such as the al-Nusra Front. IS was not spawned by the Syrian civil war but took advantage of it, flowing in from Iraq. The thought of a clear victory by IS or some other Sunni Islamist group is unimaginable to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For Mr. Putin, Islamist success in Syria will reverberate in his own backyard in Chechnya..
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Often forgotten in the West is that the majority of Christians in Syria, the land of one of the oldest Patriarchates in Christendom (the Patriarchate of Antioch) founded by Peter and Paul in 34 AD before Peter founded the Holy See in Rome is resident in Damascus and has collegial relations with the Patriarchate of Moscow.
Mr. Putin, who portrays himself as the defender of the faith of Orthodox values, has a close alliance with the Moscow Patriarchate and its Eastern Orthodox interpretation of history.
Russia has, however, recently made statements to the effect that it is not tied personally to Mr. al-Assad, hinting that power-sharing or elections could occur a likely code to mean that Alawite and Christian minority rights would have to be respected and protected. Equally, any effort that abets the so-far anemic efforts to dismantle the Islamic State should be welcomed.
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(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...
Obama and your boy KGB Putin are basically on the same page on the "new international order" vision. Both want a weaker US and stronger Russia.
Sorry, I should not have fed the troll.
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