In a riposte to US President Barack Obama, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has come down hard on mounting US military interventions abroad, warning that such action bypassing the UN Security Council would only increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism.
A day after Obama delivered a national address justifying his plan (now put on hold) to strike Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons, Putin sought to “speak directly to the American people and their political leaders” by penning an op-ed piece in The New York Times.
“It is alarming that military intervention in internal conflicts in foreign countries has become commonplace for the United States,” he wrote, quizzing: “Is it in America’s long-term interestIJ I doubt it.”
Putin went on to comment that millions around the world increasingly see America “not as a model of democracy but as relying solely on brute force, cobbling coalitions together under the slogan “you’re either with us or against us”.”
Disputing Obama’s rationale for striking Syria, Putin argued that the chemical weapons attack of August 21 might well have been the handiwork of rebels fighting to topple the Bashar al-Assad regime.
“No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria. But there is every reason to believe it was used not by the Syrian Army, but by opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons, who would be siding with the fundamentalists. Reports that militants are preparing another attack — this time against Israel — cannot be ignored,” he wrote.
“The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders,” Putin noted, cautioning that a US strike could also “undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilise the Middle East and North Africa”.
The Putin piece, titled “A plea for caution from Russia”, coming on top of his diplomatic initiative to resolve the Syrian crisis that has forced Obama to hit the pause button, has provoked extensive commentary in the American media.
“Putin takes centre stage,” commented the NYT itself, noting that the Russian leader has “suddenly eclipsed Mr Obama as the world leader driving the agenda in the Syria crisis”. “He (Putin) is offering a potential, if still highly uncertain, alternative to what he has vocally criticised as America’s militarism and reasserted Russian interests in a region where it had been marginalised since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” the paper noted.