Messrs. Obama and Putin: Put Syria and Syrians First

David C. Speedie  |  October 1, 2015
The chill of U.S.-Russia relations has intensified over the past week, with the curt exchanges between Presidents Obama and Putin at the United Nations (their first face-to-face meeting in more than a year) over contrasting and competing strategies for ameliorating the dire situation in Syria. As with so many aspects of the current standoff between the two leaders and nations, it need not be so.

What is evident is that while the United States and Russia disagree over one "elephant in the room" aspect of resolving the Syrian crisis—the fate of President Bashar al-Assad—they share an equally obvious, self-interested resolve to de-fang and defeat the ISIL forces that now control large swathes of eastern Syria. In this regard, it is, to say the least, frustrating to look on as two world leaders snipe at each other over how this is to be accomplished. It is rather like two Neros fiddling while Rome, or in this case Damascus, burns.http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/articles_papers_reports/748