The Logic of Putin’s Syria Campaign Russia's president cuts through the Beltway groupthink in explaining his county's interests.

The Logic of Putin’s Syria Campaign

Russia's president cuts through the Beltway groupthink in explaining his county's interests.

By Leon Hadar • September 30, 2015

When Vladimir Putin sat down with Charlie Rose of “60 Minutes” last Sunday, there was something refreshing about the Russian president’s encounter with the American media. A world leader discussed the Middle East by using terms of Realpolitik such as the “national interest.” There was little if any of the Wilsonian globaloney favored by members of our foreign policy establishment—Democrats and Republicans alike—who seem to share the belief that the only thing missing from the region today is American “leadership.”
As Rose recycled all the clichés of the editorial page of the Washington Post (which he even quoted during the interview), he inquired whether the Russian leader agreed that the lack of U.S. leadership in the Middle East had helped create a “strategic vacuum,” one that Moscow was now trying to fill. Putin replied by recalling that the last time the United States had tried to project its leadership in the region—by ousting Saddam Hussein and “liberating” Iraq (he apropos also mentioned Gaddafi and Libya)—things had not turned out so well. It did indeed create a huge void, which in addition to strengthening Iran, ignited a bloody civil war that spilled over into Syria, destabilizing the entire region.http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-logic-of-putins-syria-campaign/