The Syrian Gambit

A month ago President Assad of Syria was being fêted in Paris. His country was close to normalising relations with Lebanon and engaged in talks with Israel. A peace treaty seemed possible, and with it an end to Syria's longstanding isolation.

Today, Mr Assad will meet his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, in Sochi. By way of preparation he has enthusiastically backed Moscow's invasion of Georgia, signed up for a major new package of Russian defence hardware and ridiculed the failure of Israeli weapons and advisers to prevent the Georgian Army's humiliation. [snip]

Strategically, the Russian Navy gains the prospect of access to two Syrian warm-water ports just as Ukraine attempts to rewrite its rules for Russian use of bases in Crimea. Moscow has also been able to announce the dispatch of Russian air defence systems to Syria on the very day that the US signed a missile defence pact with Poland.

Diplomatically, it sends a signal to Nato that containing the new Russia will take more than merely co-opting its neighbours...

[the ramifications of NATO's failure to react/contain Russia's misbehavior are near infinite - from Syria to China and all the thugs in between...]

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