A Disingenuous Farce

I should have published this post yesterday, but I wanted to allow myself time to reflect on Vladimir Putin's op-ed in the New York Times. In the last day, my thoughts have solidified. Put frankly, Putin's piece is a disingenuous farce with a veneer of credibility so fragile and thin it's hard to imagine that Putin could even take himself seriously when writing it. Let's break it down.

For starters, the piece is well written and eloquent. Putin is a jerk, but he's not dumb. I actually think it's fantastic that Putin would bother submitting a piece to the NYTimes and that the Times would publish it, but that's all the good I can find in this. Now, to the bad and the ugly.

1) Does anyone believe Putin has even a shred of credibility when he says "the law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not"? Easy for him to say since he makes the laws in his country. In ours, no one is above the law, but Putin routinely jails and intimidates political opponents, rigs elections, brings false charges against enemies in courts he controls, and cracks down on peaceful protests against his authoritarian regime. Putin talking about rule of law is like Mitt Romney talking about integrity or like Kim Kardashian talking about neuroscience, it's just silly.

2) Assume for a moment that Putin is serious about a diplomatic solution...alright that was a fun game...why has he repeatedly blocked action in the UN that would try to resolve the situation? Russia is an internal dumpster fire, but still an international heavy weight with plenty of clout. If Putin wanted a solution to this issue he could have worked with the international community, including the US, prior to this. Consider the hypocrisy of Putin's stance: The US should work with the international community within the confines of international law even though I have previously blocked attempts to do this. Who buys this argument?

3) Putin lays out the outrageous charge that the rebels used chemical weapons - and I'm sure there are elements within the rebel umbrella who WOULD if they COULD - but we know this isn't true. Unlike in Iraq, the intelligence here is pretty clear. The rebels lack both the weapons themselves and the means to launch them. This attack could only have come from the Syrian Army and Putin knows it just like everyone else knows it. But even if Putin believed the rebels launched poison gas - and he doesn't - why would his proposed solution to this atrocity be to strip Assad of his weapons? That doesn't make sense does it? Punish the perpetrators, which Putin claims are the rebels. He can't even construct a coherent response to what he claims is the problem.

4) Finally, and I just saw this today, Putin's proposal has now apparently empowered Assad to start making demands of the US. Three years ago this guy responded to peaceful protests with violent force, sparking a civil war in which over 100,000 people have been killed. Now he thinks he can start making demands of us in exchange for weapons which are banned under international law, and which he has used more than once to kill his own people? No thanks. In Tuesday's post, I called the Russian offer an appealing cop out, and Assad's response confirms that I was right. This move isn't designed to stop the atrocities happening in Syria - not to sound like a broken record, but again, chemical weapons are responsible for roughly 1% of the total casualties in Syria - it's designed to appease the world community into a sense of complacency that we've taken some kind of morally justifiable action to stop the killing when in fact - especially if we stop arming the rebels as Assad demands - this will just lead to him continuing the slaughter with guns and bombs rather than with poison gas.

Putin's disingenuous eloquence is a dangerous stall tactic designed to support a brutal regime. It is appealing to strip Syria of its chemical weapons, but it does nothing to end the bloodshed or bring stability and peace. If anything, Russia will use the time spent figuring out the politics and logistics of all this to give Assad even more conventional weapons and the slaughter will continue while the world watches a massacre on television everyday. As I have said repeatedly, something should have been done long ago. To have no qualms with the deaths of 99,000 people killed with bombs and then find some sort of self-righteous morality when 1,400 are killed with gas reflects some cognitive dissonance on our part.

What America and the global community do to stop the killing of innocents - some of which certainly is being perpetrated by the rebels - will send an important message to the world about what is or is not acceptable in the future. Intervening to stop the violence is not only a moral mandate, it is, as I have claimed, in our long-term national strategic interests.

I'm glad Vladimir Putin took the time to address the American people with his op-ed, but his words only reaffirm his actions over the last three years, and those actions have shown that he cares not for peace, freedom, and stability. If we really question that, we need only ask ourselves: would Putin have ever allowed a Russian newspaper to publish and op-ed by President Obama (remember this is the guy who just made being gay illegal in Russia)? Yeah, I don't think so either. So much for the protector of international law and his well-worded farce.