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Also ironic: the only reason this strike would be "against the law" is because of Putin's own veto (and China, who is probably just following suit on this one). He conveniently omits this point, because the moment the focus turns to his motivations, it would be immediately obvious how self-serving the entire piece is.

The entire point of the UN and "the law" is that Russia gets to veto the same as the US gets to veto.

That may be, but Putin is making a case against intervention while omitting his huge conflict of interest. He is making self-serving arguments under the guise of caring about lofty ideals that his own actions demonstrate he has no regard for.

The same can be said about the United States. Every nation has an agenda in the region.

You say that as if everyone's equal...

I guess that I missed the Obama administration's op-ed opining about life in Russia.

Presidents get much larger platforms from which to sell their opinions on foreign policy to Americans.

Yes and Russian presidents get much larger platforms from which to sell their opinions on foreign policy to Russians. What's your point?

You are completely missing the point. Putin is stating that the reason no one should intervene in Syria, because we need to follow the law (the security council). When the truth is he could easily not veto and intervention would be lawful. That's why it is disingenuous. Vote for it and your dilemma is solved!

This is a bad argument. There are many illegal things a person can make legal by consenting to them. Is it hypocritical to both refuse consent and cite the law?

(It's also inapplicable, since even if Russia consented, China wouldn't.)

> Is it hypocritical to both refuse consent and cite the law?

No, but it is circular reasoning to base your argument for refusing consent by saying it is illegal. It's much less compelling if he comes right out and says: "Don't do it, because I don't want you too." So he tries to make the logic convoluted.

You are wrong, he states "you are not allowed do this if we don't consent, and we don't consent" which is according to international law.

He actually never says that.

>> "The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope..."

>> From the outset, Russia has advocated peaceful dialogue enabling Syrians to develop a compromise plan for their own future. We are not protecting the Syrian government, but international law.

Right there they mention that they are for peaceful dialog because they are trying to protect international law. If they were really concerned with international law, why would they veto? Obviously, because they don't want it to happen, not this nonsense about them being all of a sudden concerned about international law.

Suppose someone is raping you:

- Stop this! You're hurting me. Stop it! You'll go to jail.

- I wouldn't go to jail if you just consented to sex.

Suppose you're black and sit in the white section of a bus in 1950s.

- Hey *, colored section is that way! You'll go to jail.

- I could sit here if you white people weren't the one making the law.

(That's the thing I love about analogies, they can be turned both ways and prove nothing)

No you didn't get my analogy.

The parent comment was stating the point that Putin was making it illegal himself by vetoing and retracting the veto would have made it legal. The same thing happens in sex, if you consent to it, it's ok; if you don't, it's rape. That's the mechanism of consent and of veto.

In your analogy there is no way the white bus passenger could instantly change the law by consenting to the black man sitting in the wrong section. It is illegal regardless of his opinion.

In sex as in international diplomacy you need unanimity (at least of the security council).

Your analogy is just as flawed since Assad has no say as to consent or veto. All is being decided by the five nations in power (the white people of diplomacy). Per your analogy, Russia is not an agent on either side.

The whole analogy business in arguments is one witty exercise in strawman.

> When the truth is he could easily not veto and intervention would be lawful.

Allow me to point out America's veto record:

"Eighty-three times the US has exercised its veto. On 42 of these occasions it has done so to prevent Israel's treatment of the Palestinians being censured. On the last occasion, 130 nations supported the resolution but Barack Obama spiked it. Though veto powers have been used less often since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the US has exercised them 14 times in the interim (in 13 cases to shield Israel), while Russia has used them nine times. Increasingly the permanent members have used the threat of a veto to prevent a resolution being discussed. They have bullied the rest of the world into silence." [Source: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/09/obama-r...]

THANK YOU! Was hoping someone would notice that

That may be, but the point is, it actually is REASONABLE not to intervene. Just because it's PUTIN saying it, doesn't mean that the point is invalid

I agree with you, there are many truths in this letter that can't be ignored. I think many people would get upset with it because Putin is using the same propaganda the US government (and many others) has always used, both hypocrites governing through lies, manipulation, intimidation, coercion, persecution of activists, violence etc. All in the name of "Democracy".

Replace "Putin" with "Obama" is this sentence and there you have it, a perfect description of the United States. Waxing about freedom and human rights while manipulating and coercing the whole world according to their manifest destiny.

If Putin is publicly opposing our war effort, it goes without saying that he will veto a UN resolution to that effect.

The difference is that Russia, unlike US, seems to use their veto EVERY SINGLE TIME when there's some thance that UN might do something. UN Security Council could have had a role in the world - but Mr. Putin is a major reason making UN Security Council useless and nonfunctional.

eh? "unlike US" ?? O_O please refer to this gentlemen's post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6372646 on this very thread

Yep, that US propganda is a sneaky thing J Next time you want to write something in caps ask youself how do you know this and do fact-checking. And in all other cases too J

I know that the USA is blocking any Palestine solutions in the Security Council as well, but it only makes the same point - the concept of "veto" makes Security Council useless. I'm not saying that Putin is the cause of that, but he is one of them (together with USA and China) - his veto power is part of the problem. I was singling out Russia because of (propaganda-induced-opinion?) a pattern I've seen of Russia systematically supporting dictators against their own people.

If there is unilateral consensus, you don't need formal bodies to do stuff, since everybody agrees anyway. However, if we want the global community to be effective, then we need an ability to make decisions and do stuff even if Russia or USA or China is against that, if the vast majority of the world understands that, say, a massacre must be prevented.

Currently we can't do that. As I said, in a number of cases Russia has prevented any progress by using the veto or threat of it. USA has done the same regarding Israel/Palestine - my impression is that it's their major use, media doesn't represent others much. China has as well - often things are abandoned simply because it is clear that it will be vetoed anyway. In essence, only trivial and unneccesary things can be decided there, but any serious things that matter - can't, as definitely someone with some interest will veto that. So the veto powers should be reformed.

I'm afraid the "vast majority of the world" will be a coalition formed around a major power. Unilateral consensus in UNSC is needed for exactly this reason - to avoid abuse of power by an influential state. As for the "supporting dictators against their own people" I have a problem with the word "people" - often it is just a minor militarized group with foreign support presented by western media as "the people". As for supporting dictators, why don't you look at the US' Middle East allies - Bahrein and Saudi Arabia, for example.

"trivial and unneccesary things can be decided there" I wouldn't call the UNSC resolution on Mali "trivial and unneccesary thing": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council...

No other laws in the way? Maybe he refers to his doubt about the evidence for the chemical weapons?

Doesn't the entire security council have to vote on it? Sure the 5 permanent members have veto power but is it just assumed that the wider council will vote in favor of it?

they tend to fall in

That's the whole point of consensus decision-making - to prevent usurping power in the UNSC by a US-lead coalition (or any other for that matter). The reason for the veto is lack of credible evidence that the use of sarin wasn't a terrorist's provocation. So, in fact, what we see is that UNSC system is actually working preventing an aggression agains a sovereign state.

I do wonder if Russians, Arabs, Muslims, and so on feel the same way when Obama (Bush(s), Clinton, Blair, Cameron, etc) pontificates. The phrase "western hypocrisy" is not new.

What is ironic, is that oddly I prefer the unashamed way Russia acts, compared to the cover-ups and lies of the west. You know where you stand. We in the west are supposed to be better, but all we are better at really is PR. In Russia, people know what the deal is, and can deal with that one way or another. In the west people are just dismissed as silly tin foil hat people, and nothing gets done until a Snowden comes along and busts the bubble.

In Russia an anti-american sentiment is heavily associated with Putin, often the Russian opposition is quite supportive of America - the place that made the Internet and YouTube.

Russian opposition might be supportive of America just because Putin is not. The moment Putin vanishes, the new government will still look up after Russian own interests and not care at all about America.

Of course they should look at their own interests first, but this doesn't mean hostility to America or other countries. Just that there are limits to friendship.

> the Russian opposition is quite supportive of America

Of course it is, because guess who's paying for said opposition?

This sentiment is quite common throughout former USSR: if someone is opposing the established authoritarian rule, they must be shills on the payroll. After all, what's there not to like, right?

The sentiment is that many of them live on Western grants and would never bite a hand that is feeding them.

Faraway hills look green.

>>> We in the west are supposed to be better, but all we are better at really is PR.

That's baloney, also known as reverse cargo cult. As you know, cargo cult is a fallacy when people simulate external appearances of some process without actually performing it (original cargo cult was building fake airfields and simulating actions of the people working in airfield in hope that actual planes with plentiful food and goods - i.e. cargo - would arrive) and without understanding what exactly causes the external effects. Reverse cargo cult happens when people postulate that there actually were no actual planes ever, just those people that claimed they fly the planes are much better at pretending (or, as you say now, in PR) than the cargo cult practitioners, thus they appear to have more success, even though under the pretense there's no actual essence in either case, and the essence doesn't actually exist and is just a lie.

Of course, it is trivially obvious to any informed person that while we have major undeniable problems with surveillance running amok and other serious problems in the US, situation with personal rights and liberties in the US is way better than in Russia. In US there are no things like Khodorkovsky's or Magnitsky's affairs, there are no laws introducing internet censorship, there is Bill of Rights, there are independent courts, there is a free press, there is the police that mostly is doing its job and not racketeering businesses, and I could continue all day long. Yes, abuses do happen, and yes, they are bad, and yes, right now we are living through a number of them and US citizens need to fix them if they want to preserve their liberties - but claiming "all we are better at really is PR" is misguided at best and playing right to the hands of dictators like Putin and Assad at worst. After all, if everybody is only pretending, why should Putin or Assad change anything? They just has to lie more and better and everything would be fine.

Sounds like you do believe in US exceptionalism

Irony, you say? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

I agree with you, of course - Putin is by all accounts a monster, and he has no moral standing whatsoever. That doesn't mean he's wrong.

He is wrong in the sense that something has to be done to stop the Assad regime that has lost the confidence of a majority of Syrians from continuing to murder and torture more civilians.

You seem to be misinformed as to >why< the US is trying to get involved in Syria. This is a good run down of the situation:

http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAskReddit/comments/1lw8yg/why_do...

Suffice to say, the welfare of the people of Syria is the last thing on Obama's mind. Let's take a look at how well the last place he got involved in is doing these days:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/special-repor...

The same is trivially true for a dozen nations. Should we attack them all ?

Hell, one might even say it's true for America itself.

Maybe crude to answer my own question but this seems a pretty good answer :

http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAskReddit/comments/1lw8yg/why_do...

I got a serious problem with "Naturally, Israel would rather the Syrian government fall.". It betrays deep misunderstanding of what Israel actually wants and what would benefit it (which makes all the rest suspect too). Weak Assad would benefit Israel greatly. Despite all the saber-rattling, Syria would never seriously think of going to war with Israel, because that would mean the end of the current Syrian regime. Helping Hezbollah? Sure. Passing weapons from Iran to whomever that could hurt Israel? No problem. But direct conflict? No way. Cold war is the worst Assad would ever do.

However, everything changes if Assad regime falls and rebels - among which would be such organizations as Syrian Islamic Front or Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, with predictable amount of love for Israel - were to come to power. They would have no experience of losing the war like Assad regime had, and no problem with suffering a bit more of mayhem is it's for the good purpose - after all, that's just what they did right before it and succeeded. And they'd own all munitions that Assad regime had assembled (at least those that left after the war, but there would probably be sizeable amount left, and if not, Putin could help), including WMDs. How there's any benefit for Israel in that?

Israel would be glad to have Assad's ass get some thorough kicking. However, having an explosive unstable government with WMDs on its borders is not exactly one's dream. Israel already has this problem with Lebanon, and it didn't work that well so far. Having second one is really not anybody's wish.

It might be helpful to remember that this is merely a well written op-ed with Putin's name attached to it. It's an international relations gambit to influence the American public to consider Russia's point of view. To get bogged down by the name attached to the editorial is to miss the importance of the content.

"I agree." -- Attilla the Hun

The content is nothing new, the author is the only interesting part of this article.

I doubt very much it's defending Russia's point of view. It's defending a point of view that has the outcome as Russia's and that Russia would like people to adopt, but I think we can be 100% certain it is not, in fact, Russia's point of view. Russia does not seem to have any big interests in the neighborhood (though it certainly has them nearby).

The problem here is that the same can be said about Obama. I do not know what his motivations are, I do think it's extremely likely he could care less about chemical weapons. But that is the whole point Obama's making. So what is his point ? Why does Obama want Assad out of the way ? America's interests lie the other way, the oilfields controlled by Saudi Arabia and others.

So what are these "nations"/presidents after ?

Er, Russia has huge interest in the region, as do the other players.

There are two competing natural gas pipelines being built, both of which must transit through Syria to get to the Mediterranean.

What's at stake is who gets to sell energy to Europe for the next 50-100 years!

None of this is a secret. The Financial Times and others have reported on this over the years.

Yes I didn't realize the gas pipeline. I think I saw the bond movie on the subject then just thought that any reference to that pipeline I found was a reference to the movie.

But yeah that does look like a pretty serious issue. (Although fossil fuels in the middle east will run out long before 50 years pass, so I doubt it's all that accurate)

>Russia does not seem to have any big interests in the neighborhood (though it certainly has them nearby).

I hope you're kidding. Apart from the obvious generic interests everyone has in the region (oil, pipelines and all that), Syria is one of the top 5 buyers of Russian military hardware and is a long-standing Russian ally in a region immediately South of Russia proper. The whole Syria/Iraq/Iran/Turkey setup is of deep concern to the natural security interests of Russia, which is in actual target range of missiles from that area.

It'd be like saying that the US have no big interest in Caribbean and Central American states.

More importantly Syria falling weakens Iran which is the bigger prize.

Syria is currently allied with Iran and Russia. The USA would prefer if Syria was not allied with these countries. That is my take.

While you're factually correct in every respect, most of your comment is an ad hominem attack. Putin's arguments should be considered on their merits, regardless of his, his government's, or his country's character and history.

You are right and as I said, I have no qualms with his logic but Putin here is playing international politics. His arguments are not new and here on HN I'm sure few people drink the war on terrorism Koolaid. This article is only notable because his name is attached to it and it is only there for the purposes of international politics, regardless of whether he really cares for peace in Syria or not.

This is not really what ad hominem means, especially in the context of a NYT byline.

I would argue that for heads of state, ad hominem attacks are perfectly valid. Even if Putin's logic is correct, it's reasonable to question his motives based on his character and past actions.

He is not the one talking about going to war.

He's not?

Sure, it's valid to question his motives. But that doesn't change the fact that he's making a perfectly reasonable argument. And when we're deciding whether or not to go to war, the reasonable and valid argument should win--regardless of who's making it.

I don't think his claims that the rebels are the source of the gas attack are 'perfectly reasonable,' and if you don't sign on to his breezy certitude on this point the rest of his argument falls apart.

Why not?

* There is overwhelming evidence that the Syrian military has stockpiles of nerve agents and ballistic delivery systems for them. BTW: thanks, Russia.

* The FSA on the other hand is conducting raids to get rifle ammunition.

* There's the obvious issue that the (apparent) sarin attack targeted a neighborhood that was effectively allied with the FSA and that just happened to be a current critical objective for the Syrian military.

* The attack was relatively ambitious, far more than the minimum required to establish chemical weapons signatures or gin up outrage.

* For that matter, sarin is (unlike VX) non-persistent, making an attack at this scale (a) more technically challenging and (b) more deliberately intended to kill; for instance.

* There's the matter of US intelligence that (a) monitored known Syrian sarin stockpiles, which had noted no loss of custody to the FSA, and (b) Syrian military officials planning the actual attack we're discussing.

The argument that this is a false-flag operation by the FSA is not very credible.

* There is also in fact video evidence of the rebels possessing sarin and actually using and experimenting with it. In fact an earlier UN inspection group led by Carla del Ponte blamed the rebels for a smaller scale attack that happened earlier in the year.

* Syrian military was driving back the rebels in this particular neighborhood just fine without the use of chemical weapons. So Assad in light of this decides to use significant amounts of nerve gas on the very day that he invited UN inspectors to come back?

* Who said that the sarin used was stolen by the FSA from government stockpiles? In an earlier bust of a rebel holdout there were nerve gas delivery mechanisms discovered which appeared to have been produced in Saudi Arabia.

* Finally there is the case of German warships who were patrolling the area and intercepting Syrian military communications and recordings of Assad repeatedly forbidding use of chemical weapons.

> known Syrian sarin stockpiles, which had noted no loss of custody to the FSA

If you were the guy in charge of those when they got raided, I wouldn't blame you if you were reluctant to inform your superiors that you dropped the ball on that. =P

In addtion to other replies to your comment: * So does the US and Saudi Arabia. * Terrorists in Syria are supplied by Saudis and Qatar. * If you are conducting a false-flag operation you would attack your own forces or your allies', no? Also there's been rumours (http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-sau...) that terrorists simply mishandled the chemicals. As for the place being "current critical objective", it doesn't make sense for Assad to achieve a tactical victory and bring the strategic defeat (because that's what it will be if America intervenes). * It's not the first attack, the previous smaller attacks had only brought UN inspectors. * It's not a problem if you have the outside help (BTW: thanks, Saudi Arabia) and have absolutly no problem with killing (that's who the terrorists are) * The same intelligence that presented the world the reason to attack Iraq? If they have the proof, why haven't it been submitted to the UN?

Having said all that, I must add that there is not enough proof for either point of view and it's exactly the reason why UNSC shouldn't authorize a military operation agains Syria.

As a side note, who benefits the most from the use of chemical weapons and what seemed to be emminent US attack? Looks like it's syrian terrorists, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the US.

And here is an interesting thought experiment for you: if tomorrow it turns out that it was the terrorist's false-flag op, will the US intervene and wipe out the terrorists in Syria? Because, you know, they crossed the red line by using chemical weapons that are banned throughout the world?

I agree that we shouldn't go to war. My point was only that, while ad hominem attacks are not a valid form of argument in a debate setting, I think they are when it comes to heads of state.

>ad hominem

Except this is a political discussion, so the text isn't truly the subject. It is relevant that Putin is a KGB gangster AND that he's claiming the moral high ground AND that he's protecting a Syrian hand-me-down regime's use of chem weapons. The punchline is how badly the US has screwed the pooch post 9/11.

If you have proof that the Syrian government used chemical weapons please share it with the UN security council...

Putin's arguments should be considered on their merits, regardless of his... history

I don't have a fancy French word to back me up, but I'm going to disagree. His arguments shouldn't be dismissed out of hand due to his history, but they deserve to come under extra scrutiny. The simplest reason being, as a politician, he is doubtless lying by omission about something, and as he is a politician whatever that something is undoubtedly changes the value equation of his arguments.

I think what I'm saying is given his status as a politician, as well as his history in relation to the subject, we have great cause to suspect him of telling half-truths, which must be evaluated before his arguments can truly be.

They're actually fancy Latin words.

Glorious. I kid you not, I thought "Latin" and I typed "French".

Je dirais qu'il y a quand même une petite différence entre les deux...

"...If at this point, Putin sounds reasonable and is starting to look like the better of two devils, we're in deep shit...."

Well, at this point with the NSA scandals, this Syrian civil, I am convince that Putin is the reasonable voice and that we ARE in deep shit.

So move to Russia. You first.

Why run when collectively we can encourage our politicians to do the right thing?

"For those of you buying into his rhetoric, remember that Putin is the head of a 'virtual mafia state'"

If a criminal says that helping an old lady cross the street is the right thing to do, would you discard his statement because he is a criminal? No! For the same reason, Putin may be doing evil things in his country, but I still side with him: bombing Syria is a silly idea.

>If a criminal says that helping an old lady cross the street is the right thing to do, would you discard his statement because he is a criminal? No!

many people unfamiliar with Russia or similar countries forget that selective enforcement of law is a well established and widely practiced form of tyranny and abuse of power there. The same principle applies when people like Putin are selectively say/do something that may look like a right thing - it is just a tool of advancing their agenda. Like in your example with a criminal when he would point you to the lady requiring assistance, and would do whatever he wants while your attention is diverted. You'd need to discard his statement precisely because he is a criminal.

So you are saying that Putin's point is only for short-term gain while ignoring the long term goals (supposedly bad) that Putin/Russia has, right? Ok.. makes sense and it's playing the fear of something card.

Since being short-sighted is bad and we clearly should be looking at it from all sides/perspectives, please enlighten us as to what impact Obama's short-term plan (to bomb Syria) will have in the long-term plans that he might have? While at it, please share what's Obama long-term plan for Syria what why American should have one at all.

I liked his 2012 inaguration (coronation) when Putin strolled through a sea of cheering supporters in full regal pomp to simply switch spots with Medvedev.

This is reminiscent of one Soviet era joke:

- We in America are free to criticize our government without any penalties!

- Duh, us Soviets are free to criticize your government too!

This very publication is a great example of the difference between the USA and Russia. A publication in major Russian media criticizing the government policy is soo not happening anytime soon.

> If at this point, Putin sounds reasonable and is starting to look like the better of two devils, we're in deep shit.

Even a good person can be wrong sometimes, even a bad person can be right.

I agree with the sentiment of the text, regardless of the author's history. I don't like Obama either, but had he written this I would still have agreed with the content.

Is attacking Putin's character useful in this context?

I got interested in #1 link, and cant understand what that description of the US concerning Russia is so different to how US is run? They are just using words like racketing, extortion and "governement support criminal activities", who defines the criminal activities and isnt taxing extortion? Isnt US supporting criminal activities. The same description can apply to USA or China. The US has much more advanced techniques of performing the same activities Russians do. We are all humans.

Tweet I saw earlier today "Is Putin's speech translated into Chechen? I'm asking for a friend"

P.S I don't think it's irony either, I think it's hypocrisy.

the law doesn't apply if you are a "very important person", don't believe what politicians say.

CleanedStar, it looks like your account has been hellbanned.

Repeating his comment. If he was banned because of this comments, then ban me too.

<quote>

> Putin is the head of a "virtual mafia state"

And what was Russia the year before Putin became head of it? It's not like corruption came in with Putin. Most Russians I know think Putin has lowered the amount of corruption, and I agree. Russia was so corrupt it was barely functioning under Yeltsin. You're correct there is significant corruption in the government, but amazingly there was even more corruption before Putin came in.

> eternal dream of Russia as a global hegemon on par with the United States

Russia's GDP is one eighth of the US's. It's ratio was even lower back in 1917. Who thinks this? Not even Zhirinovsky thinks this is realistic.

> The Russian state has assassinated journalists

Then you link to a list of journalists killed by persons in Russia. Where's the link?

Who killed Chauncey Bailey in the US in 2007? Who killed Dona St. Plite? Who killed Manuel de Dios Unanue? Scores of journalists in the US have been killed who did not agree with the government foreign policy on Haiti, on Vietnam etc.

> and jailed political opponents with impunity

How about Manning? They want to extradite Snowden. Lynne Stewart is in jail. American jails are filled with political opponents. Oh, they broke the law? Well that's what they say in Russia too.

</quote>

I believe this is a very important counter point to the general opinion that Putin is quite literally the devil.

Usually these claims are made by people who have never been to Russia, don't know anything about Russian culture or history and who takes US news articles about russian politics at face value.

A little bit of propaganda combined with a whole lot of blind ignorance and decades of brainwashing can make anyone look like the devil. I believe that for some Americans, the notion that Putin might just not be all about "selling weapons to dictators" makes them have involuntary convulsive reactions.