Russia and Obama....Just words?

Obama Fiddles . . .

While Russia arms Assad.

 By THOMAS DONNELLY

       

The prominence of Russian-made helicopters in Bashar al-Assad’s brutal and desperate efforts to hang on to power puts the Syrian war in a new light. It’s getting difficult to categorize the conflict simply as a humanitarian crisis or a “teacup war” of secondary significance. Rather, Syria’s civil war is increasingly fought under a great-power cloud that hasn’t been seen in the Middle East for decades.

An anti-Assad fighter aims at a helicopter.

NEWSCOM

Most of Washington would rather ignore the darkening forecast. In one of his periodic Washington Post op-eds, Henry Kissinger warned that a “Syrian intervention risks upsetting [the] global order.” While Kissinger went on to acknowledge that the fall of Assad’s regime would suit the national interests of the United States in both humanitarian and strategic terms, he concluded that an armed intervention would fail to meet his two tests for U.S. involvement. First, there was no consensus on what kind of regime would replace Assad’s. Second, there was no assurance that the “political objective”—call it “victory”—could be achieved “in a domestically sustainable time period.” 

In short, Kissinger spoke in the voice of regretful realism. From this perspective, the Syrian civil war is an unfortunate event, a human catastrophe, a strategic opportunity to remove a regime that’s been a longtime pest, but, if it requires a serious and enduring American commitment, not a reason to upset the international order. 

This appears to reflect the thinking of the Obama administration. The president said last August that the time had come for Assad “to step aside,” but has yet to do anything to force the issue.

The problem with this sort of realism is that it isn’t really realistic, insofar as it fails to appreciate the balance of power. If Assad stays, the global order will be very much affected, and one of the most significant features of the post-Cold War order will be threatened. In particular, the United States’ ability to push for fundamental political change in the greater Middle East with a free hand will be severely curtailed. The Syrian crisis then is a big deal, not only in the region, but also in global terms.

The Saturday Profile

Greek Mayor Aims to Show Athens How It’s Done

Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

"When you propose the slightest change, people say no. If you do it all at once, it is a different thing. Something has to break through." YIANNIS BOUTARIS

By SUZANNE DALEY

YIANNIS BOUTARIS campaigned for mayor here in 2010, promising to shake up the bureaucracy. He did not think that this sprawling metropolis on the Aegean Sea — Greece’s second-largest city — really needed 5,000 employees. It could make do with 3,000.

But getting there turned out not to be so easy.

“I can’t fire anyone,” he said recently, leaning back in his favorite stuffed chair and inhaling deeply on a cigarette. “The law doesn’t allow it.”

Instead, Mr. Boutaris, a wiry 70-year-old with a gold stud in one ear, a buzz cut and a penchant for expletives, is trying something previously unheard of at this City Hall: employees are given job descriptions, goals, evaluations — and modest bonuses when they hit their targets.

In voting for Mr. Boutaris, the residents of Thessaloniki did what many experts predict the country will do when voters go to the polls on Sunday. They chose an outsider, someone who did not belong to the two mainstream parties that have led this country for nearly three decades, someone who held out the possibility of a new beginning.

Surveys suggest a tight race between Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the upstart and left-leaning Syriza coalition, and Antonis Samaras, who heads the center-right New Democracy, one of the two mainstream parties.

But no matter who wins the national election, few believe that Greece can go on without a major overhaul of its government. In Thessaloniki, Mr. Boutaris has been trying to do that on a local scale for 18 months, bringing his experience as a businessman to bear on the bloated work force, the tangled regulations and the huge debt that afflicts the city, much as it does the country.

Many of his efforts have prompted city workers to strike and protest. But he is undeterred. Nor does he have any patience for the shop owners who have ignored his efforts to clean up the look of this gracious but somewhat shabby city by enforcing rules about modest signage.

“There was one guy who said to me he wants Thessaloniki to be like Hong Kong,” Mr. Boutaris said with a shake of his head and an expletive. “Well, I said, ‘I don’t want to be like Hong Kong. You think your business will be destroyed because you don’t have a sign on the fifth floor? I don’t think so.’ ”

Thessaloniki was about $126 million in debt when Mr. Boutaris, a successful winemaker, was sworn into office. (His predecessor has since been indicted, along with 17 others. They are accused of stealing almost $38 million.) The city was doing a poor job of delivering basic services, most importantly in garbage collection. It was losing manufacturing jobs to Bulgaria. And as far as Mr. Boutaris was concerned, Thessaloniki was far from meeting its potential as a tourist attraction and a port city that offers easy access to the Balkans. READ MORE

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Earthy Watch

Russia Announces It Will Send Warships to Syria

Kurt Nimmo
June 17, 2012

On Friday, the Russian General Staff announced it will send warships from the Black Sea Fleet to the Syrian coast. The deployment will protect the Russian logistics base in Tartus, Syria.

The Syrian port at Tartus.

Russia has historically maintained a strong bilateral relationship with Syria. Its only Mediterranean naval base for the Black Sea Fleet is located in the port of Tartus.
“Several warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, including large landing ships with marines aboard, are fully prepared to go on the voyage,” the General Staff told Itar-Tass.
In late May, Russian and Western media reported that the Russian-flagged bulk cargo vessel Professor Katsman docked at the Syrian port of Tartus and delivered weapons to the al-Assad regime. The Ford Foundation funded NGO Human Rights First also made the claim. Amnesty International, a Soros funded NGO, has called on the Russian government to cease the transfer of arms to Syria in compliance with UN Security Council recommendations.
“Either the U.S. intelligence service works poorly or they have a poor knowledge of geography,” a source with the Russian General Staff remarked in response to the allegation.
On Sunday, The Telegraph reported that the United States has enlisted the help British officials to stop an alleged shipment of MI25 helicopters from the Russian Baltic port of Kaliningrad. The MV Alaed, a Russian-operated cargo vessel, is said to be sailing across the North Sea en route to Syria. The U.S. wants the ship’s insurance cover removed under the terms of a European Union arms embargo against Syria. Removing the MV Alaed’s insurance would make it difficult for the cargo ship to dock in port.

In April, a German cargo ship was prevented from docking at Tartus. The ship allegedly carried a cargo of munitions sent by Iran to the al-Assad regime.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. ambassador Susan Rice used the claim to accuse Russia of arming the al-Assad regime.
“The new Russian weapons supplies add to Syria’s massive arsenal of hundreds of Soviet-built combat jets, attack helicopters and missiles and thousands of tanks, other armored vehicles and artillery systems,” the AP reported after Clinton’s accusation that Russia had sent attack helicopters to Syria. “Russia said it also has military advisers in Syria training the Syrians to use the Russian weapons, and has helped repair and maintain Syrian weapons. Some experts alleged that the helicopters Clinton said were en route to Syria could be old ones that underwent maintenance in Russia.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has denied the accusation. In a statement on June 15, he said that “many years ago” Russia sold helicopters to Syria, but is now only repairing the helicopters.
Former Clinton bureaucrat and United Nations ambassador Bill Richardson used the accusation to call for arming Syrian rebels “in an effort to protect civilians against government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad,” according to Fox News.
The Free Syrian Army now active inside Syria is supported by the CIA, MI6 and Mossad. The rebel group held talks with the NSC last week in an effort to acquire heavy weapons, including surface-to-air missiles. According to witnesses and other evidence, the FSA is responsible for the massacre in al-Houla, Syria, not the al-Assad regime as was widely reported by the media in the United States and Europe.