It would be easy to get the impression from media coverage that Putin’s decision to intervene militarily in Syria is some kind of genius strategic move — a bold and brilliant gambit that will weaken the US in the Middle East, or at least dramatically limit its influence in the region. Headlines this week have blared that Putin has “blindsided” Obama, that Putin is now “controlling the game” in Syria, and that Obama is “humiliated” as Putin “resets the Middle East.”
But as Jeremy Shapiro, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Project on International Order and Strategy, explained to me, …read more
Source: Brookings