Happily, Russia and the US seem to have pulled back from some of the bitterness, outrage and disappointment that set the tone between them 10 days ago.
But the stakes in Syria remain incredibly high. There’s a real danger that both sides, which had appeared to be on the verge of pragmatically composing their differences, could stumble into a war that neither wants with unforeseeable (and potentially cataclysmic) consequences.
One of the problems with assumptions about a ‘new Cold War’ may be that they’re not scary enough. After all, from a Western point of view, the Cold War not only passed …read more