Staunton, December 7 – Vladimir
Putin will continue to escalate the conflict not because he is strong but
because Western leaders are not only weak but have, with the possible exception
of Turkey’s Erdogan, been intimidated and desperately want to reach agreements
with him, according to Andrey Piontkovsky.
In a commentary today, the Russian
analyst says that Putin’s threatening language about Turkey is, like the
language he used about the Chechens in 1999, that of a street thug and points
to a continuing escalation of the conflict (nv.ua/opinion/piontkovskiy/kremlevskij-gopnik-snova-obygral-zapad-84047.html).
The Kremlin leader’s brutal language
has been accompanied not only by propagandistic lies about Turkey’s supposed
purchases of oil from ISIS (when in fact Russia is facilitating Asad’s
purchases of oil from that source) and by the remarks of people like Vladimir
Zhirinovsky about the need to bomb Istanbul and make “Constantinpole ours.”
“The root of this problem,”
Piontkovsky says, is not the strength of Russia’s position but rather “the
weakness of the West and its unending desire to make concessions to Putin.” US
Secretary of State John Kerry said two days ago that “Russia will play the role
of ally in Syria.” Britain’s defense minister said Moscow wanted to “stabilize”
the situation in Syria. And NATO “wants to meet with the Russians and discuss the
situation.”
“In other words,” the Russian
analyst says, “the Kremlin street thug [gopnik] without having any resources
has played the Western leaders exclusively because of their weakness, stupidity
and lack of farsightedness.” And they have helped to promote the notion that “the
only man strong enough to stand up to Putin is Turkey’s Erdogan.
NATO isn’t especially “enthusiastic”
about supporting Erdogan against Putin. And US President Barack Obama wants to
play “the role of mediator between Putin and Erdogan” rather than act “in the
capacity of the leader of the NATO countries, an alliance which includes
Turkey.”
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