... very impressive whistle-stop tour of history, but I want to ask about the present though and about President Assad. You said that it is not about liking President Assad. Does that mean that Russia would be prepared to see him go? Do the job, finish the war and then he goes?
S.Lavrov:
It is the position, which is not Russian position, it is the position of the Security Council, endorsed by each and every country on Earth, that the future of Syria must be decided by the Syrian people themselves. That there must be a new constitution. On the basis of the new constitution there must be elections. Elections should be free, fair, monitored by the UN and all Syrian citizens, wherever they are,...
... one of the more interesting Chairships of the United Nations Security Council, with Russia taking over and being charged with a rather delicate balancing act: between conducting... ... dominating the Middle East and Africa at the top of the schedule: · developments in Syria; · settlements and their legality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;... ... Envoy to the UN, Samantha Power. She has always held relatively adversarial positions toward Russia and recently made major headlines when she accused Russia of engaging in...
Media outlets and government circles both cringe and squirm when the subject of Westerners leaving the West to go fight in Syria and Iraq with the Islamic State arises. While acquiring data and calculating accurate numbers wildly diverges from source ... ... that the American Dream for too many seems more myth than reality.
Reality in America, if you are not able to hook into upward mobility and access privileged success, is a fairly dull and even depressing situation: studies show a disturbing percentage ...
...
The Antithesis matrix is not a predictor of where revolutions will happen. It is a reminder that societies embedded with multiple forms of social media have the potential to facilitate protest and civil disobedience if other factors on the ground warrant such behavior. It is also a reminder that those regimes where it is likely to have those motivating factors in place should not feel too overconfident in their ability to constrain or co-opt that social media-inspired mobilization: for the matrix ...
... across the region. This alone was powerful reasoning that compelled many in the corridors of power in Moscow to act as they did.
What is most remarkable in all of these considerations is how little anti-Americanism factors as a foundational element. Russia’s interactions and support for Syria have more to do with its desire for diplomatic/political influence and legitimate national security objectives than they do with Cold War nostalgia or knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Russia sees its rightful place as a diplomatic player with independent operating power and as the only state truly able to balance the influence of America in the Middle East. Though difficult for observers ...
