Courtesy of Mish.
Hottest Ticket in Town
Low and behold, the much despised Vladimir Putin is suddenly the hottest ticket in town at the G20 summit.
Please consider Putin Transformed from Outcast to Problem Solver at G20.
Vladimir Putin left last year’s G20 meeting in Brisbane early in a huff, tired of being chided by world leaders over Ukraine. Twelve months on, an audience with the Russian president was one of the hottest tickets in town, as western leaders were forced to recognise the road to peace in Syria inevitably runs through Moscow.
Few at the annual summit of world leaders have seen such a transformation in their fortunes, or appeared to enjoy it as much, as Mr Putin moved from a scolded diplomatic outcast to a self-styled problem-solver the west cannot ignore.
Whether it was shifting air strikes to target Isis rather than Syrian rebels, or backing a political settlement in Ukraine and offering a debt restructuring deal, Mr Putin felt he held all the cards as the west came to him for answers.
While progress this weekend in the Vienna peace talks on Syria has exceeded expectations, it will now enters a fraught period involving shepherding and bringing order to the ranks of more “moderate” rebels in Syria, who would partake in a transition process and unity government.
Until there is official consensus on that, Mr Putin can continue doing what he has been doing: bombing the rebels and at the same time trying to engage and pressure them into talks with Mr Assad. Washington and Moscow may agree on the strategy, said Yuri Ushakov, Mr Putin’s foreign policy aide, but on “tactics” they are still far apart.
The depth of mistrust still to overcome with the US was captured by Mr Putin himself. “It is difficult to criticise us when they tell us: ‘You are not hitting [Isis]’, and we say: Tell us where, name targets’, but they don’t,” the Russian leader said.
He added: “Curiously enough, there are reasons and principles for that. And one of them is … that they fear to give us territories which they don’t want us to hit, as they fear that we will then strike just there.”
France Rethinks Putin
The Financial Times reports France’s François Hollande Urged to Rethink Syria Strategy.
François Hollande vowed to “crush” Isis, the terrorist organisation that launched suicide attacks in Paris. But the war rhetoric has come under fire from critics at home, who question the French president’s strategy in Syria.
…
