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True. It certainly hasn't changed my mind on the Syria situation, though it has perhaps stated a lot of what I was thinking a lot more eloquently than I could.
by gph 13y ago
True. It certainly hasn't changed my mind on the Syria situation, though it has perhaps stated a lot of what I was thinking a lot more eloquently than I could.
I'm not sure who this is trying to convince. People who agree with him like me, it probably won't affect much. People who want to invade Syria are the type of people that will see his name and only feel vindicated in their belief. You know Fox News, et al. will spam their viewers with "This is what Putin says, it must be wrong."
I don't know if there is really a lot of people sitting on the fence on this one, other than the apathetic who won't read it anyway.
- jackowayed 13y agoHe's not trying to convince anyone. It's all posturing. He's trying to look as good as possible (look like a reasonable, restrained, trustable major player in international politics), and put the US in a position where we look as bad as possible if we do intervene. And he's doing a great job. The offer to get Syria to put their chemical weapons under international control was brilliant. Obama was saying, "They crossed a red line, there's no option but military," and then Putin put forth a peaceful solution.
- icambron 13y agoThis. If you were looking for a reason to support the war, that it goes against Russia's interests is a pretty good one. Reminding people of that seems unwise. Putin would be smart to distance himself from it, since he must know the American people dislike him and consider Russian interests to be a threat. That the rational thing to do as a reader is to ignore his identity and examine his arguments is mostly irrelevant, since that's not actually what people do. I suspect it's a miscalculation. Edit: minor changes for clarity