Putin seems to have plenty of reasons to want to keep Assad in power. He's certainly not averse to making the Americans look fools.

As far as I can make out, two of the three main rebel factions are 'jihadists'; the third, and least powerful (and incidentally the one which was caught red-handed with supplies of sarin) is supported by the West.

Obama and Kerry, having stated categorically that Assad was responsible for the chemical attack, and then been unwilling or unable to provide convincing evidence, are looking desperately for a let-out. Putin's plan provides just that.

A badly-damaged Assad wouldn't suit anybody except Israel. Poor Syria would become even more chaotic than it is already, if possible.

I have virtually stopped posting on this forum but thought this might have some bearing on the conversation.

Some posters on this forum seem to believe THESE are the good guys.

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Thursday, September 12, 2013 | By Patrick Witty @patrickwitty

Witness to a Syrian Execution: “I Saw a Scene of Utter Cruelty”

What follows is a harrowing series of photographs of Islamic militants publicly executing, by decapitation, a young Syrian in the town of Keferghan, near Aleppo, on August 31, 2013.

Because of the danger in reporting inside Syria, it was not possible to confirm the identity or political affiliation of the victim. Nor are we certain about the motivation of his killers. One eyewitness who lives in the area and was contacted by TIME a week after the beheadings said that the executioners were from ISIS, an Al-Qaeda franchise operating in Syria and Iraq.

Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2013/09/12/witness-to-a-syrian-execution-i-saw-a-scene-of-utter-cruelty/#ixzz2elUREjek

Putin's main concern with all this is surely that he does not want all the jihadists winning in Syria and then moving on to Chechen and Novgorno Karabaksh (or whatever it's called in Latin text).

His muslim states are currently fairly under control, but a success in Syria would give all the troublemakers the confidence to move on his southern flank. Better to let the Syrian government wipe them out.

Also, we find that the Russians are on the same side as Israel in this situation. It would be much better for Israel to have a badly damaged Bashar al-Assad on their Northern border than a variety of jihadist factions with Syria's armoury open to them. America is pretty much out of the picture now - no current policy and no future policy. Game, set and match to VP.

Ah..... Nagorno Karabakh (NK), there's an interesting one.

Chunk of Azeri territory (thanks to Uncle Joe's divide and conquer approach to the Caucasus region), with historically majority Armenian/Christian population, seized by Armenia in NK war 1988-94, plus a chunk of Azeri territory to link up Armenia with NK.

No peace treaty and simmering conflict plus economic blockades.

Interesting to see how the 2 sides and their backers line up.

Armenia plus Russia

Azerbaijan plus Turkey (and intriguingly Israel). Little love lost between Azeri and Iran. Latter claims a chunk of territory grabbed by Russia in 1828 (plus most of today's Armenia also). Azeri sees its current territory as "Northern Azerbaijan" with its eye on Iranian territory to the south. In the event of an Israeli attack on Iran watch Azeri carefully to see how they assist/get involved with such a move.

While Azeri is predominantly Shia, its issues with Iran highlight the fact that religion is often a minor point and nationalism/territorial acquisition often trumps it. This can be seen in the early 1990's as Azeri recruited Afghan, Chechen and Pakistani fighters to help in the NK war against Armenia. Chechens such as al-Khattab and Samir Basayev cut their teeth in NK. Even with such proficient assistance Azeri was thumped in the war and the foreign fighters were none too impressed by their Shia paymasters (though much of the money actually came from Saudi).

How this connects with Syria and your comment is simple. Russia supports Armenia so little likelihood of Syrian jihadis helping either a Christian or Russian-backed state. Could they move on to Azeri to "liberate" NK and the occupied Azeri territory? Unlikely as the Azeri government saw the legacy of inviting in the Sunni fighters was that AQ set up a base in Baku and salafism began to take root. Both have been seen as a threat by the Azeri government and were dealt with/re-exported.

Hence the simplistic Sunni v. Shia view overlooks that the situation is far more complex, as it always has been in a part of the world that has seen competing claims and ambitions of Persians, Russians, Ottomans, Turks, and now ex-Soviet Republics and shed loads of petro-dollars in some parts. Fascinating, if somewhat fraught, part of the world....

Putin seems to have plenty of reasons to want to keep Assad in power. He's certainly not averse to making the Americans look fools.

Putin is not required IB. Obama and Kerry are doing an excellent job without any assistance.

You know ... I have read all of these posts - most all reasoned and yet opinionated - filled with good analysis and information. Plus I have read dozens of news articles on the subjects. And -- all in all - I find no justification for American military involvement primarily because the evidence and issues are so clouded and contradictory.

Even if the situation were crystal clear the whole intervention idea is dubious. No we don't as civilized people want anyone to use chemical weapons of mass destruction. But investing lives and treasure into such a nasty sink hole is out of the question in my opinion.

Note: with such huge stockpiles of nasty chemicals described in Syria - wonder if much of it came from Iraq? Surely not - since there wasn't any / sarcasm off..

I for one am quite pleased that Putin came up with the 'diplomatic solution' - even if it doesn't work out in the end. What is has done is stop obama in his tracks, the U.S. Congress will likely vote no on a military strike or not vote at all ... leaving obama hanging and hopefully forcing him off to deal with scandals and domestic issues - such as the impossible budget in the light of debt limits. Which brings up the question - we have had 'sequester' of the Military Budget and many cut backs to deal with that - so how is it that the U.S. is supposed to pay for more expensive military adventurism ? Makes no sense to me .... Tours of the White House are cut off due to sequester of funds and the government is wanting to pay for multi-million dollar cruise missiles to be launched by the dozens ... The U.S. Government has gone insane ....

The whole Syrian mess is a huge Mud Pie filled with noxious bugs salted in like raisins in a cookie. The entire Syrian fiasco is so unappealing - even worse than the Libyan disaster - nothing about it portends a good outcome regardless of what is done or not done. The noxious bugs crawling around in Syria are worse than the dictator .

Syria crisis: US 'to drop military threat'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24089510

For those still thinking the west should intervene.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/13/us-syria-crisis-islamists-rebels-idUSBRE98C0PL20130913

For those still thinking the west should intervene.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/13/us-syria-crisis-islamists-rebels-idUSBRE98C0PL20130913

As I previously posted ... The whole Syrian mess is a huge Mud Pie filled with noxious bugs salted in like raisins in a cookie. The entire Syrian fiasco is so unappealing - even worse than the Libyan disaster - nothing about it portends a good outcome regardless of what is done or not done. The noxious bugs crawling around in Syria are worse than the dictator .

PUTIN AND OBAMA HOLD BILATERAL DISCUSSIONS ON SYRIA

Channel 4 journalist Alex Thomson says Syria rebels led me into death trap A senior British journalist has claimed Syrian rebels tried to lead him and his team into a death trap so they would be killed by gunfire from government forces in a bid to discredit the Assad regime.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/9321068/Channel-4-journalist-Alex-Thomson-says-Syria-rebels-led-me-into-death-trap.html

Hold the Front Page

By Mark Steyn

September 15, 2013 10:59 AM

Hence, the cooing coverage of this weekend’s “agreement”. A “deal” that pretends to be about chemical weapons inspections is, in fact, a deal that “the US will not interfere in Syria’s civil war“. Under the absurd plans to send international inspectors into a war-zone is an agreement by Obama and Putin that what happened to a US client in Egypt and a French client in Tunisia and an Anglo-American-French client in Libya will not be permitted to happen to a Russo-Iranian client in Syria.

(http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/358536/hold-front-page-mark-steyn?fb_action_ids=649107185108398&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map={%22649107185108398%22%3A516990691711692}&action_type_map={%22649107185108398%22%3A%22og.likes%22}&action_ref_map=[])