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Sergei Rogov, director of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies, Academician, Professor
The situation in Syria, as you know, is very difficult.
There is a bloody civil war with very active foreign participation
on the side of the opponents of the regime, and not only with money, but also with weapons and people.
Sunni monarchies are involved, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
and indeed since the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan, a Mojahed International has developed,
which roams from Afghanistan to Kosovo, then to Iraq, Chechnya, Libya.
It has now moved to Syria.
And there is the Syrian government, which receives support from the ***'a,
especially Iran, Iraqi Shiites, you know that
the Lebanese 'Hezbollah' is now also taking part in the fighting.
The Obama administration’s position is ambivalent on the Syrian conflict.
On the one hand, the United States as a power driven by a very powerful ideological impulse
will always support those who are considered a supporter of American ideas about democracy and human rights.
It is clear that in Syria on the side of the opponents of the Assad regime
the most ardent Islamist extremists linked to al-Qaeda are active.
And here the question arises on the forms and limits of military intervention in Syria.
At the G8 summit, where there were seven Western countries and Russia,
no China, no other BRICS countries, the quantitative advantage was 7 : 1
- but you can see the resolution - that was quite neat.
There were no demands for Assad's resignation from the post of president in it.
It contained support for the political decisions of the conference in Geneva.
Russia and the United States should take the initiative to hold such a conference.
I think that the Obama administration's decision to announce
that they will be supplying arms to rebels, insurgents, whatever you want to call them,
was largely due to the fact that Assad's forces managed to seize the initiative,
and there was a prospect that Assad could crush his opponents on the battlefield.
For two years the situation was neutral, and here there is the prospect of a decisive victory by Assad
and the defeat of the forces that support the States and its allies in Europe and the Middle East.
That's what the Americans do not want to admit.
Such agreements, for example, as the agreements on missile defense,
nuclear weapons or Syria require very serious compromises.
Compromises are unavoidable here.
Does Obama have enough political capital for this trade-off?
In my opinion, Putin has enough such capital.
As for Obama, time will tell.