So Putin Came and Went at the UN

So Putin came and went at the UN General Assembly yesterday.  The drama dissipated as fast as a summer shower.  Despite the buildup, it was a non-event.

He emphasized his support for the UN.  Perhaps not a novel idea, but his entire audience would agree with it.

His underlying point though was that the principles of non-interference need to be respected by all nations.  Again, not novel, but less than convincing since he has unilaterally invaded or interfered in the affairs of a number of countries, including Georgia Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine, while threatening to do the same to others.

He proposed a new initiative on climate change, but there are already frameworks in place now for years. 

The problem with agreeing with Putin is that you have to accept his premises and methods, which are not grounded in reality.

He accused the US (unnamed) of exporting democratic revolutions and supporting color revolutions that had killed and harmed thousands.  He breathed indignation when he asked, “Do you realize what you have done?”  But the Arab Spring was not US interference or a color revolution.  It was a lone fruit vendor in Tunisia who one day gave up in despair at the oppression and petty bureaucracy in his country that prevented him from making a living and set himself on fire in protest that then spread across the Arab World.  The Syrian conflict was not US interference or a color revolution, it was Assad’s police force that arrested, tortured and killed some teenagers who had sprayed anti-regime graffiti on a wall.  And, by the way, the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union was not a color revolution.  It was people demanding a share in determining their own futures.  The people of all the countries where revolutions have occurred, including Ukraine, have risen up because the authoritarian regimes left their people with no means to voice their needs nor provide for their futures.  No wonder Putin is worried.

Most worrisome is Putin’s apparent belief that everything happens because of conspiracies.  Putin believes that all the revolutions colored and otherwise are because of manipulation by various powers.  The people it seems have no ideas of their own and, if they did, they have no right to demand to be heard.  Unthinkable.

And, finally, Putin’s one-step plan to back Assad to solve the Syrian crisis is no better than the plans of others.  The West and Arab states allowed a policy and power vacuum to develop in Syria, into which Putin has stepped.  But his proposal to simply back Assad has less scope in addressing the real issues than do the plans of the West and Arab states.  It merely preserves Assad’s power that, without Russian backing, would crumble of its own cruelty.