I hope I am not just being a jerk, picking on a nice lady who has given her life for Christ (and I did learn from Seinfeld that women with manhands are a thing), but the internets are astir with this Russian Times story of a Syrian nun who says the chemical weapons attack is a frame-up.
Look at the face and look at the hands. Is that a woman in the picture, or a KGB agent? And isn't it just a wee bit suspicious that not only does this nun somehow come across secret evidence, but she also just happens to take the Russian line on the whole matter --i.e., not just that there was no chemical weapon attack, but also, get a load of this Q and her A:
RT: What should the Syrians do to stop the tragedy they are going through?MA: The Syrians themselves can do nothing to stop it. They can only rely on the international community, friendly nations, world powers, such as Russia, China, and India.
A Christian nun doesn't think Syrians should work for peaceful engagement with each other and simply stop fighting each other, she thinks Russia & China should step in? I'm not saying no -- when I was in the Holy Land I spoke with a fair share of Arab Christians who are Arab first and Christian second, and their politics follow-- but I'm sorry, I think this is a manufactured story from a manufactured nun, and even if the nun is legit, the Russian Times ain't.
National Review's Jim Geraghty, in his Morning Jolt newsletter, highlights this thought-provoking piece about Putin out-maneuvering us in the Mid-East. It says Putin is the guy who ordered the nerve-gas attack, as a classic Soviet-style "provocation" designed to make the aggressor look like the victim and demoralize on-lookers.
The prize Putin is seeking for obliterating the American “red line” is not victory in Syria—since his client Assad is clearly winning anyway. The point of the attack is to publicly expose Obama’s deep ambivalence about the use of force to stop Iran. If Obama’s red line against the use of chemical weapons in Syria can fall so easily, after the public deaths of more than 1,000 innocent people, including hundreds of children who died foaming at the mouth, how many cruise missiles might Iran’s putative acquisition of nuclear weapons capacity cost? Two hundred? One hundred? Zero? The answer now is plain: However many missiles they might fire, America has no stomach for fighting a war in Syria, let alone in Iran.
And a little later:
By showing that Obama's America is unable and unwilling to keep its promises, Putin has widened the leadership void in the Middle East—as a prelude to filling it himself. By helping to clear Iran's path to a bomb, Putin positions himself as Iran's most powerful ally—while paradoxically gaining greater leverage with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States, who would much rather negotiate with Russia than with Iran, their sworn enemy. While the Americans were heading out of the Middle East, and the Chinese were too busy with their own internal debates about the future of their economy and society, Putin saw that something valuable had been abandoned on the world stage, and he took it. For the price of 1,000 dead civilians in Damascus, he has gained great power status in the oil-rich Middle East. Iran, for its part, gets the bomb, which isn't great news for anyone, but was probably going to happen anyway.
RTWT. Seems plausible, though it doesn't change my mind about intervention in Syria, in fact it strengthens my opposition. Obama is weak and side-stepping a confrontation with Russia is preferable to losing one. However, this analysis does strengthen my suspicion that's no nun in the picture above. While there seems to be conflicting evidence about which side used the chemical weapons, only the Russians are taking the line there was no such attack.
Say! In light of this, remember how everyone laughed at Mitt Romney for being stuck in the Cold War when he said Russia was our greatest geo-political enemy? Not looking so stupid now, is he?
On a side note, Geraghty's Morning Jolt notes that NBC brought in body language experts who looked at the photos of Obama & Putin at the G20 in Moscow and concluded Putin was intimidated by Obama. Geraghty quite correctly snorts in derision:
Right. The lifelong KGB officer is quaking in his boots at the sight of the community organizer.
For my part, since the war resolution seems dead in the House, I think the only possible way for Obama to muster support when he speaks to us Tuesday night is if he uses his Dalek voice and says, "This is not war, this is pest control." Then he'd have all the Whovians on his side.
