US should not oppose Russian intervention in Syria

READING the op-eds in America's leading newspapers or watching the television news these days - not to mention the Republican presidential debates - one may get the impression that the Cold War was still going on. "The Russians are coming", Americans are being warned; and if the United States would not "do something" about it - and asap - President Vladimir Putin would force President Barack Obama to wave the white flag.

Indeed, a near Cold-War-style hysteria that could only be described as a retro form of geostrategic thinking has been sweeping Washington in recent days following Russia's announcement that it was deploying troops to Syria to help the beleaguered President Bashar Assad, and Mr Putin's address at the United Nation that called for establishing an international coalition to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). American politicians and pundits are warning of Russian expansion into the Middle East that would force the US out of the region.

The narrative being promoted by many members of the US foreign policy establishment, including the leading Republican presidential candidates, has been that by resisting pressure to play a more activist US role in Syria, and especially by rebuffing demands to provide more assistance to the "moderate" Sunni insurgents fighting Mr Assad, Mr Obama failed to project American leadership and helped create a "strategic vacuum" in the Middle East that Mr Putin is now trying to fill.