{"id":781,"date":"2013-09-12T22:32:36","date_gmt":"2013-09-12T22:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=781"},"modified":"2013-09-12T22:32:36","modified_gmt":"2013-09-12T22:32:36","slug":"what-is-putin-up-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/?p=781","title":{"rendered":"What is Putin up to?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Terry<\/a><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t understand why Putin is so adamant to have Syria hand over its chemical weapons to an international body and have that body dispose of them.\u00a0 I smell a rat.<\/p>\n

Writers are naturally cynical because of what they hear on a daily basis that often doesn\u2019t make good sense and requires deep research to find the real truth. So first impressions are very seldom received with open arms.<\/p>\n

My cynicism is there because Putin is not one to trust. He is not our friend. So why is it then that he is pushing for Syrian to disarm? What is he up to?<\/p>\n

It is my gut feeling Putin has more to lose if we attack Syria. But what is it he has to lose? He could be afraid that rebels fighting the Syrian regime (Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad calls the rebels terrorist) could win and then turn their attention elsewhere, including in regions where Russia claims a self-interest.<\/p>\n

While that may be so, there is something deeper here. Putin is a killer and he\u2019s not going to hold up internationally as some sort of pacifist, so he is worried about something that would really cause him and Russia a big problem.<\/p>\n

I think it relates to how much help in troops, intelligence and in weapons he has supplied Assad. And maybe he\u2019s concerned that some of that weaponry \u2013 mainly air-defense systems \u2013 won\u2019t hold up to American power and that would cause him to lose major clients, especially in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Whatever it is, my cynicism forces me to believe his peace effort is much deeper than just to avoid an American strike. This is not common for Putin to do this. Hopefully, we, and our government, will find out what it is before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can\u2019t understand why Putin is so adamant to have Syria hand over its chemical weapons to an international body…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-column","category-mosher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions\/782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sportspaper.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}