A rock and a hard place
Those who had hoped that Russian President Vladimir Putin would, in his address to the UN General Assembly in New York, submit a compromise proposal for the Syrian conflict and distance himself - at least rhetorically - from Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad had to have been disappointed.
In his speech on Monday, Putin made it clear that any coalition endorsed by Moscow at the UN against the "Islamic State" terror militia operating in Syria will require the involvement of Assad's regime.
Assad, and Assad only
And no, Putin is not inclined to abandon Assad, not now, and maybe not in the future either. As a matter of principle. For Putin - so he says - is opposed to any external interference in a nation's internal affairs. The reason behind this is not only Russia's concern about its partner in the Middle East. There can be no doubt that Putin, at the same time, was repudiating any Western criticism against his own contested system of government.
And just for the record: when Putin slammed external interferences, he was of course neither referring to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in early 2014 against international law, nor to the Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Putin's stance has forced the West to choose between a rock and a hard place in the Syrian crisis. He wants the US and Europe to accept Assad as an actual partner in the fight against "Islamic State" terrorists. This would not only stabilize the Syrian ruler's regime, but also clearly boost Russia's role as a global player on the world political scene. The Western isolation of Russia, intended to sanction Russia's interference in neighboring Ukraine, would then be broken.
Or business as usual
Without an agreement with Putin, the current situation in Syria would continue unabated, with the murderous war in the Middle East driving millions more from their homes, primarily toward Central Europe.
And, thus far, the third option - a risky mission of massive Western armed forces, with ground troops in Syria lacking a UN mandate - has not been openly considered by anyone.
None of this amounts to an easy choice for the West, which has yet to fully realize its weakness and powerlessness. At any rate, unilateral US action in the Middle East is a thing of the past - a fact also pointed out by President Barack Obama in his UN speech.
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