John McCain’s flight suit as shown at the Hanoi Hilton, Ho Chi Minh City. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dr Alf is correct to say that the Pravda article attacks John McCain personally rather than his arguments about the lack of freedom in Russia.This however does not diminish the fact that the British public, the majority of people in America and most people in Europe are heartily sick of interminable wars fought on false pretenses and where we have no real business. The current Syrian crisis is about a number of things which relate to geopolitics:

1) The Syrian, Iran, Iraq pipeline which avoids Turkey altogether;

2) Turkey’s own ambitions to supplant Iran as a regional power and join the EU;

3) Saudi Arabia’s and Qatar’s desire to establish a new Caliphate across the Globe;

4)Israel’s recent major discoveries of oil and its legitimate desire to become an energy producer in its own right;

5) America, Britain and France’s desire to reorder the Middle Eastern chessboard, as a precursor to destabilizing and “taking down” a number of regimes, including weakening the growing influence of China and Russia;

6) Russia and China’s desire to prevent 5;

7) Russia’s desire to retain the Port of Tartus.

Senator McCain should be carefully listened to on the basis of the quality of his arguments and on that basis ,his thinking,forged in the horrors of the Vietnam War and his incarceration in the Hanoi Hilton prison is right on matters of individual liberty.It is however wrong on matters of geopolitics where new thinking about the new realities has to be brought to bear if we are to make meaningful progress.

John Gelmini

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