Obama’s defiance of public opinion on Syria bewilders leading Russian analyst

A leading Russian expert on international affairs has voiced bewilderment over what he described as Barack Obama’s defiance of public opinion regarding Syria. “When he was elected, Obama declared that putting an end to two wars in the Middle East - in Iraq and in Afghanistan - would be a cornerstone of his presidency. These days, we see a Mr. Obama who is intervention-minded in defiance of international institutions and the world public,” Vitaly Naumkin, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences, told a news conference at Itar-Tass on Wednesday. “I find the lasting triumph of double standards and falsehoods very alarming. And let me remind you that over the 10 years since the beginning of the war in Iraq over 200,000 people have been killed there.” General of the Army Yuri Baluyevsky, taking part in the same news conference, added that according to some estimates, about 70,000 Syrian citizens had lost their lives to the ongoing hostilities in their country, and it did not make much difference to him whether they were the backers of the opposition or not. “Shall we brace ourselves for seeing more deaths? That’s enough, I believe,” he said.