It took everyone by surprise, even if Mr Putin gave so many clear hints at the United Nations General Assembly's speech. He publicly announced his support for a coalition to destroy ISIS. So in some way he announced between lines what he was going to carry out. And so he did! Next day first thing, after approval, we watched how the Kremlin was launching its first airstrikes over syrian soil at Washington and the West and the EU's despair and completely surprise. This is definitely another check mate for Vladimir Putin in its fight for influence and protecting its position and Russia's against Washington's continuing meddling into eurasian's geopolitical puzzle, mainly after all the messing up in Ukraine, where the situation is still far from solved and clear.
Although the underlying intentions for this intervention of the russian air force in Syria is to destroy and reduce the military capabilities of the Islamic State in the country, Washington has many doubts about this and is often claiming that Putin just entered this conflict openly to protect and keep Bashar Al Assad in power and also diminish the power of the rebel opposition forces fighting with logistic support from the U.S and NATO and the CIA as well. Be that as it may, Moscow decided to enter fully fledged this sensing it had to solve an issue directly related to its national security, exactly just like Washington does, and this is why the White House has nothing to cry out loud this action by Russia, especially in a moment of confusion and in a war that has left nothing but despair and millions of refugees entering Europe, leaving Syria because of this turmoil.
Certainly, Russia has its geostrategic and geopolitical intentions and desires in Syria as well as in the whole MENA region, which is aimed first of all at reducing and diminishing the influence of the U.S in this area, also to expand its influence in countries where it had been developing bilateral relationships displacing in some way Washington; also to try to extirpate the disease of the Islamic State, which allegedly has been a creation from the saudis and Washington, and which already has claimed to destabilize the Caucasus, bordering Russia, which did not sound well in the Kremlin's ears, and also to reflect a solid muscle flexing to Saudi Arabia and Washington in exchange for deploying a strategy of market share in the oil landscape, which so far has hurt considerably the russian economy, highly reliable on oil prices levels. And with this action, in some way, Putin is showing once again he is definitely not an easy dove to deal with, and as long as he stays in power, Russia will have to be taken seriously in the global landscape of powers.
Now it will be interesting to see the implications and consequences of this sudden turn of events in Syria in the rest of the hotspots now in the Gulf and the MENA, since now Palestine announced it is no longer bound by Oslo Accords with Israel, which definitely will be another game changer in the region; also the position and role that Turkey would assume after this russian intervention, since Ankara is considered one of the staunchest rival and opponent of Bashar Al Assad, and also it is already known that Iran sent troops to Syria, so this could have some implications for the recently signed nuclear deal with Washington and the EU. Only time will tell what the real consequences of this action could be. And also another important player, which is Beijing, would watch this move with very caution, although it is yet in their very much interest to see the extremist islam groups placated since it has its own threat like the Uyghurs, which allegedly according to some version in the news, there are some groups of uyghurs fighting in Syria trained by NATO against Bashar Al Assad, so China's official position will be also crucial in this situation.
After all this argument, can we say that Mr Putin double-check mated Mr Obama? We will see it when all this reaches an end, hopefully not so late...
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