What if the line in the sand that Mr Putin wants to draw is not about Russia's prestige and role in the Security Council? What if his plan is far grander: halting, at the gates of Damascus, what he sees as the green tide of Sunni Islamism stretching from Morocco, through North Africa and the Levant to Turkey and thence almost to Russia's unstable southern border? If that is the case then to prosecute a civil war in Syria, far from being a disaster, is both necessary and desirable - like the one he fought in Chechnya.
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