PUTIN'S GOALS IN SYRIA

From The Economist. 

Whether this agreement works depends largely on what you think Russia’s intentions are. Some see the deal as merely a stalling tactic to head off an American military intervention that might have tipped the balance in Syria’s civil war against Mr Assad. “It requires a willful suspension of disbelief to see this agreement as anything other than the start of a diplomatic blind alley, and the Obama Administration is being led into it by Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin,” say Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham.