New nadir

The extraordinary exchange of charges and countercharges between US UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin Saturday night put in doubt both the wisdom and practicality of implementing the still unpublished agreement their two foreign ministers have reached on cooperating against extremist forces in Syria.

Visibly angry Power denounced the Russians for calling an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to protest an apparent US mistake while having continually ignored Syrian military and Russian air force attacks on schools, hospitals, and civilians:

A calmer Churkin suggested that the US action was intentional and intended to protect the Islamic State:

Churkin ignored the US CentCom statement, which said that the strike in question was informed to the Russians in advance. Power and Churkin each walked out of the Security Council while the other was speaking.

In the meanwhile, humanitarian aid deliveries from Turkey to Aleppo appear not to have begun, because of Syrian government refusal to issue the necessary permits.

All this bodes ill for the latest effort to restore the ceasefire in Syria and start coordinated US/Russian attacks on extremists. No doubt Secretary Kerry–who has said he has no alternatives–will try at the UN this week to revive the ceasefire he negotiated so tenaciously, but I see little indication it will work for more than a short period. The Russians and Syrian government are already back to indiscriminate (or maybe it is discriminate?) bombing of civilians, including with anti-personnel weapons.

There have been many low points in Syria during the past 5.5 years, but we may have reached a new nadir.