Nick Cohen on the impact of Vladimir Purin's atrocities in Syria

I don't always agree with Nick Cohen but I'm afraid he has Vladimir Putin and those on the hard-right and hard-left who apologise for the Putin regime bang to rights.

He has an article this weekend which you can read on the Observer/Guardian site here, about the impact of the atrocities Putin's regime is inciting in Syria and the middle east on European politics.

It starts as follows:

From massacre to exile to racism to subversion and back again, Vladimir Putin has caught Europe in a rolling trap. The war crimes that Russia encourages the sectarian Assad regime to commit force Syrians to run. When a small proportion of them reach Europe (for never forget the rich world takes only a tiny minority of the world’s refugees) their presence drives Putin-supporting nationalists into power on anti-Muslim tickets.

The iron wheel is about to turn again and grind up the lives of hundreds of thousands. Diplomatic attempts to prevent a battle look as if they have failed, as they have failed so monotonously in Syria. In all likelihood, Bashar al-Assad’s forces and their Russian and Iranian backers will soon begin their assault on Idlib province. Russian planes are already trying to take out defences, and there is every reason to expect a catastrophe. Doubtless, Assad’s forces will use chemical weapons again and Russia’s proxies on the “alt-left” will invent conspiracy theories to deny their existence. Our filthy decade has taught criminals that they can break the taboo on the use of chemical weapons – one of the few limits on man’s inhumanity to man – and not only be rewarded for it but acquitted of guilt.