RED LINES: As Obama Dithers, Syrian Rebels in Aleppo Brace for Putin’s Onslaught.

The Russians are pursuing a strategy lifted from their playbook in Grozny during the last Chechen war, and Aleppo could soon become the new “most destroyed city on earth.”
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A top official of the Syrian opposition said he’s convinced Russia’s intent is use the methods it deployed to destroy Grozny. The capital of the Chechen Republic was the scene of bloody combat in 1994-95, and then again in 1999-2000, early in Putin’s first presidency. At that point leaflets were dropped offering people safe passage out of the city, and after a brief pause the real devastation began. In 2003, the United Nations reportedly called Grozny “the most destroyed city on earth.” The war was over, and on Putin’s terms.

Even the Obama administration, long accused by its critics of fecklessness and of appeasing the Assad regime’s two outside supporters, Iran and Russia, mustered a strong verbal response.

Well then.