If Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the man of the moment in the Muslim world — then Vladimir Putin is Middle East’s man of the hour. For his country has seemingly done what the Americans — with the full weight of the NATO war machine behind them — had failed to do. Namely, run ISIS out of town. And while there might possibly be some truth to this, reports from the ground in Syria have found that President Bashar al-Assad is only in control of about 60 percent of the country. This is around the same amount as the Ghani government next door in neighbouring Afghanistan. Yet there Donald Trump is talking about a troop surge whereas in Damascus Putin is talking about a drawdown. So, the question remains who, if not ISIS, controls the remainder of the country? One answer is that, at least in the northwest, it is the Al Qaeda-linked group, Tahrir al-Sham; which is said to now be the dominant force in Idlib province. Yet even here, Putin comes out on top. Given that it is the Syrian army, along with Iranian-backed forces — which may or may not include Afghan fighters — that are taking on the last of the bad guys all under the blanket of Russian airpower. But if only securing victory were that simple. It was a matter of mere months after the fall of the Taliban regime in Kabul that saw the then US president declare: “mission accomplished”. And today, even the so-called Mother of All Bombs has not been enough to extricate the Americans from the quagmire of their own making. Yet the question must always remains: victory for whom? Though naturally Putin’s primary focus is his own re-election bid, which is scheduled for the beginning of next year. And he is nothing if not pragmatic. Meaning that he has said on record that the war on terror is a test of Russian troops’ mettle; not to mention the efficiency of their war toys. And, as with most things, the proof is very much in the pudding. Already, foreign defence contracts are said to be pouring into Moscow. Nevertheless, we would urge him to keep his gloating on mute for now. Especially considering that his flourishing bro-mance with a certain unquiet American president aside — there will be many in NATO circles who will want his head on a stick. For he has publicly humiliated them. Not least because he is said to have secured an agreement of sorts with the leaders of the so-called free world to let Assad stay and face his people at the ballot box. This, of course, is despite the US Secretary of State stressing just as recently as October that Assad would have to go. If only the West were so pinched by UN claims that it, too, may have been complicit in war crimes (along with everyone else) in the former ISIS stronghold of Aleppo. But then, as we already know, not all lives matter. * Published in Daily Times, December 15th 2017.