Checkmate

That implies an Iraq acceptable for all Iraqis -- and that's impossible to accomplish without Iran. And a Syria acceptable to all Syrians -- and that's impossible without Iran and Russia.

Washington after all would have never been able to accomplish both in the first place. The Empire of Chaos specializes in nation breaking, not nation building.

Gotta slay that dragon

Gorbachev wanted to integrate the USSR in the European family -- aiming for a Europe from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Post-Soviet Russia though was not even invited to enter the house. What happened was NATO colonization of the former Soviet space.

Under Putin, Russia tried once again a strategic partnership with the EU. Does anyone remember Sergey Lavrov as late as 2011 swearing that modernization of Russia was ready to go as a pan-European project, just as in the time of Peter the Great?

Yet by 2007, Putin had changed the game, and was ready to openly contest the unipolar "order" -- and slowly but surely project Russia back to the geopolitical limelight.

Post-Ukraine, still under sanctions, but armed with a strategic partnership with China, the time for a checkmate is now.

In New York, Putin even proposed the lineaments of a New World Order. The genuine article, not that "vision thing" concocted by Daddy Bush post-collapse of the USSR.

It would be an equitable, fair world order -- where state sovereignty is respected, sanctions are meaningless, NATO ceases to expand ad infinitum and exceptionalism does not apply.

The devil will be in the (many) details, of course. For instance, if a coalition to fight ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is forged and blessed by the UN, it will need the -- virtually impossible -- cohabitation of Sunnis and Shi'ites.

And in the near future, Brussels will have to tame visceral internal antagonism to have the European Union interacting with the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EEU), which by that time will be totally integrated with the China-led New Silk Roads.

What's certain -- for the overwhelming majority of the Global South -- is that the Empire of Chaos made a mess everywhere, from Northern Africa and Southwest Asia to Russia's western borderlands.

Putin now rides into the hellish mess ready to slay the dragon of chaos -- and the machinations of the Empire of Chaos. His sword? The UN. No wonder checkmated neocons, neoliberalcons and "humanitarian" imperialists can barely conceal their apoplexy.