The main take away of the trilateral, two hour-long Russia-Iran-Turkey summit in Sochi on the future of Syria was expressed by Russian President Vladimir Putin:
“The presidents of Iran and Turkey supported the initiative to convene an All-Syrian Congress for national dialogue in Syria. We agreed to hold this important event at the proper level and ensure the participation of representatives of different sectors of Syrian society.”
In practice, that means Russian, Iranian and Turkish foreign ministries and defense departments are tasked to “gather delegates from various political parties, internal and external opposition, ethnic and confessional groups at the negotiating table.”
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In Danang, Putin and Trump may not have held a crucial bilateral. But Sergey Lavrov and Rex Tillerson did issue a joint statement on Syria – without, crucially, mentioning Astana; instead, the emphasis was on the slow-moving UN Geneva process (a new round of talks is scheduled for next week).
An extremely divisive issue – not exactly admitted by both parties – is the presence of foreign forces in Syria. From Washington’s perspective, Russian, Iranian and Turkish forces must all leave.
But then there’s the Pentagon, which is in Syria without a UN resolution (Russia and Iran were invited by Damascus).
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This is a scenario right out of "I Robot", the 2004 film staring Will Smith, where just such a calculation was made, and spares the Smith's character at the price of a little girl, mortally injured in the other car in the crash, and left to die.
But science fiction morphs into science fact at a really rapid pace in the 21st century, and such technology will become the norm faster than we can calculate at this point.