Facebook Twitter Google plus Share Share this post Facebook Twitter Google plus close 2.37pm BST14:37 Russia portraying itself as peacekeeper in Syria Russia is portraying itself as peace keeper in Syria while its marines head towards Tartus and its diplomats prepare to oppose the latest UN resolution on the crisis.
Soon after Mr Putin's arrival in the Kremlin in 2000, Russia started to hand out passports to Abkhaz and South Ossetians, while also claiming the role of a neutral peacekeeper in the region.
That, too, was abandoned.Given these limitations, what can the UN do to become a more efficient peacekeeper?
"Hang on," says the peacekeeper, and he turns to consult a chart of parties to the Congo war, on which seven groups are listed as "friend", eight are listed as "foe" and ten are listed as "not sure".
The picture Russia presented to the world seemed clear: Georgia was a reckless and dangerous aggressor and Russia had an obligation, as a peacekeeper in the region, to protect the victims.Russia's response was predictable.
As a small UN team arrives, a Zambian peacekeeper points out a column of smoke emerging from a hill overlooking the village a kilometre away.
Whereas Russia tried to mask its deeds in Ukraine by deploying troops with no insignia, the whole point of America's action was to show off the Stars and Stripes on the uniforms.Philosopher-in-chiefYet even as he did his duties as planetary peacekeeper, Mr Obama could not help pondering the limits of American power, out loud.
It helps that Bangladesh has no natural enemy, besides river erosion and annual flooding, so the army has no better regular soldiering to do.Major Furuque Hassan, a military intelligence officer in Dhaka, is a representative Bangladeshi peacekeeper.
This was not enough to save his prime minister from being ousted in a Senate vote or to stop the rioting, during which a UN peacekeeper was shot dead.
As a populous and rich democracy, a big contributor of foreign aid, the second-biggest contributor after America to the United Nations, and (within the limits imposed by its post-war constitution, which it has been flexible in reinterpreting) an increasingly active international peacekeeper, it believes it deserves a permanent seat in any enlarged Security Council.And it is right.
Earlier, a Canadian peacekeeper and an Afghan civilian were killed in another suicide attack.
