The week of this historic meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill also witnessed dangerous developments in the US-Russian confrontation over Ukraine, Syria, and Turkey.
In Washington, London, Turkey, Kiev, and even Moscow, opponents of a possible US–Russian détente on Ukraine and Syria demonstrate again their power to thwart the process of negotiations.
American policy-makers and presidential candidates must now make a fateful decision—join Moscow in an alliance against ISIS, or persist in treating the Kremlin as an enemy.
To reverse his fortune at the polls, Erdogan reignited Turkey’s war with the Kurds, stood silent while mobs attacked his opponents, and unilaterally altered the constitutional role of his office.