There is some possibly good movement when it comes to the U.S. involvement in Syria: they’ve reached a deal with Russia over who controls which parts of the friendly (?) skies. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov called the agreement practically significant, without saying everything involved.

“The memorandum contains a set of rules and restrictions aimed at preventing incidents between the Russian and U.S. aviation.” 

It’s basically a line across Syria saying which side controls what and if the other sides crosses it’d turn into an international incident. One thing The New York Times noted is there have been some almost incidents, but apparently nothing which got tensions flaring up more than they already are.

On two occasions, Russian aircraft flew within 1,500 feet and 500 feet of American warplanes, although not in a threatening manner. Such incidents underscore the need for such an agreement, [ Pentagon spokesperson Peter ] Cook said.

“The Russians need to abide by these flight safety protocols that they’ve now agreed to, because we don’t want miscalculation and misunderstanding,” he said.

The protocols call for aircraft to maintain a “safe distance” from one another, Mr. Cook said, refusing to elaborate on what that distance is but saying coalition aircrews know how close is too close. “There’s no need for them to have an encounter if everyone’s abiding by these rules,” he said.

The agreement is being kept hush hush because the Russians requested it not be made public. From a strategic standpoint that makes a little bit of sense. There’s no need to let ISIS know how the two sides are agreeing not to cross the other’s line. Of course, the two sides might actually consider working together since they’re allegedly going after the same target in ISIS. But that’s not going to happen because the Obama Administration considers Russia the enemy, instead of considering whether the U.S. military should be involved in Syria at all (it shouldn’t).

This isn’t the only interesting bit going on when it comes to Syria. It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad suddenly turned up in the Kremlin to thank Vladimir Putin for his decision to get involved in the civil war. From The Guardian.

“First of all I wanted to express my huge gratitude to the whole leadership of the Russian Federation for the help they are giving Syria.

If it was not for your actions and your decisions, the terrorism which is spreading in the region would have swallowed up a much greater area and spread over an even greater area.”

Assad probably considers all the rebels “terrorists” and there’s definitely evidence they’re more Islamic than not. The Moscow visit is officially considered Assad’s first trip out of Syria, but there were rumors in 2013 he was hiding on a Russian warship. Those rumors were never proven, so it’s hard to know if they were true or not, but it probably wasn’t that hard for Assad to slip out of Syria and into Russia. It also shows how indebted he is to Putin for helping him in the civil war. That could involve ground troops at some point, if The Guardian is right.

Syrian state TV said the two presidents discussed the continuing military operations in Syria against “terrorist” groups, a catch-all term that the regime and Moscow use to refer to the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, as well as plans for ground campaigns.

It isn’t known if this means Russian ground troops, but it wouldn’t be surprising. If Russia decides to send in ground troops, the U.S. should just pull out and let Syria do its own thing. It’s bad guys, fighting bad guys and since the U.S. possibly missed its opportunity to separate the truly moderate from the Islamic rebels in 2011 and 2012, there’s no point in getting involved. This isn’t a mess the U.S. started, so there’s no reason for “Team America” to ride to the rescue. What’s going on in Syria is horrible, but there’s no justification for American air strikes or American boots on the ground. If Russia wants to prop up Assad, they ought to be able to and deal with the fallout. Assad is probably hoping the Russian involvement will get the rebels to talk about a cease-fire or a way to end the civil war.

There’s also another interesting nugget from Twitter on a talk between Russia and Turkey on Syria.

#BREAKING Turkish President Erdoğan underlined the link between Syrian Kurdish militia and PKK during phone conversation with Putin

— CNN Türk ENG (@CNNTURK_ENG) October 21, 2015

#BREAKING Turkey's Erdoğan and Russia's Putin agree to hold more talks during G20 Summit to be held in Turkey in November #Syria #Assad

— CNN Türk ENG (@CNNTURK_ENG) October 21, 2015

This is interesting because Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952. From a foreign policy standpoint, it’s curious to see if Putin may be laying the groundwork for his own Warsaw Pact or something like that. If Putin got Turkey to abandon NATO for Russia, that’d be a pretty big blow because they’ve got the second largest military personnel membership in NATO outside of the U.S. This isn’t saying it’s going to happen or even might happen, but Putin’s involvement in the Middle East shows he’s flexing his muscles for a reason. Getting Turkey to talk to Russia is just another way for Putin to thumb his nose at Obama.

So much for Putin being weak, right Mr. President?