Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an opinion column in The New York Times last week, calling upon Americans to stop the potential strike against Syria at any cost.
In the article titled “A plea for caution from Russia,” published on September 11, Putin said he was compelled to speak directly to the American people.
As of Saturday morning, the online version of the opinion column had registered 4,447 comments from readers worldwide.
Putin said he was concerned by “American exceptionalism” - a concept delivered to the American people by their President Barack Obama in a speech last week.
“I carefully studied his [Obama’s] address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It makes us exceptional.”
“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”
Underlining that there are other countries with “long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy,” the Russian president said those countries had their own policies.
“We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
In the article, Putin said the world was increasingly thinking of America as a country “solely relying on brute force.”
He also said Syria was not having problems with democracy, but an armed conflict between the government and opposition.
“No matter how targeted the strikes or sophisticated the weapons, civilian casualties are inevitable, including elderly and children.
“We must stop using the language of force and return to the path of civilised diplomatic and political settlement,” Putin said.
