Don’t count on Russia to get rid of Assad – Washington Postby wpjljron Tuesday, April 11th, 2017.Don’t count on Russia to get rid of Assad – Washington PostRussian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the Kremlin in Moscow in a photo made available in October 2015. (Pool photo by Alexey Druzhinyn/Ria Novosti via European Pressphoto Agency) Philip Gordon is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. From 2009 to 2013 he was assistant secretary […] Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the Kremlin in Moscow in a photo made available in October 2015. (Pool photo by Alexey Druzhinyn/Ria Novosti via European Pressphoto Agency)