Officials from Russia, Iran and Turkey were preening themselves earlier this month ahead of a trilateral meeting in Moscow of foreign and defence ministers, to discuss Syria after Aleppo. Were they inviting their US counterparts? No. A realpolitik parley is no place for Panglossian procrastinators who, furthermore, would spoil the triumph of Russia and Iran as they savour the destruction of rebel Aleppo and the salvage of a rump state for Bashar al-Assad, their Syrian client.
Turkey, to be fair, was more focused on the realpolitik than the triumphalism. Ankara has had to give up its support for Sunni rebels trying to topple the Assad regime, and move towards Russia and Iran to prevent Syrian Kurdish fighters allied with insurgent Turkish Kurds from consolidating a self-governing entity along its borders.
In either case, it is not so easy to escape the carnage of Syria. On the eve of the ministers’ meeting, Andrei Karlov, Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, was shot dead by an Ankara policeman, who shouted “Don’t forget Aleppo”. The truck murders in a Berlin Christmas market that same evening highlighted how easily terror can strike. But it is remarkable, given the way Mr Putin’s air force has eviscerated Syria’s Sunni rebels (rather than Isis jihadis), that Russia has suffered little reprisal.