I am alarmed and frightened about our growing animosity and vitriol directed at Russia, especially over its growing intervention in Syria. We are now in a period in history when our national consensus regarding foreign policy and national security with respect to Russia has been shattered and there are increasing calls to confront Putin that are more strident and reckless than anything I recall hearing during the height of the Cold War.
The Russians and Putin are not our enemies. They are a sovereign nation with their own legitimate interests and a better understanding of the actual threats that must be dealt with. This is especially true on the matter of Syria.
President Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and a host of Republicans have lost their minds with respect to Syria and its leader, Bashir Assad. Assad is a secular leader and is leading his country in a war against Islamic radicals who, with the backing of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, started the blood-letting in Syria. What is not widely known nor acknowledged, is that the United States played a major covert role in stoking and fueling the Sunni Islamic revolt against Assad.
Barack Obama signed off on a highly classified project in early 2012 that aligned the United States with the efforts of Turkey and Saudi Arabia to take out Syria’s Assad. Why? Getting rid of Assad was seen as a tangible step towards weakening Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East. It was not that Bashir Assad was such a brutal, evil ruler. He just happened to have the bad luck of aligning himself with Iran.
The irony in all of this is that United States alone is responsible for Iran’s surge in power. We took out Iran’s major foe–Saddam Hussein–and then installed into power in Iraq men who had received protection and support from Iran during exile. Duh!!
Russia correctly understands the danger if Bashir Assad falls and the government comes under the control of Sunni Islamists. They would be more than allies of ISIS. This would extend the power of ISIS.
What to do? Obama, like a drunken Nero, is fiddling and unable to decide. The New York Times reports:
The recent deployment of Russian weapons and equipment to Syria has brought to a head a conflict that has dominated the Obama administration since Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency, the choice between engaging with Russia and trying to isolate it. If Ukraine and Syria are the world’s two most significant conflict zones, then some officials argue that the solutions to both problems ultimately go through Moscow, making it necessary to talk. Others, however, worry that agreeing to meet would only play into Mr. Putin’s hands and reward an international bully. . . .
The move by Russia to bolster the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who has resisted Mr. Obama’s demand to step down for years, underscored the conflicting approaches to fighting the Islamic State terrorist organization. While Mr. Obama supports a rival rebel group to take on the Islamic State even as he opposes Mr. Assad, Russia contends that the government is the only force that can defeat the Islamic extremists.
Mr. Putin on Tuesday forcefully defended Russia’s military assistance to Syria. “We are supporting the government of Syria in the fight against a terrorist aggression, and we are offering and will continue to offer it necessary military and technical assistance, and we call on other countries to join us,” Mr. Putin said at a regional security conference in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
“It’s obvious,” he added, “that without the Syrian authorities and the military playing an active role, without the Syrian Army fighting the Islamic State on the ground, it’s impossible to drive terrorists from this country and from the region as a whole.”
Amen! Putin gets it. Obama is clueless. But Obama is not alone in his stupidity on this issue. Most of the Republican candidates (except for Rand Paul) are rattling sabers and decrying Russia’s move into Syria. They would rather do Cold War saber rattling rather than join forces with Putin to contain and possibly defeat the rising tide of Sunni extremism.
Sadly, the average American is ignorant and happy to remain so on these matters. They’ll sit on their ample asses eating Doritos and slurping beer and cheer on the tough talk about “stopping Putin,” etc. Wake up America. Russia is not our enemy and not a threat, at least to our nation. Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin correctly understands what is at stake with the rise of ISIS and the spread of radical Sunni jihadism. They must be stopped.
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