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Czar Wars
I don’t mean to ruin anyone’s morale, but I’m going to, anyway. I understand that some of you may be thinking, “Why not let Putin fight ISIS? Better him than us, wouldn’t you say? Especially since all we seem to be able to do is make more of them. Right?”
Well, sure, if that’s what he were doing. But it’s not.
MiG-31 Foxhound interceptor fighter jets, Su-30 fighters, Su-25 attack planes, Su-24 bombers, Su-34 bombers, Su-27 Flanker interceptor fighter jets, an Il-20 spy plane, armored vehicles, and SA-15 and SA-22 surface-to-air missiles? As David Axe puts it (understatedly) that’s “not really optimal for attacking lightly armed insurgent fighters.” And as he further notes, correctly, “Surface-to-air missiles are only good for destroying enemy aircraft, which Syrian rebels do not possess. And the Su-30s are best suited for tangling with other high-tech forces.”
In other words, folks, Putin’s there to wage war on us, not ISIS. Get it?
Or at the very least, he’s there to make sure there won’t be a safe zone along the border from Jarablus to Azaz. Sending interceptor fighter jets to Syria makes no sense unless you’re planning to intercept jets. ISIS, Nusra, and Ahrar al-Sham don’t have jets to intercept. QED.
It gets worse. David Ropkoth is right about this:
When Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, met with journalists in New York last Friday, he took pains to note that Iran and Russia were not joining together in a “coalition” in Syria. They were sharing intelligence. They were discussing strategy. They were in constant communication. But a coalition? No.
Two days later, the Iraqi government announced it too was sharing intelligence with Russia, Iran, and Syria. So perhaps Rouhani was being literal in a different way when he disavowed being in a coalition with Russia — because what he was actually involved in was a coalition with Russia, Iraq, and Syria.
And it gets worse still if you imagine what logically comes next. What if Iran decides to openly sprint for a Bomb? What if they just throw off all pretense of compliance and go for it? And why wouldn’t they, given that Putin’s now declared himself Czar and Protector of the Shia axis? Think even the next president would try to stop that? Direct conflict with Iran and Russia? As Trump might say, “I’m the most militaristic person there is” — but that wouldn’t be militaristic, that would be stupid. And suicidal.
And also by the way, that above-linked DHS report is full of cheering news:
Despite a year of U.S. and allied airstrikes, the group has held most of its territory and continues to replenish its ranks with outside recruits. Military officials estimate airstrikes have killed around 10,000 extremists, but new foreign fighters replace them almost as quickly as they are killed. ISIS has also grown from a single terrorist sanctuary to having a direct presence, affiliates, or groups pledging support in 18 countries. The organization is believed to have inspired or directed nearly 60 terrorist plots or attacks against Western countries, including 15 in the United States. Some of these were masterminded by foreign fighters based in Syria, while others were carried out by returnees themselves or homegrown extremists. … When the strikes began, counterterrorism officials estimated the total number of extremists was around 15,000. .. Today the figure stands at 25,000-plus foreign fighters.
Also, as you’ve probably heard, Kunduz fell to the Taliban. First provincial capital to fall to them since 2001.
And sorry to be just a complete Daisy Downer, but it gets even worse. Because Congress can’t pass a budget. (You had one job.) So the military might have to operate under last year’s spending plan.
According to Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook, “hope remains that lawmakers will strike a deal to fund the government when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.” He “insisted the situation was not yet dire enough to warn defense employees of the potential fallout.” Well, that’s what he should say, we hardly want him shrieking hysterically for the whole world to hear, but we can read between the lines, I reckon:
… So, Mr. President, kind of looks to me like we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless *distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed. … Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks. …
If you think I’m being unduly pessimistic, feel free to correct me. I’d love to feel better about this, but I just can’t see why I should.
Published in Foreign Policy, General, Military
Russia is one of the countries of refuge for the Assyrian diaspora – which may colour their view of it.
I bring you further good cheer from this morning’s news:
Russia’s First Strikes In Syria Support Assad, Kill Civilians Besieged By ISIS, Regime:
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter refrained from immediately urging that we nuke the Kremlin (proving that he’s temperamentally better qualified for the job than I am), but noted that Russia was “pouring gasoline on a fire.”
I repeat:
Really roll that idea around in your mind. Personally, I reckon we should just cut to the chase and nuke the Kremlin — today. Not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed, but at least we’d have our pride intact.
This bores me nearly to sleep. This domestic enemy president and his idiot-coward Secretary of State will not give Comrade Vlad any real trouble. We will not resist the new Soviet occupation.
Frankly, if this gives us a good reason to send all the little islamic Elian Gonzales wannabes back to Fidel Putin at the end of our guns, then more power to him, and to them, and to His Excellency Colonel Obama.
Poland has been explicitly threatened with invasion over a symbolic sleight, and you may rest assured that the United States will not oppose that either. That I do not find boring. No, not at all. perhaps we can get Baghdad Josh on a tape loop explaining that Putin’s comments were meant for internal consumption, that our Soviet ally would never invade one of its former possessions.
Take heart, Fred. We may keep up the expense and pretense of dropping bombs, but we are losing the war(s) over there so thoroughly that we will shortly be at an end over there in a way even Howard Zinn would not have fantasized possible in his reddest of dreams.
The man apparently thinks that dropping bombs is how the job is done. I say Mr. Cole should be president of America–show Mr. Obama what a dove really is. I believe he can deliver a peace to America like no other–permanent, inescapable peace.
Germany will nuke up within the year. Not over Putin, but over the prospect of California trying to balance its budget via fining VW.
Settling down to watch The Prophecy, 1995, Walken and many others. Lik Equilibrium, this is a magnificent movie relegated to B-movie status by a few unforgivable flaws.
Delicious performances.
They aren’t paying you enough. Thanks
Any bombs – even the ones we drop just for practice?
On the radio this morning, a quote from Gen. Patraeus: “Syria is right now a global Chernobyl”. Who ever thought we would witness 2015: Christians tortured, beheaded, children raped and sold, an exodus of millions with a build up of Russia in the heart of the Middle East, and now China getting into it? What reason do either have to go in?
Russia has a penchant for control- to Europe, if you don’t behave, we flip off the fuel. Journalists better talk nice or you’re toast. Putin: Let me see how I can get myself re-elected after already serving 2 terms? How many decades since 1948 has Israel come to the table with concessions, land for peace, even though they are the size of Rhode Island, and yet have been despised by its neighbors who have more land and oil than they know what to do with? Why is the Middle East going up in flames and its Russia to the rescue – and get out US? This is a spiritual war – we can talk about history, politics, dictators, weapons til we’re blue – our adversaries know Obama’s time in office is running out, so we will see moves like this and much worse before he leaves.
Unless we have command of our mission, which we don’t, we have no choice but to get out. Now our troops have to look out for ISIS, Assad’s thugs and Russia? There are no jokes for this outcome.
As someone old enough to have been politically active during the last decade of the cold war, I find these events utterly dismaying.
When I think of the fear, the trillions of dollars and thousands of lives lost to contain the Soviet Union and ultimately defeat it, watching Russia expand relentlessly while an American president goes golfing and his Secretary of State smiles and jokes with the Russian Foreign Minister… words fail me.
It takes so long to build things, and it’s so easy to destroy them. This President is a one-man wrecking crew.
Dan,
Agreed.
Regards,
Jim
I’m sorry, but if you were politically active during the Cold War, I don’t know how you can look at what Russia is doing now, and either call it “expand[ing] relentlessly” or even compare it to the Soviet Union.
Soviet expansion in the cold war was briefly stopped in the 1960’s reemerged in the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and was terminated when the Warsaw Pact dissolved and ultimately the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.
Since you don’t realize that Russia has been expanding into Georgia (2008) – then Ukraine (2014) and now Syria (2015) – You probably aren’t the guy to discuss this with.
How has any of those examples worked out for them? The Soviets lost 12,000 men in Afghanistan. It was a bleeding ulcer before they left.
Did the Russians overrun Georgia or Ukraine? Other than taking back the Crimea, have they claimed vast swaths of territory for themselves?
The Russians aren’t rolling in the tanks and taking things over. They either don’t have the will or (more likely) simply don’t have the capacity to sustain that kind of thing.
An occasional war every few years? I’m sorry, but from where I’m sitting, this doesn’t look like relentless expansion.
This really does seem to be about Russia ensuring its own unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Eastern Mediterranean.
And I know that Assad’s a monster, but if Syria stabilises with Russian help I’m not sure he wouldn’t get acquiescence to his rule from most Syrians (given the alternatives).
Zafar, agree 100%.
Also, a re-Russified Syria would put pressure on the Islamist squatters currently occupying Constantinople, which is all about the Black Sea.
The Cold War is back.
BDB – I wonder what the Turkish reaction will be to this encirclement.
A couple of years ago I took my mother to Istanbul for two pretty awesome weeks – the first of which we spent with some pals of hers who were a Turkish couple she had made friends with in Delhi. Mrs Couple’s family was from Istanbul itself – Mr Couple’s father was from Rivan (Yerevan) and his mother was from Dagestan (next to Chechnya, now South Russia). I hadn’t realised, till I spoke to them, how much the Turkish perception of Russia was of a ravenous, displacing power which made them refugees – and that many families in Turkey carry this perception in their own history as descendants of Turks from Roumeli or from across the Black Sea. (Not to mention the descendants of Crimean Tatar or Circassian or Abkhaz etc. refugees who live in Turkey.)
After Syria “stabilizes” with “Russian help,” I’ll stabilize this here bucket of nitroglycerine with a blowtorch. Want to watch?
Pretty much so.
I will grant you that Chechnya is not an encouraging example.
They didn’t “take back” Crimea – they just took it. Yes, they did overrun Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia and have ‘recognized’ them as client states.
Gee, it is a shame you don’t hold Russia to the same standards you hold the US.
Why would I hold Russia to the same standard as the United States?
I love the United States, so I’m going to hold it to a much higher standard. Why? Because we’re not Russia. We’re better than Russia. We should strive to be better than them, not the same.
To paraphrase – I love the US soooo much I will struggle to keep it impotent while watching countries I don’t like as much expand into the power vacuum left behind.
This doesn’t hold up when you criticize in America what you defend in Russia. You especially should feel a vested interest in having all nations behave the same, but even without that, your position is not tenable.
@BDB: No. America should be other countries. Shouldn’t it? Aren’t we better? (Isn’t America exceptional?)
@Instugator: Please don’t paraphrase me. You’re really terrible at it.
America has been exceptional, but exceptionalism should not be an excuse for patronizing others. That is a trick of the progressives.
C’mon Fred. “Other than taking back the Crimea…”
Other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, how was Dallas?
Again: how did that work out for them? Do you think the Crimea was somehow a net gain for Russia?