Putin, a product of the Soviet Communist system is well acquainted with the dictum of the father of the Bolshevik revolution that gave birth to the regime that he so faithfully served. V. I. Lenin’s famous quote-” Probe with a bayonet. If you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”
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In ancient times there was no greater empire than that of Persia. This imperial power stretched from the mountains of Afghanistan all the way to the islands of Greece and the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. Against the Greeks of Alexander the Great, it could field armies of millions of troops arrayed with the most modern weapons of war at the time. Until the rise of the Roman Empire, no power on Earth, made nations tremble as did the rulers of Persia.
Today the fanatic Ayatollahs in Teheran, with a megalomaniacal apocalyptic dream of Islamist imperialism and world conquest under their banner of jihad are hell bent on the recreation of their ancient empire and the destruction of all they see as infidels and unbelievers. Their conception of faith is a political and social fanaticism that goes even further than the hysterical rantings and horrendous nightmare that Nazi Germany once attempted to foist on mankind. Indeed, the very Nazi terminology for its origin, the word “Aryan” is associated with the nation whose name is a derivative of that racist term-Iran.
However, other than employing proxy allies in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, the mad mullahs knew that their military, for all its goose stepping soldiers and bombast that they would require the tools necessary to fulfill their wicked aims. Firstly, it was able to build up a nuclear industry with the aim of developing the most lethal weapons of mass destruction. Through deception, deliberate obfuscation and diligent denial, it succeeded in the implantation of this atomic framework under the blindness of the international agency whose responsibility is to curtail the spread of nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, when its nefarious production methods and its open evidence of ballistic missile technology became apparent, Iran successfully parried the efforts to curtail its march toward nuclear weaponry by undertaking a Potemkin village of diplomacy whereby even the most seemingly astute diplomatically experienced national leaders, succumbed to the meanderings and sweetheart deal that Iranian negotiators engineered. The secrets of the Ayatollahs were swept under a Persian rug.
However, in the meantime, the Persian imperialist war mongers still were in great need of the assistance of a powerful ally in order to accomplish their more conventional aims in their desire to continue their conquest throughout the Middle East. What better place to seek this help than to another former empire builder than a nation which was chomping on the bit to return to an area of the globe from which it had been so unceremoniously evicted.
The former Soviet Union, now the Russian Federation, has had dreams of installing its imperial presence in the Mediterranean Sea since the days of the Czars. Until 1972 when the late Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, evicted ( for the most part as a political move, not a military one) most of the Soviet personnel from his country, the USSR had been ensconced throughout Egypt and the Arab world. Indeed, it was the humiliating defeat of the Egyptian and Syrian forces by the Israel Defense Forces during the Yom Kippur War that demonstrated at that time, the weakness of the Soviet response to American supported Israel which was demonstrating the vapidness of the Soviet promise to come to the aid of its Arab allies. The US response to Soviet threats to directly intervene on behalf of its Egyptian and Syrian clients, by moving the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet towards the Syrian coast and the declaration of a higher war footing by all US forces, made the Soviets back down.
The political and military supported victory of American arms and diplomacy demonstrated the resolve of that world power to face down the threat of Soviet dominance in such a strategic region of Western interests. Not only did the diplomacy of Henry Kissinger and the Nixon White House make a shambles of the massive Soviet involvement in the Arab world, but it brought about the first true demarche of Soviet (Russian) imperial chicanery since the Berlin blockade of 1948 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
But the Russian Federation today is led by a president whose demonstration of the old Russian imperial nightmare is alive and well. Vladimir Putin, a former high official of the dreaded KGB,( Soviet Secret Service) has no qualms about restoring the dreams of the Czars and the re-entrenchment of his nation’s appearance in the Middle East. As a significant power player on the world scene and a massive supplier of sophisticated arms to anyone who opposes Western influence anywhere on the planet, the situation in the Levant and the hysterical anti-American paranoia in Teheran led the Ayatollahs to the road towards Moscow.
Sending one of their highest ranking military official to Moscow was a masterstroke of diplomatic skullduggery in presenting Putin with a challenge and an opportunity he could not ignore, For here, he was presented with a silver platter with which to serve up a poisonous dish to his arch-rivals, America and NATO. After witnessing their weakness to confront his military in the Ukraine and the Crimea, as well as his bloody campaign in Chechnya, all Putin had to do was experience orgasmic delight in sending his sea and air forces into a disintegrating Syria and pour weapons by the shipload onto the docks of Bandar Abbas in Iran. In full sight of Western intelligence and American spy satellites, crate after crate of Soviet munitions were soon trundling off the piers of the Syrian port of Latakia.
Iran was facing a significant threat to its allies in that disintegrating country and witnessing the probable demise of its Syrian puppet, Bashar al-Assad. The forces of ISIS (an Iranian rival for control of the Islamic world) were on the march and its debilitating of the Syrian military as well as its capture of large swaths of Alawite controlled territory would put an end to the mullah’s plans for conquest. The entire northern tier of the Middle East would collapse and the Persian dream of conquering all the Sunni dominated lands of the region would go up in smoke. Iran had invested heavily in its subterfuge of the regimes of Iraq, Yemen and its military adventures in those countries. It required a strong ally and it looked to its northern neighbor with which its shares a common enmity for the West, and Putin, licked his chops and dove onto the plate presented to him.
Not only have Russian military forces seized control of the vital Syrian port of Latakia on the Mediterranean, but it has constructed revetments for air forces and ground personnel unseen in this region since the 1970s. His air forces have conducted bombing raids, not on ISIS, which was a planned political prevarication, but on US backed components of the anti-Assad coalition. Of course, Putin has no conflict with conducting airstrikes on civilians. After all, the West has been all but silent on the massive slaughter of approximately 300,000 civilians by the butcher of Damascus. Even when presented with irrefutable evidence of the use of internationally banned chemical weapons on his own countrymen, the US and NATO have been reticent (cowardly) in confronting this evil practice. Why not? The current leader of Syria’s father dropped poison gas on his own people in Homs when they revolted against his tyrannical rule and the world stood silent.
When the president of the United States declared that the Assad administration’s use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line” and force his hand – well, the red line turned into a yellow streak. The insipid and relatively weak assistance that this erstwhile leader of the world’s greatest superpower has shown to be the denigration and degradation of a once trusted and worthy ally. America’s allies no longer trust her and her enemies no longer fear her. It is not the American people who have lost their courage, it is their incompetently dangerous president and his minions that are responsible.
Not only for the rise of Russian/Iranian imperialism, but for its effect as daily demonstrated by the thousands, if not future hundreds of thousands, of men, women and children, fleeing from the murderous genocide of the Assad aided and abetted by this new Axis of evil-Islamic radicalism and Russian imperialism.
Iran seeks to conquer the Middle East and destroy the Sunni dominated Arab states of the region. With Russian assistance it will expand its imperial power behind Russian bayonets and the threat of its own nuclear umbrella to come. It is biding its time while innocents are being slaughtered and the threats against Israel, Jordan and Lebanon are unrelenting through public declarations and political oratory.
Putin, a product of the Soviet Communist system is well acquainted with the dictum of the father of the Bolshevik revolution that gave birth to the regime that he so faithfully served. V. I. Lenin’s famous quote-” Probe with a bayonet. If you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”
The American president, who through Constitutional authority commands the most expansive and well trained military in the history of the world, who purports to be the defender of international human rights, has proven himself to be, in the face of wanton aggression and slaughter, in the abrogation of his country’s duty to defend its most vital and established interests, in his tepid response to evil and his recalcitrance to even identify the greatest threat to Western civilization since the rise of Nazi Germany, has without a doubt, at least in this writer’s estimate, become akin to an ostrich-a bird that buries its head in the sand and presents its foes with an irresistible target.
The Dictionary of American Slang has a word for such a person-a weakling and a wimp-the word is “pansy.” The pansy of the United States will bring the most terrible war upon us all-including by beloved tiny Jewish country.
There has been such a mass (or maybe mess is more fitting) of bad news this week that it is not surprising that a number of shocking news items fell through the cracks — which is always the case with the running dogs in the media when the news reflects so very dreadfully on the community organizer in the White House.
Barack Obama was upstaged, upended and usurped by Russia’s Vladimir Putin this week, when, in one fell swoop, by his actions in Syria and speech at the United Nations, Putin took over the leadership role in the Middle East. Once again, Obama was “caught off guard.” That has become the rallying cry of his presidency.
Obama’s response? To further humiliate and denigrate our one steadfast and true ally.
Breitbart News reported that Obama actually went so far as to call Secretary of State John Kerry and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, into a video conference just before Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his historic and courageous speech to the UN General Assembly last Thursday.
The remnants of the U.S. delegation that did attend the speech pointedly did not applaud. The lowlife administration struck again. Obama was casting pearls before swine.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon broke protocol and summarily left when Netanyahu came to the lectern. Deputy UNSG Jan Eliasson slipped into the chair. The UN Secretary General is always present when a head of state addresses the General Assembly. But they broke the rule to humiliate the Jewish people. He left. There is no way that Ban Ki-moon would have shown such disrespect had he not been given the idea or, at the very least, the sanction, by the Jew-hater in the White House.
Why? Why would Obama publicly snub our tried and true ally in the hottest region in the world? Because he is evil. He embodies the hatred of the good for being the good.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has seized the initiative. After announcing that it was beginning operations against the Islamic State (ISIS), Russia is bombing our allies, Bashar Assad’s enemies, in Syria — not ISIS at all. “It’s one thing for us to be humiliated, but another for it to be shown to the world,” said Charles Krauthammer.
Put a fork in him: Barack Obama is done, and he has taken the United States, our allies, and freedom-loving peoples around the world with him. Now that Putin has so thoroughly shown him up, Obama’s only option now is to grovel. And he is groveling assiduously.
Obama’s surrender to the Russians this week has overturned the order of the Middle East and, by extension, the order of the entire world. He relinquished American hegemony in the Middle East–right after paving the way for a nuclear Iran. Obama’s subordinate role to the Russians in the “deconfliction” talks was stunning. Putin had Obama begging for “deconfliction” talks–and how quickly he turned over the deconfliction codes!
Deconfliction codes keep aircraft or missions apart to reduce the likelihood of so-called friendly fire. Has America ever done that before? According to Daniel Dombey in the Financial Times: “Two prior administrations, one of which was seen to be extraordinarily favourably disposed toward anything Israel, declined to do that.” That is, they declined to turn over the deconfliction codes to Israel at the start of the American invasion of the Iraq war and later. But when Russia demanded them, Obama jumped.
I don’t think that Bashar Assad should go. I never have. He kept the Christian and religious minorities safe, and if he goes, the Islamic State is the primary force in place to benefit from his fall. On Assad’s remaining in power as a bulwark against the Islamic State, Putin is right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
But this is much bigger than Assad. Obama’s turning the Middle East over to Russia and Iran is one of those terrible moments in history that you can point to, shaking your head in horror and saying, “If only…” Turning over the Middle East to Russia is a major historical blunder. That said, Putin is killing jihadists. Obama whines that Putin is killing the “opposition,” “our allies.” Who is Russia bombing? The 5 recruits that cost the US 500 million to train? “Moderate al Qaeda”? Jabhat al Nusra? #silverlining
The build-out of the Russian air base at Latakia has Russia flexing its muscles. Previously, Israel had a fairly free hand to carry out strikes against arms shipments that go from Iran through Syria to the Iranian-backed jihad group Hizb’Allah in Lebanon. But now the Russian presence in Syria severely limits Israel’s freedom of action.
What the future might hold as a result of Obama’s fecklessness, perfidy, and betrayal of Israel is anyone’s guess, but the catastrophic consequences of the Russia-Iran-Syria axis are far-reaching. The Islamic State is likely not only to survive, but to grow–and Ambassador John Bolton predicts that Putin and Iran’s Hassan Rouhani will eventually make a deal with them, reaching a modus vivendi with the Islamic State.
Catastrophe upon catastrophe, all courtesy of Barack Hussein Obama.
(I am not posting this because I currently accept its conclusions or some of their bases. However, it’s frightening, interesting and has at least some food for thought. — DM)
The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin has blindsided Barack Obama in the Middle East, catching the U.S. off-guard. It’s another Obama “failure,” we’re told. “Obama administration scrambles as Russia attempts to seize initiative in Syria,” is how a Washington Post headline described it. A popular cartoon shows Putin kicking sand in the faces of Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on a beach.
The conventional wisdom is driven by the notion that Obama has the best of intentions but that he’s been outmaneuvered. What if his intention all along has been to remake the Middle East to the advantage of Moscow and its client state Iran? What if he knows exactly what he’s doing? Too many commentators refuse to consider that Obama is deliberately working against U.S. interests and in favor of the enemies of the U.S. and Israel.
In his U.N. address, Obama said, “As President of the United States, I am mindful of the dangers that we face; they cross my desk every morning. I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.”
This is laughable. We still have a strong military, but the inevitable conclusion from what’s recently transpired is that he doesn’t want to protect the interests of the U.S. or its allies in the Middle East. This is not a “failure,” but a deliberate policy.
The trouble with conventional wisdom is the assumption that Obama sees things the way most Americans do. In order to understand Obama’s Middle East policy, it is necessary to consult alternative sources of news and information and analysis. That includes communist news sources.
A fascinating analysis appears in the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, The Militant, one of the oldest and most influential publications among the left. You may remember the old photos which surfaced of Lee Harvey Oswald selling copies of The Militant before he killed the American president.
The headline over The Militant story by Maggie Trowe caught my eye: “‘Reset’ with US allows Moscow to send arms, troops to Syria.” It was not about Hillary Clinton’s reset with Moscow years ago, but a more recent one.
Here’s how her story began: “Moscow’s rapid military buildup in Syria is a result of the ‘reset’ in relations forged with the Russian and Iranian governments by the Barack Obama administration. The deal—reshaping alliances and conditions from Syria, Iran and the rest of the Middle East to Ukraine and surrounding region—is the cornerstone of U.S. imperialism’s efforts to establish a new order in the Mideast, but from a much weaker position than when the now-disintegrating order was imposed after World Wars I and II.”
Of course, the idea that “U.S. imperialism” is served by giving the advantage to Russia and Iran is ludicrous. Nevertheless, it does appear that a “reset” of the kind described in this article has in fact taken place. The author writes about Washington’s “strategic shift to Iran and Russia” and the “downgrading” of relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia. She notes that Moscow “seeks more influence and control of the country [Syria] and its Mediterranean ports and a stronger political hand in Mideast politics.” Iran “has sent Revolutionary Guard Quds forces to help prop up Assad, and collaborates with Moscow on operations in Syria,” she notes.
It is sometimes necessary to reject the conventional wisdom and instead analyze developments from the point of view of the Marxists, who understand Obama’s way of thinking. They pretend that Obama is a pawn of the “imperialists” but their analysis also makes sense from a traditional pro-American perspective. Those who accept the evidence that Obama has a Marxist perspective on the world have to consider that his policy is designed to help Moscow and Tehran achieve hegemony in the region.
At the same time, the paper reported, “Since Secretary of State John Kerry’s congenial visit with Putin in May, it has become clear that Washington would accept Moscow’s influence over its ‘near abroad’ in Ukraine and the Baltics, in exchange for help to nail down the nuclear deal with Tehran.” Hence, Obama has put his stamp of approval on Russian aggression in Europe and the Middle East. This analysis, though coming from a Marxist newspaper, fits the facts on the ground. It means that more Russian aggression can be expected in Europe.
The wildcard is Israel and it looks like the Israeli government is being increasingly isolated, not only by Obama but by Putin. The story notes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Putin in Moscow on September 21, saying his concern was to “prevent misunderstandings” between Israeli and Russian troops, since Israel has carried out airstrikes in Syrian territory targeting weapons being transported to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon.
Some reports indicated that Israel had set up a joint mechanism with the Russian military to coordinate their operations in Syria.
However, the Russian leader reportedly told Obama during their U.N. meeting that he opposes Israeli attacks in Syria. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz ran a story that Russia intends to “Clip Israel’s Wings Over [the] Syrian Skies.” The paper added that Putin’s remarks to Obama showed that despite Netanyahu’s meeting with Putin in Moscow, “Russia intends to create new facts on the ground in Syria that will include restricting Israel’s freedom of movement in Syrian skies.”
It hardly seems to be the case that Obama has been outsmarted in the Middle East, or that Putin and Obama don’t like each other. Instead, it appears that Obama is working hand-in-glove with Putin to isolate Israel and that Obama is perfectly content to let the former KGB colonel take the lead.
Israel has always been seen by most U.N. members as the real problem in the region. Obama is the first U.S. President to see Israel in that same manner and to act accordingly. This is why Putin has not caught Obama off-guard in the least. They clearly see eye-to-eye on Israel and Iran.
Don’t forget that Obama actually telephoned Putin to thank him for his part in the nuclear deal with Iran. The White House issued a statement saying, “The President thanked President Putin for Russia’s important role in achieving this milestone, the culmination of nearly 20 months of intense negotiations.”
Building off the Iran nuclear deal, it looks like the plan is for Russia and the United States to force Israel to embrace a U.N. plan for a nuclear-free Middle East. That would mean Israel giving up control of its defensive nuclear weapons to the world body. Iran will be able to claim it has already made a deal to prohibit its own nuclear weapons development.
Such a scheme was outlined back in 2005 in an article by Mohamed Elbaradei, the director-general at the time of the U.N.‘s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). That’s the same body that is now supposed to guarantee Iranian compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal signed by Russia and the U.S.
Elbaradei argued there would have to be “a dialogue on regional security as part of the peace process,” to be followed by an agreement “to make the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone.”
The “dialogue” appears to be taking place now, mostly under the authority and auspices of the Russian government, with President Obama playing a secondary role.
The obvious danger is that Israel would be forced to comply with the plan for a “nuclear-weapons-free-zone,” while Iran would cheat and develop nuclear weapons anyway.
Netanyahu told the U.N. that “Israel deeply appreciates President Obama’s willingness to bolster our security, help Israel maintain its qualitative military edge and help Israel confront the enormous challenges we face.”
This must be his hope. But he must know that Israel’s security is slipping and that the survival of his country is in grave danger in the face of this Moscow-Washington-Tehran axis.
Before Putin further consolidates his military position in the Middle East and Iran makes more progress in nuclear weapons development, Netanyahu will have to launch a preemptive strike on the Islamic state. “Israel will not allow Iran to break in, to sneak in or to walk in to the nuclear weapons club,” the Israeli Prime Minister said.
In launching such a strike before the end of Obama’s second presidential term, Israel would bring down the wrath of the world, led by Russia and the U.S., on the Jewish state.
Russia’s military intervention in Syria has expanded radically in two directions.DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that China sent word to Moscow Friday, Oct. 2, that J-15 fighter bombers would shortly join the Russian air campaign that was launched Wednesday, Sept. 30. Baghdad has moreover offered Moscow an air base for targeting the Islamic State now occupying large swathes of Iraqi territory
Russia’s military intervention in Syria has five additional participants: China, Iran, Iraq,Syria and Hizballah.
The J-15 warplanes will take off from the Chinese Liaoning-CV-16 aircraft carrier, which reached Syrian shores on Sept. 26 (as DEBKAfile exclusively reported at the time). This will be a landmark event for Beijing: its first military operation in the Middle East as well the carrier’s first taste of action in conditions of real combat.
Thursday night, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi, made this comment on the Syrian crisis at a UN Security Council session in New York: “The world cannot afford to stand by and look on with folded arms, but must also not arbitrarily interfere (in the crisis).”
A no less significant development occurred at about the same time when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, speaking to the US PBS NewsHour, said he would welcome a deployment of Russian troops to Iraq to fight ISIS forces in his country too. As an added incentive, he noted that this would also give Moscow the chance to deal with the 2,500 Chechen Muslims whom, he said, are fighting with ISIS in Iraq.
DEBKAfile’s military sources add that Al-Abadi’s words came against the backdrop of two events closely related to Russia’s expanding role in the war arena:
1. A joint Russian-Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi war room has been working since last week out of the Iraqi Defense Ministry and military staff headquarters in Baghdad to coordinate the passage of Russian and Iranian airlifts to Syria and also Russian air raids. This command center is also organizing the transfer of Iranian and pro-Iranian Shiite forces into Syria.
2. Baghdad and Moscow have just concluded a deal for the Russian air force to start using the Al Taqaddum Air Base at Habbaniyah, 74 km west of Baghdad, both as a way station for the Russian air corridor to Syria and as a launching-pad for bombing missions against ISIS forces and infrastructure in northern Iraq and northern Syria.
Russia has thus gained a military enclave in Iraq, just as it has in Syria, where it has taken over a base outside Latakia on the western coast of Syria. At the same time, the Habbaniyah air base also serves US forces operating in Iraq, which number an estimated 5,000.
The U.S. has been relegated to dragging its feet in a trail blazed by the Russian leader, as Washington is left to practically beg Moscow for a seat at the table where Assad’s fate will be determined.
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U.S. President Barack Obama’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday was his worst and most embarrassing yet. Despite the fact that it has been seven years since he was elected president, it seems Obama has yet to learn anything from his growing list of failures, especially when it comes to foreign policy.
Obama continues to naively preach about the importance of traditional diplomacy and broad international cooperation as a prerequisite to conflict resolution; and he does so despite the fact that his decision to prematurely withdraw American troops from Iraq, compounded by his aversion to putting boots on the ground in Syria, have done nothing but breed violence, fanaticism and radical Islamism in the Middle East.
Against the backdrop of the bloody conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Obama delivered a disconnected and utterly surreal speech before the U.N., lauding democracy and international agreements, even deficient, hollow ones, like the nuclear deal with Iran.
Beyond the sanctimonious sermon to nations and movements without any loyalty to the principles of Western democracy, Obama’s speech lacked any new message. On the contrary — he essentially legitimized Russia’s military presence in Syria, and the pivotal role Moscow has appropriated in the region due to American inaction against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
This inexcusable failure, which followed Washington’s acquiescence in allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin become the new mediator in the chemical warfare crisis in Syria in 2013, has afforded Moscow a coveted opportunity to become a major player in the Middle East, one shaping a new political and security reality.
The U.S. has been relegated to dragging its feet in a trail blazed by the Russian leader, as Washington is left to practically beg Moscow for a seat at the table where Assad’s fate will be determined.
Indeed, if you strip the envelope of democracy vs. dictatorship from Obama’s speech, it becomes more than evident that he is not only willing to foster partnerships with tyrants and oppressive regimes, but also that the dispute between the White House and the Kremlin over Syria is marginal, as it focuses on Assad’s status in the new political order that will be forged in Syria once the fighting subsides.
The American Gulliver, it seems, is coming to terms with the end of the single-world power hegemony. While the Russian military airlift to Syria continues in full swing, Obama is content with philosophical reflections on the desired nature of the new world order, yielding to the new balance of power emerging in the war-torn country.
One can only lament the fact that the U.S. president’s incomprehensible weakness only undermines the very democratic dream he himself has outlined.
This was evident in the meeting between Obama and Putin following their respective U.N. addresses. Despite Obama’s desire to give his Russian counterpart the cold shoulder, the fact the he declared before dozens of world leaders that the U.S. has “no desire to return to a cold war” took the sting out of his message.
This was nothing but an attempt at damage control over the harm caused to the U.S.’s prestige and status in the global theater by drawing new red lines to limit Russia’s operation in the Middle East. The problem is that we already know how blurry those red lines are when it comes to Syria.
(Unfortunately, Obama was “in the game” which led to the nuke “deal” with Iran. There, he was not incompetent; he got what he sought. — DM)
Obama has made a lot of foreign policy mistakes in office, but his capitulation on the Iranian nuclear talks followed by Russia’s move into Syria is impossible to explain away as anything but a stupendous strategic fiasco. Incompetence is too nice a word. Obama was never even in the game.
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It is sometimes said that in negotiations with foreigners, American leaders play checkers, while their wilier opponents play chess. There is perhaps some truth to this, as American leaders sometimes chase short-term political results, a consequence of democratic governance and constantly changing leadership. By contrast, despotic Persians are credited with inventing chess, and in modern times autocratic Russians have been its master, and so it is tempting to say of President Obama’s dealings with those two countries that the analogy holds.
But that is way too charitable. As Vladimir Putin skillfully reasserts Russian power and influence in the Middle East with Islamic Persian Iran as a willing partner, a more apt analogy might be that while the Russians and Iranians move their chessmen, isolating and threatening opposing pieces, Obama is not even at the table, but rather childishly looking on, as he pushes diplomatic dirt around the Middle East sandbox.
For over 150 years, a primary objective of Western diplomatic and military strategy was to keep the Russians out of the Middle East and Southwest Asia. In the 1850s, the British and French went to war in Crimea to protect the Ottomans from Russian predation and to preserve the balance of power. Later, the so-called “Great Game” centered on similar British efforts to frustrate Russian domination of Iran and Afghanistan. A century later, the United States took up the task, offsetting Russian influence in newly socialist Arab dictatorships by backing Israel and more traditional Arab monarchies in the Middle East, while openly and successfully opposing the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan.
Today, one can’t even say there remains any Western strategy regarding Russia. Western Europe has mostly forfeited its military and political influence overseas to support decadent welfare states, even as it is being progressively and deliberately overwhelmed by millions of Islamist migrants. Under Obama, who supports and admires Europe’s demise, the United States has increasingly joined in the decline. The laughable Libyan campaign, “fought” by Europeans while the U.S. led from behind, set an example of pursuing a feckless, feel-good military campaign without regard for consequences or traditional strategic concerns. Obama’s encouragement of the so-called Arab Spring and its Islamist provocateurs almost lost Egypt and did lose Syria, with catastrophic humanitarian and geopolitical results.
Putin is taking advantage of American weakness and inaction. A half-century of successful American effort to keep the Russians out of the Middle East has been forfeit in a few months of breathtaking American diplomatic and military incompetence. Obama’s capitulation in the Iran deal effectively completed the groundwork for the Russian move, Putin having carefully monitored America’s year-long and ineffectual air campaign against ISIS. Putin now claims that Russia’s push into Syria is to redeem the campaign against ISIS with Russian troops fighting with Syria and Hezb’allah. Embarrassed by Putin at the U.N., Obama gave up any pretense of strength, effectively welcoming the Russian “intervention” against ISIS. Unexplained is why a large percentage of Russian anti-ISIS forces are heavily equipped with anti-aircraft weapons, something that even a flaccid NATO command cannot ignore, inasmuch as ISIS have an air force. Those weapons are useful only against NATO or Israeli aircraft.
So lost was Obama before his meeting with Putin at the U.N. that his stated strategy for dealing with the Russian strongman was to ask him what he was doing. From the stiff and awkward body language of the president following the meeting (a painful handshake and awkward smile) it is clear that Putin told Obama at least some of the story, whether Obama liked it or not. Most particularly, his client Bashar Assad will remain in power with Russian backing, regardless of Obama’s view on the matter. But likely Obama had known what he was in for, and just going through the motions. The day before, Secretary of State of State John Kerry responded to a question about how long the U.S. could tolerate the survival of Assad, saying, “… it doesn’t have to be on day one or month one or whatever.” Right, dude, whatever. Between Obama and Kerry, it is now fair to assume that our much muddled and irresolute Syrian policy is “whatever,” which means we just don’t care. We take our toys and go home.
If Obama was hoping, as he and his supporters implied, that the Iranian deal would produce a more moderate, cooperative Iran, Putin and the mullahs are doing all they can to demonstrate how wrong he was. If he was hoping that “international pressure” and the conflict in Ukraine would moderate Putin’s aggressive strategies, he was wrong again. And if he thinks that by quitting, he has left Putin an unwinnable game, the Russian leader aims to prove him wrong again. And since Obama is almost always wrong when it comes to foreign policy, it’s a fool’s errand to bet against Putin.
In chess, before going for the opponent’s king, typical strategy calls for supporting one’s important pieces, while threatening and isolating opposing pieces. The Russians and Iranians are now going about this with a vengeance, without the United States or the West making any noticeably effective counter-moves. Russia is backing and protecting Assad and has closely allied itself with a newly empowered (thanks largely to Obama) Iran. Meanwhile, traditional American allies in the region, Israel, Egypt, and the Arab monarchies are indeed increasingly threatened and isolated. The stage is being set for a Russo-Iranian endgame that could prove disastrous to America’s traditional allies and the West in general.
Some of Obama’s liberal supporters dismiss such analysis as over the top, and insist that Putin’s moves have more to do with domestic politics than a long-term Middle Eastern power play. They point out Putin’s problems at home, and the relative weakness of the Russian military. However, relative Russian weakness means little when moving into a power vacuum created by Obama’s flight from international responsibilities and, to a large extent, reality. And besides, this has been the basic way liberals have sought to excuse Obama whenever he is pushed around by a foreign leader (which is almost always). Putin’s got problems, so he invades Ukraine, threatens the Baltic States, and moves into Syria. The Chinese have problems, so they push naval vessels into American waters and fortify disputed Western Pacific archipelagos. Korea’s got problems, Iran’s got problems, and none of their aggressive actions has anything to do with the dilettante in the White House. It’s all about solving problems at home with international temper tantrums.
Obama has made a lot of foreign policy mistakes in office, but his capitulation on the Iranian nuclear talks followed by Russia’s move into Syria is impossible to explain away as anything but a stupendous strategic fiasco. Incompetence is too nice a word. Obama was never even in the game.
A day after the White House said that “clarity” on Russian intentions in Syria had been achieved at the Obama-Putin summit in New York, the Russian President Vladimir Putin notched up the military tensions around Syria Wednesday, Sept. 30. A senior US official said that Russian diplomats had sent an official demarche ordering US planes to quit Syria, adding that Russian fighter jets were now flying over Syrian territory. US military sources told Fox News that US planes would not comply with the Russian demand. “There is nothing to indicate that we are changing operations over Syria,” a senior defense official said.
Earlier, Putin sought from the Russian upper house, the Federation Council, authorization for the use of military force abroad. He did not specify the country or region, but the only part of the world where Russia is currently building up its ground, air and naval forces outside the country is Syria.
A short time after the request, the Federation Council announced that it had unanimously authorized the use of Russian military force in Syria. The last time Putin sought this authorization was in early 2014 when he decided to annex the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. His action now contradicts his assertion to CBS on Sept. 28: “Russia will not participate in any troop operations in the territory of Syria or in any other states. Well, at least we don’t plan on it right now.”
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Russian preparations for military action in Syria are clearly not limited to that country. They are being run by a joint coordination forward command and war room established a few days ago by Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria in Baghdad. It is designed as the counterpart of the US Central Command-Forward-Jordan war room established north of Amman for joint US-Saudi-Qatari-Israeli-Jordanian and UAE operations in support of Syrian rebel operations against the Assad regime.
Two rival power war rooms are therefore poised at opposite ends of the Syrian arena – one representing a US-led alliance for operations against Assad, and the other a Russian-led group which is revving up to fight on his behalf.
Conspicuous in the swiftly evolving Syrian situation is the detailed advance planning which went into the Russian military buildup and partnerships, and the slow perception of what was going on, on the part of the United States and Israel.
Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter instructed his staff to establish a communication channel with the Kremlin to ensure the safety of US and Russian military operations and “avoid conflict in the air” between the two militaries. The Russian defense ministry shot back with a provocative stipulation that coordination with the US must go through Baghdad, an attempt to force Washington to accept that the two war rooms would henceforth communicate on equal terms.
Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon denied Tuesday night that Israel was coordinating its operations with the Russian army, stressing that Israel reserves the IDF’s right to freedom of action over Syria and would continue to prevent arms supplies reaching terrorist organizations such as Hizballah.
Meanwhile, six advanced Russian SU-34 strike fighter jets landed at Latakia’s Al-Assad international airport, after flying to their destination through Iraqi airspace.
The Russian military buildup is assuming far greater proportions than either imagined, far outpacing US or Israeli efforts at coordination.
The situation in the Middle East is very complicated these days, particularly when it comes to the ongoing strife in Syria. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani both gave speeches at the U.N. General Assembly in New York that in normal times could have been dismissed as amusing. But in the era of Islamic State, everyone is suddenly trying to appear to be righteous, including Putin and Rouhani.
Putin, for example, believes that Syria’s future must include Bashar Assad, the tyrant who is responsible for the deaths of 250,000 of his own people. As Putin said, “Only Assad is fighting against Islamic State.” Meanwhile, Rouhani declared, “No country should use terrorism to interfere in another country’s affairs.” Let us remember that these were addresses delivered to the world, rather than jokes uttered on a satire program. What a farce.
The sad reality that exists in the Middle East these days is what allowed these two leaders to make such “comical” statements. The growth of Islamic State and the failure of the U.S.-led coalition against it have given Russia and Iran a great opportunity to bolster their international status.
For the Russians, this is a chance to erase memories of their actions in Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula. For the Iranians, this provides an opening to deflect attention away from 35 years of exporting terrorism around the globe. Russia and Iran are both fortunate that Islamic State exists.
Putin met with U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday to tell him that the purpose of Russia’s increased military presence in Syria was to fight Islamic State. He also told Obama that the rebuilding of Syria would require the rebuilding of the Assad regime.
Obama was right on Monday when, in his own address to the U.N. General Assembly, he said that Assad must have no political future in Syria. Unfortunately, there are two small things that contradict Obama’s view of the situation. First, the pre-civil war Syria no longer exists. And second, all reconstruction proposals for Syria include a transition period during which a role for Assad would be necessary. And who knows how many years this transition would take?
Obama may not want Assad in power, but in reality, an Assad regime backed by Russia and Iran is what there is in Syria. Since Obama reiterated on Monday that the U.S. cannot solve global problems by itself, perhaps he should have added how wonderful it is to have Russia and Iran to help him. This is the woeful state of our world today.
Obama’s General Assembly address was his second-last before he leaves the White House in January 2017. In Monday’s speech, he tried to outline what his legacy will be. One must give Obama credit for adhering to his outlook, even after all of the mishaps he has been personally responsible for.
Russia and Iran were the big winners in New York on Monday. Putin, who was ostracized after Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year, is now the world’s great hope in the fight against Islamic State. And Iran is already talking about a “new world order,” thanks to the nuclear deal it signed with world powers in July.
And what does this all mean for Israel? “The Zionist regime is the root of all terrorism,” Rouhani said in his speech on Monday. How hopeful!
What is the solution for all this? Who knows? Perhaps we will get the answer at the U.N. General Assembly in 2016.
It was the cover the New York Daily News that condensed President Ford’s denial of federal aid to New York City in the classic headline: FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD. Somewhat more fairly, but equally concisely, today’s Daily News cover condenses the action at the United Nations yesterday between Presidents Obama and Putin.
It’s a sort of PUTIN TO OBAMA moment. Cameron Joseph’s cover story is here. Like everyone else in world politics — everyone outside the White House, that is — Putin has Obama’s number.
President Obama’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Monday morning was a rambling journey through a fantasy world where his foreign policy hasn’t been an unmitigated disaster.
Perhaps the most bizarre moment came when he tried to tout his Libyan adventure as a success.
There was plenty of tough-guy posturing that intimidated absolutely no one. The Russian and Iranian delegations were especially good at looking bored and unimpressed when he called upon them to do this-or-that because The World supposedly demanded it. Obama hasn’t figured out he’s the only leader at the U.N. eager to sacrifice his nation’s interests to please The World.
Obama made the weird decision to vaguely threaten Russia over its invasion of Ukraine by claiming that The World would not stand idly by and allow it… when that’s exactly what The World, and especially First Citizen of the World Barack Obama, has been doing. He essentially pleaded with Iran to stop supporting terrorist proxies and pursuing its aggressive regional ambitions, and focus on their economy instead. (Of course, in Obama’s vigorous imagination, the U.S. has been enjoying an economic boom under his stewardship, instead of an endless grinding non-recovery and limp, sporadic growth, after Obama’s spending doubled the national debt in a single presidency.)
It was bad enough that the President talked about American troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan as the triumphant conclusion of an effective policy, rather than the hideous blunder that allowed ISIS to create a terror state, al-Qaeda to rise from the ashes, and the Taliban to begin planning its return to power. At the same moment Obama was speaking, the Taliban was conducting a major offensive in Afghanistan, on par with the importance of ISIS taking Mosul in Iraq. Obama’s pitifully small “New Syrian Force” of U.S.-backed rebels just handed a good deal of its American equipment over to al-Qaeda, and no one really knows what became of the unit itself. Their predecessors were destroyed by al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front in Syria, with less than half a dozen survivors still on the field.
When Obama boasted of the Libyan operation as the successful removal of a tyrant, jaws must have hit the floor around the room. Libya is an unholy disaster, a wasteland of warlords fighting to keep ISIS off their turf. It’s a key gateway for the incredible migratory tide blasting out of Africa and the Middle East and now surging across Europe. And yet, Obama portrays it as [a] laudable example of tyrant removal… while modestly admitting that “our coalition could have, and should have, done more to fill a vacuum left behind.”
Of course he blamed everyone else in the “coalition” for the disaster in Libya. He’s Barack Obama. The day may come when he takes responsibility for something, but today is not that day, and tomorrow isn’t looking good either.
The scary thing about Obama is that he believes so completely in the power of his own rhetoric.
He thinks he can reshape reality with his words. When he scolds the Iranians for their “Death to America!” rhetoric by saying bloodthirsty chants don’t create jobs, he’s asking Iran to live up to the silly talking points he foisted off on the American people to cover the Iranian nuclear deal. He’s commanding Iran to act like the enlightened, responsible nation-state he gambled the future of Israel, America, and much of the Western world on.
The Iranians, on the other hand, see no reason to knock off the “Death to America!” chants, disband their theocracy, and begin spending their days arguing about stimulus bills. Belligerence has gotten them everything so far. They’ve been rewarded for it… by Barack Obama. They’ve got $150 billion in sanctions relief coming their way. They can afford to send a few guys to sit in the U.N. General Assembly with pissy expressions on their faces while Obama rambles on about how geo-political crime does not pay. They know for a fact it pays, quite handsomely. The Iranians are already using their Obama loot to reinforce terror proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, and secure Bashar Assad in power.
Ah, yes, Bashar Assad… the dictator Obama still blathers on about removing from power, even as his own diplomatic apparatus gets used to the idea Assad is not going anywhere. The only really good part of Obama’s speech was when he spent five seconds glaring at the Syrian ambassador before launching into his denunciation of barrel bombs and chemical weapons. But you know what? That Syrian ambassador gets paid enough to take a few seconds of hairy eyeball from the ineffectual American president. The Russians are smoothly replacing American influence across the Middle East, in partnership with Iran. The new order is taking shape. Obama isn’t going to reverse that process by telling aggressive, bare-knuckle conquerors they should be ashamed of themselves.
The other dangerous thing about this delusional President is his belief in the “judgment of history.”
He’s constantly hitting on the idea that all of the world’s villains are on the wrong side of history, and will find themselves buried in the sands of time any day now. It’s a dodge, a way of Obama evading responsibility. Bashar Assad is going to remerge from the Wrong Side of History in pretty good shape. ISIS is very comfortable there, as is Iran. Qaddafi didn’t assume room temperature because History caught up with him. Vladimir Putin has a lovely view of Crimea from the wrong side of history. The history of Europe is being reshaped by the tramping of a million “refugee” feet.
In every example, Obama clings to the idea that he can change the world by talking and scoring debate points, while his adversaries seize territory and control the course of events. It’s not as though Obama has some deep-seated reluctance to use deadly force – there have been a lot of deaths by drone strike since he won that Nobel Peace Prize. What Obama lacks is commitment. His foreign policy is all about gestures and distractions. He cooks up half-baked plans that will blow up a terrorist here and there, so he can’t be accused of doing “nothing,” but he won’t do anything that could cost him political capital at home. Even Libya was half-hearted and calculated for minimum risk, which is why the place went to an even deeper Hell after Qaddafi was overthrown.
Obama talks as if he’s taken action against numerous crises, but all he ever did was talk about them. The men of action are stacking up bodies, and raising flags over conquered cities, while this President is writing speeches and trying to win applause from editorial boards. The men of action know that Obama’s promises all have expiration dates, his vows of action always have escape clauses, and no matter how he loves to boast that he heads up the most powerful military the world has ever seen, he’s done everything he can to make it weaker.
President Obama is still clinging to a romantic vision of the “Arab Spring” as a flourishing of democracy, despite all evidence to the contrary. He’s giving the same foreign policy speeches he gave in 2009 because he can’t bear to live in the world he made. He talks about filling vacuums and voids… but those voids are already filled, by hard characters with plans to make the most of the extraordinary opportunity Barack Obama afforded them.
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