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Russia’s endgame in Syria: Follow the Money

October 7, 2015

Russia’s endgame in Syria: Follow the Money, Center for Security Policy, John Cordero, October 6, 2015

(Is Putin engaging in a holy war against the Islamic State, an oily war or both? — DM)

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The one strategic motivation for Russia that has been widely ignored is the economic one.  Qatar, the richest country in the world per capita and also owner of the world’s largest natural gas field, proposed in 2009 to jointly construct a gas pipeline running through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and into Europe.  Assad, not wanting to provoke Moscow, refused to sign on.  Instead, he floated an alternative: an Iran-Iraq-Syria and possibly Lebanon pipeline, to then follow under the Mediterranean to Europe. The Qatar-Turkey pipeline would run through majority Sunni countries with the exception of Syria’s Alawite regime. Assad’s counter proposal follows the Shia crescent.

Russia, not wanting to lose its primary market in Europe, is adamantly opposed to a prospective Qatari project.  A military presence in Syria will guarantee that even if Assad is removed from power, the pipeline will not be built.  It will look on favorably to the Iranian proposal, provided Gazprom and other state-owned companies get their share of the pie.

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As Vladimir Putin orders airstrikes against rebels of all stripes fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime, there are important strategic economic goals behind Russia’s actions in Syria.  The short term goal is easy to discern: prevent Assad’s collapse as no alternative suitable to Russian interests exists, preserve Russia’s only naval base in the Middle East at Tartus, and promote Russia both at home and abroad as a world power that counterbalances American hegemony.

Much of the media has focused on Putin as a personal driver of Russian behavior.  While forays into Georgia and Ukraine have accomplished the tactical goals of preventing increased European Union presence in Russia’s sphere of influence, these have come at a high cost both politically and economically in the form of isolation and sanctions. Putin seems to have concluded that intervening in Syria in the name of fighting terrorism can only help repair Russia’s battered image.

It is important to at least try to understand Putin’s motivation without delving too much into psychoanalysis.  He is on record as lamenting the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”  In power since 2000, the former KGB officer is an ardent Russian nationalist, a promoter of a personality cult concerned with his country’s standing and perception in the world.  With his career spent in the service of the state, he is not one to take a background role in world affairs. Putin has effectively used Russia’s alliance with Iran as an effective tool to undermine the US, both regionally in the Gulf and globally with the nuclear deal.

The current buildup at Tartus and Latakia is nothing new: since Hafez al-Assad’s rise to power in 1970, the Former Soviet Union and then Russia was and is a stalwart ally, long attempting to position Syria as a counterbalance to American and Israeli military superiority in the Middle East.

Russia’s actions are also a message to the world: unlike the US, which abandoned long-time ally Hosni Mubarak during his time of need in Egypt, Russia is prepared to intervene, militarily if necessary, to preserve a friendly regime in danger.  Therefore, it pays for autocrats to court Moscow, especially if they possess valuable resources or are in prime strategic locations.

While Vladimir Putin ostensibly espouses the acceptable goal of a global alliance against IS, the strategic context is that he has entered into a sectarian alliance with Shia Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the proxy army Hezbollah (The P4+1) against the American-backed Sunni alliance of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and the UAE, all of whom insist that Assad has no future in Syria.

Through its airstrikes, Russia continues to advance the prior Syrian strategy of focusing efforts against pro-Western rebels, with the recognition that, while dangerous, the Islamic State is the one party in the conflict the West will never support.

The Islamic State will take advantage of both the respite, and the propaganda value of being the recognized number one enemy of the infidel coalition, which it uses to rally supporters simply by pointing out that its enemies are gathering to destroy the renewed Caliphate.

The one strategic motivation for Russia that has been widely ignored is the economic one.  Qatar, the richest country in the world per capita and also owner of the world’s largest natural gas field, proposed in 2009 to jointly construct a gas pipeline running through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and into Europe.  Assad, not wanting to provoke Moscow, refused to sign on.  Instead, he floated an alternative: an Iran-Iraq-Syria and possibly Lebanon pipeline, to then follow under the Mediterranean to Europe. The Qatar-Turkey pipeline would run through majority Sunni countries with the exception of Syria’s Alawite regime. Assad’s counter proposal follows the Shia crescent.

Russia, not wanting to lose its primary market in Europe, is adamantly opposed to a prospective Qatari project.  A military presence in Syria will guarantee that even if Assad is removed from power, the pipeline will not be built.  It will look on favorably to the Iranian proposal, provided Gazprom and other state-owned companies get their share of the pie.

Pipeline politics in the region have a long and varied history of Russian involvement.  The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline was built only after Moscow’s demand for an alternative pipeline for Azeri oil to Russia was met.  During the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, US intelligence officials determined that an explosion on the pipeline near the Turkish-Georgian border was carried out via Russian government cyber warfare.  Days after the explosion, Russian fighter jets bombed positions in Georgia close to the pipeline. Although the BTC pipeline was built precisely to avoid Russian interference, the Kremlin has never let that stop them.

Turkey and Azerbaijan have also begun construction on a joint natural gas pipeline, theTANAP. This project’s stated goal is to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian natural gas, a prospect that cannot please Moscow.   Both the BTC and TANAP bypass Armenia, a Russian ally and wary of its neighbors in the Caucasus.

As the endpoint for the Qatari project, Turkey is adamant in calling for Assad to step down or be removed, which dovetails with the proposed Sunni pipeline.  By clearing the way through Syria, Qatar and Saudi Arabia can receive a handsome return on their investment in backing jihadis fighting Assad.  On the other hand, Iran will not sit idly by and leave potential billions of dollars in the hands of its ideological and regional enemies.

Russian intervention in Syria is just beginning. There is every possibility that it will expand as more targets are found, perhaps those that are in the way of the proposed Iranian pipeline, directly threatening Damascus and by extension, the Russian monopoly of gas exports to Europe.  For the time being, Putin has the world’s attention.

Categories: Foreign policy, Iran - Syria war, Iran scam, Iranian oil, Islamic State, Islamic supremacy, Middle East, Obama - Middle East, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Oil, Oil war, Putin, Qatar, Russia, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war, Russian oil
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Right Turn Opinion Our ‘Baghdad Bob’ president

October 7, 2015

Right Turn Opinion Our ‘Baghdad Bob’ president, Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin, October 7, 2015

(Ms. Rubin is WaPo’s token conservative. Do go to the link and read the generally unfavorable comments about her article. — DM). 

So it has come to this: We now can recognize that Carter was not malicious or indifferent to American influence; he was simply slow to catch on. If Carter, widely regarded as the weakest foreign policy president of the second half of the 20th century, looks good in comparison, you can understand how daft is Obama’s worldview. Had he been in Carter’s shoes, I suppose he would have cheered rather than take steps to mitigate imperialistic aggression. Umm, thank goodness Carter was in the White House and not Obama? Yes, it has come to that.

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Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, better known as “Baghdad Bob,” was the unintentionally hilarious Iraqi information minister who, no matter what evidence to the contrary, emphatically predicted evisceration of U.S. forces during the Iraq war and denied any news suggesting otherwise. As NBC News recalled, “His last public appearance as information minister was on April 8, 2003, the day before the fall of Baghdad, when he said that the Americans ‘are going to surrender or be burned in their tanks. They will surrender, it is they who will surrender.’ ”

Baghdad Bob now seems to be the model for the Obama White House. Ramadi falls to the Islamic State? No bother, we are winning! Russia invades Ukraine? Russian President Vladimir Putin — take this! — is on the “wrong side of history,” is only going to “wreck his country’s economy and continue Russia’s isolation,” was “desperate” to talk to Obama (and the next day commenced bombing U.S.-backed rebels in Syria) and is about to get “stuck in a quagmire” in Syria. Russia moves more forces into Syria, changing the dynamic in the Middle East? President Obama brushes it aside. Putin is acting out of “weakness,” you see. Next thing you know, the Russians will have to “surrender or be burned in their tanks.”

One is tempted to assume, is hopeful even, that the president and his spokesmen don’t believe what they are saying. It is less frightening to imagine this is ham-handed excuse-mongering for a failed foreign policy than to imagine Obama thinks things are going swimmingly. If Obama actually believes we have Putin just where we want him, why not concede all of Ukraine — or the rest of the former Soviet Union, even. If it’s to our advantage to have Russia prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and destroy the U.S.-backed rebels, then we should be thrilled Russia is now being invited into Iraq to bomb the Islamic State. For that matter, why not welcome Iranian domination of Iraq and a new Shiite-Russian-Iranian crescent?

This is the bizarre parallel universe in which U.S. marginalization is good, chaos is nothing to worry about, the worst human rights offenders are our partners and traditional U.S. allies (Israel, Sunni states, even Turkey) will just have to lump it. It’s a world in which the system of nation-state sovereignty is subsumed to zones of influence — without the United States getting a zone. About the only politician willing to buy into such insanity is Donald Trump, who thinks it is a swell idea to have Putin fighting the Islamic State (except he is not fighting the Islamic State).

You can see why conservatives consider Obama a sharp departure from decades of American foreign policy under Democratic and Republican presidents. Instead of acting as a guarantor of the West’s security, the friend of free peoples and a check against rogue states, we rationalize weakness and abandon innocents. We tend to describe the president’s foreign policy as “feckless,” but it is worse: It is monstrous.

Even Jimmy Carter woke up, it is said, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. He did not think it was a good thing that the Soviets were invading an independent nation or that the West should huff and puff but take no action.

To the contrary, in what was surely the best speech of his presidency, Carter told the country: “This invasion is an extremely serious threat to peace because of the threat of further Soviet expansion into neighboring countries in Southwest Asia and also because such an aggressive military policy is unsettling to other peoples throughout the world. This is a callous violation of international law and the United Nations Charter. It is a deliberate effort of a powerful atheistic government to subjugate an independent Islamic people.” Unlike Obama, Carter grasped the danger in letting aggressors succeed: “The United States wants all nations in the region to be free and to be independent. If the Soviets are encouraged in this invasion by eventual success, and if they maintain their dominance over Afghanistan and then extend their control to adjacent countries, the stable, strategic, and peaceful balance of the entire world will be changed. This would threaten the security of all nations including, of course, the United States, our allies, and our friends.” He went on to announce a series of concrete steps — “defer further consideration of the SALT II treaty,” “delay opening of any new American or Soviet consular facilities, and most of the cultural and economic exchanges,” “halt or to reduce exports to the Soviet Union,” suspend licensing of “high technology or other strategic items,” end grain sales, pull out of the Olympics and “provide military equipment, food, and other assistance to help Pakistan defend its independence and its national security against the seriously increased threat it now faces from the north.”

More important, unlike Obama, who is emphatic that we stay on the path of slashing our military, Carter began repairing our military and extending covert efforts, as historian Arthur Herman recalls:

The first was pledging that US defense spending would rise by 4.6 percent per year, every year for five years, starting in 1980. This shocked and infuriated his fellow Democrats — and greased the wheels for President Ronald Reagan’s military buildup. (In the event, Reagan wound up increasing defense outlays less than Carter had planned.)

The second step came in the 1980 State of the Union Address, with announcement of the Carter Doctrine: The United States would use military force if necessary to defend our interests in the Persian Gulf.

To back this up, the president authorized the creation of the first Rapid Deployment Force — the ancestor of US Central Command or CENTCOM, the wheelhouse from which the United States would direct Desert Storm in 1991 and the fall of Saddam Hussein a decade later, and which keeps the Straits of Hormuz, vital to global energy markets, safe and open today.

The last step was authorizing the first covert military aid to Afghan guerrillas fighting their Soviet occupiers. That marked the start of the Soviet quagmire in Afghanistan — a major landmark in the ultimate undoing of the Soviet Union.

You see, a “quagmire” happens only when a power is confronted, stalls and undergoes unjustified losses. Otherwise, it is called a successful invasion.

So it has come to this: We now can recognize that Carter was not malicious or indifferent to American influence; he was simply slow to catch on. If Carter, widely regarded as the weakest foreign policy president of the second half of the 20th century, looks good in comparison, you can understand how daft is Obama’s worldview. Had he been in Carter’s shoes, I suppose he would have cheered rather than take steps to mitigate imperialistic aggression. Umm, thank goodness Carter was in the White House and not Obama? Yes, it has come to that.

Categories: Carter, Denial, Foreign policy, Human rights, Ideology, Iran - Middle East, Iran - Syria war, Middle East, Obama - Middle East, Obama - rogue president, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's weakness, Putin, Right and wrong sides of history, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war, U.S. allies, U.S. politics
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Inspector Clouseau could not be reached for comment

October 7, 2015

Inspector Clouseau could not be reached for comment, Power Line,  Scott Johnson, October 6, 2015

Reading the page-one story (accessible here via Google) by Adam Entous in today’s Wall Street Journal, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. The Obama administration appears to be shocked, shocked that Vladimir Putin has not been entirely straightforward with them about Russian intentions in Syria. Entous reports:

Russia has targeted Syrian rebel groups backed by the Central Intelligence Agency in a string of airstrikes running for days, leading the U.S. to conclude that it is an intentional effort by Moscow, American officials said.

The assessment, which is shared by commanders on the ground, has deepened U.S. anger at Moscow and sparked a debate within the administration over how the U.S. can come to the aid of its proxy forces without getting sucked deeper into a proxy war that President Barack Obama says he doesn’t want. The White House has so far been noncommittal about coming to the aid of CIA-backed rebels, wary of taking steps that could trigger a broader conflict.

“On day one, you can say it was a one-time mistake,” a senior U.S. official said of Russia’s strike on one of the allied rebel group’s headquarters. “But on day three and day four, there’s no question it’s intentional. They know what they’re hitting.”

U.S. officials say they now believe the Russians have been directly targeting CIA-backed rebel groups that pose the most direct threat to Mr. Assad since the campaign began on Wednesday, both to firm up regime positions and to send a message to Mr. Obama’s administration.

Russian officials said last week that they had launched the air campaign in Syria to fight the extremist group Islamic State and other terrorists—adopting the language that the Syrian regime uses to refer to all its opponents. U.S. intelligence officials said the primary mission of the operation appeared to be shoring up the Assad regime and preventing rebels gaining any additional ground on government-controlled areas, rather than fighting Islamic State.

Hope abides, however, as the Obama administration continues to repose its faith in the good will of the Supreme Leader and lesser authorities leading the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Categories: Assad, Foreign policy, Insurgents, Iran - Syria war, Iran military, Islamic State, Middle East, Nursa Front, Obama - Middle East, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Putin, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war
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Ban Ki-moon, Obama work to Humiliate Israel

October 3, 2015

Ban Ki-moon, Obama work to Humiliate Israel, Breitbart, Pamela Geller, October 3, 2015

GettyImages-490838840-640x480Andrew Burton/Getty Images

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.

Categories: Assad, Ban Ki-Moon, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran - Middle East, Iran - Syria war, Iran scam, Iranian proxies, Israel, John Bolton, Kerry, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama - Middle East, Obama - rogue president, Obama and Israel, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Putin, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war, United Nations
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The Moscow-Washington-Tehran Axis of Evil

October 3, 2015

The Moscow-Washington-Tehran Axis of Evil, Canada Free Press, Cliff Kincaid, October 3, 2015

(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)

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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.

Categories: Airstrikes, Assad, Communism, Death to America, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Diplomacy, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Free world, IAEA, Imperialism, Iran - Middle East, Iran - Syria war, Iran / Israel War, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iranian Threats, Israel, Israeli nukes, JCPOA, Kerry, Middle East, Netanyahu, Obama - Middle East, Obama - rogue president, Obama and Israel, Obama's America, Obama's legacy, Obama's motivations, P5+1, Peace in our time, Putin, Russia, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war, Russian Aggression, Saudi Arabia, Syria war, Treason, U.S. allies, U.S. politics, United Nations
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Israel’s Risk Aversion Problem

October 2, 2015

Israel’s Risk Aversion Problem, Town Hall, Caroline Glick, October 2, 2015

Netanyahu and glasses

Because his strategy is based on ideological beliefs rather than power calculations rooted in reality, Obama’s position cannot be swayed by evidence, even when evidence shows that his administration’s policies endanger US national security.

The more Israel allows other actors to determine the nature of the emerging regional order, the less secure Israel will be. The more willing we are to take calculated risks today the greater our ability will be to influence the future architecture of regional power relations and so minimize threats to our survival in the decades to come.

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On Wednesday the Obama administration was caught off guard by Russia’s rapid rise in Syria. As the Russians began bombing a US-supported militia along the Damascus-Homs highway, Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, at the UN. Just hours before their meeting Kerry was insisting that Russia’s presence in Syria would likely be a positive development.

Reacting to the administration’s humiliation, Republican Sen. John McCain said, “This administration has confused our friends, encouraged our enemies, mistaken an excess of caution for prudence and replaced the risks of action with the perils of inaction.”

McCain added that Russian President Vladimir Putin had stepped “into the wreckage of this administration’s Middle East policy.”

While directed at the administration, McCain’s general point is universally applicable. Today is no time for an overabundance of caution.

The system of centralized regimes that held sway in the Arab world since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago has unraveled. The shape of the new order has yet to be determined.

The war in Syria and the chaos and instability engulfing the region are part and parcel of the birth pangs of a new regional governing architecture now taking form. Actions taken by regional and global actors today will likely will influence power relations for generations.

Putin understands the opportunity of the moment.

He views the decomposition of Syria as an opportunity to rebuild Russia’s power and influence in the Middle East – at America’s expense.

Russia isn’t the only strategic player seeking to exploit the war in Syria and the regional chaos. Turkey and Iran are also working assiduously to take advantage of the current absence of order to advance their long term interests.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is exploiting the rise of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq to fight the Kurds in both countries. Erdogan’s goal is twofold: to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdistan and to disenfranchise the Kurds in Turkey.

As for Iran, Syria is Iran’s bulwark against Sunni power in the Arab world and the logistical base for Tehran’s Shi’ite foreign legion Hezbollah. Iranian dictator Ali Khamenei is willing to fight to the bitter end to hold as much of Syrian territory as possible.

Broadly speaking, Iran views the breakup of the Arab state system as both a threat and an opportunity.

The chaos threatens Iran, because it has radicalized the Sunni world. If Sunni forces unite, their numeric advantage against Shi’ite Iran will imperil it.

The power of Sunni numbers is the reason Bashar Assad now controls a mere sixth of Syrian territory. To prevent his fate from befalling them, the Iranians seek to destabilize neighboring regimes and where possible install proxy governments in their stead.

Iran’s cultivation of alliances and proxy relationships with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida, and its phony war against Islamic State all point to an overarching goal of keeping Sunni forces separated and dependent on Tehran.

The Iranian regime also fears the prospect of being overthrown by its domestic opponents. To counter this threat the regime engages in large-scale and ever escalating repression of its perceived foes.

Iran’s nuclear program also plays a key role in the regime’s survival strategy. As Khamenei and his underlings see things, nuclear weapons protect the regime in three ways. They deter Iran’s external foes. They increase domestic support for the regime by enriching Iran which, no longer under international sanctions, sees its diplomatic and economic prestige massively enhanced due to its nuclear program.

Finally, there is Iran’s war with Israel and the US. A nuclear-armed Iran is a direct threat to both countries.

And this, too, is a boon for the mullacracy. From the regime’s perspective, fighting Israel and the US serves to neutralize the Sunni threat to the regime. The more Iran is seen as fighting Israel and the US the more legitimate it appears to Sunni jihadists.

This then brings us to the Americans. Like the Russians, the Turks and the Iranians, President Barack Obama and his associates are strategic players. Unlike those powers however, the administration is moved not by raw power calculations but by ideological dictates.

Obama and his advisers are convinced that the instability and radicalization of states and actors throughout the region is the consequence of the actions of past US administrations and those of America’s regional allies – first and foremost, Israel and Egypt. The basis for this conviction is the administration’s post-colonial ideological underpinnings.

Because his strategy is based on ideological beliefs rather than power calculations rooted in reality, Obama’s position cannot be swayed by evidence, even when evidence shows that his administration’s policies endanger US national security.

This brings us to Israel.

Israel has limited power to influence regional events.

It cannot change its neighbors’ values or cultures. Israel can however limit its neighbors’ ability to harm it and expand its ability to deter would be aggressors by among other things, using its power judiciously to influence now forming power balances between various regional and world actors.

Israel has followed this model in Syria with notable success.

At an early stage of the war our leaders recognized that aside from the Kurds, who have no shared border with us, there are no viable actors in Syria that are not dangerous to Israel. As a result, Israel has no interest in the victory of one group against others.

The only actor in Syria that Israel has felt it necessary to actively rein in is Hezbollah. So it has acted repeatedly to prevent Hezbollah from using its operational presence in Syria as a means for augmenting its offensive capabilities in Lebanon.

The problem with this strategy is that it has ignored the fact that from Hezbollah’s perspective, there is no operational difference between Lebanon and Syria.

The war in Syria spread to Lebanon years ago.

Now, with Iranian and Russian assistance, Hezbollah is beginning to develop the industrial capacity to bypass Israel and independently produce advanced weapons inside Lebanon. This rapid industrialization of Hezbollah’s military capabilities requires Israel to end its respect for the all-but-destroyed international border and take direct action against Hezbollah’s capabilities in Lebanon.

This brings us to Hezbollah’s boss, Iran. For the past several years, the same caution that has led Israel to grant de facto immunity to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon has led to Israel’s passivity and deference to the Obama administration in relation to Iran’s nuclear program.

With regard to Iran’s nuclear installations, the strategy of passivity has largely been forced onto an unwilling political leadership by Israel’s military leaders.

For the past several years, the IDF’s General Staff has refused to support the government’s position on Iran’s nuclear program.

Our military leaders have justified their insubordination by arguing that if Israel takes independent action against Iran’s nuclear program it will undermine its bilateral relations with the US, which they consider more important than preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Although under the best of circumstances, the IDF’s position would be unacceptable from the perspective of democratic norms of governance, since the ideologically driven Obama administration took power seven years ago, the military’s position has imperiled the country.

So long as Obama – or the ideology that informs his actions – remains in power in Washington, US security guarantees towards Israel will have no credibility.

The IDF’s assessment that ties to the US are more important than preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power will remain incorrect, and dangerously so.

Today is Israel’s opportunity to shape the future of the Middle East by not only preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, but by preventing a regional nuclear arms race.

The closer Iran comes to emerging as a nuclear power, the more Sunni regimes, including Islamic State, will seek their own nuclear capabilities. It goes without saying that the more regional actors have nuclear weapons, the more dangerous the region becomes for Israel, and indeed for the world as a whole.

For many Israelis, the story of the week wasn’t Russia’s air strikes against US-allied forces in Syria. It was PLO chief and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech at the UN General Assembly.

Leftists expressed horror in the face of Abbas’s threat to end the PLO’s adherence to the agreements it signed with Israel in the 1990s (and has stood in material breach of ever since). The government insisted, for its part that the reason the peace process has not brought peace is because Abbas and his PLO refuse to negotiate with Israel.

Unfortunately, both sides’ responses to Abbas’s speech indicate that Israel has lost all semblance of strategic purpose in regard to the Palestinians.

Fifteen years ago this week, on September 28, 2000, the Palestinians opened their terrorist war against Israel. Ever since it has been clear that no Palestinian faction is interested in living at peace with Israel.

Despite this, for the past 15 years, Israel has refused to reconsider its strategic allegiance to the false notion that it has the ability to influence the hearts and minds of the Palestinians and bend them in the direction of peace.

This delusional thinking is what caused the IDF’s General Staff to convene immediately after Operation Protective Edge ended and try to figure out how to rebuild Gaza.

Ever since the cease-fire came into force, Hamas has diverted all the assistance it has received from Israel and the international community not to rebuild Gaza, but to rebuild its military capacity to harm Israel. And yet, from the IDF’s perspective, ever since the war ended our most urgent task has been to save Hamas and the Palestinians alike from reckoning with the price of their aggression.

Likewise, Israel continues to insist that we have a strategic interest in peace with the PLO. Even if this is true in theory, chances are greater that unicorns will fall from the sky and prance through Jerusalem’s Old City than that the PLO will agree to make peace with Israel.

Our continued defense of the PLO as a legitimate actor harms our ability to secure other strategic interests that are achievable and can improve Israel’s regional position. These interests include securing transportation arteries in Judea and Samaria and strengthening Israel’s military and political control over the areas. These interests have only grown more acute in recent years with the rise of jihadist forces throughout the region and among the Palestinians themselves.

This brings us back to McCain and his strategic wisdom.

Israel must not allow the risks of action to lure us into strategic paralysis that imperils our future.

The more Israel allows other actors to determine the nature of the emerging regional order, the less secure Israel will be. The more willing we are to take calculated risks today the greater our ability will be to influence the future architecture of regional power relations and so minimize threats to our survival in the decades to come.

Categories: Abbas, Arab nations, Death to Israel, Defense of Israel, Foreign policy, Hezbollah, Ideology, Iran - Syria war, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Iranian Threats, Israel, Israeli attack on Iran nukes, Obama - Middle East, Obama's legacy, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinians, Putin, Russia, Russia - Middle East, Shia, Sunni, Syrian war, Theocracy
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Chinese warplanes to join Russian air strikes in Syria. Russia gains Iraqi air base

October 2, 2015

Chinese warplanes to join Russian air strikes in Syria. Russia gains Iraqi air base, DEBKAfile, October 2, 2015

Russia_China_480

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.

Categories: Assad, China, Foreign policy, Hezbollah, Iran - Syria war, Iran military, Iranian proxies, Iraq, Iraq war, Iraqi military, Israel, Obama - Middle East, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Putin, Russia, Russia - Middle East, Russia - Syrian war
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Obama’s U.N. message — kick me, I won’t feel a thing

September 30, 2015

Obama’s U.N. message — kick me, I won’t feel a thing, Power Line, Paul Mirengoff, September 30, 2015

Obama’s options are to counteract the expansion or offer lectures while Russia gives him a “back kick.” Like so much of his conduct, Obama’s U.N. speech amounts to pasting a “kick me” sign on his backside.

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“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. . .What if that nightmare gave you a back kick?”

This passage from Ulysses captures the Obama presidency in the realm of foreign policy. History, the nightmare from which the president is trying to escape, has given him a “back kick” — in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Yemen for example — and he risks becoming a laughingstock as a result.

But there’s a twist. President Obama denies he has been kicked. His nightmare thus becomes ours.

Obama’s speech to the United Nations illustrates the problem. Elliott Abrams, describing the speech as “surreal,” writes that it “is filled with nice lines that unfortunately bear no relationship to his seven years of foreign policy — and in some cases, no relationship to reality.”

Abrams supports this claim by analyzing what Obama had to say about Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Cuba. The analysis is well worth reading.

I want to focus, though, on a portion of just one passage. Obama stated:

I stand before you today believing in my core that we, the nations of the world, cannot return to the old ways of conflict and coercion. We cannot look backwards. We live in an integrated world — one in which we all have a stake in each other’s success. . . .And if we cannot work together more effectively, we will all suffer the consequences. That is true for the United States, as well.

The disdain for history is evident and, in a sense, warranted. But it doesn’t follow from the fact that history has been unpleasant that we cannot (or should not) look back at it. History has much to teach us.

One lesson is that Obama’s claim that “we cannot return to the old ways of conflict and coercion” is rubbish. The world not only can “return” to them, it has (and never stopped).

Another lesson is that conflict and coercion don’t necessarily cause “all” to “suffer” bad “consequences.” Often conflict and coercion produce winners and losers. The losers suffer, but the winners, though often paying some price, thrive for decades and sometimes centuries.

The fact that we “live in an integrated world” doesn’t alter this reality. If Obama knew anything about history, he would understand that integration isn’t new. Europe and large portions of Asia were integrated by trade and migration more than two thousand years ago. In important ways, today’s world, with its religious wars and mass movement of peoples, bears more resemblance to the ancient one than to yesterday’s world of seemingly solid nation states (which was also integrated).

Obama wasn’t offering a history lesson, though. The speech was an exercise in self-justification — an attempt to demonstrate that although he looks like a loser, he isn’t really one because the old world of losers and winners has been extinguished. This farcical claim will only enhance Obama’s status as a laughingstock.

But the speech had a serious side, I think. It seems to me that Obama was sending this message to Putin: Russia will suffer if you don’t cooperate with the U.S. In fact, Obama mentioned the sanctions against Russia and their consequences (“capital flight, a contracting economy, a fallen ruble, and the emigration of more educated Russians”) in his speech.

The message isn’t implausible. Russia reportedly is starting to run short on foreign currency reserves, thanks in part to sanctions. Russia also runs the risk of military overreach if it continues to become more involved in Syria. Its dirty little war in Ukraine enjoys only mixed support at home and polls show little appetite by Russians for large scale military involvement in Syria. (Just as we had Vietnam, Russia had Afghanistan).

But Putin is a skillful operator. He doesn’t need lessons from Obama.

Taking on ISIS to a serious degree would require a level of military engagement that might erode Putin’s domestic support. But it’s unlikely that Putin is serious about doing ISIS in (though I’m pretty sure he would like to). He just dangles this prospect, as Iran does, to tantalize Obama.

Putin’s goals, it seems to me, are (1) to work with Iran to help Assad maintain control over a portion of Syria, (2) cement relations with Iran, and (3) diminish U.S. influence in the region. He may well be able to accomplish these objectives without a level of military involvement that might hurt him at home.

As for Russia’s finances, they appear to be a looming problem. Ironically, however, Obama has undercut the Russia sanctions by lifting those on Iran. The Iran deal will boost the Russian economy by enabling Russians to sell all manner of weapons to the mullahs.

These sales alone won’t solve Russia’s economic problems. It needs a strong rebound of oil prices, which may or may not be in the cards.

But history suggests that “capital flight, a contracting economy, a fallen ruble, and the emigration of more educated Russians” won’t be sufficient to dissuade an autocrat like Putin from expanding Russia’s influence in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Obama’s options are to counteract the expansion or offer lectures while Russia gives him a “back kick.” Like so much of his conduct, Obama’s U.N. speech amounts to pasting a “kick me” sign on his backside.

Categories: Dishonor, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran - Syria war, Iranian proxies, Iraq war, Islamic State, Obama - Middle East, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Putin, Russia, Russia - Syrian war, Terrorism
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First US-Russian air clash builds up as Moscow orders US planes to exit Syrian air space

September 30, 2015

First US-Russian air clash builds up as Moscow orders US planes to exit Syrian air space, DEBKAfile, September 30, 2015

SU-25-30.9.15Russian warplanes head to Syria

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.

Categories: Airstrikes, Assad, Iran - Syria war, Iraq war, Israel, Obama's foreign failures, Putin, Russia - Syrian war, U.S. airstrikes
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Russia and Iran, the UN’s darlings

September 29, 2015

Russia and Iran, the UN’s darlings, Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth, September 29, 2015

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.

Categories: Assad, Dishonor, Foreign policy, Iran - Syria war, Iran scam, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Middle East, Obama - Middle East, Obama's affinity for Iran, Obama's America, Obama's foreign failures, Obama's legacy, Putin, Russia - Syrian war, United Nations
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