Putin it into Perspective

Vladimir Putin is a clever Russian wolf. His hobby: preying on American weakness to enhance his power in global politics. And the United States has never been more vulnerable, more marginalized on global issues – particularly in the Middle East. We may have the largest military on earth (consuming about 41% of global military spending), but pretty clearly, we don’t know when or how to use it. The United States has not won a major war since World War II. The Korean War is still technically unsettled (we have an “armistice”), we lost Vietnam entirely, and as we watch Iraq splinter and struggle to fight off ISIS and as Taliban provide clear evidence that the corrupt government we installed in Kabul, Afghanistan cannot hold that country together, our big “Islamic world” wars are rather obvious failures as well.

The Soviet Union got equally trounced in its failed Afghan War (1979-89), literally the straw that broke that camel’s back, unraveling the USSR into its component states. You have to assume that Vladimir Putin, who was a Soviet KGB power at the time, is aware of that debacle. So he knows how risky it would be to place massive Russian troops into another Middle Eastern maelstrom, not to mention his force build-up in Ukraine. He also knows that the United States has lost most of its credibility in the region, literally being blamed by a whole lot of nations for having laid the stage for ISIS by reason of its failed military efforts. Opportunity is knocking.

But US credibility in the Middle East is further hampered by a slow disavowal of Israeli policies by most of the world, most recently by virtually every country in Europe. We are Israel’s main global ally. As Israel continues to expand its West Bank settlements – making a transition of that “second state” land to Palestine exceptionally difficult – Abbas tells the world that if Israel doesn’t start making tangible moves toward peace, Palestine no longer feels obligated to continue the peace process to which it has been committed for a very long time. Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government has dug Israeli heels into the ground, and any military response by Hamas is now viewed as an effort from “freedom fighters,” no matter how vicious or indiscriminate.

To most of the world, Israel, and hence US support for Israel (despite occasional cosmetic statements from US officials supporting a two-state solution), is/are on the wrong side of history. Further undermining US credibility are the rather outrageous, erroneous and ill-informed policies of disengagement, Evangelical zeal and “do as I demand before I even talk to you” bullying from virtually every GOP presidential candidate. The GOP front-runners are the laughing stock of most of the other nations on earth, evidenced by their journalistic and populist responses, as many of their leaders bite their tongues for fear of offending the next President of the United States.

As American credibility sinks to its lowest point in almost a century, Vlad-the-impaler is licking his chops. It was Russian credibility that was necessary to take the Iran nuclear accord over the top. Russia quickly reached an agreement for regional policies against ISIS with Iran, Iraq and Syria. Knowing that there was nothing that the Western powers, especially the United States, could do, Putie announced military support for the war against ISIS, through more equipment and Russian airpower on new reinforced bases in Syria itself, and promptly followed the Turkish model (which used attacking ISIS as an excuse to bomb their own Kurdish separatists). Russian airpower was used to attack non-ISIS Syrian rebel who were trying to topple the Bashir al-Assad regime from Damascus. No ISIS targets were hit in that initial military effort.

How has that Russian alliance with regional powers worked out? “Hundreds of Iranian troops have arrived in Syria to join a major ground offensive in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government, Lebanese sources said on [October 1^st], a further sign of the rapid internationalization of a civil war in which every major country in the region has a stake.

“Russian warplanes, in a second day of strikes [October 1^st], bombed a camp run by rebels trained by the CIA, the group's commander said, putting Moscow and Washington on opposing sides in a Middle East conflict for the first time since the Cold War… The U.S. and Russian militaries were due to hold talks via video link to seek ways to keep their militaries apart as they wage parallel campaigns of air strikes in Syria, a U.S. defense official said.

“Russian jets struck targets near the cities of Hama and Homs in western Syria on the second day of their air campaign… Moscow said it had hit Islamic State positions, but the areas it struck are mostly held by a rival insurgent alliance, which unlike Islamic State is supported by U.S. allies including Arab states and Turkey.” Reuters, October 1^st. Wow! Russians are actually bombing the rebels we trained, whatever is left of those 54 troops. Putin is having his way with us as we sit dumbfounded with few alternatives.

So if Vladdy is unwilling to commit massive troops to the war on ISIS, what does he want? Clearly, having Assad stay on in Damascus tells the world that Russian support for that brutal regime is working, that Russia is standing by its ally and thus nothing in the Middle East can be accomplished without Russian approval or participation. Russian power is seeping into the cracks and crevices left open by the eroding American credibility. And if the GOP prevails in the next presidential election and actually implements the inane policies uttered by each and every candidate, absent a willingness to go to war against Russia, which Vladdy believes will never happen, Russia will succeed to even more global power, will rise in stature in the Middle East, and Europe will continue to gravitate away from the United States.

If there is to be any undoing of this nascent, Putin-led Russian power, given our current and likely future policy directions, it will not come from American shrewdness or diplomatic efforts. It will most likely come from Russian reliance on revenues from natural resources, particularly oil and gas, if those prices remain low… as their economy continues to plunge. As Americans increasingly embarrass themselves on the world stage, you might even expect an increasing number of countries to ignore US-led sanctions against Russia, Iran… and perhaps anyone else. We have done this to ourselves, and secretly, I feel that the world is cheering that arrogant America is getting its comeuppance. We need leadership. Now! Hard to expect with a lame-duck president and a hideously out-of-touch Congress.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the separation of the United States from most of the rest of the world by two vast oceans seems to have trapped us into an arrogant blindness of what is really happening a world away.