by Shoshana Bryen, American Thinker
http://www.jewishpolicycenter.
History is back and so are the Russians.
After an interregnum of twenty years, during which the communist Soviet Union was demolished and a crony capitalist, Russian kleptocracy turned inward to establish firm control of journalists (oh wait, that might have been the Obama Administration), civil society practitioners including lawyers, businessmen, and little girl punk bands, Vladimir Putin has laid down a marker in the Middle East. The suggestion that advanced SS300 air defense missiles are already in Syria and that Yakhont ship-to-ship missiles are coming, plus Russian warships steaming toward the region along with obstruction in the UN are all steps toward establishing Russia as the “go to” imperial power to control or end the Syrian civil war.
The Russian interest is twofold. First is to be the master of the diplomatic front. Whether the Russian-touted “peace conference” results in “peace” or a change of government in Damascus is less relevant than whether the Putin is in the driver’s seat. Second is to stop the spread of Sunni expansionist Islam that threatens Russia with the potential to reignite the Caucasus. Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ossetia are historically restive, but now are increasingly Islamic rather than nationalistic in their hatred of Orthodox Russia.
Two things make this really interesting. First, Putin is dealing with Israel much more forthrightly than he is with the United States, something that should be considered less a sign of respect for Israel’s red lines than disdain for the Obama Administration. Second, he has taken a narrow view of a broad problem — and thus is playing a losing hand.
On the American side, neither Secretary of State Kerry nor the president he serves seem to understand Russia’s goals in the region, and thus neither is prepared to uphold our own interests. When Kerry flew off to Moscow in early May to find a mechanism for an international conference on Syria, Putin kept him waiting three hours and, according to the London Daily Mail, “continuously fiddled with his pen as the top American diplomat spoke about the ongoing crisis.” Ever the good guest, Kerry told Putin, “The United States believes that we share some very significant common interests with respect to Syria — stability in the region, not having extremists creating problems throughout the region and elsewhere.”
Actually, we don’t. Kerry touted “stability,” but without specifying acceptable and unacceptable parameters for achieving it, he abdicated fundamental American principles. “Stability” is a tricky word. Russia was stable under the communists at a price of millions dead, and is working its way out of the messier parts of capitalism and back to stability by jailing people and having prominent “enemies of the State” conveniently drop dead. (See Berezovsky, Magnitsky andPolitovskaya for starters.) Syria was stable for years under Assad & Fils — and Russia would like to see it stable under Assad control again. If “stability” is all we seek, Kerry can just jump on the Russian bandwagon.
Moreover, aside from the rude treatment Kerry received in Moscow, contrasted with the very polite reception Prime Minister Netanyahu received a week later, the Russians waited until Kerry left to drop a bombshell. On May 16, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Lebanon’s Al-Madayeen that Iran would have to take part in any international conference. The State Department spokesman was forced to say the U.S. wouldn’t rule it out, because to do so would admit that Kerry’s trip was a failure. The U.S. may find itself negotiating directly with Iran on an issue other than nuclear weapons, which would be an abject failure for stated U.S. priorities.
David Kramer, President of Freedom House, reminded Washington Post readers that Moscow also detained a former U.S. official in the airport for 17 hours without food or water before deporting him; had camera crews film a civil-society activist when Kerry arrived at his home; and publicized the name of the presumed CIA station chief in Moscow, calling him a spy.
President Obama chalked it all up to the Cold War. “I don’t think it’s any secret that there remains lingering suspicions between Russia and other members of the G8 or the West… It’s been several decades now since Russia transformed itself and the Eastern Bloc transformed itself. But some of those suspicions still exist.” On the one hand, he gives Russia far too much credit for “transforming” itself; the roots of Russian imperialism haven’t changed in centuries. On the other hand, he can’t imagine that the current situation is driven by current Russian needs, not the old Cold War.
Never mind, if it can’t be President Bush’s fault, best it be Nixon’s or Reagan’s fault.
But if Putin appears to be on a roll, how is he holding a losing hand?
The Russians have planted their red line for the United States, Israel, and the West on the Syrian border. The line is deep but narrow, and they have alienated large swaths of Arab and Sunni Muslim (not even close to the same thing) opinion. The reason countries have imperial allies is to keep things from getting out of hand. Putin may think he’s got a reputation as an ally who will do anything for his client — a presumed good thing — but he’s actually developing a reputation as one for whom no amount of killing of his allies or by his allies is too much.
No one wants to be Russia’s friend except Iran, and Iran’s stock is falling rapidly in a region that was already skeptical about Persian, as well as Shiite, hegemony. It was one thing for Arab countries plus Turkey to form at least a rhetorically united front with the Mullahs when Iran proclaimed the battle against “The Great Satan” and “The Little Satan.” But Iran is battling Sunni Muslim Arabs now, and that’s something else.
Furthermore, the war in Syria won’t end in Syria. Even if Assad regains control of every inch of territory (not likely), the ongoing Sunni-Shiite expansionist war will continue. Even if Assad kills or exiles every single Sunni Islamist (even less likely), they will migrate to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, the Gulf States, the Stans, and yes, back to the Caucasus where they represent Putin’s greatest fear.
Israel’s red lines are the transfer of weapons systems, representing a broad understanding of the transnational nature of the war. The Obama administration has sort of pinkish lines that support Israel’s maintenance of its lines, but serve mainly to keep the U.S. out of another war in a Muslim country. Russia has the worst of red lines: like King Cnut, Putin is trying to stop the tide of Sunni-Shiite fighting within the borders of Syria, where he plans to control the outcome.
In 1982, Hafez Assad killed perhaps 40,000 Syrians in Hama in an attempt to bury the Muslim Brotherhood. But the Brotherhood emerged like cicadas 30 years later. How many remain in Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ossetia, waiting for an opportunity to rise?
Hi
As far as I am concerned, Putin is playing a very dangerous game that will blow in his face in this decade. The Muslims in Russia are just waiting to start their Spring, and what is Putin going to do about it? Apart from the humanitarian aspect of refugees, we should leave the factions in the Middle East go at each other.
ArnoldHarris Said:
I think that US would also benefit from more real politics with Russia.
Neither country wants to see the rise of Islamic fundamentalism Sunny or Shiite.
Under the right leadership, America because of its technological superiority, has very little to fear from Russia militarily. In a potential conflict other countries would rather ally with America than with Russia.
Yes, Russia has imperial dreams, and America can partially accommodate. America can help Russia regain big parts of Eastern Ukraine. (Where most people indeed speak Russian.)
America can ally with with Russia to jointly keep the Muslim world is check. The price may be letting Russian oil companies into the Saudi and Emirate markets.
If America explores domestic oil and gas, then the price of oil will fall, and with it the overall strategic importance of the Middle East.
I find the arguments for his statement to be unconvincing at best.
weak arguments
a 30 year beat down sounds like a winning hand to me, if they do the same again they will probably get another 30 years.
Laura, I am not senile. I still earn my living from a small online business, in which I provide useful services for customers whose pursuit of profit, in the case of other private business firms, or agency purposes, in the case of public departments, require precisely the kinds of services that I can provide and at prices that attract their business. Friendship has nothing to do with any of this. The moment any such customer no longer needs my business services or if they find they can obtain a similar business service from another vendor, they cut their connection to me.
And that, in a nutshell, is the way the world works.
Russia ships arms to Israel’s enemies because they have regimes that have traditionally been friendly to Russia. Israel, on the other hand, always sided with the USA, to the extent that it appears to many Americans as well as much of the rest of the world as though the Jewish State figuratively would lick the backsides of the Washington power holders. For which the Jewish nation and the Jewish state always has been treated with more or less open contempt by these same Washington power holders.
The fact is, in this world as it has been, as it is now and as it shall forever be, there are no permanent friendships among the nations and states. You get friendship only for as long as you are in position to serve the interests of the foreigners whose favors you seek.
As for democracy, it offers little more than an tired excuses for unscrupulous and power-hungry politicians to organize voting blocs in order to win elections, then pay off these voting blocs with so-called social entitlements that are paid for by printing money which then becomes increasingly worthless. I think this will all end in increased social unrest that threaten the national union founded by the brains of Americans such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; a national union saved from sectional disruption by Abraham Lincoln. In order to save that national union from chaos, you should not be surprised if some form of focused national leadership — even a dictatorship — that will restore public order. If so, do not imagine most Americans will lift even a finger to restore a democracy which, as so many of us have seen, has grown cancerous in the past 50 years.
So I stand upon what I wrote, unless factual circumstance proves me wrong.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ ArnoldHarris:
Aligning with Russia is the worst thing Israel can do. In case you haven’t noticed or maybe you are senile, but russia is sending arms to Israel’s enemies. If you are so enamored with dictatorships, go live in one. I prefer freedom.
Russia is playing a winning hand, at least by my standards. As a matter of fact, I wish the United States of America and the State of Israel had tough, nationalist, no-nonsense governments just like those that have always run the great Russian state. Throughout the 79 years of my life to date, including the three years that I served in uniform in the United States Army and its reserves, and the two years my wife and I spent mostly as graduate fellowship students in Israel plus some months living with my wife’s family in Croatia, nobody was ever able to convince me that democracy was a worthwhile goal for any society.
Shoshana Bryen says Russia has no friends except Iran. Frankly, I wish Israel were also one of Russia’s local friends in the Middle East. China and India, too. Because I have no faith whatsoever in the long-term viability of the American empire, and I can clearly see Israel winding up as the last ally of a bankrupt and sinking imperial USA.
Israel, like any other sovereign state, has no permanent friends; only permanent interests.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI