T. Belman. I agree with Tobin. Now’s the time for the US to reassert itself and start dictating what’s going to happen. Russia will cave because all they really want is their foothold in Syria. They do not want to be responsible for the entire Syria and they are not about to attempt to remove the US from the lands it controls. Now is the time to cut a deal with Russia who would like to get off the hook. Give her the port and airbase in Alawite Syria and the Crimea and she will jump at the deal. She does not want to be dragged into the mire by Iran and Turkey is a perennial enemy.
The outcome of a looming confrontation may depend on how much Russia is willing to risk if the United States and Israel say enough is enough.
(April 12, 2018 / JNS) The key question about Syria this week is not why the various foreign powers involved in the civil war there are on the brink of hostilities. It’s how hostile forces with very different agendas co-existing in a relatively small country have been able to avoid a violent confrontation up until now.
The answer has been that for all of the potential for conflict that exists between the various parties involved, it has not been in the interests of any of the major powers for the mess in Syria to become a test of wills, in which one of them will have to back down in order to prevent an escalation that nobody wants.
Yet in the aftermath of the latest use of chemical weapons by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the kind of confrontation that has always been possible might be about to happen.
Israel’s strike on an Iranian air base in Syria over the weekend raised the stakes in a conflict where the armed forces of the two countries are no longer separated by vast distances. And with U.S. President Donald Trump not merely threatening the use of force—but in a bizarre heads-up delivered via Twitter actually warning Russia to be prepared for incoming U.S. missiles that Moscow has vowed to shoot down—an unthinkable escalation now must be considered possible.
If this kind of confrontation has been avoided up to now, it’s because the United States has been content to let Russia, and its Iranian and Syrian allies, do as it liked. Trump has seemed content to continue President Barack Obama’s policy of allowing Moscow free reign in Syria. That meant largely ignoring the atrocities committed by the Assad regime, as well as the determination of Iran to turn Syria into an armed base from which it can threaten Israel. Indeed, when Trump vowed last week to pull American troops out of Syria once the fight against ISIS was finished, it appeared to leave Israel on its own against an Iranian foe entrenched on its northern border, with little option but to hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not let things get out of hand.
Yet the latest chemical attack by Assad might have been the moment when Trump finally realized what everyone else has known all along: If horrible things are happening in Syria, it’s because Russia has let them happen—and the United States hasn’t been willing to do anything about it.
Given his desire for a new détente with Russia, there was a great deal of continuity between Trump’s policies in Syria and those of Obama’s. To his credit, Trump is so offended by Assad’s atrocities that he has finally started to connect the dots between the use of chemical weapons there and the Russians. In doing so, the president is going to have to resolve the glaring contradiction between his appropriately tough attitude towards Iran, and his reluctance to speak ill about Putin and Russia.
Concern about the way Trump approached the issue this week is warranted. Boasting about launching missiles and daring the Russians to do something about it is risky business, especially since both countries have troops in Syria that are essentially hostages to fortune. This isn’t the moment to start World War III.
Yet it would be just as dangerous if, as was the case with his “too cool for school” predecessor, Trump allowed himself to be talked into inaction regarding Syria. If Iran is allowed to turn that country, with Russian approval, into a base to launch a war against Israel, it will destabilize the entire region with equally unknowable consequences. Moreover, even though the Russians and Iranians have won Assad’s civil war for him, as long as that butcher remains in power in Damascus, Syria will never be at peace.
What is needed is a measured effort to make it clear to Putin that the United States needs him to clean up his act in Syria. With the help of his new national-security team, Trump should formulate a rational response to a terrible situation that the United States clearly needs to address.
A few missiles intended to punish Assad won’t do the trick. Instead, the United States should be using its economic power to punish both Russia and Iran in ways that will hurt their fragile economies. Trump must also forget about withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria, and instead signal that the days of assuming that America is a declining power in the Middle East are over. At the very least, Iran must be shown the exit door as a price for America acquiescing to Russia in retaining its presence in that country.
Is such a turnabout impossible? Though aggressions by Moscow against its former Soviet possessions, coupled with its dabbling in election interference in the United States, have given it the aura of an unstoppable power, that isn’t the case. In terms of its military and its economy, Russia is not a superpower. Though Putin’s sole foreign-policy goals are to reassemble the Soviet empire while undermining U.S. influence wherever possible, his successes have been more a function of Western weakness than Russian strength.
It’s time to realize that it is Russia that’s in over its head in Syria, not the United States. Putin has unleashed forces there that he can’t entirely control and whose goals—like a war against Israel—are not in Russia’s interests. Once we realize that the notion of U.S. helplessness in the face of this crisis should be banished, then it becomes possible to understand that inaction is not the only rational response to this complex problem.
Israel can’t go on doing the West’s dirty work as it seeks to contain Iran and its Hezbollah auxiliaries in Syria. Though Trump must avoid meaningless or reckless military gestures, it’s time for him to start reversing the mistakes the United States has made in the last several years. If he does, then rather than blowing up the region, he may instead reveal that Putin is the one whose bluff needs to be called if a war is to be averted and future atrocities forestalled.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS — Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
@ adamdalgliesh:
Hi, Adam
The stage for WWI was set, with the fall of Napoleon a hundred years earlier. Three important things happened in the Napoleonic Wars:
1. Britain became a superpower, with the definitive demise of France
2. The Holy Roman Empire finally collapsed. It was the HRE that the Kaiser & Hitler tried to revive, but failed.
3. The new-born US won a stalemate with the UK, against pretty stiff odds.
WWI was actually finally settled only in 1945, with the US and USSR as the real victors. It was in 1945, in turn, that the stage has been set for the current conflict. Instead of a budding US, we now have a budding China; instead of an eclipsed Holy Roman Empire, we have an eclipsed Soviet Union; and of course, the US has replaced Britain as the world’s superpower.
So much for comparisons. The danger of such pursuits, is the tendency to just think of history as an endless repetition of previous motifs. It is not. There is definitely an end to history, the actual “War to End All Wars”. That is the point of the Bible narrative, and it reflects today’s reality. That is why I don’t rely on past performance, to try to foresee the future. How does the Bible deal with the current situation?
1. Russia. As far as I can see, it has no future. Plenty of Evangelicals and others think Russia is the “Gog” of Ezekiel 38-39 (Instead, it is Turkey’s Erdogan; and Turkey itself is the “Land of Magog”). Russia will NOT direct a major war against Israel; but Erdogan, or some substitute Erdogan, certainly will, probably in the next few years.
2. The US. Again, over the objections of the Evangelicals and others, the Bible does not predict the collapse of the US. A major superpower is prophesied in the End Times, such as the world has never seen. Look no further than the US, for the fulfillment of this. We have ten supercarriers, each twice as powerful as the single Russian and Chinese carriers in active service; and we outclass both of them combined with long range bombers, sea- launch missile platforms, satellite technology, everything military; plus a very stable government and world-dominating economy.
China. They are an economic power, to the same extent that Russia is a military (nuclear) power. Together, they might seem to be a competitive team against us; but they are not really together. What tells me this, is, India and Pakistan both having been admitted as full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (the Sino-Russian counterpart to NATO). That spelled the real end of effective Russian-Chinese cooperation, since admitting India can only be seen as a Russian attempt to put the brakes on Chinese expansion.
The Bible prophesies that Turkey will attack Israel, in collusion with Iran, Sudan and Libya. That’s about the most powerful league the Muslims could dream up; but they won’t defeat Israel, even with Russian help; because the US firmly backs Israel.
The great danger to Israel will ultimately come from the US itself, and the alliances it heads, from Japan to NATO to the GCC. I don’t know when this attack will happen; but it will be at a time when the US effectively controls the UN. That could happen sooner than we think; and by “the US” I am not dismissing the idea that we will represent the interests of World Domination characters like George Soros, and hyper-ambitious young men like Musk and Zuckerberg (and perhaps Jared Kushner?). With our Moore’s Law technological advances, which make Orwells “1984” look like ancient history, it doesn’t take much imagination to see that day coming.
The current situation? Russia and friends are already moving their assets to safer havens, hoping Trump will pull a Clinton repeat and waste his munitions bombing sand dunes and empty buildings. The real action is yet to come, with a rearrangement of powers in Syria that leaves Turkey in a position to direct things.
What I’m mostly concerned about right now, is getting my taxes done.
Shalom shalom 🙂
The present international situation shows many of the same signs of instability that led to World War I. In 1914: power dispersed among many powers, rather than concentrated in one or two superpowers; several well-armed and aggressive small states whom the great powers can’t control; “non-state actors” (terrorist groups) who are well-armed , powerful political influences in several states, and not subject to anyone’s control; assassinations of national leaders that have become a routinoccurrance int several key international players; severe internal conflicts bordering on civil war in some of the states that would soon ago to war, and some leaders who saw a war with foreign countries as a means of easing these internal divisions; a “system of alliances” in which there were serious tensions between the allies, and a lack of clear, agreed-upon definitions of what the allies joint “red lines” were; a similar lack of clear “red lines” marked in the sand by the individual state actors as well, concerning what actions by their rivals would result in war . On balance, the situation is more, not less, unstable than in 1914. Israel and the United States must exercise great caution in this tinderbox to avoid the outbreak of World War III.
The Crimea is not ours to give and it will never be Russian again. The Budapest Memorandum cannot be nullified with a stroke of a pen. The Russian economy is rapidly tanking and population is shrinking. Putin is a cunning adversary and cannot be trusted. The US should continue to apply economic pressure until the current Russian regime collapses.
Jonathan why don’t you learn to spell…….?>????