Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Russia, China and Iran are systematically working to marginalize the US in the region. It bodes poorly for us. Both China and Russia worked out lucrative business deals in the region while we were bleeding on the ground trying to prop up national governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. Wherever we try to operate, the Russians and Chinese can be counted on to be funneling arms in to forces trying to thwart our efforts. The Cold War era pattern never ends. I must say that Putin has perfected using the “international peace-seeking” language to a fine art and on top of that he cast himself as a defender of Christianity too – quite a walk-on-water feat for a tough former KGB man. Obama and Kerry ramble on offering nothing, as usual. Putin is building a large area of Russian influence. We are still hunting for elusive “Syrian moderates” – big picture thinking vs little picture thinking, you decide.

The truth is Obama left this gaping leadership vacuum, which Putin has decided to fill. Remember the surge in Afghanistan that he never fully manned? Well, at this point here are few warnings. The US should conduct our operations without getting enmeshed in Russian operations or plans. I believe the Russians will quickly launch a brutal campaign that falls well beyond the Geneva Conventions and the US should steer clear of being sucked into this. Plus any operation with the Russians will end up with the US being played for fools.

Setting up safe zones for Syrians in areas outside of ISIS and Assad control would be a good idea, but I doubt Obama will take that risk and the US lacks the credibility among regional leaders to get much assistance, especially when Obama will want others to take all of the risks on the ground.

Let’s face reality, more national humiliations of having our nose rubbed in it lie in store for America as long as Obama is president and much of it won’t be only from Putin. They always say look where people came from to figure out who they are. Putin is a former KGB officer. Obama and Valerie were weaned on Communist dogma from early childhood, before drinking the kool-aid of college campus radicalism.

I worry about the US military having its hands tied behind its back and US troops being put in bad positions by Putin pushing the envelope and Obama waffling and keeping overly restrictive rules of engagement.

#Hands up, don’t shoot Vladimir will be the Obama and girls at the White House response to Putin’s power plays or #Why can’t we all get along…. The national embarrassment continues!

P.S. Here’s the link to the Ralph Peters video

Russia made several more moves today that caught the Obama administration off guard again.  A longer post will follow tonight. So far the best analysis is Ralph Peters’ succinct take on FOX news today.  I’m in the middle of cooking stuffed shells, so the link will come later.  The short version is Putin has grand strategic aims to create a wall of Russian-friendly states. Putin intends to prop up Assad more than fight ISIS.  The Russian airstrikes hit Free Syrian Army targets, not ISIS.  Peters believes Putin will wipe out the other rebel forces first, leaving the US with a fait accompli – Assad or ISIS.  Oh, and Obama will chase pixie dust fairies and other magical solutions.

The Russians used masterful propaganda – all the West’s most cherished things – internatinal order, international law, the UN, humanitarianism, and last, but not least, Putin came bearing the cross, as champion of persecuted Christians.  All echoed with the old Soviet “World Peace” propaganda. Obama’s string of actions, leaving America at this low point, either are the work of a nincompoop or a traitor – you decide….

FOX News has a group of women and former US Senator Scott Brown on “analyzing”  Putin’s UN speech.  I’ll sum it up on for you, because they seem to be clueless – Putin stole the US’s moral high ground in the fight against the Islamic State.

Obama, the neocon think tanks/arm the Syrian moderate brain trust and McCain with his foreign policy legislative assistant, O’Bagy, to help keep him “informed” have bungled the American effort to defeat the Islamic State.

All of the regional leaders who were counting on the US have decided to talk to Putin.

So, when McCain tries to blame Obama and Obama blames the military, McCain or others and the neocons wail about how we need to ramp up the hunt for elusive Syrian moderates to be our boots on the ground in Syria – just remember, this is a huge American policy FAILURE, because the rest of the world doesn’t care about the internal partisan finger-pointing.  They see America!

It’s a very sad day when Russia is outlining a better policy than the US.  I am so disgusted with the lack of American leadership, which sad to say,  is the largest power vacuum in the world at the moment!

The NY Times is reporting on an intelligence-sharing accord pertaining to the Islamic State between Russia, Syria, Iraq and Iran. The Russians did not consult with the United States before initiating this accord, so once again Putin has done an end run around the Obama administration, highlighting the stark contrast between “leading” and “leading from behind”.

I sized up the characters and personalities of both men along ago and it felt odd for me, being a Cold War warrior about the evils of the Soviet Union, to find myself choosing Putin as a far better geopolitical strategist than President Obama and his lame narrative-writers. Sure, lots of western analysts cast Putin as just an opportunist, but I think they’re underestimating him.  Back in January 2013 I wrote “Putin By A Mile”, about who would you choose in a geopolitical match-up between Putin and Obama.   I think my call was right:

Taking “a walk a mile in their shoes approach” puts us on firmer strategic ground than all this suspect psychobabble our assessments often contain. To understand Putin all it takes is to view Russia from where he stands. George Friedman does this best (here). While Putin’s actions do remain diametrically opposed to ours and most assuredly will produce future friction points, his actions make perfect strategic sense from the Russian viewpoint. He aggressively has secured energy resources and engaged the US in nuclear arms wrangling where he certainly pushed and received the things that are advantageous to Russia.

Then we have Barack Obama where he refused to sign the Keystone Pipeline deal, he gave away too much in the nuclear arms dealing and he and Madame Secretary have made one after another terrible missteps, stabbing our allies in the back, while bowing and scraping to our adversaries. He’s put us on the path to not only universal healthcare, but to being a universal third-rate bit player on the world stage. If I were assessing how the strategic plane looks from others’ vantage points, I would wonder, “those stupid Americans, they don’t even have the national will to promote their own interests”. And truly, any administration that utters a phrase like,”leading from behind” is worthy of only supreme contempt, in my opinion.

The ill-mannered TV reality urchin, Honey boo boo can keep Barack Obama, but as for me I’d pick Putin by a mile.

Leadership is about character and sadly for us we have the Captain of the JV team in this match-up….

Last week after reports emerged of more embarrassing details of US trained “Syrian moderates” either defecting or giving their weapons to ISIS in exchange for safe passage, the Pentagon had come out and denied this story.  On Friday McClatchyDC ran this story:

In about-face, Pentagon says U.S.-trained Syrians gave trucks, weapons to al Qaida

Here’s the link to the CBS Charlie Rose interview: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vladimir-putin-russian-president-60-minutes-charlie-rose/

The video of the interview is very interesting, but I’ll warn you that the viagra ads every few minutes got old fast.  There were some very interesting exchanges and Rose certainly asked some very probing questions.  Had a busy day cooking and spending time with my granddaughters, so I’ll save further comments for later.

Here’s a report from the UK Telegraph on Putin’s Syria plan:

“Putin steps up campaign to reassert Assad’s power in” Syria