In the seemingly never-ending saga of the Syrian Civil War and the lack of any coherent, non-delusional American policy on the subject, we hear today that Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has just signed an order to draft an additional 150,000 Russian men into the armed forces. That's another 150,000 soldiers that Putin can deploy into Syria or into Ukraine should the war there need additional forces. Today, the Russians also conducted another 30 airstrikes on Syrian forces opposed to the Assad regime; none of the 30, however, were actually strikes on ISIS. The Russians are still targeting everyone but ISIS among the opposition to Assad.
It doesn't take much to figure out Putin's short term goal. He wants to remove all the non-ISIS opposition to Assad, so that the world will have a choice between Assad and ISIS only. No sane country would pick ISIS from among those two choices. Russia, however, will then be leading the charge against ISIS and it will regain its standing among the nations of the world that was lost when Russia invaded Ukraine. The longer term goal is more opaque. These new 150 thousand soldiers may be placed into Syria as support for Assad. A Russian force that size could subdue the ISIS fighters and then could control Syria for years to come.
Meanwhile, president Obama is doing nothing. In Washington, they are still claiming not to know what targets the Russians hit during the last two days. There are pictures in the world media of smoking ruins and civilian casualties in Homs, a city with NO areas under the control of ISIS. Nevertheless, the Obamacrats and their allies in the media talk about investigating to find out which groups were targeted by the Russians. On top of this, American military satellites were observing the Russian attacks in real time. Obama knows exactly which targets the Russians hit but he is still claiming the need to investigate to find out what he already knows.
Action today by Obama could still head off the Russian offensive against our allies in Syria. With maximum pressure placed on the Iraqis, we could have Iraqi airspace closed to Russian military aircraft. That would cut the main air supply route for Russian forces in Syria. Should the Russians continue to overfly Iraq without permission, the might be need for greater action to cut the supply lines. Special forces could also assist our friends in Syria to defend themselves against attacks by the Russians. That would make Putin think twice about committing his military into a long and costly battle in Syria.
Sadly, nothing will be done by Obama. He and his whole foreign policy team seem to think that words alone will stop Putin. They are wrong. The old expression says that actions speak louder than words. When dealing with Putin, however, words mean nothing, nothing at all.
It doesn't take much to figure out Putin's short term goal. He wants to remove all the non-ISIS opposition to Assad, so that the world will have a choice between Assad and ISIS only. No sane country would pick ISIS from among those two choices. Russia, however, will then be leading the charge against ISIS and it will regain its standing among the nations of the world that was lost when Russia invaded Ukraine. The longer term goal is more opaque. These new 150 thousand soldiers may be placed into Syria as support for Assad. A Russian force that size could subdue the ISIS fighters and then could control Syria for years to come.
Meanwhile, president Obama is doing nothing. In Washington, they are still claiming not to know what targets the Russians hit during the last two days. There are pictures in the world media of smoking ruins and civilian casualties in Homs, a city with NO areas under the control of ISIS. Nevertheless, the Obamacrats and their allies in the media talk about investigating to find out which groups were targeted by the Russians. On top of this, American military satellites were observing the Russian attacks in real time. Obama knows exactly which targets the Russians hit but he is still claiming the need to investigate to find out what he already knows.
Action today by Obama could still head off the Russian offensive against our allies in Syria. With maximum pressure placed on the Iraqis, we could have Iraqi airspace closed to Russian military aircraft. That would cut the main air supply route for Russian forces in Syria. Should the Russians continue to overfly Iraq without permission, the might be need for greater action to cut the supply lines. Special forces could also assist our friends in Syria to defend themselves against attacks by the Russians. That would make Putin think twice about committing his military into a long and costly battle in Syria.
Sadly, nothing will be done by Obama. He and his whole foreign policy team seem to think that words alone will stop Putin. They are wrong. The old expression says that actions speak louder than words. When dealing with Putin, however, words mean nothing, nothing at all.
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