What Putin is doing in the Middle East has little to do with anything other than Russia. They are now militarily supporting Assad, who the U.S. through both Obama and Kerry insisted must go--(and the dreaded 'red line" even implied the Americans might intervene.) So the Russians have backed the horse the Americans have vigorously opposed and are now pursuing military action against all Assad's opponents--ISIS, true, but also the moderates the Americans support. Not only is this defiant, nationalistic behavior but it creates a war zone where accidents happen.
So Obama is pursuing some altruistic international law concept that no one else has signed on to nor has he ever clarified and the Russians are pounding their client's enemies---and our clients. Their attacks on ISIS is a coincidence.
This is in most respects a conflict between a nation with its nationalistic aims and a nation with some vague concept of how things should be, even if not to their benefit. Putin's success is staggering as is the American naivety. We are behaving like we did in the early 1900s when our sole contribution to international meetings was "Gosh."
Niall Ferguson had an interesting take in the WSJ--again invoking Kissinger as he has written a book about him--saying that foreign policy in America has become a function of three separate strands: A leader elected for qualities other than international policy, a tremendous number of advisors who are lawyers and a “quest for minimum risk.” "Minimum risk" allows for a lot of bad things in the long run.
What emerges here is hard to imagine but, in a pinch, who would you want on your side, Putin or Obama? And who would you not want to offend?
So Obama is pursuing some altruistic international law concept that no one else has signed on to nor has he ever clarified and the Russians are pounding their client's enemies---and our clients. Their attacks on ISIS is a coincidence.
This is in most respects a conflict between a nation with its nationalistic aims and a nation with some vague concept of how things should be, even if not to their benefit. Putin's success is staggering as is the American naivety. We are behaving like we did in the early 1900s when our sole contribution to international meetings was "Gosh."
Niall Ferguson had an interesting take in the WSJ--again invoking Kissinger as he has written a book about him--saying that foreign policy in America has become a function of three separate strands: A leader elected for qualities other than international policy, a tremendous number of advisors who are lawyers and a “quest for minimum risk.” "Minimum risk" allows for a lot of bad things in the long run.
What emerges here is hard to imagine but, in a pinch, who would you want on your side, Putin or Obama? And who would you not want to offend?
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