On the ground in Iraq and Syria, the US- led coalition has not achieved much since it was launched earlier this year. Actually, the “friend or foe” designations have become more confusing.
The American- assisted Iraq government also gets tangible help from Iran in the fight against ISIS, and is also indirectly helped by war between ISIS and Syria president Assad’s regime. The latter, armed with weapons from its longstanding sponsor Russia, is also for several years now enmeshed against pro-democracy insurgency which lost ground in the absence of weapons support from the West.
Turkey was recently cajoled to join the US in air war against ISIS, even though Turkey sees Syria’s Assad regime and Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey itself as its main enemies. Turkey has also launched air attacks against the Kurds. This strategy seems pathetic, as the Kurds in northern Iraq are de facto US allies and are the only fighting force worth a dime against ISIS on the ground in Iraq.
Few listeners take seriously Donald Trump’s swagger that he would “smash” ISIS if elected president. But then equally flaky are pot shots from Jed Bush, brother of former US president George W. Bush and now running for Republican nomination for president. In his view, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is responsible for the mess in Iraq and Syria.
It is not clear any more what “winning” means in that part of the world. There are plenty of bizarre suggestions. One of them was voiced on the BBC News (American edition in Washington, August 14) by a retired American general. He sees ISIS as a massive threat, reaching to Libya and east Africa. He is suggesting a worldwide coalition should be assembled, including Russia, to defeat it.
As far as one can tell, U.S. President Barack Obama does not subscribe to such fantasies. But there is no denial that he is looking for co-operation from Russia’s president Putin to ease Syria’s Assad out of power, perhaps with some coalition arrangement, and with something in return for Putin.
But Obama is sufficiently astute to remember he had tried it several years before, in connection with poison gas use by Assad against the insurgents, and was burned by Russian foreign minister Lavrov’s “de-marche” offering to press Assad to negotiate. That’s what he did — but the talks brought zilch.
As for the Iran connection, Russia should be concerned as much as the United States by the possibility of a nuclear armed Iran — and, unbeknownst to all mutton heads, it actually is concerned. Russia wants a nuclear Iran not more than it would like a nuclear Kazakhstan. But Putin would also bamboozle the USA to make concessions to Russia for helping to stop Iran from making the bomb. Is Obama fooled? I doubt it, even when he praised Putin for co-operating on Iran deal. Still, Putin keeps an image of a good guy, from Iran’s point of view, while the US is still the devil. The alliance of Moscow, Syria and Iran remains intact, and Russia will sell air defense S-300 missiles to Iran.
Overall, Obama’s strategies, deficient as they appear (especially in regard to helping Ukraine tangibly to resist Russia’s aggression), are not irrational. The same cannot be said about most of the lineup of 17 Republican presidential hopefuls. Their campaigning consists mostly of sound bites and they speak highly of the Bush-Cheney war-making in Iraq and Afghanistan that made a mess inherited by Obama, and practically bankrupted the US Treasury. Moscow too is happy with these results, and would love to see the United States do the same tour again.
Expectations by some that a Republican administration in Washington would be more willing to help Ukraine in its current predicament than the Obama White House has done are not on a solid basis, even if the Republicans had a highly qualified winning candidate for president.
The profusion of confusion brought into Republican Party ranks by Donald Trump’s exuberance shows absence of a coherent response. One of America’s conservative talk show hosts, apparently exasperated by profusion of political correctness in public discourse had this to say about Donald Trump’s sound bites about illegal immigration across Mexican border: “We had to have a buffoon tell us what is right”. Trump gets over 50 percent approval rating from the Republicans.
This reflects the whisper in polite society: “Trump is saying what everybody is afraid to say”.
Concerning the “right or wrong” judgements and decisions, all 17 Republican contenders avoid hot water. They stand adamantly for opening the Keystone pipe line to carry crude oil from Canada to Texas (which Obama has vetoed) through the pristine sections of America’s breadbasket land, where oil spill will poison precious ground water. All pipelines break and spill sooner or later.
As America’s west is ablaze with titanic forest fires from draught and high temperatures several years in a row, with 9 states burning at the same time in the month of July, Republican contenders “don’t believe in climate change” or will not talk about it.
They also will not talk seriously about tectonic issues facing America, such as the deteriorating public safety, social unrest and violence, and public education minefield in the cities.
Despite deadlock in Washington between the two parties on key domestic issues, the foreign policy regime is not likely to change much with the next president in the White House.
Interestingly, the ongoing (third in several years) financial bailout of Greece, with a $90 billion increase in debt, shows that the European Union and the White House are really willing to pay through the nose to keep Moscow from gaining too much influence over Greece. Recall that British troops were sent to Athens in 1945 to stop a communist power grab. No one expects Greece to ever repay its sovereign debt, now over $350 billion. The European Central Bank will print enough money to cover the loose ends in interest payments to investors, for as long as the bank exists.
These dollar figures, compared with wrangling over relatively minor numbers in Kyiv’s dispute with its investors, and a modest IMF loan, give some idea where Ukraine stands on Europe’s and America’s priority list while its economy is devastated by war with Russia.
“Priority” may not be the right word. Lack of proportion is. Europe doesn’t seem to have a strong memory of Soviet grip on its central heartland like Berlin and Prague after WW II. Russia’s aim continues to be master of Europe, or at least the pre-eminent power reaching beyond what was Koenigsberg in East Prussia (now called Kaliningrad, a gruesome symbol of Moscow’s arrogance).
With a weak NATO getting weaker, its recent show of prowess in Baltic states with 6000 troops of its “reaction force” looked like a publicity stunt to soothe the nerves in NATO states facing Russia, rather than a demonstration of readiness to repel aggression. Ability of the United States to rescue Europe in a war with Russia is diminishing rapidly, as the intensity of domestic problems is changing the US into a country past its peak and unable to focus on leadership abroad.
It means that NATO will have to rely more on Europe’s military capacity. There are US air forces and logistics in Europe and one brigade of battle-ready ground troops. Poland’s army can deploy about 1000 tanks as of now, and it will fight. Others have less. Germany has only about 400 tanks. A military equivalent of the Wehrmacht does not exist. No volunteer battalions are envisioned from France, Italy or Hungary. Some retired general may have to explain how Europe’s defense can be realistically structured without a Ukrainian ground force being a major part of the equation.
Paradoxically, a consensus in the West seems to be that President Vladimir Putin’s intentions and actions are focused mainly at keeping high his own poll numbers. This means showing plenty of belligerence towards western “enemies” to satisfy the pride and primordial instincts of fatalistic patriotism of the Russian people, and also making Ukraine bleed in Donbas without provoking harsher sanctions. And, yes, avoiding war against NATO for the time being.
It looks like West can live with this take somewhat safely — for the time being. And that’s the essence of politics in the European Union.
