President Obama’s Arrogance toward the Russian Federation — Is Likely to Force an Unnecessary Military Confrontation — You Have to Wonder whether the Man Possesses a Shred of Common Sense

26 November 2015

A complete lack of diplomatic finesse

After meeting with France’s President Hollande on 24 November:

Obama touted the U.S.-led 65-country coalition fighting the Islamic State, which has conducted 8,000 airstrikes. He dismissed Russia and Iran, backers of Assad, as a “coalition of two.”

“Russia is the outlier,” Obama said. “We hope that they refocus their attention on what is the most substantial threat, and that they serve as a constructive partner.”

The President’s tone is clearly one of chastising a five-year for being an errantly stupid child.

Consider the strategic context of the President’s thumb-in-the-eye statement

NATO ally Turkey had just shot down a Russian fighter bomber:

Obama said the two countries “stand united in total solidarity to deliver justice to these terrorists,” even as Turkey’s downing of the warplane complicates efforts to broaden the fight against the Islamic State.

The Turkish military Tuesday announced it shot down a Russian military aircraft near the Syrian border after it ignored multiple warnings and entered Turkish airspace, a charge Moscow immediately denied.

Both Obama and Hollande pointedly ignored the plane episode in their opening remarks at a White House news conference and, when pressed for a response, defended NATO ally Turkey.

“I do think that this points to an ongoing problem with the Russian operations in the sense that they are operating very close to a Turkish border,” Obama said.

One of the aircraft’s two-person crew had reportedly been killed by Syrian rebels, while parachuting from the stricken plane.

Adding jet fuel to these flames

A reasonable American leader would have recognized that the Russian Federation might not take kindly to the shoot down, no matter how much (or little) justified the Turks were.

Instead, President Obama chose to shoot off his mouth in typically American tough guy fashion. His statement cannot help but add fuel to Russian President Putin’s sense of American-forced inferiority.

That is typical of President Obama. Lots of stern finger-pointing, pretty consistently followed by self-defeating action or inaction.

Remember the chemical warfare red line that he drew in Syria and then had to accede to the Russians’ offer to save him face?

Remember the claim that training and arming “moderate” Syrians would turn the ISIS tide?

And so on.

The following day, we learned that Russia is sending competently designed air defense missiles and a naval missile cruiser to Syria

These missiles reportedly have the capacity to down Turkish fighter jets from some distance away:

The S-400 missile systems, which will be sent to the Hemeimeem air base in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia, located just about 30 miles south of the border with Turkey, are capable of targeting Turkish jets with deadly precision.

If Russia shot down a Turkish plane, NATO would officially be required to intervene on its behalf.

Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber Tuesday, saying it crossed into its airspace from Syria despite repeated warnings. One of its two pilots was killed by Syrian rebel fighters on the ground after bailing out, while his crewmate was rescued by Syrian army commandos and delivered in good condition to the Russian base.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday that the Russian missile cruiser Moskva already has moved closer to shore to protect the Russian aircraft flying missions near Syria’s border with Turkey with its long-range Fort air defense system.

Shoigu also said that from now on all Russian bombers will be escorted by fighters on their combat missions in Syria. He said that his ministry has severed all contacts with the Turkish military.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who canceled his planned trip to Turkey after the incident, described the shooting down of the Russian plane as a “planned provocation.”

The moral? — It is difficult to define success in today’s explosive Middle East — but escalating pointless violence with asininely chosen words is clearly a sign of being strategically clumsy

I have grown weary of this intelligent man’s consistent inability to pay adequate attention to the politics of geopolitical realism. I have written about this before. See here.

The Russians are now the actively dominating players in Syria, simply by virtue of the fact that they are there in some military force and acting with obvious incaution. This is chaotic situation is of President Obama’s own making.

By letting former Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, implicitly encourage Syrian rebels some five years ago, the United States actively heightened the Syrian tumult. And afterward — retreating from the obvious consequences of the Ambassador’s well-intended intervention — President Obama haplessly sat by while the conflict that he was partially responsible for boiled over to claim hundreds of thousands of lives.

The result has been a strategic mess that foreseeably gave the Russian Federation little choice but to interfere, so as to protect its own geographic interests there.

And now, the American President is poking the Russian bear by calling the Russians “outliers” and touting the virtues of the American-led 65 nation coalition that has not accomplished jackshit.

Who really should get the Dumb Chump award?

I am not saying that the Federation will make political gains in Syria. I am not even criticizing the President’s wish to stay out of the unpredictable Syrian situation.

I am just pointing out that provoking already bad situations — under circumstances in which the subsequent strategic outcomes are impossible to predict — is abysmally stupid. Why trash talk when your poorly chosen words simply provoke even more dangerously violent chaos?

Unless, of course, your true purpose is fomenting war for corporate profit and personal political ascension.

In other words, fascism gone rampant.

PeteFree.com

President Obama’s Arrogance toward the Russian Federation — Is Likely to Force an Unnecessary Military Confrontation — You Have to Wonder whether the Man Possesses a Shred of Common Sense