Donald
Trump gets Valdimir Putin in a way that neither Barack Obama nor Hillary
Clinton does.
Syria
is Assad's, and it will remain Assad's so long as Putin (and his successors)
will it to be Assad's. Putin will allow neither ISIS nor the “Syrian rebels”' (whoever
and whatever they/that may be) to take Syria from Assad/Russia and Putin/Russia
will never leave Syria or the Middle-East again. It is inconceivable that all
the powers in the world would attempt to or succeed in militarily expelling
Russia from its new position in the region, and diplomatic endeavors to do the
same would be risible!
Having
a firm foothold in the region will evermore be in Russia's vital national
interest not only for its warm-water port but also for Russia's ability to
dictate realities in that region irrespective of positions taken by the West
regarding the region.
Since
the time of Eisenhower, every US administration has successfully squeezed
Russia out of a strong position in the region: Then “Along Came Barack,” and
the rest will be history.
Trump
is not agnostic about Putin. Rather, Trump is pragmatic about Putin as
were the other Allies about Josef Stalin in
WW II---As LBJ would say, better to have him inside the tent “spitting” out rather
than outside the tent “spitting” in!
Paul
Mirengoff of Powerline agrees
with me that that Putin is, internally and externally, thuggish, but he poses
no real threat to the world---so long as he is not threatened. I stipulate that
Putin is a tyrannical dictator who is wielding Russia's military muscle in
dangerous ways that that have the potential to spin out of his control, but
what does that have to do with the price of tea in
China? I use that old saw deliberately because, for me, it perfectly captures
the hysterical and ahistorical misunderstanding
of Putin's actions by Team Obama, Team Clinton, The Mainstream Media, Europe,
most of the commentariat, et. al.
Now,
I am not a Putin apologist nor do I expect readers to fully agree with me, but
I believe that Putin's actions are fully-rational and that much of the talk of
such things as a Syrian No-Fly Zone and an intervention in the Ukrainian Civil
War is totally irrational. To understand Putin's actions one must understand,
most importantly, that Putin regards the collapse of the Soviet Union as one of
history's greatest failures and that he intends to overcome, if not reverse,
that failure.
And,
secondly, Putin understands that---sorry to readers with delicate
sensibilities---Barack Hussein Obama II
is a pussy,
and that, because Obama is such a timid, passive person, he, Putin, has been
and is pretty much free to whatever he has to do to reclaim Russia's stature,
power, and position in the world.
Putin
is also, rightly, paranoid (Genghis
Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte ,the Crimean
War Alliance, and Hitler) about what he perceives as the threats that
Russia faces from the forces now arrayed against it, and he intends to either
coopt those threats (e.g., China and Turkey) or confront and stymie
those threats by forceful actions in the Baltics, Ukraine, and Syria.
For
the first time that I recall, I must say that much of what Putin is doing is,
well, Bush's fault! Bush' greatest error was his pushing NATO to
Russia's border, and we saw what happened in Georgia after that.
Putin's
reclamation of the Crimea and his actions in Ukraine are the direct result of
the actions of Obama and the EU to shift Ukraine’s economy away from Russia,
and Putin's actions in the Baltic are the result of the West's similar
foolishness in pushing NATO eastward. Putin has neither the will nor the means
to threaten some form of Russian Expansionism, but he thoroughly intends to
enforce his version of the Monroe Doctrine to his west and to capitalize on the
West's failures in the Middle East.
Trump's
practical realism is much more sensible than the idealism reflected by others
when it comes to Putin and Russia.
p.s.
I would be remiss were I not to say that the rest of Mr. Mirengoff's piece, is,
as is usual with his writings, spot-on in his analysis of the debate and other
issues raised in it.
The
author is retired, his profile may be found on LinkedIn,
and he usually replies to comments sent to bilschan@hotmail.com.
