Then there was journalist Gass's seemingly saber-rattling passage: "'The Russian naval and air presences in Syria are vulnerable, isolated geographically from their homeland,' Brzezinski noted. 'They could be 'disarmed' if they persist in provoking the US.'"
Gass didn't let Brzezinski finish his thought. Brzezinski's very next sentence was: "But, better still, Russia might be persuaded to act with the US in seeking a wider accommodation to a regional problem that transcends the interests of a single state." That got buried two paragraphs below. In between Gass paraphrases Brzezinsky on how "it would behoove Russia to cooperate with the U.S." Brzezinsky's statement would have been more coherent if it had been left intact.
There Gass goes again, distorting the import of Brzezinski's message.
Brzezinski seems to be experiencing some cognitive dissonance here. Why would he presume Russia should cooperate with America's actions against Assad? Putin is long on record with the view that externally-forced regime change would be a disaster. (It's worth noting that Russia is going after ISIS in Syria at the invitation of the Syrian government. The US is there at its own initiative, in what many regard as unprovoked aggression.)
Moscow's military intervention is aimed at getting ISIS. The US ostensibly has been trying to do that too. But the record shows that America has achieved the same lack of effectiveness that, according to Brzezinski, the US has demonstrated in trying to unseat Assad.
So it makes no sense at all that Brzezinski should expect Russia to cooperate with America in a faltering effort to achieve a regime-change goal that Russia does not embrace.
Gass ends his article with the Brzezinski quote, "It is time, therefore, for strategic boldness." That sounds like a reaffirmation of Gass's distortion about the retaliation issue.
But Brzezinski was not talking about bold retaliation. The predicate for his "strategic boldness" statement is found several paragraphs earlier in his article.
There he says if America and Russia were to cooperate in remediating the "Middle East explosion," it might even promote the "constructive engagement" of China in "preventing the further spread of chaos." Brzezinski points out that "Beijing has a significant economic stake in the prevention of a larger Middle East conflict."
The bottom line is that the "strategic boldness" comment is about initiating cooperation, not US military retaliation against Russia.
All this distortion in the Politico article causes me to wonder what Gass's game is.
The Politico website says the goal of the publication is "to prove there's a robust and profitable future for tough, fair, and fun coverage of politics and government." It concludes, "But none of this works if we ever fall short of that initial promise of delivering nonpartisan news, fast, fair, and first.
It's hard to reckon those lofty goals with the job done by Nick Gass on this Brzezinski article. It's a complete flimflam that throws gasoline on an already explosive and troubling situation.
So I guess the real headline here is: "Nick Gass, Are You Nuts?"
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