It's been two weeks since Russian President Vladimir Putin seized the initiative in Syria sending in his jet fighters on September 30, 2015 flying sorties and attacking the assorted terrorist group enclaves in the war torn country. The move also included tactical military intelligence coordination with Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces, the Iranian's, Hezbollah and Iraqi forces on the ground. And ever since there has been a full throated roar of indignation in the US.
Although Putin met with President Obama for 90 minutes discussing Syria in a conference room at UN Headquarters saying he doesn't distinguish between Islamic State and its other counter parts saying "They're all terrorists"-this after both had addressed the UN General Assembly- there was no way Putin would divulge his plan to Obama. So when Putin ordered his surprise attack the day after they met-he did notify US officials one hour before the bombings were launched-, the US was dumb struck. In his UN speech Putin had warned, "Do you realize what you have done"? -referring to US machinations in Syria that created ISIS, and something had to be done to end the scourge of terrorism in Syria.
But from President Obama to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, to Secretary of State John Kerry to the multitude of neo-cons in beltway think tanks and on talk shows to the Senate's John McCain it's been a non-stop full throated harangue condemning Putin's move in Syria.
Obama says, "It's bombing campaign against Syrian rebels will suck Moscow into a quagmire". From Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, "There will be consequences for Russia...and its increasingly unprofessional behavior. The Russian approach is doomed to fail...the US would not cooperate militarily at a strategic level with Russia". Secretary of State John Kerry complained the air strikes weren't against IS. Senator John McCain intoned, "Vladimir Putin must be stopped. We can't shy away from confronting Russia in Syria". Both Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina both called for the US to establish a "no-fly zone" in Syria. Former Carter administration national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said, "Obama should retaliate if Russia doesn't stop attacking US assets".
Yet despite all the verbal bloviating and the US being caught off guard by Putin's maneuver, could it be there won't be any counter moves to repel Putin's forces in Syria?
Could it be Obama recognizes the futility of his campaign to fight IS, the $500 million failure to train and equip so called "moderate" Syrian's only to see them subsequently join IS along with their weapons, that Putin's move was a brilliantly conceived aggressive move-his planes attacking from the air in close communication and coordination with his allies on the ground, that could very well decimate IS, al Qaeda, the Nusfra Front and the alphabet soup of terrorist groups and outside mercenaries paid to fight against Assad and lastly could succeed in ending the terrorist threat in Syria, bring a cease fire and finally return some stability to the war torn country.
But there could also be a US initiated "false flag" operation in Syria and blame it on the Russians or some unintended incident could occur between Russian and US planes precipitating a full fledged confrontation between the two nuclear armed states. Although the US continues its bombing campaign against IS there have been no incidents involving Russian and US planes reportedly separated by 10 miles-a plausible military to military agreement unannounced to the press.
Putin took a gamble taking on the terrorists in Syria, not wanting the plague to escalate and possibly move on to Russia particularly in Chechnya. Thus far recent reports by Mike Whitney [1] and Pepe Escobar [2] indicate Putin may very well be succeeding in Syria. Let's hope so.
