What happened to the good old days when America can efficiently pull-off a regime change without a massive amount of suspicion or immediate backlash? Has America lost its magical touch for revolution, or is it excessively blinded by the prize it really wants and has become tactically dumb as a result?
And is Russia’s involvement in Ukraine these days more dangerous than what ISIS is currently doing in Iraq and Syria?
Russia, like the US, is not interested in having client states of frenemies live on its doorstep, and acted accordingly. I don’t endorse Russia’s annexation on Crimea, but I also don’t see Russia’s move turning into regional chaos. Further, Russia seems to be more willing than the US to stop the rise of Ukraine’s right wing extremists.
You don’t need to be a Georgetown international policy analyst to figure out that the current ISIS mess in Iraq and Syria is turning uglier in many places at once.
But America’s priorities still seem to be Ukraine’s EU integration and sanctions against Russia after America’s own regime change plans for Ukraine backfired. By the way, Ukrainian citizens will soon regret this integration once IMF-endorsed reforms and EU trade schemes kick in.
This brings us back to America’s botched regime changes of late. Its actions to replace Iraqi leadership in 2003 turned into a recipe for civil war; the Bomb to Protect Libyan citizens scam that also helped to remove Muammar Gaddafi has turned Libya into a failed state, as well as an incubator for jihadists who eventually fight in Syria’s civil war; America effectively backing the rebels jihadists—no wait, moderate jihadists—in Syria has helped to create the bigger problem we now see in Iraq.
I didn’t brought up Iraq and the Ukraine to simply highlight a priority problem America seems to have, as much as I want to show how Iraq and Ukraine are a part of the same obsession the US seems to have with managing regimes across the planet to wrestle power from its competitors.
Look at Crimea on a map, and be sure to zoom out. Notice its close proximity to Turkey and Syria. Now think about the hundreds of armed street gangs, jihadists and other baddies fighting to topple the Asaad regime in Syria – with support from the US, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Does the picture come together now?
Having Crimea under the control of a US ally would enable proper American military support to close-out the Syrian civil war. Having jihadists in Syria will help to wear-down Asaad’s troops, as well as those of Iran and Hezbollah. With Asaad out of the way, Qatar and Saudi Arabia can construct their dream gas pipeline through Syria and provide them with access to the EU – a market currently dominated by Russia.
Is that picture any clearer?
The fall of Asaad also means a crippling blow to US enemies, Iran and Hezbollah. If Iraq Prime Minister Maliki wants to pal around with Shiites instead of growing closer to the US, then he can leave too.
Once all the aforementioned dirty work is done, there remains the tiny detail of cleaning the jihadists out of the area so that business can operate freely.
But given America’s so-called luck these days, I don’t see anything tiny about this story…
Song currently stuck in my head: “la palomilla” – joe cuba sextet
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