Putin’s Syrian Misadventure
by Thomas Friedman
Dec 2, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opinion/02friedman.html?comments#permid=16822471
As usual, Friedman's analysis of the Middle East is half-baked.
It is easy to make fun of Putin's bumbling into the Middle East morass, but everything, and more, one can critique in Putin's steps can be held against the US's efforts in the region in the past 20 years - again, which Friedman supported. He points to the two Russian soldiers and the 224 airline casualties as "proof" of Putin's folly - what about the 5000 US soldiers killed and 100's of thousands maimed for life?
Whatever may be wrong with Putin's approach, he is spot on in maintaining that just "defeating" ISIS and pushing Assad out of power will leave a power vacuum, leading to more radical groups creating their own little fiefdoms - Libya is a case in point.
The US especially has this crazy view that just by getting rid of un-democratic leaders (BTW, the US has installed its fair share of despotic leaders when it suited its economic and political objectives) will miraculously lead to liberal, democratic governments. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are objects lessons in the fallacy, yes idiocy of that approach.
The fallback position of the nutty neocons is the crazy notion that "the world is better off without Saddam" - ask most of the Iraqis now living in the smoldering remains of what was once a stable, even liberal country - women were treated much better by Saddam than by today's leaders - or ask the 100's of thousands of Iraqis now dead as a result of the US's "nation building" effort.
It is easy to make fun of Putin's bumbling into the Middle East morass, but everything, and more, one can critique in Putin's steps can be held against the US's efforts in the region in the past 20 years - again, which Friedman supported. He points to the two Russian soldiers and the 224 airline casualties as "proof" of Putin's folly - what about the 5000 US soldiers killed and 100's of thousands maimed for life?
Whatever may be wrong with Putin's approach, he is spot on in maintaining that just "defeating" ISIS and pushing Assad out of power will leave a power vacuum, leading to more radical groups creating their own little fiefdoms - Libya is a case in point.
The US especially has this crazy view that just by getting rid of un-democratic leaders (BTW, the US has installed its fair share of despotic leaders when it suited its economic and political objectives) will miraculously lead to liberal, democratic governments. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are objects lessons in the fallacy, yes idiocy of that approach.
The fallback position of the nutty neocons is the crazy notion that "the world is better off without Saddam" - ask most of the Iraqis now living in the smoldering remains of what was once a stable, even liberal country - women were treated much better by Saddam than by today's leaders - or ask the 100's of thousands of Iraqis now dead as a result of the US's "nation building" effort.
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