THE TERRORIST ATTACKS IN BRUSSELS AND PARIS: IT’S THE KREMLIN’S FAULT!

3/24/16

The learned narrative in the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels is that ISIS, having suffered massive setbacks on the battlefields of the Middle East, is now funneling its operatives back to Europe in search of success against softer targets.  

There is probably much to this explanation for this latest plague of terrorism infecting the Old World.  However, look for the U.S. political establishment of both parties, but especially of the GOP, which cannot abandon the Cold War mindset that has seemingly taken up residence its DNA, to somehow blame Russia and Vladimir Putin for Paris, Brussels, et. al.   After all, according to Republican, and Democratic, mythology, isn’t the real life Dr. Evil who currently inhabits the Kremlin behind everything that is malodorous in the world?

Here’s how the explanation will go…

Yes, U.S. backed forces, especially the Kurds in Syria and, to a lesser extent, government forces in Iraq, have enjoyed some recent success against ISIS.   But most of the ISIS setbacks have been inflicted by Syrian government forces backed by massive Russian airpower and special forces.  Not bound by the Marquess of Queensberry rules that bind our military and those we back, the Russians have turned the tide of the war in favor of their clients in the Syrian government and have brought Syrian government forces to the gates of Palmyra.

No one thinks the Russians have done this out of altruism; they have an important client in the Assad regime and plenty of geographic and cultural reasons to be at least as concerned about ISIS as we and our European allies are.  Still, one would think that we would be grateful to the Russians for doing a large measure of the anti-ISIS dirty work for us.   But we’re not.  We keep hectoring the Russians to abandon their interests (i.e., the continuation of the Assad regime and safeguarding their territory from the horrendous designs of ISIS) and, instead, act like a good client state to us and join some vaguely defined international crusade for democracy or some such starry-eyed nonsense.   To the surprise of no one with even a vague understanding of Russian history, the Russian response has been a resounding “Nyet,” doubtless accompanied by some off the camera snickers about the naiveté and outright silliness of those in charge of American foreign policy.

Now, however, that the Russians have, to use a technical geopolitical term, kicked a lot of butt against ISIS, the terrorists are gravitating away from the path of strong resistance toward the path of little resistance, moving on to the soft targets of Europe and, maybe, the United States.   One can bet that the foreign policy establishment, and especially that of the Cold War reminiscence choir in the GOP, will blame the Russians.   After all, if the Russians had not been so tough on ISIS in Syria, the terrorists would not have migrated to the West to wreak their havoc.   If the Russians had only joined our international non-effort, things would doubtless be better.

Yep; it’s the Russians alright.