Spinning out of Control

     The situation in the Middle East, most especially in Syria, is spinning out of control.  Perhaps it can right itself and bring back some stability, perhaps it will continue to spin out of control and lead to total chaos.  We won't know for a while, at least!
     America is as much to blame for the crazy situation in Syria as anyone else.  Had we stepped-in and done something four years ago when our President gave the stern warning to Assad not to cross the "red line," perhaps this whole mess could have been averted.  But when Assad promptly did cross the "red line" and did so repeatedly, and we did nothing, things really started to spin out of control.  Seeing our inaction, Putin quickly pounced on the opportunity to flex his muscles, knowing that we would not do anything to deter his aggression.  He took Crimea and eastern part of Ukraine, which is still contested and in a mess.  When no visible threat came from our side, except for some rhetoric, his next move was predictable.  Step-in and help out one of his best customers in the Middle East, Assad of Syria.  Immediately there were shipments of arms to Syria!
     In the meantime, we continued to make decisions and political moves that further weakened our position in the Middle East.  We left Iraq only to have to now try to salvage the mess our departure created.  Afghanistan is also in a mess with our drawdown.  ISIS/ISIL became a main adversary in Iraq and even the formerly defeated Al Qaeda has regained foothold in Afghanistan.  While all of that was going on, we decided to strike a "nuclear deal" with Iran, "the worst deal in history," in the words of Israel's Netanyahu!  The American public is assured that it is a "good deal" that will delay Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons.  To bring about this "delay" we released billions of previously frozen funds, allowed Iran to start selling their oil and began lifting most of the previously established embargo.  We struck this deal with Iran in concert with other nations, nations that have a direct interest in trading with Iran!  By the way, we don't do any major trading with Iran, never did, so we gain nothing on this deal except a possible "delay" in Iran's nuclear program.
     Russia, one of the participants in the Iran Nuclear Deal immediately struck a lucrative deal with Iran to sell them their advanced anti missile system, S300.  Iran has already received the initial shipments.  Most recently Putin traveled to Tehran to sign a deal to buy low grade uranium from Iran, uranium produced in a plant built by Russia!  There is talk that this same uranium will be enriched to weapons grade level in Russia and sold back to Iran!  Nice deal.  Russia has also partnered with Iran to fight ISIS, and now Iran's forces are present in significant numbers in Syria, along with their proxy forces, the Hezbollah from Lebanon.  Most recently Russia established a Headquarters for Anti ISIS campaign in Baghdad.  The Headquarters is staffed with Russians, Iraqis, and Iranians.  We were not invited, we can only gaze at their Headquarters from across town!  Iran in the meantime, announced that they will never deal with us in any manner again and just recently convicted our Washington Post Bureau Chief in Tehran for espionage!  That was a wonderful deal we struck with Iran, we sure got a lot out of it!
     So essentially we have Assad's Syrian forces, Russians, Iranians, and Hezbollah on one side and our forces, such as they are (a tiny contingent of Special Forces and warplanes off carriers and land based bombers), French Air Force, the Arab Coalition (who participate on and off, depending on their mood and weather!), the Kurds, and Turkey.  Turkey, however, marches to its own drum beat as they demonstrated in the recent shoot down of the Russian plane.  Turkey is involved in this war mainly to fight the Kurds, our allies!  We had Turkey sign on and declared them as our NATO allies because we needed to use their air space to bomb ISIS in Syria!  Remember, the Turks did not even allows us to use their air space to transport our troops to Iraq during both Iraqi Wars!  So, theoretically, it was a win for us to gain access to their air space, but at what cost?  Considering our military capabilities, could we not have continued bombing ISIS without the use of Turkish air space?
     The war in Syria, with multiple participants, is fought for different reasons and with different enemies by all sides!  Assad, Russia and Iran are primarily targeting anti-Assad forces, be they Kurds, so-called "moderate" rebels, or ISIS.  We are targeting only ISIS, we are not touching Assad's forces and god forbid, Russians or Iranians.  The French also are only bombing ISIS targets as are the Arab Coalition forces, when they are fighting.  The Turks, who we had join the fray with much fanfare, are only interested in fighting Kurds!  They have Kurdish Separatists on their side of the border that they have been fighting for years.  Now they are bombing both their own side as well as the Syrian side to try to kill all Kurds!  Some pundits in Washington feared that Turkey was leaning too much to the East and not West with its NATO allies.  Indeed, Turkey trades openly with everyone, including Russia and China.  If the idea of getting Turkey to join the fight in Syria on our side was to draw them closer to the West, then it was a pretty weak reason. 
     Turkey will do what it will do, it always has!  Historically Turkey always went its own way, even when it did ally with one side or another.  The shooting down of the Russian plane is a perfect example of that mentality.  We went through an elaborate protocol with Russians to avoid accidental shoot downs, Turkey did not shoot down the Russian plane accidentally!  Turkey shot down the Russian plane because they felt it had invaded its air space.  Plain and simple.  Turkey does not fight for anyone, they only fight for themselves and only if it is to their advantage.
     Putin angrily responded to Turkey's shoot down and accused the Turks of being in cahoots with ISIS.  To some extent Putin is correct, it is not Russian propaganda that he is spewing.  Turkey does seem to allow ISIS to transport its oil trucks freely through Turkish territory.  We have always known that, but never said anything because we want access to their air space, and perhaps also to keep them from going completely to the East!  The same thing goes for the Turks fighting Kurds.  We knew form the start that Turkey would be primarily interested in fighting Kurds, not ISIS, yet we partnered with them!
     Beginning with bombing of the Russian passenger plane over Sinai and followed by the massacres in Paris, ISIS has really come on strong.  At the same time, other terror groups peripherally connected
to ISIS such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and the terror group in Mali Al Mourabitoun that is affiliated with Al Qaeda, all escalated their attacks.  Our response to date has been absolutely puny!  There was some hope that with the French President's visit to Washington we would come up with something more than the standard verbiage, but no such luck!  "We stand united....We will cooperate fully to defeat ISIS."  These are standard expressions coming out of the mouth of our President.  At least he is no longer saying that ISIS is nothing but a JV or that it is "contained!"  It is amazing how the media is giving him a pass despite the obvious lack of conviction, plan, or any kind of a true strategy to defeat ISIS.  You can rest assured that any other president would have been literally crucified by the media for such lack of response.  At this point, even some of Obama's previous supporters are being critical for his lack of strategy, a firm plan.  Both Dianne Feinstein and Leon Panetta have gone on record to criticize Obama on this issue. 
     But the media still gives him a pass.  Instead, the media is making a big deal out of the fact that the State Department has just announced a travel warning for the entire world, as if it was some sort of a new strategy for defeating ISIS.  Big deal!  State Department issues travel warnings when there's a typhoon approaching Japan or bad strain of flu has been found in Hong Kong!  Give me a break!  Is the State Department Travel Warning our biggest response to the latest ISIS threat?  If it is, I am ready to look for a deserted island to live on, it is almost too much to take!