The War Games

Can’t anybody around here play this war game?  Russia is sending troops into Syria, alongside the Iranian forces that have been fighting long since, to shore up the Assad regime.  The Iranians are convincingly accused of creating terror cells in Kuwait and Thailand and waging cyberwar and conventional terror attacks against Saudi Arabia.  We know that Iran organized a scheme to blow up a restaurant in Washington, another to bomb a passenger train between Canada and the U.S., and yet another to destroy Kennedy Airport.

They are all acts of war.  Yet, the president and his followers insist that if there is no deal with Iran, “the only alternative is war.”

You’d think a blind man could see that the war was on, but no.  War is instead described– by the Democrats–as A Very Bad Thing that would happen if Congress didn’t follow President Obama’s orders.

Meanwhile, opponents of  The Deal insist that war is actually more likely if we approve all the concessions granted the Iranians at Vienna.  They, too, fail to see the war in front of their noses, and engage in the heated debate over a fantasy.  Thus, thousands of column inches and countless hours of broadcasting focus relentlessly on votes in Congress instead of mass death and destruction currently underway.  And, as our enemies warn us every day, the mayhem is headed our way.

To summarize:  there IS war, it is escalating, and it is aimed at us.  The current slaughter is just for practice, and the oppression within Iran, Syria, and the caliphate is a template for our own massacre and subjugation if they win.

It’s hard to have a serious policy debate under these circumstances, and we don’t have one.  If we did, the pundits and politicians would pay more attention to the recent reports about the arrival of Russian troops and fighter planes in Syria, and our strategists would be designing a way to win.  No way.  Typically, concurrently with the military advance Putin starts talking about “peaceful change” in Syria that would produce a coalition between Assad’s Alawites and what the Russians call the “healthy opposition.”  Here’s The Daily Beast’s Michael Weiss, one of my favorite reporters/analysts, with the long version.

Don’t expect any political breakthroughs.  The “peace” talk is classic disinformation.  Just ask the millions of refugees, who know the war is on and are running from it.

The White House says it’s “concerned” about the Russian action, but so what?  Putin has come to save Assad, not to bury the Baathist regime in Damascus.  Obama, as part of his astonishing strategic alliance with Iran, is on board with the Russian objectives.  So the “concern” is just a word, it doesn’t lead anywhere.  Is Obama going to order our guys to kill Russians, in Syria or anywhere else (say, Ukraine)?  I don’t think so.  Quite aside from the president’s reluctance to go into battle, it would greatly annoy Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, for whom the survival of the Assad regime is perhaps the single most important mission this side of his impounded cash and gold bullion.

Actually, the treasure and the war are closely linked, because the wealth is headed for the battlefields of today, from Syria to Yemen, and the battlefields of tomorrow, from Cuba to Venezuela and the homeland, and the weapons for those battles.  Khamenei has placed an order for more than nine billion dollars’ worth—notably for use against our Navy and the celebrated anti-aircraft missiles–with Putin.  Theirs is not so much an alliance of shared ideology (although they share hatred of, and contempt for, President Obama and his buddies) as an alliance of convenience to overcome the current unpleasantness they both face in Syria and within their own polities.  Think Hitler/Stalin.  Eventually they’ll have it out, but for the moment we’re the plat du jour.  And don’t forget the North Koreans, please.  Substantial parts of the Iranian missile program and nuclear project live in that people’s paradise.

Meanwhile, the big story, and our political energies, remain transfixed by the political maneuvering in Washington, wherein “war” is both physically and temporally remote.  That’s  when we’re most vulnerable.  Our enemies know it.  And so the Russians, Iranians and the rest of them grab while the grabbing’s easy.